Shetkari Sanghatak

Shetkari Sanghatak

Summary

This 6 December 1994 issue (Year 11, No. 15) of the Marathi fortnightly Shetkari Sanghatak — the organ of Sharad Joshi’s farmers’ movement, the Shetkari Sanghatana — is a special ‘वृत्तांत’ (proceedings/report) issue devoted almost entirely to the joint convention held at Nagpur on 11–12 November 1994: the 6th convention of the Shetkari Sanghatana together with the 4th convention of its women’s wing, the Shetkari Mahila Aghadi. In the rendered pages the reportage, largely unsigned, reconstructs the convention’s opening session, the welcome and presidential remarks, and a sequence of addresses by movement leaders, culminating in a long policy address by Sharad Joshi. The recurring argumentative thread is the movement’s case for economic freedom (खुली व्यवस्था / open economy) for the Indian farmer against the legacy of state planning and ‘socialism’, framed in the wake of the early-1990s liberalisation; speakers contrast the licence-permit order with market access, debate whether liberalisation has reached the cultivator, and tie the farmers’ cause to a broader liberty argument invoking Gandhi and Phule. The issue also carries front-page and back-page news of a police firing on farmers at Hiwari in Yavatmal district, in which three people were injured, alongside the movement’s protest (‘रास्ता रोको’) against what it calls the anti-farmer policies of the Nehruvian dispensation.

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Key points

• This special vrutant, or proceedings, issue is devoted almost entirely to the joint convention held at Nagpur on 11-12 November 1994, combining the Shetkari Sanghatana’s sixth convention with its women’s wing’s fourth convention.

• The largely unsigned reportage reconstructs the convention’s opening session, welcome remarks, and a sequence of addresses by movement leaders, culminating in a long policy address by Sharad Joshi.

• Speakers press the movement’s case for economic freedom, or khuli vyavastha, for the Indian farmer against the legacy of state planning and socialism in the wake of early-1990s liberalisation.

• The coverage contrasts the licence-permit order that preceded liberalisation with genuine market access, debating whether the reforms of the early 1990s have actually reached the ordinary cultivator.

• The issue ties the farmers’ cause to a broader argument about liberty, explicitly invoking the legacies of Gandhi and Phule as historical touchstones for economic freedom.

• Front-page and back-page reports cover a police firing on protesting farmers at Hiwari in Yavatmal district, an incident in which three people were injured.

• The Sanghatana staged a rasta roko, or road blockade, protest against what it calls the anti-farmer policies of the Nehruvian dispensation.