Shetkari Sanghatak

Summary

This 6 December 1995 issue (Year 12, No. 14) of the Marathi fortnightly Shetkari Sanghatak, organ of Sharad Joshi’s Shetkari Sanghatana, is built around the movement’s campaign against state monopoly controls on agriculture, and in particular the sugar trade. The front-page lead is a signed article by Sharad Joshi, ‘उपोषण – मक्तेदारीची बेडी तोडण्यासाठी’ (‘A fast — to break the shackle of monopoly’), dated 14 December, in which he announces an indefinite hunger strike to press for the freeing of the farmer from the licence-and-monopoly order; he frames the demand as one of freedom alone (‘स्वातंत्र्याची’), not of subsidy or favour, and develops the idea of an ‘open system’ (खुली व्यवस्था) for sugar and other crops against the decades-old planning regime. In the rendered pages the issue reports the 23 November agitation before the sugar-monopoly ‘Muktidhwar’ march at Pune, Joshi’s exchanges with the Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi over the decontrol of sugar zones (ऊस झोनबंदी), and the legal and policy arguments around guaranteed cane prices. Throughout, the issue presses the movement’s signature themes — that state planning obstructs rural development and that the farmer’s prosperity (‘बळीराज्य’) is a demand rooted in nature rather than politics.

Generated by the v1.5 extraction pipeline. Awaiting editorial review.