The New Farmers’ Movement that emerged in India during the 1980s was not simply a continuation of agrarian struggles from the past. It represented a unique blend of Gandhian ideals with contemporary realities, where traditional protest methods met innovative tactics, and where leaders navigated between multiple ideological influences. From Karnataka’s vocal advocacy for village republics to Maharashtra’s ideological syncretism, these movements demonstrated that Gandhism remained a living, adaptable philosophy for rural resistance.
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Karnataka’s vehement Gandhian advocacy
Among all the New Farmers’ Movements in India, the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) was the most explicit in claiming a Gandhian identity. Founded in 1980 and led by M.D. Nanjundaswamy, a Gandhian socialist and legal scholar, the KRRS articulated its ultimate objective as the realisation of a “village republic.” This was not merely a slogan but a carefully defined political vision. According to Nanjundaswamy, the village republic represented a form of social, political, and economic organisation based on direct democracy, where affairs affecting multiple communities would be decided through consultative processes involving all stakeholders.
The KRRS embraced the Gandhian principles of swadeshi (self-reliance) and non-violence, emphasising village-level autonomy and local economic self-sufficiency. The organisation rejected both capitalism and communism, favouring instead a framework that prioritised eradicating caste-based exploitation and upholding farmers’ dignity. Central to this vision was food sovereignty, defined as local control over production, seeds, and markets. The KRRS promoted agro-ecological farming practices as a counter to the Green Revolution’s reliance on hybrid seeds and chemical inputs, which it viewed as causing farmer indebtedness and ecological degradation.
Interestingly, while the KRRS championed Gandhism openly, its theoretical analysis incorporated arguments from Third World discourse and even drew upon Marx, Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg’s concept of internal colonialism. This demonstrated that the movement’s Gandhian identity was selective and adaptive rather than doctrinaire.
Gandhian non-violence in global resistance
The KRRS’s understanding of non-violence was both expansive and innovative. During the early 1990s, when multinational corporations like Cargill began selling hybrid seeds in India, the KRRS launched direct actions that tested conventional definitions of peaceful protest. In 1993, KRRS members ransacked Cargill’s offices in Bangalore, and later destroyed the company’s seed processing plant in Bellary. The movement framed these actions as “beej satyagraha” (seed protest), positioning them within the Gandhian tradition of civil disobedience.
What made this framing distinctive was how the KRRS interpreted non-violence. The movement advocated respecting all living beings, including police officers and employees of multinational corporations. Yet it viewed the destruction of MNC property, godowns, and genetically modified crops as consistent with non-violence. This interpretation extended respect to humans while permitting action against corporate property and non-living entities. The KRRS also declared the “Cremate Monsanto” movement, warning that trial fields growing GM crops would be set ablaze, which occurred in 1998 and again in 2002.
The Gandhian approach was further apparent in the KRRS’s decentralised campaign against globalisation. The movement advocated for a “Khadi Curtain,” a concept that sought to establish equal relationships between India and Western capitalism, replacing exploitative forms of exchange. This was directly inspired by Gandhi’s vision of swadeshi economics adapted for the globalisation era.
Adoption of classic Gandhian techniques
Across India, the New Farmers’ Movements widely adopted protest methods pioneered during the independence struggle. Long marches, dharnas (sit-ins), fasting, and tax withholding became the standard repertoire of farmer agitation. The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab exemplified this adoption most prominently.
Under Mahendra Singh Tikait’s leadership, the BKU organised massive mobilisations that drew upon Gandhian principles. The historic 1988 “Meerut siege” was a 25-day long dharna around the commissioner’s office, gathering hundreds of thousands of farmers. Later that year, the “Boat Club Rally” brought approximately 500,000 to 800,000 farmers to New Delhi, occupying the lawns between Udyog Bhavan and Krishi Bhavan for a week. Tikait instilled what observers called the two Gandhian pillars of non-violence and non-cooperation. He asked farmers to stop paying electricity bills as a form of civil disobedience.
Crucially, Tikait had the moral courage to withdraw agitation when violence threatened to erupt. When violence occurred at Rajabpur, Amroha in February 1988, while protesters were en route to the Meerut siege, Tikait called off the agitation. This demonstrated a genuine commitment to non-violent principles rather than mere tactical adoption. The BKU’s protests featured a 35-point charter of demands, with Tikait leveraging prolonged occupations and media amplification to build public sympathy. This approach prioritised sustained economic blockades over short-term confrontations, achieving concessions through what might be called Gandhian attrition.
Tikait was constructed as a political leader in the Gandhian tradition, his earthiness and instinct connecting him to rural masses. His organisation maintained a strictly non-partisan framework, deliberately avoiding affiliations with political parties to focus on farmers’ economic grievances, much like Gandhi’s emphasis on principles over partisan politics.
Post-Gandhian innovations in protest
While the New Farmers’ Movements borrowed extensively from Gandhi’s playbook, they also developed innovative tactics that went beyond classical satyagraha. These “post-Gandhian” techniques demonstrated the movements’ creative adaptation to contemporary circumstances.
One striking innovation was “Continuous Laughing,” a protest staged before the Vidhan Soudha (legislature building) in Karnataka. This unusual form of demonstration used collective laughter as a form of political theatre, mocking the establishment while maintaining non-violent discipline. Another significant tactic was restricting bureaucratic access to villages. Farmers themselves decided when government officials could enter their communities. This approach was later adopted in Maharashtra, where it came to be known as “Gav Bhandi” (village blockade). By controlling bureaucrats’ access to villages at specific times, farmers inverted the traditional power relationship between the state and rural communities.
These innovations extended the Gandhian concept of non-cooperation into new domains. Rather than simply refusing to comply with unjust laws, farmers actively restructured the terms of engagement with state authority. The village blockade, in particular, represented a form of practical autonomy that resonated with Gandhi’s vision of self-governing village communities while adding a confrontational dimension suited to contemporary struggles.
Sharad Joshi’s ideological syncretism
Sharad Joshi, founder of Maharashtra’s Shetkari Sanghathana, occupied a distinctive ideological position that defied easy categorisation. As one formulation put it: Marx got ideology right but his economics was wrong; Gandhi got economics right but his ideology was wrong; Shetkari Sanghathana got both right. Joshi himself claimed he was neither Marxist nor Gandhian, positioning his approach as correcting anomalies in both ideologies.
In practice, Joshi might be characterised as half-Gandhian and half-Marxist. He accepted certain Marxist arguments for his theoretical formulations, including the materialist approach, capitalist accumulation, and the concept of internal colonialism. His famous “Bharat versus India” thesis drew upon this analysis, arguing that urban India had inherited the colonial mantle of exploitation while rural Bharat remained subject to a second round of extraction by domestic elites. In his words, black rulers had replaced white rulers.
Yet Joshi’s Shetkari Sanghathana also employed Gandhian methods in its campaigns. The organisation’s remarkable discipline and commitment to non-violent protest enabled mass participation of women in all programmes. Women brought fierce energy and commitment to the movement, often exceeding men’s resolve when facing police lathi charges and arrests. In 1986, Joshi created the Shetkari Mahila Aghadi, what became the largest women’s organisation in rural India, with programmes like “Lakshmi Mukti” conferring land titles on rural housewives.
However, the Shetkari Sanghathana also distinguished itself through militaristic language that was atypical of Gandhism. The movement’s rhetoric was often combative, reflecting Joshi’s emphasis on farmers as an exploited class deserving aggressive advocacy. Unlike the KRRS, the Shetkari Sanghathana eventually supported globalisation, viewing state intervention rather than multinational corporations as the primary obstacle to farmer prosperity. This positioned Joshi as an economic liberal demanding reduced state control in agriculture, supporting the WTO because he believed Indian farming could be profitable with access to global markets.
The legacy of Gandhian farmers’ movements
What emerges from examining Gandhism in the New Farmers’ Movement is not a uniform ideology but a living tradition adapted to diverse circumstances. The KRRS embraced Gandhian identity most explicitly while incorporating Marxist analysis. The BKU practiced Gandhian methods while maintaining pragmatic flexibility. Sharad Joshi selectively borrowed from both Gandhi and Marx while developing an independent ideological position.
These movements demonstrated that Gandhian principles remained relevant to contemporary struggles, particularly in their emphasis on non-violent mass mobilisation, non-cooperation with unjust systems, and the vision of village self-governance. At the same time, the post-Gandhian innovations showed that rural movements were not merely imitating the past but creatively extending the tradition to address new challenges posed by globalisation, corporate agriculture, and changing state-society relationships.
The farmers’ movements of the 1980s and 1990s ultimately contributed to significant political shifts, including the defeat of the Congress government in 1989. They demonstrated that Gandhian methods, when adapted to contemporary conditions, retained their power to challenge established authority and win concrete gains for rural communities.
What do you think? Can the destruction of corporate property be considered consistent with Gandhian non-violence, as the KRRS argued? How might Gandhi himself have responded to the challenge of opposing multinational corporations and globalisation?
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnataka_Rajya_Raitha_Sangha
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._D._Nanjundaswamy
- https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/farmers-take-on-multinationals-30606
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Kisan_Union
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahendra_Singh_Tikait
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharad_Anantrao_Joshi
- https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/sharad-joshi-farmers-voice/296136
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