Indian Farmers’ Movements: From Villages to Global Resistance

The 1990s marked a dramatic turning point for Indian farmers’ movements. As economic liberalization swept across the country, agrarian organizations faced a defining question: was globalization an opportunity or a threat? This ideological rift transformed local village-level protests into a worldwide struggle, with Indian farmers becoming key players in the global anti-corporate movement.

The globalization divide: support versus resistance 🔗

When India embraced economic liberalization in the early 1990s, farmers’ movements responded with sharply divided opinions. Maharashtra’s Shetkari Sanghatana, founded by Sharad Joshi in the late 1970s, emerged as a vocal supporter of market-driven reforms. The organization demanded remunerative prices for agricultural produce and, crucially, the right of farmers to sell in global markets. Joshi’s movement viewed liberalization as a pathway to agricultural prosperity and rural modernization.

On the opposite end stood organizations like the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, and various farmers’ unions across the country. These groups argued that globalization would destroy the identities of the peasantry, introduce Western hegemony, undermine cultural lifestyles, and strip away farmers’ rights to produce, distribute, and exchange agricultural commodities. Their opposition was rooted in a belief that multinational corporations, operating under the framework of the World Bank and World Trade Organization, posed an existential threat to Indian agriculture.

Understanding the ideological roots 🔗

The Shetkari Sanghatana’s pro-globalization stance stemmed from its critique of the Indian state’s urban-biased policies. Sharad Joshi articulated what he called the “Bharat versus India” dichotomy, arguing that rural India had been systematically exploited by urban industrial interests. For Joshi, open markets offered farmers escape from state control and better prices through international trade.

Anti-globalization movements, however, framed the primary contradiction differently. The KRRS recognized the fundamental conflict as being between American imperialism and Indian society, with the government serving corporate interests rather than protecting farmers. This worldview shaped their militant resistance against multinational corporations.

Symbolic anti-globalization protests: direct action against corporations 🔗

The anti-globalization faction didn’t limit itself to rhetoric. Groups like the KRRS and BKU engaged in dramatic direct action that captured international attention and established Indian farmers as frontline warriors against corporate agriculture.

Operation Cremate Monsanto 🔗

In 1998, the KRRS launched “Operation Cremate Monsanto,” one of the most symbolic anti-corporate campaigns in Indian agrarian history. The movement declared that all Monsanto field trials in Karnataka would be set ablaze with media present. Farmers in Bellary and Raichur districts carried out the burning of genetically modified cotton trial fields.

The campaign exposed troubling corporate practices. According to reports, Monsanto had tricked farmer Basanna Hunsole into unknowingly growing illegal GM crops on his land. Company officials had approached him offering free cotton seeds without disclosing they were genetically modified or unapproved for testing. When the KRRS leader Professor M.D. Nanjundaswamy discovered this, he issued an open letter declaring that Monsanto’s fields would be reduced to ashes. The campaign’s message was unambiguous: investors should withdraw their money from Monsanto before farmers destroyed it.

Attacks on KFC and Cargill 🔗

Before the Monsanto campaign, Karnataka’s farmers had already established their militant credentials. In 1993, KRRS activists attacked the Karnataka offices and plant of Cargill Seeds, causing an estimated $2.3 million in damage. The assault on the American agribusiness giant marked one of the first major direct actions against multinationals entering India’s agricultural sector.

Two years later, KFC became the target when it attempted to open outlets in Bangalore. Nanjundaswamy called for “people’s action” to drive out what he described as an intruder serving poultry stuffed with hormones and chemicals. The Karnataka government deployed armed police to guard the restaurant. These actions went beyond symbolic protest; they represented a coordinated assault on what farmers saw as the vanguard of Western corporate invasion.

International mobilization: taking the struggle overseas 🔗

Indian farmers recognized that their local struggles had global causes. If multinational corporations and international trade agreements were destroying Indian agriculture, then resistance also needed to be internationalized.

The Intercontinental Caravan of 1999 🔗

In May-June 1999, approximately 500 activists, predominantly Indian farmers, embarked on a remarkable month-long journey across Europe. The Inter-Continental Caravan included representatives from the KRRS, BKU, the National Forum of Fishworkers, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and women’s groups like the All-India Women Farmers Association.

The caravan demonstrated in front of major centers of global economic power: Monsanto and other seed company headquarters, the World Trade Organization in Geneva, the European Commission in Brussels, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. The journey culminated at the G8 summit in Cologne, Germany, where farmers faced police repression. Leaders including Vijhay Jawandhia, president of the Inter-State Coordination Committee of Farmers’ Organisations, were arrested, and participants reported being beaten by police.

Beyond protests, the caravan prioritized people-to-people contacts with European farming organizations like the French Confédération Paysanne and the Dutch Agricultural Association. Professor Nanjundaswamy emphasized that farmers would not be used as political tools by Northern organizations claiming to speak for the global South. As he stated, Indian farmers did not want Western money, technology, or development models.

Joint actions with European farmers 🔗

Indian farmers participated in 63 direct actions and 85 public meetings across Europe during the 1999 caravan. In France, they joined José Bové’s Confédération Paysanne in uprooting GM rice trials. In Geneva, they marched at the WTO office. In Rome, they protested at FAO headquarters. These joint actions demonstrated that agrarian struggles transcended national boundaries, with farmers from vastly different contexts finding common cause against corporate agriculture.

Dissent within anti-globalization circles 🔗

The emerging global movement against corporate globalization was never monolithic. When the World Social Forum came to Mumbai in January 2004, internal divisions became publicly visible.

Mumbai Resistance 2004 🔗

Mumbai Resistance 2004 was organized as a parallel event running alongside the World Social Forum. The organizing groups, which included the KRRS, BKU Haryana, and various leftist organizations, criticized the WSF as a forum for endless debate that never moved toward action. They sought to position themselves as representatives of genuine anti-imperialist resistance rather than what they perceived as reformist opposition to neoliberalism.

The MR-2004 coalition argued that the WSF’s slogan of “Another World Is Possible” was too amorphous. They called instead for a concretely defined alternative: a self-reliant economy moving toward what they termed a genuine socialist order. Critics pointed out that this “genuine socialism” was never clearly explained and appeared to be more an article of faith than a practical program.

Competing visions of resistance 🔗

The fourth World Social Forum in Mumbai drew 100,000 activists from over 130 countries and was notable for its massive grassroots participation, including unions, women’s groups, Dalit organizations, and environmental movements. The presence of Mumbai Resistance demonstrated that even among those opposing corporate globalization, fundamental disagreements existed about strategy, ideology, and organizational forms.

The WSF model emphasized pluralism and debate, while MR-2004 sought unified action under clearer ideological banners. This tension between broad coalitions and ideologically coherent movements would continue to shape global agrarian resistance.

Sustained global networks: building lasting international alliances 🔗

Despite internal divisions, Indian farmers’ movements established enduring connections with international peasant networks that persist today.

La Via Campesina 🔗

La Via Campesina, founded in 1993 in Belgium, became the primary vehicle for this internationalization. The organization brought together peasant movements from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas to coordinate resistance against neoliberal agricultural policies. Indian organizations including the KRRS and BKU became active members, participating in international conferences and joint campaigns.

La Via Campesina’s third international conference was held in Bangalore in 2000, acknowledging India’s importance in global agrarian struggles. The movement now represents approximately 200 million farmers across 182 local and national organizations in 81 countries. Its concept of “food sovereignty” became a rallying cry for farmers demanding control over their own agricultural systems.

Peoples’ Global Action 🔗

Indian farmers also played central roles in Peoples’ Global Action (PGA), a coordination of radical social movements formed following a 1996 gathering called by the Zapatista movement in Mexico. The KRRS, renowned internationally for the “Cremate Monsanto” campaign, participated actively in PGA’s anti-WTO mobilizations from Seattle to Cancun to Hong Kong.

These international networks transformed how Indian farmers understood their struggles. Issues like seed patents, GM crops, and trade agreements were revealed as global phenomena requiring global responses. Local protests against Monsanto in Karnataka connected to worldwide movements challenging corporate control of agriculture.

The legacy of globalized resistance 🔗

The transformation of Indian farmers’ movements from local to global had lasting consequences. The strategies developed in the 1990s-direct action against corporations, international caravans, participation in world forums-established templates that subsequent movements would follow. The ideological debates about whether to reform or reject global capitalism, and whether to work within broad coalitions or maintain revolutionary purity, continue to animate agrarian politics.

Most significantly, Indian farmers demonstrated that rural populations in the Global South could organize transnationally and confront the most powerful corporations and institutions of global capitalism. They proved that local agrarian issues were inherently connected to worldwide struggles for food sovereignty, seed rights, and peasant dignity.

What do you think? Did the split between pro-globalization and anti-globalization farmers’ movements strengthen or weaken the overall struggle for agrarian justice in India? How have these international connections influenced the strategies of more recent farmers’ protests?

References

1. https://indianliberals.in/content/shetkari-sangathana-history-farmers-movement-india/
2. https://viacampesina.org/en/2021/08/india-peasant-agroecological-practices-zbnf-are-advancing-the-struggle-for-food-sovereignty/
3. http://at.yorku.ca/c/a/m/l/42.htm
4. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5427059/
5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/10/01/south-indian-farmers-tell-col-sanders-to-get-out-of-town/10a80ad3-15e1-4377-b50d-7e7c03885578/
6. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/08/26/Farmers-in-India-target-KFC/5187809409600/
7. https://archive.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto/1999/caravan.htm
8. https://libcom.org/article/j18-city-all-around-world-black-flag
9. https://www.antiimperialista.org/en/node/2088
10. https://focusweb.org/the-old-left-in-a-new-world-the-mumbai-resistance/
11. https://againstthecurrent.org/atc110/p414/
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Campesina
13. https://www.socioeco.org/bdf_organisme-196_en.html
14. https://participedia.net/organization/via-campesina