Suthar S. K., Singh Sh. “New” rural-agrarian movements in India: Continuities and shifts // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2026. V.11. №2. P. 119-134.

EDN: GTERCR

Annotation

Political mobilization of farmers in India has always interested and puzzled scholars studying agrarian change. The major political phenomenon in India’s agrarian history were farmers movements in the 1980s, which showed the strength of organization and mobilization of such leaders as Mahindra Singh Tikait and Sharad Joshi. This phenomenon gradually faded away by the 1990s. However, in recent decades India once again witnessed farmers protests with three major demands: waiving off agricultural loans; more rationalized Minimum Support Price covering more crops and input costs; implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report’s recommendations1. The national magazine’s cover called these protests “farmers revolt”. In the interview, Yogendra Yadav, a political activist associated with Swaraj Abhiyan, called them a historical moment and a move towards “peasant rebellion”. The article considers the nature of farmers mobilization from 2014 to 2020, focusing on the initial phase of this movement and emphasizing that farmers protests should not be seen as sporadic, scattered and short-term unrest, as they appear prima facie. Instead, these protests reflect a major shift in the nature of social movements in India in general and agrarian movements in particular, being different from the 1980s farmers movements. Recent protests show that the new rural youth want to reimagine Indian rural society, develops new methods of protests and negotiations and new class distinctions, considering diverse ideological positions on the rural-agrarian question. This new rural social class is against the right-wing populism and neo-populism of the 1980s farmers movements, but it is also against the Indian left-wing idea of modernity and the definition of rural India in terms of class politics. The authors argue that recent protests should be characterized as rural-agrarian rather than farmers, since they suggest the rural-agrarian dominance in the Indian political economy and define the new rural and post-green revolution as agrarian. Given the growing sense of losing identity under urbanization and corporatization, the new rural-agrarian class faces a serious existential threat that leads to protests and their culmination in the form of movement. The authors make some conclusions about this movement, highlighting its recent trends. The article consists of four sections: foundations of this movement evolution; concept of rural-agrarian movements; features of new farmers unrest, different from movements in the 1970s and 1980s; critical analysis in the context of existing theories.

Keywords

Political mobilization of farmers, India, new rural-agrarian movement, rural youth, farmers’ protests, political economy, new rural social class.  

About the authors

Sudhir Kumar Suthar, PhD (Political Science), Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi, 110067, India.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Shailza Singh, PhD (Political Science), Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Bharati College, University of Delhi. C-4, Dada Satram Mamtani Marg, Janakpuri, New Delhi, 110058, India.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.