REVIEW OF RURAL AFFAIRS 5 Economic & Political Weekly EPW Published on Saturday, june 30, 2018 vol lIII nos 26 & 27 Rural Change in Times of ‘Distress’ Surinder S Jodhka T his brief prelude to the current issue of the Review of Rural Affairs attempts to provide context to the five papers being presented. Even when they differ in their subject, perspective, and arguments, they all provide glimpses into ground-level processes of change and thus together go beyond the dominant narrative of crisis in Indian agriculture. The crisis is indeed real, but approaching everything from the singular narrative of crisis tends to conceal the diverse reali- ties of rural and agrarian life. Such an approach also tells us little about the multiple ways in which it is experienced by those living and working in Indian agriculture in diverse re- gions. To do this we need to empirically explore and critically understand the ground-level processes and emergent agrarian realities by asking questions that are specific to the given re- gional/social context. For example, the recent protest by farmers across different states in India appear to be very similar to the farmers’ move- ments of the 1980s. However, the two sets of protests/move- ments will appear very different when we locate them in history, political economy, and social dynamics of rural life. Spectacles of Agrarian Distress On the eve of 1 June 2018, almost every news channel on Indian television screens showed in their prime-time coverage, images of farmers in different parts of the country throwing their per- ishable produce, vegetables, and milk on to the roads. The spectacle of milk flowing on the roads seemed particularly bizarre and shocking in a country where millions of children are malnourished and many go to bed hungry. Tomatoes and fresh green vegetables that often sell in urban markets at a price that most people find hard to buy, lay rotting on the roads. Organised across six major states of the country, the farmers’ agitations had decided to stop supplies of their pro- duce to urban consumers. The protests were to go on for 10 days with a call for an all-India strike on the last day of the protests (10 June). Even though they appeared to be spontane- ous and were being presented to be so by some of the spokes- persons of the rally, they did have a rather loose organisational set-up, a confederation of farmers’ organisations and pressure groups numbering more than a hundred. Given the nature of the images flashing on television screens, these protests would have not only made the urban middle-class consumer anxious about their supplies of milk and vegetable, but they also made for interesting visuals. These images kept flashing the whole evening, and several news channels invited experts and representatives of farmers to discuss the issues and challenges confronting Indian agriculture. Some well-known facts and arguments were re- peated. Almost everyone reiterated that Indian agriculture was in a state of crisis: low growth, low returns, and that the farmers were finding it hard to make ends meet. They blamed their local and national governments. Some also pointed to the neo-liberal economic policies and unnecessary imports of agricultural products. The fact that in many other countries agriculture was highly subsidised by their governments and that agricultural goods could be imported at a cheaper price also meant low demand and depressed prices for the farm pro- duce of Indian farmers. However, by the next day, the distressed farmer had almost completely disappeared from the television screens with more “interesting” and “sensational” stories emerging from India’s dynamic political landscape. The urban consumer—who suf- fered a temporary price rise in some regions and towns—also forgot about the protests as they did not have an impact on their lives in any significant way. This, indeed, was not the first time in the recent past that farmers had come out in such large numbers to let the urban middle classes and the rich know, besides the state function- aries, about their desperate economic situation. In fact, these protests were planned to also mark one year since the tragic killings of five farmers in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh on 6 June 2017, when farmers were similarly protesting about their inability to sell their farm produce in markets at a viable price and were fired at by the local police. Though different in its social class milieu and imagery, another protest by farmers had caught media attention. During the first week of March 2018, a large number of poor farmers of Maharashtra had gathered in Mumbai, its capital, to register their growing distress. Walking long distances, from different parts of the state, some 35,000 farmers arrived in the city, quite peacefully carrying placards and red flags. Most of them had walked on foot from faraway rural areas, some as far as 180 kilometres, and represented the poorer and the most marginalised strata of the Indian cultivating classes. Interestingly, despite the visible difference in their class context, the demands of left-led poorer farmers were not very different from those of the farmers coming to towns on their EPW is grateful to Surinder S Jodhka and P S Vijayshankar who have been Guest Editors for this issue of the Review of Rural Affairs. The members of the advisory group of editors for the biannual Review of Rural Affairs are Ramesh Chand, Surinder S Jodhka, Duvurry Narasimha Reddy and P S Vijayshankar.