Historic Kisan Movement and Agrarian Distress in India

A Solidarity Note Explaining the Realities of Indian Agriculture

Soham Bhattacharya | October 4, 2021 | Published Online

It’s been almost a year since the beginning of the Kisan Movement against the three farm laws enacted in India by the central government. The farmers, protesting in large numbers, continue their struggle despite the extreme climatic conditions across the Delhi borders, where they have been sitting in dharna for months now.  They have braved water cannons and lathi charges and yet, their resilience and commitment have remained unshook. Standing tall against the atrocious ruling regime, the Kisan Movement has emerged as the longest-running democratic movement in the history of independent India. Amidst false allegations and media blackouts, what has held this movement together till date is a unifying core element that categorically rejects the validity of the three farm laws, which identifies the central authorities as a stooge of larger corporate interests and which prominently continues to demand for Minimum Support Price (MSP) and crop procurement by the State.

On this note, we seek to understand three harsh realities of Indian Agriculture. These realities have given birth to the ongoing agitation of farmers from different classes in India. More importantly, these realities offer us to behold the fallacious claims made by the current ruling dispensation, such as ‘Doubling Farmers Income’. The right-wing Hindutva forces still try to engage with the divisive language of political supremacy, touting the protesters as terrorists, Khalistani, so on and so forth. These three realities that we highlight would also point to the fact that the marriage between ‘Corporate Greed’ and ‘Hindutva Hatred’ has given birth to a policy regime of pseudo-sympathy. This pseudo-sympathy works at two levels: first, it tweaks the facts to fit the objectives of the government at a grassroots level or it tweaks anti-people policies for them to appear beneficial;  Second, it implements policies that favour the corporates while branding and advertising it as ‘Indian’ in some tenuous way. 

In short, the aforementioned three realities are:

i) Firstly, during the Modi Regime: Income from Crop Cultivation has actually worsened. Income for agricultural households, in real terms, have not improved at all. There is serious income distress that lurks around the agricultural sector. 

ii) Secondly, less than 1 out of 100 Farmers in India have sold their crops to the private market because the prices were higher than MSP provided by the procurement centres whereas the majority of Indian farmers are not receiving MSP as a price for their crops. 

iii) Thirdly, the majority of Indian farmers depend on income from wages (working as labourers) rather than income from cultivation. In India, subsisting as a marginal cultivator, with less than a hectare size of land, leads to a path of immiseration and proletarianisation. 

As we look into these realities, we find a predominance of absolute deprivation among agricultural households in India. It consequently restricts their next generation from pursuing higher education and bars the marginalised section from entering the arena of education. Breaking this barrier of income deprivation and non-access to education for the children from agricultural households could be viewed as the crucial point of solidarity between students, scholars and thousands of protesting farmers in India. In the subsequent sections, as we delve deeper, we shall more closely discuss each of these components as mentioned above.  

Data Sources and Methodology used in this Note: Comparing Agricultural Income   

The references and figures made in this note are based on two national-level sample surveys of India between 2012 and 2019. The first survey, Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households (SAS 70th Round) was conducted by the National Sample Survey Office during 2012-13. Here an agricultural household was defined as “a household receiving some value  of  produce  more  than  Rs.3000/-  from  agricultural  activities  (e.g.,  cultivation  of  field  crops,  horticultural  crops,  fodder  crops,  plantation,  animal  husbandry,  poultry,  fishery,  piggery,  bee-keeping,  vermiculture,  sericulture, etc) and having at least one member self-employed in agriculture for 30 days in the last  365  days.” ^[1]

The second survey, conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) combined two major surveys together during the year 2018-19. The report published under the title, Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households (SAS & LHS) ^[2] in Rural India, 2019 (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) provides a comparable frame of reference with the previous 2012-13 survey. Although there are a few definitional and methodological changes, which need further analysis of the unit level data (not yet published), we can make some broad comparisons regarding the income, cost, and other aspects associated with the agricultural households. In this recent survey, “an agricultural household is defined as; Households where at least one member self-employed in agriculture (includes: cultivation of field crops, horticultural crops, fodder crops, plantation, animal husbandry, poultry, fishery, piggery, bee-keeping, vermiculture, sericulture, etc.) for at least a month and having a total value of agricultural produce more than Rs. 4000/- during the last 365 days were only considered for being covered as ‘agricultural households”. 

Following this official definition of recognising a household where at least one member is engaged in agricultural activities for a month, and Rs. 3000 is the lower cap on income from agriculture in 2012-13 and Rs. 4000 in 2018-19, we compare the changes that have occurred in terms of income earned, realisation of MSP by farmers etc. between these two-time points. 

A further methodological intervention that we have undertaken in this analysis is that we are not including the factor ‘net income earned from leasing out land’ as part of the income reported in the 2018-19 report, as this rental income element was not present in 2012-13 report. Secondly, in the 2018-19 survey, we observe both paid-out and imputed costs of cultivation are calculated in order to reach the cost of cultivation. However, the 2012-13 situation assessment survey had only paid out costs reported. Therefore we are calculating the net income comparison (i.e. net receipt minus the expenditure incurred) using only the paid out costs. 

Reality I: Worsening of Income from Crop Cultivation: The Modi Regime

During the first tenure of the BJP led NDA regime, we observed a plethora of rhetoric in the name of ‘doubling farmers’ income’ from the ruling party, as well as from the policy-making bodies. Yet, Indian farmers have not seen any of the tall claims really materialise.   

Before delving into the figures of monthly household income or crop income, we need to reiterate a fact here. In rural India, more than 70 per cent of agricultural households, operate land one hectare or less, i.e. the marginal category of farmers as defined by the official sources. This translates into 65 million agricultural households (i.e. 70 per cent of the total 93 million agricultural households) during 2018-19, who cannot sustain simply on that small piece of land as a sole source of income (i.e. net receipt from crop production), that are part of household income for these rural households. There are four other major sources of income that sustain the livelihood of these households. Those four sources are:  Income from wages, Net receipt from Livestock/ Farming of animals, Net receipt from non-farm business sources, and Rental Income from leasing out land. Now, as mentioned earlier, the last component – net receipt from rental income – was not part of the household income calculation in 2012-13, therefore, for comparability purposes, we are taking only the other three sources of income. 

First, let us look into the changes in the average monthly income of an agricultural household, in nominal terms, i.e. reported in the current prices. We observe in table 1, that the average monthly income earned by an agricultural household during 2012-13 was Rs 6426, which has now increased to Rs 10084 in 2018-19. However, this 1.6 times increase is explained by the increase in income earned from the wages/salaries component (doubled) and income from livestock/ animal cultivation (a little more than doubled). Whereas, the income from crop cultivation or the income from non-farm business has remained stagnant or has marginally increased. Here we need to recall the ‘pseudo-sympathy’ strategy again. The claim of doubling the farmers’ income has a ‘sleight of hand’ element to it. The poorest of farmers, while failing to earn enough income from the cultivation, are bound to join the ranks of agricultural labourers or become seasonal construction workers or even seasonal migrant workers. The distress-driven wage-earning of a semi-proletariat farmer becomes part of the household income, and the Modi govt. will claim that the agricultural household’s income has increased by 1.6 times. The Hindutva cadre in social media will make it louder, while the bare truth remains simple: Income from crop cultivation has remained almost the same (increased nominally by 1.2 times since 2012-13).

The devastating truth, however, presents itself if we adjust the 2018-19 income figures for inflation. We have used EPWRFITS time series data on Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) for our deflation marker. We observed between July 2013 (When SAS 70th round ended) and July 2019 (When SAS-LHS 2019 ended), the CPI-AL grew by 1.46 times. So we need to adjust the 2018-19 (Splicing) income figures by this inflation rate in order to reach real income earned by the agricultural households during this year. 

Table 2 provides us with three findings: 

Firstly, during 2012-13 to 2018-19, the average monthly income of agricultural households in real terms has grown by only 1.1 times, from Rs 6426 per month to Rs 6907 per month. It indicates that the average real income of agricultural households has remained at almost the same level. 

Secondly, there has been a worsening of average real income from crop cultivation under the Modi regime. The real income earned from crop cultivation was Rs 3081 per month on average, which has now declined to Rs 2601. Roughly, a drop of Rs 480 has been encountered during this period. 

Finally, wages, which is now a major source of income for the marginal section of farmers, have only increased by 1.3 times (Rs 712) in real terms. This points to severe income distress among farmers, which culminates as a major portion of the rural agrarian distress across the country. This has become more pronounced since the non-farm business opportunities have not grown over the years. 

Reality II: Private/ Corporate is Not Efficient for Agricultural Price Realisation  

There have been several recommendations to find ways to ensure better price realisation among farmers, the most important one being the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) during 2004. The commission suggested that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) be announced at a level of 50% more than the comprehensive cost of cultivation.^[3] The present government deviously announced MSP while trying to get rid of it by enacting the three farm laws, and are unable/unwilling to provide price support to the farmers through procurement of crops. Procurement is still largely confined to very few crops, such as paddy and wheat. 

However, we need to debunk the fatal lie that is spread through the ruling party’s argument, where the premise of enacting the laws was based on the idea that private markets are efficient to provide better prices to farmers. We take two case studies from the SAS-LHS report in order to make this counterargument clear. 

Table 3 shows the proportion of farmers who sold under MSP to the procurement agencies and the proportion of farmers who sold to private markets because the private market was providing better prices than the procurement agency. 

While a larger proportion of farmers were aware of MSP, selling to procurement agencies was not observed. This is partly due to the regional variation and density of procurement centers in different states. However, only 0.5 per cent in paddy and 0.2 per cent in wheat sales were done because private markets were offering a better price, clearly indicating that crop produces are not efficiently sold with better prices under the private market. This is crucial evidence against the myth of ‘private is efficient’. MSP as a notional price can only operate if it is retained as a legal binding for the private market. The farmers’ protest is based on this very piece of information that if agricultural produce markets are opened to the corporate capital and the procurement levels remain the same, the already income-distressed farmers will have to sell their crops at a far lower price. 

The second exhibit that we need to focus on is a case study of Bihar, where the procurement agencies were already defunct by 2006. Therefore, in Bihar, almost every farmer sells their produce to the private market. When we compare the average prices received in Bihar and in Punjab (taking both Paddy and Wheat as a common crop in the two states), we find even more convincing evidence that the private market fails to provide better prices to the farmers. ^[4]

We observe that in Bihar, a huge proportion of farmers are dependent on the local market for selling their produces, where the prices realised during the 2018-19 agricultural year was much lower than the MSP (in 2018-19, MSP for paddy was 1750 per quintal and Rs 1840 for wheat). In Punjab, even though farmers depend on the local market, the sheer presence of APMC Mandi provides a price-floor for the farmers, and they receive better prices or at least as much as MSP was announced. Therefore it is a high time that the intelligentsia in India, some of whom were quick to undermine and dismiss the protesting farmers , realise that a demand for better prices is a pressing concern for small and marginal farmers in order to sustain their livelihoods.

Reality III: Recognising the barriers to education and strengthening the Student-Farmer Alliance

So far we have established the impoverished condition of the larger section of the peasantry in India, who have undergone a process of proletarianisation and are still bound to the land because of the absence of other remunerative opportunities created either by the State or by the present market forces. Therefore, one way of falling into the loop of urban popular discourse would be to romanticize the inception of the movement as our ‘food providers being betrayed’. However, there is more to the concrete causes of solidarity, which can build further and stronger alliances between two of the most visibly anti-NDA sections in India.   

In this section, we aim to substantiate our argument that the historic farmer’s movement has an intersection with numerous members of the student community, which are not normally discussed otherwise. The financial distress, which has become more pronounced over the Pandemic, among students coming from the poor and marginal peasant households and has often led them towards dropping out from mainstream or vocational systems of education. This condition in itself presents a case for the urgent political necessity for a Kisan-Student alliance.

In table 5, we have used an illustration from the NSSO 75^th Round ^[5]survey of Social Consumption of Education. Here, if we follow the definition of agricultural households as households, where the major source of income is self-employment within agriculture, we find roughly 38 percent of the population, aged between 6-25 years are excluded from institutional education. It also implies that 1 out of 3 students from rural agricultural households have discontinued education in the academic year of 2017-18. 

More importantly, two major reasons reported by these students are that of financial constraints and early engagement in economic activity. The third major reason, mostly for female students, was being engaged in domestic activity. Among the dropped out students and students who never enrolled, 1 out of 3 students has discontinued due to this direct financial impediment. 

This is a crucial link between the agrarian distress and the current regime’s nonchalance towards the social sector of education. It is these forms of socio-economic distress that bind the two protesting sections – farmers and students – together. The growing number of students and scholars present at the Singhu-Tikri border have already provided a direction; furthering and extending this network of solidarity would be of utmost significance for the collective progress of the country.  

About Author

Soham Bhattacharya is a Research Scholar at the Economic Analysis Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore Centre. 

Acknowledgments

This note was prepared with extensive inputs and comments from Debodeep Banerjee and Torsa Saha.

Dipsita Dhar, the editor of Indian Researcher has provided useful suggestions throughout the process of preparing this note.

End Notes

^[1] The SAS 70^th round report can be found here: http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/KI_70_33_19dec14.pdf

^[2] The SAS-LHS combined report of 77^th Round can be found here http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/Report_587m.pdf

^[3]  A short blog note on the methodological problems of setting MSP and lack of price realisation can be read here: http://fas.org.in/the-paltry-increase-in-msp-for-rabi-2022-23-crops/

^[4] MSP is a concern for small farmers as well. A note by Biplab Sarkar https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/who-will-pay-the-price/article32759888.ece

^[5] The report can be accessed here: http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/Report_585_75th_round_Education_final_1507_0.pdf