Agrarian Crisis, Neoliberal Policies, and the Achievements of the Farmers' Movement

Text By

Praveen Jha

Agrarian Crisis and Neoliberal Restructuring

Rising Distress

Since the 1990s, India’s agrarian sector has been restructured through liberalization and integration into global markets. Farmers’ livelihoods have been squeezed by rising input costs, stagnant output prices, withdrawal of subsidies, and inadequate state procurement. Between 2003–13, while national incomes rose sharply, agricultural incomes declined. The crisis manifests in declining farm profitability, mounting indebtedness, and alarming rates of farmers’ suicides.

Policy Shifts

Neoliberal reforms—shaped by WTO frameworks and corporate lobbies—have steadily dismantled procurement and price support systems. The three farm laws, introduced by the current Union Government in 2020, represented a culmination of this trajectory: promoting corporate dominance in trade, bypassing Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs), and weakening the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime.

The recent policy of eliminating the 11% import duty on cotton in August 2025 is another step in this direction. Justified as a response to the US imposing a 50% tariff on [^1] Indian textile exports (a sector that accounts for less than 6% of India’s textile trade), the measure [^2] primarily benefits large corporate houses, while depressing domestic cotton prices. Nearly six million cotton farmers face an estimated loss that ranges between several million to a couple of billion USD1 in 2024–25, as per different estimates, intensifying distress in already crisis-ridden cotton-growing regions.

Lessons from Past Trade Liberalization

The India–ASEAN trade agreement of 2011 devastated Kerala’s natural rubber sector by allowing tariff-free imports. Prices crashed from Rs. 240/kg to Rs. 70/kg, causing losses of Rs. 7,840 crore annually and halving production. The newly signed CETA with the UK risks repeating this [^3] pattern by removing tariffs on a wide range of agricultural and processed food products, exposing Indian farmers to heavily subsidized foreign competition.

Peasantry as a Social Category

Despite predictions of decline, the peasantry remains central to India’s economy, society, and politics. Today’s agrarian question is less about absorption into industry and more about survival in conditions of dispossession, precarization, and corporate capture of agriculture.

The levying of taxes in money has had the function of driving the peasants towards the coast

(Amin 1974: 95; Fall 2011).

Ratio of international aid to GDP

0.17%

USA

.36%

EU

6.6%

Cuba

Between 1990 and 2015 alone, the monetary value of Cuban overseas development aid has been calculated at over (USD) $71.5 billion dollars, equivalent to $4.87 billion annually, or 6.6% of its GDP, by far the highest ratio in the world.

Price of the Rubber/Kg .
Before and after the India–ASEAN trade agreement (2011) allowing tariff-free imports.

Prices crashed from Rs. 240/kg to Rs. 70/kg, causing losses of Rs. 7,840 crore annually and halving production.

Credit and Description

The 2020–21 Farmers' Protest

Trigger and Mobilization

The above-mentioned three farm laws, introduced without adequate consultation, threatened to dismantle mandis and reduce farmers' bargaining power; it constituted a series of wide range assault in the peasantry. Protests began in Punjab and Haryana but soon transformed into a pan-Indian movement. [^1] Farmers camped at Delhi's borders for over a year, defying state repression, propaganda campaigns, and the pandemic.

Leadership and Unity

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) provided collective leadership, forging solidarities across caste, class, gender, and religious divides. Despite attempts to brand it sectarian or "anti-national," the movement resisted communal polarization. Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Dalit, and OBC farmers stood together; women played visible and leading roles, challenging patriarchal exclusions.

Credits and Description

Achievements of the Movement

1. Policy Reversal – Repeal of the Farm Laws

The repeal of the three farm laws in November 2021 marked a historic victory. It was one of the rare moments in India’s neoliberal era when mass mobilization forced the state to reverse a pro-corporate policy agenda.

2. Revival of Farmers’ Political Agency

The movement restored farmers’ visibility in national politics. They asserted themselves as a political force capable of shaping state policy, countering the dominance of corporate and urban-centric narratives.

3. Unity Across Social Divides

By upholding secular solidarity, the protests undercut the Hindutva project’s attempts to fragment rural society. Women’s leadership further broadened the scope of agrarian struggles.

4. Democratic Protest Reasserted

In an era of shrinking democratic space, the protest sites at Delhi’s borders became spaces of collective living, cultural assertion, and participatory democracy—a reassertion of constitutional rights in practice.

5. Global Resonance

The protests attracted solidarity from diaspora communities and global social movements, situating Indian farmers’ struggle within the wider critique of neoliberal agrarian reforms worldwide.

6. Agenda-Setting on MSP and Rural Crisis

While the legal guarantee of MSP remains unresolved, the movement placed MSP, debt relief, and rural incomes at the center of national debate—issues long neglected in policymaking.

Credits and Description

Ongoing Struggles and Contemporary Context

The repeal of the farm laws was a major achievement, but neoliberal restructuring has continued in other forms. The cotton import duty exemption (2025) exemplifies how trade policy is being reshaped to favor corporations at the expense of farmers.

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and SKM have launched campaigns against this policy:

Village-level protests (September 1–3, 2025) with burning of government notifications.
Gram Sabha resolutions demanding withdrawal of the decision.
Marches to Members of Parliament in cotton-growing regions.
Plans for signature campaigns, Mahapanchayats, and solidarity actions nationwide.

These mobilizations build upon the momentum of 2020–21, showing that mass unity remains the only effective counterweight to corporate and imperialist trade policies

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Broader Implications

Crisis of Neoliberal Legitimacy : Farmers’ movements expose the cozy partnership of state-corporate power, a hallmark of the worst kinds of crony capitalism. “Reforms” justified as modernization are revealed as exclusionary and dispossessive.
Revisiting the Agrarian Question: The peasantry remains central to democracy, development, and social justice in India. Struggles over MSP, trade liberalization, and input subsidies reaffirm this centrality.
Challenge to Authoritarianism: The farmers’ movement has shown that sustained, non-violent, mass mobilization can challenge authoritarian governance and reclaim democratic spaces.

Credit and Description

Additional Material

Links & Resources

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