For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/shinkhlala.php#8

An agrarian society constructs the social order based on farming patterns such as ownership on land, farm practices etc. It has been observed that farmers are playing the measurable role in the local governance as well as in the state and national politics. They have proved their presence through various movements and agitations. Farmers movements in Uttar Pradesh are mostly led by the sugarcane growing communities i.e., Jats in Western UP and representing the issues of sugarcane growrs as well as the farmers in genral.

The objective of the study is to analyse the power dynamics in the rural Uttar Pradesh with intensive involvement of sugarcane growers. The second objective of this study is to crically anlyse the rural leadership and genesis of peasant movement in India.

This study is review based, so there is no need for review of literature.

Agrarian Society in India

Agrarian society in India is much diverse as population in the country including rural population. The society is divided into various social cultural and economic groups or classes. Within these groups or classes, one could see the collaboration or interdependency on the basis of convergence of the farm practices, class interests or interdependency. The social scientists studying about the formers or rural social strucuture considers various factors of diversity i.e., caste, geographical context and size of land holdings with the agrarian classes. The land holding structure of Indian society has been presented in the table-1. As per Agriulture Census 2015-16, more than two third (68.45 per cent) farmers in India belong to marginal farmers and 17.62 per cent under small categories, these farmers could be categoriesed as a resource poor farmer (Kumar 2018). There are 9.55 per cent farmers coming under semi-medium category where 3.80 per cent under medium and only 0.57 per cent under large category (GOI. 2019:16).

Table-1: Farmers’ Categories and Land Holding in India

Sl. No.	Categories of Farmers	Land Holding (hectare)	No. of Holdings	% of Farmers	Average size of holding/ farmer
1.	Marginal	< 1.0 ha	100251	68.45	0.38
2.	Small	1-<2 ha	25809	17.62	1.40
3.	Semi-medium	2-<4 ha	13993	9.55	2.69
4.	Medium	4->10 ha	5561	3.80	5.72
5.	Large	10 ha and above	838	0.57	17.07
	Total		146454	100	1.08

Source: GOI. 2019. Agriculture Census 2015-16 (Phase-I) Report (page 16). 

Agrarian society could be classified as agrarian classes on the bais of size of land holdings, availability of other additional source of income (non-farm income) and their influence in the politics etc. In the sociological context there are two broader frameworks are exiting to understand and differentiate the agrarian classes which are: 1. Marxian, and 2. non-Marxian. Utsa Patnaik (1976) has synthesised the Marxian class criterion explained by Mao and Lenin in her book “Peasant Class Differentiation: A Study in Method with Reference to Haryana, 1987. As per Patnaik’s framework to this class analysis there are two types of class in agrarian society.

1. The Rural Poor: Agricultural labourers and resource poor/marginal peasants are those who do not own their land but work on other’s land or having small holdings of land and work more on others land than on their own land. In some cases, they work as tenants to meet the basic needs.  As per recent agriculture census such category of farmers in India are 86 per cent (GOI 2019:16).

2. The Rural Rich: Farmers having middle or large land holdings hold their own land and required paraphernalia for agriculture or farm practices. They work on their own land or do not work themselves except supervisory work along with engaging agricultural labourers (resource poor and small peasants) or depends on the outside labour. As per recent agriculture census such category of farmers in India are only 14 per cent (GOI 2019:16). 

Peasants’ Movement and Movements in India

There were various collective actions of agrarian social structure in terms of classes could be analysed throughout the pre-independence and post-Independence era. Kathleen Gough (1974) has analysed the history of peasants’ movement in India, which is rooted more than 250 years (Gaugh mentioned it 200 years in 1974) in all the major regions. These movements were risen in repetitive manner against landlords, agents and other bureaucrats involved in revenue collection, moneylenders as well as against the police and military forces. During this period there have been at least 77 revolts, the smallest of which probably engaged several thousand peasants in active support or in combat (Gough 1974).

The density and participation level of these classes, response from the state towards their demands as well as success of the peasants’ movements were reflected on the basis of the issues and demands raised by their union, leadership patterns and strength or degree of mobilisation. The rise and fall of the agrarian movements can differ from one movement to another due to their contexts, reasons and nature of the issues raised by their unions, nature of leadership and patterns of mobilisation etc. Peasants’ movements in contemporary Indian society may be classified into two major categories.

1. The first category of movements belongs to those of the resource poor, the marginal or small farmers. Under these types of movements farmers’ demands are related to their economic condition such as demand of higher wages and better working conditions for their role as an agricultural labourer.

2. The second category of movements belongs to more prosperous farmers. These farmers produce a considerable surplus value from their agri-produces within the rural economy and called 'Farmers' Movement' or 'New Agrarianism' or 'New Peasant Movements in social sciences (Brass 1994).

There were various farmers’ mobilisations occurred before mobilisation lead by the the Bhrtiya Kisan Union (BKU) in the 1980s.  The farmers of UP were mobilized mainly by both the socialists and the communists (leftist ideological) forces between 1950s and 1960s. At the same time Chaudhary Charan Singh also attempted to mobilise the farmers of Uttar Pradesh. His mobilisation of farmers was to prepare his electoral base among the peasants from middle and backward caste such as Jats, Yadavs, Kurmies, Kories, Lodhs, etc. of Uttar Pradesh. In the year 1967 Charan Singh came out of Congress to form his own party — the Bharatiya Krnati Dal (BKD). After the decline of the mobilsation by the leftists, Charan Singh’s party mobilised farmers into agitational politics. His base politics reached among the middle caste peasants specially from Western Uttar Pradesh, and got space as Prime Minister in 1980.

The principal issue of the farmers’ mobilisation in the Western part of Uttar Pradesh was related to cane price, but other issues also mattered for such mobilisation. Therefore, the peasant movement in Uttar Pradesh was basically sugar cane growers’ movements. Overall, it could be remarked that green revolution was the seed for farmers’ movement led by BKU. During 930s opening up of sugar mills in various parts of Uttar Pradesh has encouraged the commercialisation of cropping pattern as well as given the rise to the new economic issues like the problems of sugar cane growers.

The emerging trend of the new farmers’ movements in India

The emerging trend of the farmers’ movements in India from the late 1970s onwards, been operated under various names in the specific contexts and regions in India. The contributions to this volume include general considerations of background issues (Brass, Banaji) and also case ‘The more important of the farmers' movements: the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra’ (Dhanagare 1980, Omvedt 1988, Lindberg 1994), the BKU in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (Lindberg 1994), the Raitha Sangha in Karnataka (Assadi 2002), the BKS in Gujarat (Banaji 2010) and - to a lesser extent - the TVS in Tamil Nadu (Lindberg 1994). Some of the important movements are given in the Table-2.

Table-2:  New Farmers Movement in India

Sl. No.	New Farmers Movement in India	Lead by	Founded in Year	Region of Operation
1	Bharatiya Kisan Sangh	Dattopant Thengadi	1978	Gujarat
2	Shetkari Sanghatana	Sharad Joshi	1979	Maharashtra
3	Karnataka State Farmers' Association (Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha or KRRS)	M. D. Nanjundaswamy	1980	Karnataka,
4	Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU)	Mahendra Singh Tikait and Chaudhary Charan Singh	1987	Uttar Pradesh
		Ajmer Singh Lakhowal, Balbir Singh Rajwal and Bhupinder Singh Mann		Punjab
5	Tamil Nadu Agriculturalists' Association {Tamilaga Vyavasavavigal Sangham or TVS)	Narayanaswamy Naidu	Not Available	Tamil Nadu

Source: Brass, T. (1994). Introduction: The new farmers’ movements in India.

Durig first two decades of Indian Impendence movements in Uttar Pradesh for the rural poor lead by the socialists and communists on the one hand and by the Naxalites and the CPI on the other hands. They have mobilised the resource poor, marginal and landless farmers in the western Uttar Pradesh for redistribution of the Gaon Samaj land, giving better wages, abolition of begar, lifting of the sanction/social norms imposed by the richer classes/landlords on the poorer classes/landless population for cutting grass needed as fodder from the fields of the former. They have also raised the issue to protect the women of the poorer classes from the exploitation of the landlords/men belonging to the richer classes. The protest included hunger strike and demonstrations to fulfill their demands.

During 1974 elections in the state Charan Singh negotiated a merger with the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP). The party now called the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), got more widespread electoral success in it, the same as in 1969. At the same time the BLD was representing a coalition of two distinct caste groups to protect their interests. These caste groups were numerically strong but geographically distinct representing the prosperous peasants and farmers across the state as a whole. Just after the period of the Emergency, BLD formed the Janata alliance and contested the 1977 elections as a part of the Janata coalition. The Lok Dal has made his conitinuity in the parliamentary as well as in the state politics not only dueing the life of Chaudhary Charan Singh, but also after that by his political ancestors (BKD, 1968; Duncan, 1997).

Farmers’ Protest in India (2020-2021)

The recent farmers' agitation was the biggest farmer’s movement in Delhi since 1988. It is against the agriculture bills passed by the Indian Parliament in 2020. The protest was started on August 9, 2020 from Punjab (the land of green revlolution), when these bills were made public. The present movement was led by 35 farmers' unions in which 31 were from from Punjab alone, and the other 4 from two states i.e., Haryana and Madhya Pradesh (India Today 2020, Kumar 2022: 357-59). The movement was started against the three controversial laws been passed by the Unioun Government of India were:

1. The Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020,

2. The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2020, and

3. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

The first bill has created framework for contract farming through an agreement between ‘a farmer’ and ‘a buyer’. The second bill was to prohibit the levying and control by the state governments and open the sale of farm produces outside the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs)/ Kisan Mandis. In other words, these Mandis/markets had been thrown in the hands of the private players for their investments in the agricultural sector and had right to deal with the Indian farmers directly. The third bill, was to takes away the most essential commodities (cereals, pulses, potatoes, onions, oilseeds and edible oil) from the list of essential commodities (Sharma 2021, c.f. Kumar 2022).

As per farmers and their unions’ view, the decision of the Union Government was against the rights of the farmers and of the Constitutional will. As per Indian Constitution agriculture is the state subject and the marketing and markets of agriculture produces are being regulated by the state governments through its APMC Act 1939. As per recommendations made by the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) 2004, Kisan Mandis must be established within the radius of 5 kms to sale the farm-produces in 80 square kilometres (Manjula 2021, c.f. Kumar 2022).

Some people especially the capitalist mindset media and ruling party raised the question on the farmers from Punjab, Hariyana and Western Uttar Pradesh that why such farmers had participated more in comparision to Eastern Uttar Pradesh and other parts of India. Answer of such questions may be seen in the writings of Anil Kumar (2018, 2022) that people in these areas are experiencing and practicing culture of poverty could not take part in such agitation and unable to fight for their right. Further, he suggested that there are 92.5% of all farmers in Uttar Pradesh belong to marginal (<1 ha) and small (1–2 ha) categories and holdings 64.8% of the total area cultivated (Verma, Gulati and Hussain 2017; Kumar 2018, 2022). India has to regenerative farming systems such as agroecology and food sovereignty, deserves more attention, to give their significant, potential, social and environmental benefits (Anderson and Rivera-Ferre 2021, c.f. Kumar 2022) to combat global hunger and associated challenges being faced by the mass population (Kumar 2022). Finally, government has been criticized by the people in India but also on intrnational plateforms. Due to coming elections in 5 states BJP nullified the Bills from Loksabha and Rajyasabha.

The sugarcane farmers from the major sugarcane producing states have made claim that they are spending about 40 per cent of their cultivation cost on harvesting, hence they are getting inadequate returns from the sugar mills. There is one of the keu reasons for low profitability in sugarcane was productivity wasnb not increased during last decade in major sugarcane growing states. The farmars could improve their profitability by increasing productivity and adlopting the drip irrigation method to reduce the cost of production (Narayanamoorthy, Alli and Suresh 2016: 146-56).

Changing Power Dynamics in Rural Uttar Pradesh

At the time of Britishers came to India the rural economy was organized in self-sufficient villages, which was being farmed in groupings of large (joint or extended) families. The economic relations in the village areas were governed by the system powered by caste and customry laws (Neale 1956). There were so many changes occurred during British rules in the context of land ownership, tax collection system and farmer tenant relations etc. In the independent India the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform (ZALR Act of UP) Act 1950 has created the space to uplift the lives of the small peasants and advocacy for their interest. Chaudhary Charan Singh had performed a leading role in the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Committee headed by the them Chief Minister G. B. Pant (1945-47). The farming castes coming from the backward castes and most marginalised communities in the Uttar Pradesh were benefitted with the land reforms and other measures taken by Chaudhary Charan Singh. It has created bew space for land ownership platform for new power dynamics in western Uttar Pradesh. In the above situation the proprietary castes holding middle status in the society like Jats steptdup to be influential in the region and in the coming years, they have established themselves as one of the dominnat castes in Uttar Pradesh. Chaudhary Charan Singh had formulated ‘kisan’ identity to the farming castes (Singh 2020:11).  

There were various structural factors also influenced the power dynamics in rural areas and farmers politics in Uttar Pradesh. Like Punjab and Haryana western part of Uttar Pradesh was also much influenced by the Green Revolution, that led to the testing and introduction of High Yield Variety (HYV) seeds of wheat and rice. Various government schemes were initieated in India time to time such as land consolidation, soil reclaimation, extensive use of farm machinery (labour saving devices), enriched well-irrigation (lift irrigation), inclusion of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and weedicides to improve crop production and productivity (Dhanagare 1987). Gail Omvedt (1988) has challanged the study of Dhanagare (1987) and argued in his paper that green revolution is onw of the major factor to increase economic inequalities within the village and talks of growing landlessness, rich peasant domination, and so forth (Omvedt 1988:16). Further it has been observed in the field that population growth and process of urbanisation have created a new middile class from marginal section of the society as well as rise of power dynamics among peasants through sugarcane cooperatives. 

At the same time Minimum Support Price (MSP) was introduced for wheat crop in Punjab during the year 1966-67. All these measures cultivated the land for new power dynamics in Uttar Pradesh (The Wire 2021). In the 20th century sugarcane growers have taken leading role in the power politics of Uttar Pradesh, but it could not be denied that features of dominant castes also played measurable role in power dynamics of rural India. As per MN Srinivas Jats of Western UP, Kurmi and Ahir from middle UP completing the features of dominant caste i.e., “A caste may be said to be ‘dominant’ when it preponderates numerically over the other castes, and when it also wields preponderant economic and political power. A large and powerful caste group can be more easily dominant if its position in the local caste hierarchy is not too low (Srinivas 1955:18). These castes have performed a major role in farmers politics as well as in general politics. Further, they have enterned in technical education and adopted new technologies to improve their livelihoods including farm-based technologies.

The impact of such policy interventions and acceptance of new technologies among sugarcane growers could be measured as a power dynamic. Sugarcane growers has played a crucial role in local politics. Sugarcane is a cash crop and providing better profit in compare to other crops and influencing local politics through raising interests of the farmers and population in general. In western part of Uttar Pradesh including Lakhimpur Kheri (one of the districts in middle UP) sugarcane growers are playing measurable role in local politics, some of them got positions at National, State local politics such as Chaudhary Charan Singh his son Chaudhary Ajit Singh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, Rakesh Tikait, Suresh Singh Rana (Western Uttar Pradesh), Dilbag Singh (Lakhimpur, Uttar Pradesh).

Challenges faced by Farmers in Uttar Pradesh       

There are so many problems faced by the farmers in India and most of the farmers in Uttar Pradesh due to frigmented land and less working capital with them. Chaterjee and Kapoor (2017) has identified problems of Indian farming sector as a puzules, which have to be solved are: 1) The Price Variation Puzzle; 2) The Procurement Puzzle; 3) Political Economy Puzzles; 4) The Trade Puzzle: Exporting Scarce Resources; 5) The Productivity Gap Puzzle; 6) The Exit Puzzle. Without solving these puzzles Indian agriculture sector will be in crisis.  Another empirical study among resource poor farmers (small and marginal) of Shrawasti district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh was conducted by Anil Kumar (2018), who found that most of the farmers study area had agriculture as a primary or secondary source of livelihood. He identified the key reasons behind decline in profitability in the agriculture sector are: a) fragmented and smaller size of land holding, b) poor soil sustainability, c) increased input cost, d) low cropping intensity, e) poor extension services & market linkage and f) low quality and unskilled education system etc.; these make farming ‘uneconomic’ under the present production system.” (Kumar, 2018:35).

The present study is based on secondary information as well as primary information collected from various sources. The primary information was collected with the use of qualitative methods i.e. observation and focused group discussion with the sugarcane growers and stakeholders involved in rural politics.

Farmers in India like other communities and groups, divided in various classes based on land holding, availability and accessibility of modern farm technologies etc. Agrarian class is influencing much to the dynamics of rural power structure. Some times governments have adopted the demands of farmers specially for the application of MSP for agriculture produces and timly payments of sugarcane sold to the sugarmills run by the cooperatives and private players.

1. Anderson Molly D and Marta Rivera-Ferre. 2021. Food system narratives to end hunger: extractive versus regenerative. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol. 49:18-25. 2. Assadi, Muzaffar. 2002. Resistance to Economic Reforms: Agrarian Social Movement and Alternative Vision from the Experience of Karnataka, The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 351-370. 3. Banaji, Jairus. 2010. The Ironies of Indian Maoism, International Socialism, Autumn,https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/2010/isj2-128/banaji.html. 4. Brass, T. 1994. Introduction: The new farmers’ movements in India, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3-), pp. 3–26. 5. Dhanagare, D. N. 1987. Green Revolution and Social Inequalities in Rural India, EPW, Vol. 22, Issue No. 19-20-21. 6. Dhanagare, D. N. 1980. Agrarian structure, social change and peasant revolts in India, The Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 17, No.1, pp. 98-105. 7. Duncan, Ian. 1997. Agricultural Innovation and Political Change in North India: The Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 24, No.4, pp. 246-268. 8. GOI. 2019. Agriculture Census 2015-16 (Phase-I): All India Report on Number and Area of Operational Holdings. Agriculture Census Division, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Minstry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India, Delhi. 9. Gough, Kathleen. 1974. Indian Peasant Uprisings, EPW, Vol. Issue 32-34. 10. India Today. 2020. Know about kisan unions leading the biggest farmers' agitation in Delhi in 30 years, https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/know-about-the-kisan-unions-leading-the-biggest-farmers-agitation-in-delhi-in-30-years-1746468-2020-12-03. 11. Kumar, A. 2018. Challenges in Adopting Modern Farming Practices by Resource Poor Farmers: A Case of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, The Eastern Anthropologist, Vol. 71, No.1-2, pp.15-39. 12. Kumar, A. 2022. Agriculture for Combating Global Starvation. In: Ansari, S.A., Ansari, M.I., Husen, A. (eds.) Augmenting Crop Productivity in Stress Environment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6361-1_20. 13.Lindberg, S. 1994. New farmers’ movements in India as structural response and collective identity formation: The cases of the Shetkari Sanghatana and the BKU. Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 21, No.3-4, pp. 95–125. 14. Manjula M. 2021. The Smallholder in the agriculture market reforms in India. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 56, No.15, pp. 22-26. 15. Narayanamoorthy, A.; P. Alli and R. Suresh. 2016. Is Farm Profitability Declining in India?: The Case of Sugarcane Crop, in Dinesh Marothia, Will Martin, A. Janaiah and C.L. Dadhich (eds.) Re-visiting Agricultural Policies in the Light of Globalisation Experience: The Indian Context, Hyderabad: Indian Society of Agricultural Economics. 16. Neale, Walter C. 1956. Land Reform in Uttar Pradesh, EPW, pp. 888-892. 17. Omvedt, Gail. (1988) The “New peasant movement” in India, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 14-23. 18. Patnaik, Utsa. 1987. Peasant Class Differentiation: A Study in Method with Reference to Haryana, Oxford University Press. 19. Sharma, Ashmita and Barkataki B.D. 2021. ‘Dilli Chalo’: The Pulse of Those That Feed the Nation, EPW Engage https://www.epw.in/engage/article/dilli-chalo-pulse-those-feed-nation 20. Singh, Charan. 2020. Summary and Bibliography Land Reforms in U.P. and the Kulaks, Charan Singh Archives, www.charansingh.org. 21. Srinivas, M. N. (1955) The Social System of a Mysore Village in "Village India: Studies in the Little Community (edited by McKim Marriott) Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. 22. The Wire. 2021. Why the Farmers' Movement Can't Ignore Landless Dalits of Western UP Anymore, https://thewire.in/agriculture/why-the-farmers-movement-cant-ignore-landless-dalits-of-western-up-anymore (14-04-2021). 23. Verma, S. Gulati, A. and Hussain, S. 2017. Doubling Agricultural Growth in Uttar Pradesh: Sources and Drivers of Agricultural Growth and Policy Lessons, Working Paper 335, New Delhi: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.