Political Economy of Agrarian Crisis and Subsistence Under Neoliberalism in India

Indian State, in the neoliberal era, no longer intervenes in the agricultural markets and provides market stabilisation, input subsidies, technology and extension, etc. Instead, it offers various welfare schemes to the targeted sections of poor. Amidst all this, a steady groundswell of small farmers joining the petty commodity production is becoming the marker of Indian agriculture. This presents a rather curious picture of persistent petty production as a dominant mode of production, which differs considerably from the experience in agrarian transition elsewhere. Petty commodity production in agriculture becomes means of survival for a large majority under a particular historical-political conditions post-colonial capitalist democracy. The key questions in this context considered are: first, how does this petty production increase under conditions of distress? Second, how do small farmers cope with the conditions of distress? And third, how does the State address the distress and reproduce its hegemony and power over the masses? This paper engages with these questions in framework of neoliberal governmentality and political economy of agrarian transition