Page:Sharad Joshi - Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage.pdf/117

 just about accommodate two tables, four chairs and two wooden benches; but the location was good. Farmers could easily come there when they had to visit the market. Market place was very important in the rural area. Every farmer from the nearby villages visited it. During that visit he would go across to the APMC Yard to check the on-going prices. Joshi expected every farmer to drop in at the SS office at least for a few minutes. That was an opportunity to talk. Joshi sat in the office every morning. He was now giving more time to the SS than to his own farming. Unfortunately, the farmers were still not used to having anything like an organization and very few used to drop in. To develop contact with the farmers Joshi and his colleagues started touring different villages and organizing local meetings. But there was a physical limit to how much one could travel and at the same time keeping in touch with the farmers was necessary. This is where an idea came up to start a weekly paper. But for starting a weekly, a lot of formalities had to be first completed. Babulal Pardeshi came up with a solution. He said to Joshi, ‘I have in mind to start a weekly to spread bhakti marg, and for that I have got the title Warkari registered from the Registrar of Newspapers in Delhi. I have my own printing press as well. If you agree we can make that weekly the voice of our organization.’ In the beginning Joshi was a little skeptical. The title Warkari (Pilgrim) had religious overtones and for a fighting revolutionary organization it seemed incongruous. But then to get any other name approved was a job of at least six months. He did not want to wait that long. So Warkari started coming out as a weekly mouthpiece of SS from 3 November 1979. The 4page issue printed on cheap newsprint was priced at 30 paise, annual subscription was Rs. 15 and life subscription Rs. 151. For the launch, it was felt that everyone attending would be 104

Q

Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage