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 The land under cotton cultivation in Maharashtra has been fairly large; mostly in Vidarbha region followed by Marathwada. Compared with the farmers in other parts of the State, farmers in Vidarbha were considered prosperous. It was not uncommon to have holdings of over a hundred acres. District of Yavatmal was particularly famous for large cotton fields. Just for the transportation of cotton the British had constructed a zigzag network of meter gauge railway spanning this entire district. Paradoxically, the same district is today known for farmers’ suicides. Out of the total land under cotton cultivation in India 36% lay in Maharashtra, but its share of total cotton production was barely 17%. It was because only 4% of the land under cotton cultivation in Maharashtra was irrigated, the remaining 96% depended entirely on rain. If it did not rain adequately, the crop was lost. The yield per acre per year in the State was also less than a quintal; which was about half the national average. The number of people who depended on this crop was also large. Traditionally the farmer kept planting cotton and barring the exception like soya bean other crops were generally not tried. Every year around October the cotton crop came out and every year the farmer sunk even deeper into debt. After onion, sugarcane and tobacco, Shetkari Sanghatana (SS) launched its agitation for cotton farmers. Around 1980-81 Sharad Joshi had gone on a ten-day tour of Vidarbha. Pune journalist Satish Kamat had accompanied him and according to the information given to this writer by Kamat, Vijay Jawandhiya, Shrikant Taral, Arvind Nalkande and Ravi Kashikar had organized that tour. Jawandhiya was already into the struggle for farmers in Vidarbha. Kashikar, coming from farming background, was also involved in a lot of social activities and both were admirers of Joshi. The duo organized several meetings for Joshi in ten districts of Vidarbha. They were moving around in a car stopping at different places to 154

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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage