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On Political Front In August 1979, when Sharad Joshi launched Shetkari Sanghatana, he meticulously kept his work detached from politics. He was convinced that the main reason for the poverty of Indian farmers and consequently of the nation was that the farmer was not paid fair price for his produce and he was equally convinced that this was the result of the development policy adopted by successive governments. That policy was based on the Soviet model where, to keep workers and middle classes happy, prices of farm produce were deliberately kept low. The information about how much torture it meant for the Russian farmers, how their unrest was crushed under army tanks and how it eventually led to the weakening of the Soviet economy had not reached the Indian intellectuals till then. This was in a way understandable. For thirty years after the Second World War, between 1945 and 1975, Socialism was almost like the zeit geist (spirit of the times) in the world. Leaders like Ronald Regan in the United States, Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Deng Xiao Ping in China had totally reversed that policy in later years but somehow no such basic policy changes had taken place or even conceived of in India. Joshi had seen how different political parties had exploited the farmers. In his early meetings he used to say, ‘all political parties are thieves’ and people disillusioned with all the melodrama attached to the fiasco of the Janata Party would entirely agree with that. 242

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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage