Bengaluru: From women confronting land survey officials with brooms to sugarcane growers marching towards a Union minister’s residence, recent protests show Karnataka’s farmers can still compel the govt to respond. However, the impact of these localised agitations also highlights how far the state’s farmers’ movement has weakened.North Karnataka sugarcane farmers suspended their week-long ‘Hubballi Chalo’ agitation on Monday after talks with Union minister Pralhad Joshi, giving the Centre and state govt until Nov 26 to address their demands.Led by Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene president Chunappa Pujeri, farmers began a padayatra towards Joshi’s Hubballi residence after blocking the Pune-Bengaluru national highway, disrupting traffic to neighbouring states for consecutive days. Maharashtra farmer leader Raju Shetti joined the protest.The Centre’s decision on Oct 14 to set up a committee to examine growers’ demands did not stop the march. Chief minister DK Shivakumar travelled to Kittur in Belagavi district on Oct 17 to appeal for an end to the agitation. With the crushing season stalled, he wrote to PM Modi, arguing that the core demands required central govt intervention. Late-night talks with Joshi led to the protest’s suspension.A month earlier, women farmers in Mandalahalli had confronted survey officials with brooms during a survey for proposed Greater Bengaluru Integrated Township near Bidadi. On July 15, Shivakumar said a committee would review its merits, drawbacks and legal aspects, and assured farmers that land would not be acquired forcibly.These protests show that farmers can still force a response, though the wider movement has lost much of its reach.Its roots go back to the 1951 Kagodu Satyagraha in Shivamogga, when tenants challenged feudal landlords under Ram Manohar Lohia’s influence. The agitation helped build a case for land reforms introduced under Devaraj Urs in the 1970s, creating a class of landowning farmers.The 1980 Nargund-Navalgund agitation against a betterment levy ended in police firing that killed two farmers; two policemen also died. The unrest helped end Congress governance in 1983 and brought Ramakrishna Hegde to the helm. July 21 is observed as Farmers’ Martyrs’ Day.Nargund helped fuel the rise of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha under Prof MD Nanjundaswamy, uniting farmers across caste and region. Green-shawled activists organised statewide blockades, while Babagouda Patil took their cause to Parliament. In 1996, KRRS activists vandalised Bengaluru’s first KFC outlet to protest economic liberalisation.Nanjundaswamy’s death in 2004 and a dispute over a memorial trust split KRRS and ended mobilisation under one banner. Leaders including Kurubur Shanthakumar, Kodihalli Chandrashekar and Badagalapura Nagendra now lead local, issue-based agitations.“Karnataka’s farmers’ movement has steadily lost its sheen, largely due to declining leadership credibility,” said C Mallesh, a former Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha leader. “Some farmers’ organisations have also identified with political parties and hold rallies against the Centre at a party’s behest, and vice versa. Therefore, only some genuine protests make an impact,” he said.
