All farmers present welcomed Joshi’s concluding remarks with a thunderous applause. Sugarcane agitation was significant for many reasons. Bombay-Agra was one of the main highways and when that remained closed for four days at a stretch it became national news. Apart from Maharashtra Assembly, this agitation was also discussed in Parliament. In fact the news of the farmers agitating had reached overseas as well. In the autobiography mentioned above, Advocate Ghumare had mentioned, ‘Comrade L. M. Patil of Nashik was then in Russia and he had read the news in Moscow. He told me later that all the comrades discussed this news in Moscow.’ This agitation was much more widespread than the one in Chakan. In Chakan, the number of farmers who were jailed was about three hundred to three fifty. In sugarcane agitation, over 31,000 farmers were arrested; hundred times more than those arrested at Chakan. These figures were also startling. Sugarcane was a much larger crop compared to onions. For Maharashtra, its entire politics revolved around sugarcane. Naturally, the impact of this agitation was much wider than the onion agitation. The economy of sugarcane was also far bigger than the onion economy. This agitation created a group of new leaders and new followers for SS. Ordinary farmer became much bolder after this agitation. Earlier he was very scared of the police. That fear was considerably diminished after that agitation. He now had the confidence that he could bear lathi blows from the police, go to jail, and fight hard for his rights. This self-confidence-building amongst farmers was important for future struggles. Of course Joshi was well-aware that this was just the beginning and he had a long way to go in his mission of giving dignity and freedom to the Indian farmers. Q
Bitter Story of Sugarcane
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