ABSTRACT
In this chapter, an attempt is made to examine why the farmers in Maharashtra, who had shown rebellious spirit during the second half of the nineteenth century and almost till the aftermath of the green revolution in the 1970s and 1980s, resorted to killing themselves in the post-reform period. Firstly, it tries to compare the agrarian conditions that led to the Deccan Riots in 1875, the emergence of the farmers’ movement in the 1970s and 1980s, and the farmer suicides since the 1990s. Secondly, it analyses the politics of the farmers’ movement in the state to explain the inability of the distressed farmers in undertaking collective political action since the 1990s (the post-reform period). Ultimately, the chapter intends to explore the connections between theories of collective action and problems of farmers’ resistance, and examine, specifically, the compelling conditions for suicides.
