ABSTRACT

This chapter explores critical changes in the terms of the first transaction as these have been expressed and experienced over the past 30 years by farmers, traders, labourers, and market functionaries involved in making and managing a regulated primary market in Madhya Pradesh. Outside the world of agricultural marketing in Madhya Pradesh, the abolition of the kachi arhat pratha in this state is a little-known reform. The impetus for the abolition of the kachi arhat pratha in Madhya Pradesh in the early 1980s came from a high-powered political decision by the State Government, then under the Congress Party. On the ground, across the market towns of Madhya Pradesh, the implementation of the State Government's policy was never going to be easy. Each mandi presented different challenges arising from its particular local context, including different agricultural conditions, trading and credit systems, and local political dynamics.