ABSTRACT
This chapter dwells on how Indian farmers today are as worse off as the fictional characters in Munshi Premchand’s Godan, an epic work on Indian farmer conditions in the 1930s. I revisit Premchand’s book to refresh the insight it provides and then address my field visits to Indian farmers in Karnataka, Gujarat and West Bengal, which left me stunned with the realization that nothing has changed in farmers’ lives. Their marginalization still continues, and their existential battle even today is to save the Three Bigha Fort, which is how they thought of their land, in the metaphor that Premchand used for them. After discussing the socioeconomic conditions and the farm economics of the farmers, this chapter lists the topical issues related to Indian farmers by referring specifically to West Bengal farmers.
