The proposal was not accepted by a provincial government, that possessed the authority to impose taxes but feared wealthy farmers' resistance. Under the circumstances, the central government was forced to reduce agricultural subsidies and review the crop price system. As a result, the prices of modern inputs rose, and real farmgate prices of foodgrains at fell. Accordingly, the terms of trade became increasingly unfavorable to agriculture in the latter half 1970s, when there was almost no need of imported foodgrains. This means that a favorable environment was prepared for industrialization, which led to resuming liberalization of economy. This trend naturally provoked wealthy farmers' resistance as reducing their revenues, and immediately put an end to the good relationship between the new wealthy farming class and the Congress. The Punjab riots and assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the 1980s are the extension of this current.
3-2 Farmers Turning To Pressure Groups5
As the terms of trade between the agricultural and industrial sectors were becoming disadvantageous to agriculture, the New Farmers' Movements grew active. The core of these movements were not the peasants (traditional farmers) but the modern farmers (commercial farmers) who had marketable surplus and were involved in the market economy as purchasers of modern agricultural inputs. The common features of the new farmers' movements were "anti-state" and "anti-urban", as symbolized in "India (Urban India) vs. Bharat (Rural India)" - the slogan of Sharad Joshi, who was the ideological mainstay of the new movements. The slogan of the former farmers' movements before the Green Revolution was "Land to the Tiller", and their political issues concerned land reform or the tenancy problems. But the 1970s new farmers' movement involved issues related to the market nexus such as price of crops and modem inputs, or subsidies, and encouraged lobbying activities.
