When promises run dry: Maharashtra’s farmers and the post-Diwali uprising

When hundreds of farmers descended on Nagpur in late October under the banner of the Prahar Janshakti Party led by Bacchu Kadu, the protests came as a post-Diwali dhamaka (fireworks).

Filled in tractors, carts, vehicles, or marching on foot, the agitated farmers blocked a large stretch of the National Highway on the southern tip of the city, home to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, paralysing traffic and laying siege to the outskirts.

Also read | Farmers' protest shakes Nagpur; HC warns against traffic blockade

They came to Maharashtra’s winter capital with an urgent demand: among other things, a farm debt waiver. The groundswell of support from farmers across the state for this flash-mob-like agitation reflected deep unrest and a deeper failure – a tattering farm economy and an unfulfilled pre-poll promise.

Failed promises, failed crops

Just a year ago, before the Assembly elections, the BJP–Shiv Sena (Shinde)–NCP (Ajit Pawar) coalition, or Mahayuti, had dangled the carrot of a total farm-loan waiver. This came after Rs 1,500 a month was doled out to women under the Ladki Bahin (beloved sister) scheme by the previous Eknath Shinde-led government. The promise of debt waiver had calcified into a political expectation, and that’s what the agitating farmers came flagging, holding a mirror to the Fadnavis cabinet.

There was a trigger and a context to this sudden outburst of anger. The immediate spark was catastrophic weather: extreme monsoon events and heavy downpour in September flattened standing soybean, cotton, sugarcane, paddy, and other crops across most parts of the state, wiping out income and inflicting deep losses on already indebted small farmers.

That was not all. Domestic prices for key commodities have been rallying much lower than support prices for several years. Take soybean, for instance, Maharashtra’s major kharif crop: the crop has suffered a maximum damage this year, but its prices are hovering at Rs 3,500-4,300 per quintal in different mandis, lower than the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 5,328 for 2025-26. Mandi cotton prices are around Rs 6,500 or less per quintal, against the MSP range of Rs 7,700–8,100 depending on quality and staple length. Vast stretches of farmland under soybeans and cotton now lie devastated by heavy rains.

Tariffs deepen agrarian crisis

Adding to farmers’ woes are choppy global markets, currently unsettled by the Trump tariffs and the US-China trade war. Cotton and soybeans are globally traded commodities; major policy shifts or tariffs in distant markets create a ripple effect into the domestic markets. The already sluggish commodity prices before the onset of Trump’s steep tariffs on India fell further after their imposition and coincided with climate disruptions in September, breaking the back and confidence of a beleaguered peasantry.

Signs of economic pain were writ large: farmers’ suicides spiked, migration picked up, and distress among rain-hit populations deepened.

To add fuel to the fire, the state government’s early-October promise to deposit relief aid before Diwali was not kept. Fadnavis had announced Rs 32,000 crore, including crop insurance payments and per-hectare compensation for crop and livestock losses. The aid has only just begun reaching farmers’ accounts in a staggered manner. Cash-strapped and saddled with high revenue and fiscal deficits, the government has had to divert money from other welfare schemes to fund populist programmes like the Ladki Bahin Yojana. Even state contractors are on the warpath over unpaid dues. But that’s another story.

In short, global trade rumblings, climatic aberrations, and domestic weaknesses converged to create the perfect conditions for unrest over deepening distress.

Maverick leader ignites movement

Enter Omprakash alias Bacchu Kadu, the maverick four-time independent MLA, founder of the Prahar Janshakti Party, a small sub-regional force, and a former minister of state.

A grassroots leader from the neighbouring Achalpur constituency in Amravati district in western cotton belt of Vidarbha belonging to the OBC and known for his antics, Kadu mobilised a pan-regional congregation and got an overwhelming response from the peasantry across the state.

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So much so that different farmers’ bodies and the political opposition in Maharashtra threw their weight behind him, given the massive response to his Maha-Elgar Morcha – a clarion call to occupy Nagpur immediately after Diwali, even as the bureaucracy and Nagpurians were still in festive mode. For the first time in years, Kadu brought together all factions of the erstwhile Shetkari Sanghatna and the ideologically divergent All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) of the CPI(M) on one platform. The timing was no coincidence.

Politics meets farm unrest

Kadu, who lost the 2024 Assembly election from his pocket borough, is trying to reclaim his lost ground and expand his outfit’s footprint ahead of the long-pending local body elections.

These elections, due in 2021–22, were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a Supreme Court case on OBC and Maratha reservation. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court directed the State Election Commission to hold local body polls on the old reservation muster, even as it continues to hear the case, since local bodies have been under administrators for years. Kadu’s outfit has a traction in pockets of Vidarbha.

Determined to reclaim his political turf, Kadu had been quietly working for six months to revive a long-dormant peasant movement that is both regional and nationally connected. In late September, a team from the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) – the alliance of farmers’ groups born out of the 2020–21 Delhi protests – toured three Vidarbha districts to understand the region’s chronic agrarian issues and explore alliances. Kadu hosted a massive SKM rally in rural Amravati and warned of imminent protests if the Fadnavis government failed to keep its debt waiver promise. Thus, the Nagpur protest was both a socio-economic mobilisation and a strategic political manoeuvre.

Waivers without lasting reform

Farm debt waivers have long been a politically potent tool but fail to address structural flaws in the rural economy – fragmenting landholdings, poor incomes, rising costs, erratic weather, soil degradation, and failing institutions. Even when implemented, waivers are often linked to land titles, excluding tenant farmers, delayed by bureaucracy, limited in scope, and sometimes crippled by the digital divide. Maharashtra has seen it all before – a recurring cycle of promises, protests, and committees. The outcome was no different this time.

As the farmers’ protest simmered on October 29, its second day, the ruling regime moved to contain it. It sent two representatives for talks with Kadu and other leaders at the protest site. The next day, Fadnavis spoke to Kadu and invited him and his team to Mumbai for a meeting to resolve the issue.

The fact that Kadu’s agitation enjoyed broad political support was not lost on the ruling regime, which saw it as a potential proxy to draw rural votes in the upcoming zilla parishad, municipal council, and panchayat elections.

Deadline won, trust deferred

Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court took suo motu cognisance of the protests and ordered the police to clear the site immediately. Heavy rains on the third day further pushed Kadu and other leaders to call off the protest and agree to attend the Mumbai meeting. The decision split the protesters, as many farmers wanted to continue the sit-in until the government accepted their demands.

Also read | Will take decision on farm loan waiver by June 30 next year, says Maharashtra CM

On November 1, Fadnavis agreed to set up a high-level expert committee to study the issue and draft a roadmap for a debt waiver, with June 2026 as the deadline to announce a total waiver. The idea was to cover the outstanding loans of the 2025–26 fiscal year – a common understanding between the two sides.

Both parties walked away claiming victory. Kadu and his supporters secured a government commitment with a deadline, while the cash-strapped administration bought time to deal with a fiscally difficult decision.

“This is only the end of the first phase – the movement will continue,” Kadu declared in Mumbai after his meeting with the chief minister. “We will launch a fiercer protest if the promise is not kept.”

By November 1, traffic was restored, and calm returned to Nagpur. Farmers cleared the highway, leaving behind both a reminder and a warning to the state government.