India’s Deepening Agrarian Distress: Impact of the Changing Trade Scenario on Indian Farmers in Light of Capitalism and Neo-liberalism

A Agriculture has been a key contributor to India’s growth story. However, on the other hand, reality also stands true that Indian agriculture is impaired by a prolonged silent distress, widely indicated by the farmer suicides that are extensively reported since past few decades. The Indian economy's economic convergence with the global markets has put major obstacles at the Indian agricultural sector 's gateway. Several articles, reports and related works have been published that have highlighted the negative impacts of this economic integration and have pointed out that the said integration has directly or indirectly created circumstances for extensive farmer suicides. Different works on particular empirical aspects have focused on agrarian issues such as the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) negative impact on Indian agricultural trading, increased costs of production, rise in farmers’ indebtedness, agricultural crisis due to erratic climatic conditions, diminishing support of the state etc. These issues have directly/indirectly created circumstances for farmers to commit suicides. In this work, there is an overlap between two substantial fields of study i.e. Indian agrarian studies on one hand and International trade Law and it’s subsequent impact on India’s domestic policy making, on the other hand. The need of the hour is that a framework must be build up by reloading the aforementioned traditional agrarian question in globalization context that would effectively address the current agrarian crisis in India in trade context as well. Earlier the formation and impact of capitalism was traced in Indian agriculture under the traditional agrarian question. However, currently the formation and impact of globalization and neoliberalism in Indian agriculture have to be traced and assessed. Furthermore, the government of India has initiated various programs to promote the adoption of technologies like AI and IoT in agriculture. These technologies are aimed at addressing the global food security challenge and improving sustainability in the agricultural sector. This work purposely omits discussion on 2020-2021 farmer protests in India since it requires a separate discussion in length & breadth.