The Countryside Is Burning

A lack of jobs and an abundant workforce have meant that the agrarian states of India have become tinderboxes waiting to catch fire.

- Abeer Kapoor

RIOTS, UNREST AND protesters are everywhere, from the lakhs who were part of the crowds in the Mukh Maratha protests to the thousands of tribals who took over Ranchi’s Mohrabadi ground. Farmers in Punjab blocking railways, and rioting against their farmlands being attacked by the ‘whitefly’ infestation; or the farmers who ran away from their fields in Marathwada to sleep at bus stops in Nashik; it could be the images of buses being burnt in Bengaluru and Mandya over the parched farmlands in the state, or Patels agitating all over Gujarat for reservation. There is little or no doubt that these images have become part and parcel of our everyday. 

Statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s annual report, “Crime in India”, reveal that in 2015, the number of ‘agrarian riots’ has increased by a whopping 327 percent. The number of cases of ‘agrarian rioting’ increased from 628 to 2,683 in one year. The bulk of these riots was recorded in three states: Bihar with the highest incidence of 1,156 (43%), Uttar Pradesh with 752 (28%) and Jharkhand with 303 (11%). Together these three states account for 82% of the total agrarian riots that were registered in the country. In total, only 15 states registered agrarian riots.