Sharad Anantrao Joshi, 81, the founder of Swatantra Bharat Paksh party and Shetkari Sanghatana, who passed away on December 12 in Pune, will long be remembered as the leader who gave voice to thousands of illiterate farmers to fight for their right to market access and remunerative prices.
Joshi? arrived on the Maharashtra political scene in 1978 when he formed the Shetkari Sanghatana with the ideologue of "remunerative agricultural prices" and "freedom of access to markets and technology" for farmers. Later through association with other prominent farmer leaders like Mahendra Singh Tikait and M D Nanjundaswamy, Joshi raised the slogan of the 'Bharat-India', a divide which became a new idiom of rural mobilisation. Through the 1980s, Joshi also spearheaded many anti-globalisation agitations.
"Joshiji was a university for farmers. He was not just a man of words but someone who believed in leading by example," says Raju Shetti, Member of Parliament from Hatkanangle constituency in Maharashtra, who was once a part of Joshi's Shetkari Sanghatana but split in 2004 to form his breakaway farmers' outfit Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana.
Shetti recalls that after his victory in the 2014 parliamentary elections, Joshi had congratulated him for helping realise the dream of being a farmers' voice in parliament.
"I may have fought and split from his organisation but he remained a father figure in my life whom I often consulted,” says Shetti.
A scholar, who wrote several books on agriculture issues, Joshi gave up a decade-long lucrative assignment in Switzerland with the International Bureau of Universal Postal Union (UPU) to return to India in 1977 to take up the farmers' cause.
?Among his earliest agitations, which struck the right chord with farmers, was the fight to ensure better prices for onion and cotton growers of Maharashtra.? "He made a good start by bringing together farmers including women groups under the cooperative umbrella of Shetkari Sanghatana. He not only wanted to ensure proper remunerative prices for farm produce but also help farmers adopt technology as per need," recalls Krishan Bir Chaudhary, executive chairman of Bharat Krishak Samaj.
Ironically, the man who strived to make women groups in rural Maharashtra a voice to be reckoned with, reportedly was the lone member of Rajya Sabha to have opposed 33 per ?cent reservation for women in parliament.
Long known to be a Congress supporter, Chaudhary says it was Joshi's constant jibe, particularly during the parliament standing committee deliberations on the proposed seeds bill in 2006, that "it was the party that I was associated with that had destroyed farmers and taken away their rights" that made him switch political affiliations to BJP.
Prof Sudhir Panwar, President, Kisan Jagriti Manch, recalls that in the late 1970s and 1980s Joshi was among the strongest farm leaders in Maharashtra whom no political party in the state could ignore.
?"It was a time when he could have been very active and most effective in politics but he chose to remain outside politics, trying to influence policies to work in farmers' favour. He came with a lot of new ideas to unite and guide farmers in a non-political group,” says Panwar.? "He was not a protectionist but someone who wanted to integrate farmers with the market to ensure remunerative prices for crops for most sustainable agriculture?,"? he adds.?
Unfortunately, Joshi's attempt to extend the movement across the country with other like-?minded farm leaders did not achieve much success. Farm leaders recall that it was not unusual for over one lakh farmers to lend him support every time he called for agitation seeking better prices whether for sugarcane, cotton, or onion prices.
Joshi's move into politics as Rajya Sabha member from 2004-10 to "become a voice in parliament", when he served on numerous parliamentary committees, did serve to put more focus on farm issues but failed to achieve the desired outcomes as most of the studies on improving agriculture did not translate into effective policies.
Born in Satara, Maharashtra, on September 3, 1935, Joshi gave voice to many of his concerns through columns in publications like the Times of India, Business India, and Lokmat.
?"For Joshi, there was never any compromise where farmers' interests were concerned. He strongly believed fight is a part of life. It was because he wanted to raise farmers' issues in parliament that he chose to enter politics," says Shetti.
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"He taught farmers to oppose wrong government policies and not depend on government to resolve them, strongly believing that government is the root cause of the problem," added Shetti of his ideological guru.
