UPSC Mains 2019 GS Paper 2 Q3: model answer
What are the methods used by the farmers’ organisations to influence the policy-makers in India and how effective are these methods?
What the question wants
Describe the methods farmers' organisations use to influence policy-makers and judge how effective they are.
How to structure it
Methods + effectiveness: list methods, then judge with examples.
- Methods
- Effective cases
- Limits
- Verdict
How to think it through
Farmers vote in large numbers, so they matter. But they are divided by crop, caste and region. Use Tikait (1988), Sharad Joshi and MSP agitations.
Model answer
In January 1988 Mahendra Singh Tikait's Bharatiya Kisan Union surrounded the Meerut commissioner's office for weeks; in October it filled Delhi's Boat Club lawns. India's farmers form the largest occupational group, yet their unions win only when they act together.
Methods
- Mass agitations: rallies, rail and road blockades; the BKU's 1988 Boat Club rally.
- Electoral pressure: farmer votes in UP, Punjab and Maharashtra.
- Lobbying: memoranda on MSP and loan waivers.
- Litigation: cases on land acquisition and GM crops.
- Alliances with parties and trade unions.
How effective?
- Won repeated loan waivers before state elections and steady MSP increases, including the 2018 rule of MSP at 1.5 times cost.
- Shaped the land acquisition law of 2013.
- The 2020–21 protest forced repeal of the three farm laws.
Limits
- Divided by region and crop; large farmers dominate.
- Landless labourers and tenants are not represented.
- Gains are often short-term: waivers rather than irrigation, prices rather than productivity.
Farmers' organisations are effective in blocking change and winning relief when united, but weaker in shaping long-term reform. Consulting them before laws, not after protests, is wiser.
Draw: A ladder of methods, from memoranda to blockades, with a tick for each recent success.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
BKU, Shetkari Sanghatana, AIKS, Samyukt Kisan Morcha, MSP, farm laws repeal 2021, LARR Act 2013.
Where most answers lose marks
- Listing methods without effectiveness.
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Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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