India continues to be an agrarian economy, with 45 percent of its workforce still employed
in agriculture. An understanding of India’s development is incomplete without a reading
of its agricultural policy and its impact and how this trajectory is linked to the country’s
economic and political history. This standalone graduate-level course ‘Agriculture Policy
and Development in India: Major Debates in Political Economy’, aims to provide a
historical overview of India’s agricultural policy and characteristics of agricultural
development across different phases. The course will further introspect how these
developments have shaped agrarian mobilizations, featuring farmers’ and agricultural
workers’ demands.

This is a taught and discussion-based course, with each lecture designed around a different theme or debate related to India’s agriculture policy and development. The lectures will approach these themes and debates spanning across the postcolonial to contemporary period by engaging with key and essential readings. Readings will cover writings from History, Economics, Political Science and Rural Sociology- introducing multiple concepts, providing an inter-disciplinary understanding towards the study of agricultural policy and India’s agricultural development. A mix of theoretical debates and empirical studies will keep this course grounded in a political-economy framework.

The course will cover broadly four phases of agricultural policy and development, which can be identified as the 1) initial years after post-independence

2) new agricultural strategy of the 1960s

3) agricultural growth and big farmers’ movement of 1970-80s

4) globalization and neoliberal policies since 1990s.