Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

                trigger_error($message, E_USER_WARNING);

            } else {
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

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-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues

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	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot; title=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues

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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger..."/>
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                <strong>Why farmers don&#039;t have electoral clout -Avik Saha and Yogendra Yadav</strong></h1>
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                <div align="justify">-Down to Earth<br /><br /><em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br /></em><br />Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br /><br />If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br /><br />Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br /><br />What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br /><br />The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br /><br />The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br /><br />Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358" title="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br /></div>               </font>
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-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot; title=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger...&#039;
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Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues

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                <div align="justify">-Down to Earth<br /><br /><em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br /></em><br />Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br /><br />If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br /><br />Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br /><br />What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br /><br />The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br /><br />The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br /><br />Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358" title="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br /></div>               </font>
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-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;
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Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot; title=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Why farmers don&amp;#039;t have electoral clout -Avik Saha and Yogendra Yadav&#039;,
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-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Down to Earth&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers&#039; issues&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &amp;ldquo;vote bank&amp;rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&amp;mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&amp;rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&amp;mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&amp;mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&amp;rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&amp;rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&amp;rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot; title=&quot;http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt; to read more. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues

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                <div align="justify">-Down to Earth<br /><br /><em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br /></em><br />Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br /><br />If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br /><br />Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br /><br />What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br /><br />The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br /><br />The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br /><br />Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358" title="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br /></div>               </font>
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-Down to Earth<br />
<br />
<em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br />
</em><br />
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br />
<br />
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br />
<br />
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br />
<br />
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br />
<br />
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br />
<br />
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br />
<br />
Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br />
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger...',
	'disp' => '<div align="justify">-Down to Earth<br /><br /><em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br /></em><br />Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br /><br />If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br /><br />Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br /><br />What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br /><br />The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br /><br />The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br /><br />Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358" title="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br /></div>',
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	'title' => 'Why farmers don&#039;t have electoral clout -Avik Saha and Yogendra Yadav',
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-Down to Earth<br />
<br />
<em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br />
</em><br />
Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br />
<br />
If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br />
<br />
Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br />
<br />
What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br />
<br />
The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br />
<br />
The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br />
<br />
Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br />
</div>',
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-Down to Earth

Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues

Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger...'
$disp = '<div align="justify">-Down to Earth<br /><br /><em>Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues<br /></em><br />Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its &ldquo;vote bank&rdquo;, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory.<br /><br />If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters&mdash;farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes.<br /><br />Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers&rsquo; issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon.<br /><br />What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government.<br /><br />The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers&mdash;class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour&mdash;and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action.<br /><br />The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers&rsquo; demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers&rsquo; issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers&rsquo; news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water!<br /><br />Please <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358" title="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/paradox-of-an-excluded-majority-59358">click here</a> to read more. <br /></div>'
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Why farmers don't have electoral clout -Avik Saha and Yogendra Yadav

-Down to Earth Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its “vote bank”, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy. Or so they say. And so they teach in democratic theory. If we go by this orthodoxy, farmers should have unmatched electoral clout in India. After all, they constitute a clear majority. Census tells us that farmers (including agriculture labour) are about 54 per cent of our workforce. In the last parliamentary election, 542 million of the 834 million voters were rural voters—farmers and those dependent on agrarian economy. All available evidence indicates that they vote at least as much, if not more, than other classes such as industrial workers or urban middle classes. Yet we know that they do not matter. Elections are not fought around farmers’ issues. Party manifestos make a fleeting, often rhetorical, reference to farmers. Once elected, parties conveniently forget their promises. Democratically-elected governments do not bother about farmers. The Union government in the 2017-18 budget allocated just 11 per cent of its expenditure to the entire rural sector, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, rural housing, crop insurance, irrigation, roads, fertilisers and all. Speak to ordinary farmers and they hardly sound like sovereign voters. Farmers are nobodies, resigned to being used and thrown. Here is a majority that is routinely excluded, if not trampled upon. What explains this paradox? First, there is a problem of awareness among the farmers. They face distress but often blame themselves, nature or fate for this condition. It takes a lot for a farmer to connect his condition to state policies and to think that it can be redressed by governmental action. While there is a desire for change in their own lot, it is often not directed towards the government. The second problem is an aggregation of individual desires into a collective demand. Farmers have historically remained divided along multiple layers—class divisions between land-owning peasant-proprietor, sharecropper and farm labour—and political divisions across states and parties have fragmented the voice of farmers and hampered collective action. The third, and perhaps, the biggest problem is the articulation of farmers’ demands in the public sphere. The nature of modern mass media in India is such that it masks the farmers’ issue, along with many other issues that do not connect to its principal consumers, the urban middle classes. The indifference of the dominant English media takes the form of downscaling and masking of farmer-related issues. The bigger but subservient media in the Indian languages ends up localising the farmers’ news. The combined effect is catastrophic: informed urban Indians did not know about the severe drought that devastated the country in 2015 till a cricket match was stopped due to shortage of water! Please click here to read more.