week: 8-14 December
Sharad Anantrao Joshi, the last of the famous farmer leader trinity comprising of Mahendra Singh Tikait and M D Nanjundaswamy as the other two, passed away.
He had been at the forefront of mass agitations on agrarian issue through the 1980s and 1990s.
He was the founder of Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, an autonomous grassroot based farmer’ movement.
This sanghatan kept a distance from mainstream political parties.
Mr. Joshi also founded Swatantra Bharat Paksh which allied itself with BJP- Shiv Sena ahead of the 2004 LS elections.
He was a believer of free agricultural market. He was a vociferous supporter of trade liberalisation and globalisation under the auspices of the WTO.
He had also moved a private member’s bill in Rajya Sabha, seeking deletion of the word Socialism from the RPA Act that required parties to swear allegiance to the philosophy for obtaining registration.
He welcomed multinationals, as they would bring in state of the art technology, establish new capacities, and expand the universe of buyers to whom farmers could sell.