THE BARDOLI MOVEMENT OF 1928 WAS AN AMPLIFICATION OF A MINOR AGRARIAN ISSUE: THE METHOD OF REVENUE ASSESSMENT AND REVISION. THE ISSUE OF LAND CONTROL AND LAND USE WERE OUT TOUCHED UPON BY THE GANDHIANS. THE AUTHOR POINTS OUT THAT AGRARIAN OR PEASANT MOVEMENTS OF GANDHIAN VARIETY MUST BE SEEN AS INGREDIENTS OF GANDHI'S POWER POLITICS AND AS INSTRUMENTS OF RICH PEASANTS TO MAINTAIN THEIR POWER.
The farmers' movement in Maharashtra was understood as, and identified essentially with, economism—raising demands related to prices of farm produce, inputs and agricultural credit, etc. However, the Shetkari Sanghatana did attempt to go far beyond simple economic demands. It involved women in its numerous agitations—like rasta roko, rail roko, blockade of the Collector's office at the district and also at local levels between 1980 and 1994. However, the movement sought women's liberation and gender equity without any cogent critique of patriarchy; instead the agenda document prepared by Joshi reaffirmed its position regarding marriage and family institution as indispensable. Women's mass mobilisation was thus only an entry point for the Sanghatana into electoral politics that it had eschewed initially. The Sanghatana thus used the agenda of women' s liberation and empowerment as a sheer token symbolism and women's mass mobilisation as an instrument of its pragmatic populist politics. While it raised women's hopes, this strategy left many women activists in total despair.
