122 CHAPTER 9


national trade liberalization and the negotiations over the General Agree- ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Two interstate coordination committees of farmers emerged at the national level: one led by Sharad Joshi, who favored liberalization, and the other led by Mohinder Singh Tikait, who opposed it. In 1989, Punjab’s BKU split into two factions, one of which sided with Joshi. A further split occurred in 1994, so that three BKU groups emerged: one aligned with the economic liberalization reforms, one engaged in party politics, and one drifting toward the leftist farmers’ organizations (Gill 2000, 2004). The group involved in party politics cooperated with the SAD and promoted the boycott of the state assembly elections in 1992. The Congress Party won these elections as a consequence of the boycott. The first competitive assem- bly elections eventually took place in 1997.


Between 1984 and 1997, concerns grew over the sustainability of Punjab’s agricultural development. As early as 1985, the GoP had appointed a commis- sion led by the distinguished agricultural economist S. S. Johl. The commis- sion argued for crop diversification and recommended a reduction of at least 20 percent of the area under rice and wheat. The committee acknowledged a need for subsidized electricity but emphasized that the costs should at least partly reflect the scarcity value of the resource so as to create incentives for efficient use. Other recommendations included the checking of electricity theft and the contracting out of electric supply at the village transformers to local unemployed graduates. Given the political circumstances, however, neither the recommendations regarding electricity nor those regarding crop diversification were implemented.


1997–2007: Electoral Competition and the Rise of the Free-Electricity Policy


1997–2002: SAD-Led Government


By the 1997 elections, identity politics had lost its appeal, and economic and social issues started to dominate the election campaigns (Jodhka 2000; Kumar and Kumar 2002). The SAD took a “secular turn” (Narang 1999). Moreover, agitation against the national government, which had been a major theme for the party, lost its importance (Kumar 1999). Instead, subsidies became a focus of the 1997 election campaigns. The Congress Party, which governed between 1992 and 1997, also switched from liberal market reforms to a focus on subsi- dies for various sections of society. A committee report found that the explicit subsidies doubled between 1994–95 and 1996–99 (Kumar 1999, 304). As in Andhra Pradesh, before the elections, all parties declared themselves in favor of subsidies, even those that had previously been committed to liberalization. As Kumar (1999, 304) observes: “Interestingly, all the dominant political par-


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