The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy Reform in India

POLITICS OF ELECTRICITY SUPPLY TO AGRICULTURE 139

almost all the different stakeholder groups. For example, the Liberal Farmers’ movement clearly endorses the market-oriented paradigm, whereas the All India Kisan Sabha is associated with the welfare-state-oriented paradigm. In addition to the market- and the welfare-state-centered discourse coali- tions, a number of interviewees also referred to community-based approaches, although none associated themselves exclusively with this paradigm. Because it did not emerge as a dominant theme in the interviews, this paradigm is not included in Tables 10.1 and Table 10.2. However, the community-oriented para- digm is described in the section “Decentralization and Electricity Cooperatives.” Among the organizations covered in this research project, only one group could be identified that in fact engaged in sustained joint action and could therefore be considered as an advocacy group, as defined by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993; see “Discourse Coalitions” in Chapter 3): the PMGER in Andhra Pradesh (see Box 10.1). The organizations that constitute PMGER belong mainly to the welfare-state-oriented discourse coalition, but they represent different sectors: agriculture, energy, and the environment. These groups came together mainly to oppose the privatization of the power sector. The position that this coalition has promoted—free electricity for agriculture in combina- tion with water- and energy-saving measures—can be considered as a pack- age that addresses the concerns of different constituents: farmers, who are interested in financial relief; environmentalists, who acceded to the farmers’ demands as a temporary emergency measure, but do not want to see sustain- ability goals compromised; and energy-sector employees and engineers, who consider public-sector reform a better model than privatization. As in the case of fertilizer subsidy reform, the interviews indicate that each discourse coalition is associated with a positive self-representation and a negative other-representation (see “The Role of Ideas” in Chapter 6, and Table 6.1). For example, a member of the market-oriented discourse coali- tion commented: “Well, there are . . . anachronistic farmers’ organizations, which want to continue with the old way. They would say that the govern- ment should protect them even now. But what I call the mainstream farmers’ movement has succeeded in educating the farmers . . . that the government help ultimately comes out to be very expensive.”3 One academic interviewee identified international organizations as the adversarial “others”: “I would say, it [that is, subsidies to farmers] is an economic measure which is driven by an economic necessity. . . . And of course, all these big shots then come from the U.S. and say it’s all terrible, when they are living very subsidized lives.” This interviewee also criticized reform proponents who defend tax

3 Interview with representative of the Liberal Farmers’ Movement, New Delhi, January 10, 2006.

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