Issue and Opponent: Sarekoppa Bangarappa was an Indian politician who became the 12th Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1990 to 1992. His long-lasting political career stretched for 44 years and was marred by scandals, scams, corrupt practices, and party-hopping for self-benefit. The issue in this dilemma action stemmed from Bangarappa’s farm bills that jeopardized the well-being of smallholders in Karnataka. The peasant movement in Karnataka, a southwestern region in India, has a long history since the days of the Dinakar Desai-led land struggle in the 1940s and the famous Kagodu Satyagraha in 1951. The 1980s saw the beginning of what is called the New Farmers’ Movement in different parts of India. They protested the terms of trade going against agriculture, the declining purchasing power, unremunerative prices, the agriculture losing proposition, the increase in input prices, and the declining per capita income from agriculture, among other issues. A passionate Gandhian, the scholar-activist Professor MD Nanjundaswamy, was among the founders, in 1980, of the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha (KRRS), a farmers’ group which opposed the corporatization of agriculture and the entry of multinational corporations into India. At its height, in the mid-1990s, the KRRS had up to 10m members. Very few KRRS demonstrations were, in fact, remotely violent. The professor, who had an impish humor, once organized 10,000 people to sit down outside Bangalore town hall and do nothing but laugh at “democracy”.
Dilemma Action: On September 1, 1992, Mr. Nanjundaswamy gathered 50,000 farmers to sit outside the state secretariat and tried to “laugh the Government of Chief Minister S. Bangarappa out”. They had tried all the usual forms of nonviolent protest but the State Government remained unmoved by the farmers’ plea for land reforms and an increase in produce prices. The farmers’ only reward was getting arrested or shot. The farmers, surrounded by policemen, just sat on the lawn outside the Government building and told jokes against Mr. Bangarappa. After warming up the farmers with a little word-play, it was enough simply to say “Bangarappa!” over the megaphone and the farmers would shake with laughter. The laugh-in was one of the many actions against Bangarappa and his political party, organized by opposition parties.
Outcome: The police made no arrests and no public property was damaged. When confronted with this mockery, Mr. Bangarappa did not flee the secretariat weeping and immediately resign, but in the elections later that year he was replaced. This action was part of the New Farmers Movement in Karnataka, India, that continued working together for better agricultural policies. From that perspective, this action had an amplifying effect.