Resistance takes centre stage

A tribute to a charismatic leader of the farmers’ movement in Karnataka is now going to venues across Karnataka.

Direct Action is a long overdue tribute to Prof M D Nanjundaswamy (1936-2004), and brings back memories of a farmers’ movement in Karnataka that took on powerful governments and multinational corporations. Nagna Theatre’s production of the 90-minute play by Nataraj Huliyar premiered in Bengaluru last month. It has been staged four times, with three shows in Bengaluru. The latest show, in Shivamogga, was attended by 800 people, 700 of them being farmers.

Direct Action chronicles the tumultuous ‘80s and ‘90s when Nanjundaswamy, a professor of law, took up the cause of farmers when an American company sought to grow genetically modified cotton in India. Anger exploded when it was revealed that the company had developed seeds that would 'self-destruct' — they could not be used to perpetuate the crop. The press called them ‘Terminator’ seeds. A wave of suicides in Telangana was attributed to the new practices promoted in the name of innovation, and left farmers jittery.

Prof MDN, as Nanjundaswamy was widely known, believed the corporate West was out to surveil and exploit the poorest of the poor, make governments subservient, and eventually rule the world by manipulating food production.

Sampath Maitreya, who has acted in such films as Rewind, Sullu Kathegalu and Tales of Mahanagara, plays Nanjundaswamy with aplomb in a narrative that moves from one incident to the next with a sutradhara-like narrative stitching them all together. His rousing speeches and acerbic humour come through, as also his warm relationship with his daughter Chukki, in the dialogue.

Director Narendra Babu effectively uses tableau-like freezes to pause while the context is explained. The scenes transition smoothly with music and songs celebrating farming by Raghavendra K, Aditi Narayan and Aniruddh.

‘Direct Action’ opens with farmers from Karnataka participating in the recent movement in Delhi against the farm laws proposed by the Modi government. Karnataka saw relatively little resistance to these laws, and was one of the first states to implement them.

The movement

When genetically modified cotton seeds promising high yield first arrived in India, farmers were persuaded to give them a try. But the crops failed in many places, and the unforgiving nature of the contracts farmers had signed pushed hundreds of them to suicide. Many things have changed since, but the conditions continue to be grim for farmers, with the National Crime Records Bureau reporting that the country saw 11,290 suicides in the sector in 2022.

Nanjundaswamy was the most prominent farmer leader in the south who responded to agricultural distress and attempted to secure peasants and marginal farmers their rights.

The Karnataka Land Reforms Act, dating back to 1961, had defined who could own agricultural land, and placed a ceiling on the extent of ownership. Years later, under Devaraj Urs’ initiative, there was an effort to redistribute land to benefit the tiller. The most recent laws have given a quiet burial to the idea that farmers remain owners of the land they cultivate. The three milestones find mention in the play, but the spotlight remains firmly on the years when Nanjundaswamy fought his pitched battles some four decades ago.

Nanjundaswamy was one of the founders of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, which became a force to reckon with in the ’80s. With a huge informal membership, it organised many novel protests to demand land reforms and better produce pricing — in one, farmers gathered in Bengaluru and laughed in unison to shame the establishment.

Exercising agency

The title Direct Action refers to the agency people can exercise when they feel their voice is being suppressed by people elected to represent their interests. Nanjundaswamy became known across the world when his supporters raided the first KFC outlet in Bengaluru. The incident caught the attention of international publications such as The Washington Post and The Guardian. Many commissioned detailed reports on the resistance against globalisation in India and Brazil. Nanjundaswamy’s fame had spread in the course of his campaigns.

MDN accused the West of stealing the traditional wisdom of countries such as India, and disrupting traditional agricultural practices for corporate profit. He accused giant corporations of ‘biopiracy’, and warned India against the dangers of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the stated objective of which was to remove trade barriers among countries. He believed the agreement was a ploy to colonise countries like India all over again. GATT has since become institutionalised as the World Trade Organisation.

The play works as a documentary, chronicling the high and low points of the iconoclastic leader’s public life. One of five siblings, he was keen on becoming a doctor and had acquired a BSc from the University of Mysore before gravitating to law. He did a postgraduate course in law from the Hague Academy of International Law, and taught law in Bengaluru and Mysuru.

His struggle, as chronicled in the Kannada play, looks doomed when he finds no support from mainstream political parties, and his influence diminishes. At one point, when he gets the wholehearted support of farmers and intellectuals, it looks like a revolution is imminent. A particularly telling scene shows how Raitha Sangha activists once tied up a government official to a pole and forced him to return the bribe he had pocketed.

A character in the play wonders why farmers who produce food are not allowed to fix their prices, while those who produce other things can. ‘Direct Action’ raises many such questions in the arguments that sustain the play.

Conventional drama calls for a noble hero and a formidable adversary. ‘Direct Action’ shows how Nanjundaswamy’s adversaries were way bigger than him. The cause he so passionately espoused was something political leaders just paid lip service to. Huliyar, a well-known writer of fiction, forayed into documentary theatre with a play on Shakespeare. This showed his enduring engagement with literature, while ‘Direct Action’ is a result of his keen interest in contemporary Karnataka history.