Breaking down the question
The question asks whether contemporary farmers' movements are changing their course. The word contemporary sets the frame in the present, distinguishing today's mobilisations from the classical peasant struggles of the colonial and early post-colonial period. The phrase changing their course demands a judgement — you must argue whether a genuine shift in character, demands or methods has occurred, and in what direction.
Discuss is an open command word that permits a balanced, two-sided treatment. You are not obliged to give an unqualified yes or no; the strongest answers identify what has changed and what persists. The sociological task is to characterise the transformation in the agenda, social composition and repertoire of agrarian mobilisation.
Keep in view the analytical vocabulary: the distinction between old peasant movements framed around land and tenancy, and the new farmers' movements of the 1980s framed around prices, subsidies and terms of trade, and the more recent turn towards questions of market regulation, ecology and identity.
How to approach it
Given the ten-mark weighting, be economical and argument-driven. Open by establishing a baseline — what farmers' movements classically demanded — so that change becomes measurable against it.
Then identify the axes of change. First, the shift in demands: from land redistribution and tenancy security towards remunerative prices, loan waivers, input subsidies and, most recently, statutory guarantees on procurement. Second, the shift in social base: from poor and landless peasants towards surplus-producing, market-oriented cultivators, though recent movements have broadened again. Third, the shift in methods: from localised agitation towards large-scale, sustained, media-savvy and often trans-regional mobilisation. Fourth, the shift in framing: the blending of economic interest with cultural identity and ecological concern.
Balance this with continuities — persistent agrarian distress, indebtedness and the enduring salience of caste. Conclude with a measured verdict. The fuller account is set out in our note on peasant and farmers' movements.
Model answer
Contemporary farmers' movements in India are indeed changing their course, though the change is one of emphasis and repertoire rather than a complete break with the past. To judge the shift, one must set it against the classical baseline. The peasant movements of the colonial and early post-colonial decades — analysed by D. N. Dhanagare — centred on land, tenancy and the exploitation of cultivators by landlords and moneylenders. Their idiom was that of the poor peasant against the agrarian elite.
The new farmers' movements that emerged in the 1980s marked the first major turn. Their demands shifted from land to prices — remunerative support prices, cheaper inputs, lower taxes and better terms of trade between agriculture and industry. Their social base shifted too, towards commercially oriented, surplus-producing cultivators, often from dominant landowning castes. Partha Nath Mukherji and others read these as movements of a rural bourgeoisie contesting the urban bias of development, sometimes mobilising around a populist opposition between Bharat and India.
The most recent phase suggests a further reorientation. Contemporary mobilisations have broadened their agenda to include loan waivers, opposition to market deregulation, demands for legally guaranteed procurement, and concerns over corporate entry into agriculture. Their methods have scaled up — sustained, disciplined, trans-regional campaigns using social media, legal advocacy and alliances across states and crops. Their framing increasingly fuses economic interest with identity, ecology and the defence of a way of life, drawing in women, agricultural labourers and younger participants alongside landowning farmers.
Yet the continuities are real. Agrarian distress, chronic indebtedness and the vulnerability of the smallholder persist as the deep drivers. Caste and regional identity continue to shape who mobilises and how. Critics such as Tom Brass have questioned whether these are genuinely unified peasant movements or coalitions dominated by richer farmers whose interests diverge from those of the landless.
On balance, the course is changing — towards wider agendas, more sophisticated and networked methods, and a hybrid politics of interest and identity — even as the underlying structural distress that fuels agrarian unrest remains stubbornly familiar.
Examiner's perspective
At ten marks, the examiner rewards a clear thesis stated early and defended economically. A frequent weakness is narration — recounting particular agitations without answering the analytical question of whether and how the course has changed.
The strongest answers establish a baseline and then track change along specific axes: demands, social base, methods and framing. Deploying the old-versus-new farmers' movement distinction, and naming Dhanagare, Mukherji and the Bharat-versus-India framing, demonstrates disciplinary control within a tight word limit.
A balanced verdict earns the highest marks. Acknowledge both the genuine transformation in repertoire and agenda and the persistence of structural distress and internal class divisions, then commit to a measured conclusion rather than sitting on the fence.