‘Big threat for farmers is debt’: Maryam Aslany explains why

Maryam Aslany, an economic sociologist, moved from Tehran to Pune in 2002 to pursue her undergraduate studies in Physics. She later completed her postgraduation and went on to earn her PhD from King’s College, London. Pune became her second home, where she noticed the city's transformation from a quiet retirement city to a booming metropolis with construction and malls.

This change piqued her interest in rural India, leading her to focus on Indian farmers, particularly sugarcane cultivators in Maharashtra, for her book, Peasants: Makers of the Modern World. The 2020 farmers' protests in Delhi were significant, showing that farmers can still wield considerable political power. However, due to their structural weaknesses, such as geographical dispersion and limited resources, farmer protests are likely to remain a persistent feature of political life.

Aslany chose rice in China, coca in Latin America, and cocoa in Ghana for her book due to their status as vital supply-chain commodities and their role in shaping society and family structures. Climate change is not the biggest threat to farmers; instead, the most pressing issue is debt, as moneylenders charge exorbitant interest rates, leaving small farmers trapped in a cycle of eternal debt.