Dingaleshwar Swami joins protest of sugarcane farmers, questions Prime Minister Narendra Modi on different yardstick for oil companies
By Saghir Hussain ·
A seer in a saffron robe standing beside sugarcane farmers in Karnataka has done what opposition parties have failed to do: put the government’s double standards on fuel and food in stark relief. Fakira Dingaleshwara Swami of the Shirahatti Fakkireshwar Mutt didn’t just join a protest this week; he asked why the Union Government moves at lightning speed for oil companies but drags its feet on a fair price for cane.
The disparity in decision-making
The Swami’s charge is specific. He points to the rapid approval of oil price hikes — decisions taken in days — while the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for sugarcane, and the State Advised Price (SAP) in states like Karnataka, linger in bureaucratic limbo. Farmers in Belagavi and Bagalkot have seen input costs surge: diesel, fertiliser, transport. Yet the return on their crop is stuck in last year’s calculus. When the Centre can adjust petrol and diesel prices to reflect “global parity” within a fortnight, the argument that cane pricing needs “extensive consultation” rings hollow.
This isn’t merely about a religious leader entering politics. The mutts in north Karnataka wield real social capital. They run schools, hospitals, and community kitchens. When a seer says the government uses a “different yardstick”, it carries weight in villages where the BJP’s organisational machine usually dominates. The political risk for New Delhi is that this framing — corporate speed versus farmer neglect — travels far beyond the sugar belt.
Global context: subsidies and trade distortions
India’s sugar sector is a microcosm of a wider global distortion. The OECD estimates that agricultural support in major economies topped $800 billion annually in recent years, much of it decoupled from production but still shaping trade flows. The US and EU shield their growers with complex subsidy programmes; Brazil leans on ethanol mandates to underpin cane prices. India, by contrast, tries to manage a surplus through export quotas and minimum sale prices, while simultaneously capping domestic sugar prices to tame inflation.
The result is a squeeze on the primary producer. The World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement mechanism remains paralysed, leaving countries to weaponise “food security” clauses. India’s own ethanol blending programme — pushed as a green energy win — diverts cane to distilleries, tightening sugar supply and propping up mill revenues. But the farmer sees little of that margin. The oil marketing companies, meanwhile, benefit from a guaranteed offtake for ethanol at fixed prices, a de facto subsidy the Swami rightly highlights.
What changes on the ground
In the mandis of Athani and Mudhol, the conversation isn’t about WTO jurisprudence. It’s about the ₹3,150 per tonne FRP versus the ₹3,500-plus farmers say they need to break even. It’s about mills delaying payments for months, forcing distress sales to private buyers at a discount. The Swami’s intervention has forced the Karnataka government to announce a “high-level committee” — the classic mechanism for buying time.
But time is what farmers don’t have. The monsoon was erratic; the next planting cycle looms. If the Centre can convene a meeting on oil pricing within 48 hours of a crude spike, it can convene one on cane pricing