India's answer to angry farmers is not to reverse course but to go further

Policies designed for an India on the edge of starvation don't fit the India of today, which should be more worried about quality of its nutrition

The third rail of Indian politics has always been agriculture. While the economy has been partly liberalised since opening up to the world in 1991, the process has largely bypassed the three-fifths of Indians who depend for their livelihoods, directly or indirectly, on farming. In September, the government finally introduced a much-needed set of changes to how agriculture is organised and how produce is sold in India. Now tens of thousands of agitating farmers have marched upon New Delhi in protest.

The protests may have less to do with the recent reforms, which allow farmers to enter into direct contracts with