In the face of prevailing food-crisis, the country was clearly vulnerable to external pressures and dependent on food aid, mainly from United States. The United States in turn, pushed India to change its economic policies. The government adopted a new strategy for agriculture in order to ensure food sufficiency6. Instead of the earlier policy of giving more support to areas and farmers that were lagging behind, now it was decided to put more resources in those areas which already had irrigation and those farmers who were already well-off. The argument was that those who already had the capacity could help increase production rapidly in the short run. Thus the government offered high-yielding variety seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and better irrigation at highly subsidized prices. The government also gave a guarantee to buy the produce of the farmers at a given price. This was the beginning of what was called the 'green revolution'. The rich peasants and the large landholders were the major beneficiaries of the process. The green revolution delivered only a moderate agricultural growth (mainly a rise in wheat production) and raised the availability of food in the country, but increased polarization between classes and regions. Some regions like Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh became agriculturally prosperous, while others remained backward. The green revolution had two other effects: one was that in many parts, the stark contrast between the poor peasantry and the landlords produced conditions favorable for leftwing organizations to organize the poor peasants. Secondly, the green revolution also resulted in the rise of what is called the middle peasant sections. These were farmers with medium size holdings, who benefited from the changes and soon emerged politically influential in many parts of the country.