Policies and conditions which prevent the establishment of the preconditions for agency and reasoned decision by all citizens exclude India's poor from substantive citizenship and treat them as less than human. India's agricultural condition poses fundamental challenges to its credibility as a democracy. A number of related themes have been articulated recently in these pages, and this article is a shortened version of a paper presented at a recent national seminar on food diversity, part of a series on diversity hosted by the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla. The facts are terrifying. Between 1980 and 1997, agricultural growth averaged 3.2 per cent, but since 1997 has averaged 1.5 per cent. Among Indian farmers, 40 per cent want to quit. Agriculture fell from 56 per cent of GDP in 1950-51 to 18.6 per cent in 2006-07. Two-thirds of India's population depend on agriculture. Agricultural holdings declined steadily in size in the four decades before 2003