People's Democracy

 Tripura: Kisan Sabha Holds 16th State Conference

 Khagen Das

THE All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) held its 16th Tripura state conference from November 9 to 11 at ‘Samar Choudhury Nagar’ in Dharmanagar, North Tripura. After the AIKS president S R Pillai hoisted the flag on November 9, delegates and representatives of other mass organisations paid floral tributes at the martyrs column. After a resolution on martyrs was adopted and one-minute silence observed, a massive rally was held in the B B I School ground, attended by people from all walks of life, both tribal and non-tribal, from North Tripura district. The rally was presided over by Niranjan Debbarma and addressed by S R Pillai, AIKS vice president Benoy Konar, Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, Khagen Das and Subodh Das, among others.

On the occasion, the entire Dharmanagar town was decorated with AIKS flags, festoons, chain-flags and decorative gates. From November 4, various competitions in sports, cultural performances and art for children were organised; thousands of people took part in these programmes. For three months before the conference, hundreds of Kisan Sabha workers and supporters were on a house to house collection drive to meet the expenditure of the conference. More than 750 volunteers worked day and night to make the conference a success.

The delegates session in Dharmanagar Town Hall began with the election of a presidium and a steering committee. After Niranjan Debbarma moved a condolence resolution, state CPI(M) secretary Baidyanath Majumder inaugurated the conference, dealing with the international, national and state situations and specifically highlighting the effect of LPG policies on workers, peasants and other sections of the people. He stressed on worker-peasant unity. Khagen Das placed the draft political and organisational report at the conference whose main theme was: “save agriculture,” “save peasant” and “save the country.”

On November 10, S R Pillai, Manik Sarkar and Benoy Konar greeted the conference, highlighting the glorious kisan movements in the past. They dealt with the effects of globalisation on agriculture and the disastrous agriculture policy of the central government, and stressed the need for a strong organised movement against the anti-people and anti-peasant policies of the central government. They also stressed on the need to strengthen the organisation in accordance with the present day challenges and on raising the consciousness of peasant masses. Manik Sarkar highlighted the development programmes of the Left Front government, and various schemes for the tribals and other weaker sections of society. He also detailed out the constitutional limitations in which the Left Front government has to work. Fraternal delegates from Assam and Manipur also greeted the conference.

Altogether 32 delegates participated in the discussion on the draft report, speaking about the serious crisis faced by the peasants due to the effects of globalisation. They also expressed views on implementation of the Left Front programme for achieving self-sufficiency by 2010. Majority of the delegates stressed on increasing the productive capacity of land and production, extension of irrigation facilities, timely supply of fertilisers and pesticides, supply of high yielding variety of seeds in conformity with the climate. The problem of negligible investment by banks in agriculture and the weakness of cooperatives were also highlighted during the discussion. Other than food grains, the climate of the state is favourable for cultivation of vegetables, potatoes, betel leaf, tea, cashew nuts, pineapple etc. So the delegates wanted an extension of horticultural production and talked of the difficulties facing the cultivators and their marketing problems. They also demanded that the government set up small food processing units.

For all round development of rural areas, the delegated drew attention to the need of developing village roads, health care system, supply of drinking water and electricity etc. Some of the delegates also pointed out the difficulties in creating infrastructure facilities, especially in tribal compact areas, due to extremist activities.

Some weaknesses of the state committee and state secretariat about holding conventions on separate crops and identification of problems, and the shortcoming in organising these sections of cultivators were also pointed out. The tendency of dependence on the administration was criticised.

Out of 511 elected delegates, both tribal and non-tribal, 500 were present at the conference that turned out to be a grand success.

Resolutions on disastrous agriculture policy of the central government, against repression on women and for one-third reservation for them, on the government of India’s notification for eviction from forest land, against terrorism and for tribal-non-tribal unity, and on the need to ensure victory of the Left Front in the ensuing three-tier panchayat elections were adopted unanimously. Besides this, resolutions on one day drive for enrolment of members throughout the state on November 23 and on fund collection for construction of state Kisan Sabha office building were also adopted. Some amendments to the state Kisan Sabha constitution were also adopted.

The conference unanimously elected a state council with 97 members, an executive committee with 30 members and 11 office bearers with Niranjan Debbarama and Narayan Kar as president and secretary respectively.