People's Democracy

GUJARAT

Huge Kisan Rally At Himmatnagar

Subodh Mehta

HAVE the edible oil prices come down? Did the petroleum products become cheap? Did the price hike abate? In fact, all the items of consumers’ day to day use have become monstrously costly, because of the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policies of the government. Motor car prices have come down but edible oil prices have soared. Seeds, fertilisers, weedisides, pesticides and electricity as well as other things needed  by the peasants have become excessively costly.

In contrast, the West Bengal government has made foreign products costlier by imposing excise duties on them and protected the interests of local kisans as well as sellers.

Electricity rate hike is quite a terror to kisans and yet another rate hike on household consumption of power has been effected in imminent. So also on the industrial uses. This Narendra Modi led BJP government has proved to be one that is crushing our agriculture and industry. No matter whatever “achievements” they claim, common man’s condition has gone from bad to worse. That is the reason mass support to the Kisan Sabha’s movement is increasing.

This was the contention made by the CPI(M)’s Gujarat state secretary Arun Mehta at a recent rally, organised on December 30 by the state unit of the All India Kisan Sabha, in Himmatnagar in Sabarkantha district of the state.

Mehta demanded from the rally that the Modi government must totally withdraw the recent electricity rate hike or be prepared to suffer. Mehta also warned that it is impossible to always divide the people by poisoning their minds. He said whichever government works against the interests of the people will have to go.

The kisan rally organised at Himmatnagar was part of the Kisan Sabha’s statewide campaign against electricity rate hike for farmers. The rally took place at Nyaya Mandir near the bust stand, after a memorandum was submitted to the district collector on the farmers’ demands.

For the rally, kisans poured in from Khedbrahma, Vijayanagar, Bhilida and Meghraj talukas in the district, and assembled in a garden near the tower in Himmatnagar. By 1 p m, it had become a huge crowd of elderly peasants, khet mazdoors, tribals, women and youth. From there they took out an orderly procession in two rows, waving placards and raising slogans. Apart from raising slogans against the LPG policies and power rate hike, the processionists also condemned the communal drive of the BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits and appealed to the people to maintain communal unity. They also demanded remunerative prices for agricultural produce and allotment of jungle lands to the locally affected kisans and khet mazdoors.

The procession moved through the police station, Khadia Baazaar and Idar Highway to the collector’s office where kisans’ representatives submitted a memorandum to the collector.

Addressing the rally at the culmination of the procession, Gujarat Kisan Sabha general secretary Kuber Bhai Bhambhi pointed to the response given by the kisans to the organisation’s month long campaign. While lambasting the power tariff hike, he also pointed to the ways the kisans are being looted in the matter of the prices for their produce.               

From the chair, Professor Pragjibhai Bhambhi said Kisan Sabha is the biggest national organisation of the peasantry, with a membership of over two crores. He urged the kisans of the state to give to the Kisan Sabha one man and one rupee per family so that the organisation could strive for a better life from them. He also informed that the Kisan Sabha is to conduct a Sangharsh Yatra in February, with a detailed programme.