MEETING at New Delhi on July 14 and 15, the All India Kisan Council (AIKC) of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) decided to take initiatives to widen the movement against the central NDA government’s anti-peasant policies, and to forge joint actions with other peasant and agricultural worker organisations at state and national levels.

The meeting was chaired by AIKS president S Ramachandran Pillai, MP, and attended by its vice president Harkishan Singh Surjeet, general secretary K Varadha Rajan, Binoy Konar, Ramnarayan Goswamy, Mahboob Zahidi, N K Shukla and other office bearers, among others.

Regarding the need and scope of a joint struggle against the policy of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) which the central government has been pursuing for about a decade now, the AIKC said the devastating impact of this policy has been ruining Indian agriculture and peasantry, but the government is still unrelenting.

The AIKC further pointed out that no budget in recent times has been so blatantly pro-rich and anti-poor as the one passed this year. Two announcements in the budget are of particularly far reaching significance. The first means a virtual winding up of the system of public procurement and distribution of foodgrains. The second is about changes in the labour laws, meant to facilitate large-scale retrenchment.

Describing the union budget as an offensive let loose on the people, the AIKC said the draft approach paper prepared for the Tenth Plan reveals the nature of offensive that is in store for the people in the years ahead. The approach paper projects a growth of 8 per cent, which by any standard seems unachievable. The very policies that are responsible for the current recessionary trend have been reiterated with added vigour as instruments to achieve this targeted rate. Subsidies for food, agriculture and rural development programmes, including the self-employment programme for the rural poor, have been squarely blamed as the source of all evil. The approach paper indicates that the erstwhile Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), subsequently recast as Swarna Jayanti Swarozgar Yojana, is going to be abandoned. Perhaps for the first time since independence, the approach paper made not even a formal mention of redistributive land reforms. Several state governments, including the Left Front governments of West Bengal and Tripura, have sharply reacted to it. The AIKC said it would undertake a continuing programme to expose the bankruptcy of this plan strategy and resist further imposition of burdens on the people.

The AIKC further said another danger is knocking our doors in the form of the fourth ministerial meeting of World Trade Organisation, to be held in Doha (Qatar) in November 2001. The USA, EU, Japan and other rich countries have already started campaigning for a new round, which will spell further trouble for India and other developing countries. The danger now is that the Doha meeting may impose another bout of liberalisation, even before the outcome of the Uruguay round has been digested. On the other hand, despite all tall talk and occasional outbursts, the Indian government is not taking initiative to mobilise the third world countries to press for safeguards in favour of poor countries, at the coming Doha meet.

It is in this grave situation that the AIKC resolved to carry forward the struggle by building wider unity with other peasant and agricultural worker organisations.

Through another resolution, the AIKC hailed the sixth successive victory of Left Front in West Bengal and extended warm congratulations to the people, especially the peasantry, of the state for this record feat of theirs.

Describing the Left Front victory in West Bengal as the victory of alternative pro-people policies, that are radically different from the bourgeois-landlord policies being pursued by the centre and most of the states, the AIKC said the solid support of the peasantry is reflected in the fact that the Left Front swept three-fourth of the rural seats in the state. This is obviously a result of the radical land reforms programme, Operation Barga, the panchayati raj system dominated by the poor peasants and agricultural workers, the extension of irrigation and power facilities and several other measures initiated by the Left Front regime during the last 24 years of its rule.

The AIKC congratulated the West Bengal unit of AIKS whose constant struggles over the last several decades have consolidated this bastion of peasant struggle in the country. It expressed confidence that the Left Front victory in West Bengal will strengthen the democratic and progressive movement in national politics, against the disastrous imperialist-dictated LPG policies of both the BJP and the Congress.

While welcoming the reduction in the issue price of foodgrains for the APL (above poverty line) population, recently announced by the union government due to mounting pressure, the AIKC felt this is too small a measure compared to the gravity of the problem.

Pointing out that crores of people are starving without food while 604 lakh tonnes of foodgrains are rotting in government godowns, the AIKC said the government’s refusal to implement a food for work scheme shows its inhuman approach vis-à-vis the poor. Large sections of people in states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Gujarat have been heavily affected by natural calamities like floods, droughts and earthquake, the government’s refusal to help the needy with free food is atrocious.

The AIKC condemned the BJP government’s anti-people move to shirk its responsibility regarding grain procurement and to destroy the public distribution system in the country.

In this regard the AIKC raised the following demands:

1. Help of free food to the people affected by natural calamities, without delay.
2. Wide-ranging and effective implementation of a food for work scheme all over India.
3. Further reduction in the issue prices of foodgrains for both BPL(below poverty line) and APL populations.

Yet another resolution of the AIKC meeting pointed out how the policy being pursued by the central government has caused damage to the jute growers, jute industry and jute workers.

Jute is cultivated in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh as a cash crop. In West Bengal where most of the jute mills (59 out of 73 in the country) are situated, the yearly production of raw jute is around 90 to 100 lakh tonnes at present. About four million peasants are engaged in its cultivation. The jute mills in the state engage more than two lakh workers in the state. But the latest decision of the central government regarding packaging material is going to cause a severe blow to such a vital sector.

The Jute Packaging Material (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act 1987 said 100 per cent of foodgrains and sugar and 50 per cent of cement and fertilisers were to be compulsorily packaged in jute bags. For the last few years, the central government has been trying to dilute this act to allow the use of synthetic bags for foodgrains, sugar, cement and fertiliser packaging. Already, total cement packaging and 15 per cent of fertiliser packaging is being done in synthetic bags because of dilution of the 1987 Act.

Last year, the central government tried to dilute the act further, to allow 10 per cent of foodgrains and sugar packaging in synthetic bags. But the AIKS intervened, Left MPs took up the matter with the centre and the move was postponed till June 30, 2001. Now the government is again trying to dilute the said act and has already issued an order to allow 10 per cent of foodgrains and sugar packaging and 25 per cent of urea packaging in synthetic bags. This is a matter of grave concern.

The AIKC reiterated that the jute bags are biodegradable and do not cause any harm to the environment. On the other hand, packaging of foodgrains in synthetic bags causes harm to human health.

The AIKC meet asked the central government to refrain from any move to dilute the 1987 act and provide funds to the Jute Corporation of India to purchase jute from the growers to prevent any distress sale.

Another issue of concern to the AIKC was the plight of coconut growers who are suffering due to the BJP government’s policy. The government of India has imported oil this year to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore and has also reduced the duty on imported oil from 75 to 55 per cent. Though the government has fixed the minimum support price (MSP) for copra at Rs 33 per kg, it is not procuring the same. Even in places where a small amount is procured, only the traders and rich farmers are benefiting.

The AIKC demanded that edible oil imports be stopped and the central government procure copra from the growers at the price fixed.

Along with the coconut growers, the miseries of rubber producers too are increasing manifold, especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The BJP regime imported 33,000 tonnes of rubber this year. As a result, nearly 2.5 lakh tonnes of rubber have piled up unrolled with the peasants. The minimum support price has been fixed at Rs 34.05 per kg, but the government is not procuring any more. Thus the peasants are compelled to sell their produce in distress, at Rs 28 per kg or so, against their cost of production of nearly Rs 55 per kg.

The AIKC demanded that the MSP for rubber be fixed at Rs 55 per kg at the least and government procurement be ensured.