People's Democracy

         Peasant & Agricultural Workers Demands 

LAND REFORMS

RADICAL land reforms must be implemented and land be distributed free of cost to agricultural workers and poor peasants in all states where such measures have not been implemented. The steps taken to reverse the land reform process should be reversed.

Completion of land reforms must be achieved by abolishing intermediaries, by bringing tenancy reforms such as fixation of fair rent, including the land cultivated by share croppers, by giving security of tenure and ownership rights to tenants, by recording of rights and correction of records of peasants on all lands, and by distributing surplus land, barren forest land, bhoodan land, temple land, fallow land and waste land to agricultural labourers and poor peasants. The loopholes in the land reform legislations should be plugged immediately. Joint pattas should be issued in the name of both man and woman in a family. Special priority should be given to dalits and Adivasis in land distribution. There should be reclassification of lands and refixation of ceilings on that basis. Steps should be taken for ensuring the cooperation of all those who are concerned about land reforms.

Instead of selling or leasing out waste land to multinational companies, big business houses and landlords, it should be distributed free of charge to agricultural labourers and poor peasants and the government should provide them with adequate financial help for developing the land.

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS

The central government must pass a comprehensive law for agricultural workers to ensure employment guarantee, minimum wages and social security measures such as provident fund, pension, gratuity, leave, accident compensation, unemployment allowance etc, and must provide an effective implementation machinery for the same. Contractors and middlemen must be eliminated from public works and labourers must be engaged directly by government departments or through workers cooperatives.

House-sites, low-cost comprehensive housing schemes and cheap credit for landless agricultural workers, rural artisans and poor peasants should be provided on a priority basis. Equal wages for equal work should be ensured to the women labourers. Effective laws should be framed and implemented to protect the interests of migrant labour. All forms of bonded labour should be abolished with redemption of their debt and those who employ bonded labour should be severely punished.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Atrocities, violence and caste/gender oppression or discrimination in all forms against dalits, Adivasis, minorities and women must be rooted out, with stringent punishment to the culprits. Proper implementation of the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act must be ensured. Special welfare measures should be introduced for the socio-economic and educational upliftment of dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and children. The pernicious practice of child labour must be abolished.

 IRRIGATION

Extension of irrigation facilities to the maximum extent possible within a minimum period of time and implementation of a scientific water management system that integrates efficient management of our land and water resources should be carried out. This requires (i) completion of all ongoing irrigation projects on a war footing by the allocation of adequate funds by the State, (ii) proper maintenance and running of the existing irrigation projects, (iii) planning of water harvesting and watershed development measures at all levels with the active participation of the people through panchayats to ensure maximum use of surface and rain water, (iv) immediate institution of flood and drought control measures, (v) effective control of soil erosion and implementation of soil conservation measures, particularly in the catchments and command areas of irrigation projects, (vi) intensive efforts for reclamation of degraded forestlands and promotion of social and farm forestry, (vii) adequate steps to check the erosion of ground water resources. (viii) proper care while fixing the proportion of small, medium and large irrigation projects.

The principle of social ownership of water should be accepted and equal rights over water should be ensured for all, including agricultural workers. On this basis, the State should initiate measures to ensure the equitable distribution of water resources. Privatisation of water resources and creation of water monopolies must be stopped. Unrestricted exploitation of water resources should be regulated.

ELECTRICITY

Supply of adequate, regular and subsidised electricity to agriculture as a whole, for both irrigation pump sets and domestic use of peasants and agricultural workers, should be ensured. The drive to eliminate cross-subsidies to agriculture must be stopped. Privatisation of the power sector must be halted and the retrograde Electricity Act 2003 must be repealed.

PUBLIC INVESTMENT

More public investments should be made in irrigation, power, infrastructure facilities and science and technology in agriculture to ensure sustained growth in agricultural production and protect the interests of the overwhelming majority of the peasantry. This gives incentive to all peasants to invest more in agriculture, since public investment is an important factor for attracting more private investment. The State should make special financial outlays for the backward areas to speedily redress regional imbalances.

AGRICULTURAL INPUTS

Production and use of safe and improved varieties of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and use of modern techniques in agricultural production should be encouraged. Stringent steps should be taken against the increasing incidence of spurious seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. Use of bio-fertilisers and integrated pest management should be promoted.

RURAL CREDIT

Agricultural inputs require substantial financial resources that small farmers do not possess. Therefore, it is necessary to greatly strengthen credit facilities in the agrarian sector. Special credit allocation should be made for serving the interests of agricultural labourers, rural artisans and small and middle peasants at lower rates of interest. The credit-deposit ratio in rural areas should be raised to a minimum of 60 per cent and a minimum of 30 per cent of all institutional credit should go to agriculture. The interest rate for institutional credit in agriculture should be reduced to the lowest possible rate compared to other sectors. There must be a crackdown on usurious private money lenders and strict regulation on their interest rates. The growing incidence of closure of rural branches of banks should be reversed. Self-help groups and micro-credit schemes, with particular emphasis on women, should be encouraged, with adequate revolving funds and bank credit. Debt relief measures in severe cases of indebtedness should be instituted by the State.

CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT

Co-operatives in the credit, production and marketing sector should be encouraged and their structure and functioning should be democratised. Corruption in the co-operative sector should be rooted out. The earlier central government’s moves to bring in legislation to treat credit co-operatives at par with the corporate sector and thus weaken them must be reversed.

AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES

To protect the interests of the peasantry, increased State subsidies on inputs like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, water and power should be provided to them. The imperialist double standards of increasing subsidies to their own agriculture while at the same time insisting on reduction of subsidies by the developing countries should be resisted.

REMUNERATIVE PRICES & MARKETING

Remunerative prices based on the cost of production and a reasonable profit should be assured to all agricultural produce, together with an effective State procurement mechanism for major crops in all the states, with financial support by the central government. Attempts to do away with the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and to stop State procurement must be reversed. The marketing structure needs reorientation to serve the small and middle peasants in a better way. The government's market intervention in respect of both food crops and cash crops must be strengthened. Panchayat institutions and co-operatives with State support should provide scientific storage facilities. The central government should take steps to protect agriculture from the effects of adverse terms of trade with industry.

CROP INSURANCE SCHEME

A comprehensive and subsidised crop insurance scheme at minimum premium rate for all crops, and with every revenue village as the unit, should be implemented by the central government to protect the peasantry and agricultural workers from natural calamities and other reasons for crop failure and loss of work.  The present scheme should be radically restructured for the benefits of the peasants and agricultural workers.

PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

With liberalisation policies, successive central governments have virtually dismantled and destroyed the public distribution system in the country. This has severely affected both the rural and urban poor, increasing starvation and malnutrition on the one hand and food stocks in government godowns on the other. The targeted PDS has proved an abject failure. Hence there must be universalisation of the public distribution system at subsidised prices that the vast majority of the people can afford. All essential commodities and adequate quantum of food grains should be distributed through the PDS, which should be equipped with a well-knit and expanded network of fair price shops in each state. Corruption in the PDS must be rooted out.

FOOD GRAIN SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Priority must be given to food grain self-sufficiency and increasing the production of food grains. Necessary incentives should be provided for this. Incentive structure should be evolved for increasing the production of coarse grains. While taking steps for export of agricultural produce, the importance of food grain self-sufficiency should not be ignored.

AGRO-BASED INDUSTRIES

The government should take steps to promote the growth of agro-based and food processing industries to ensure better prices for peasants, to encourage rural employment and to supply technical inputs to agriculture. Co-operative societies and domestic industries should be encouraged in the agro-based industrial sector. The products of agro-based/food processing industries should primarily target the domestic market.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY & OTHER SECTORS

To help the peasantry and agricultural labourers and to give new avenues for more employment, all-round agricultural development should be aimed at. It should be interlinked with the development of agro-based industries, animal husbandry, pisciculture, poultry farming, sericulture, horticulture, floriculture etc. Animal husbandry and pisciculture play a very important role in rural life, substantially supplementing the income of millions of rural households. But this sector has been constantly neglected by the central government by starving it of resources for development. Special departments for animal husbandry and pisciculture should be set up at the centre with separate and adequate budgetary provisions. Cheap credit, extension services and R&D for upgrading the animal stock should be supplied to this sector. The interests of fishermen must be protected against the invasion of multinationals and their huge fishing trawlers. The penetration of multinationals in the dairy sector should also be stopped and the dismantling of co-operative dairies should be halted and reversed.

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Agricultural research should be promoted by the State and adequate financial provision should be made for this. Stress should be given to develop safe, low-cost, labour-intensive, area-specific technologies and link up research efforts with the problems faced by peasants and agricultural labourers. Research should be conducted on a substantial scale at different regional centres for developing better seeds, testing the quality of the soil, suggesting measures for soil conservation and reclamation, examining the diseases affecting different crops, providing quality and safety of agricultural implements, avoiding wastage in agriculture, especially damage to crops resulting from pests, insects, rodents and also to protect agricultural workers from chemical poisoning. There should be proper testing of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds before permitting their propagation.

EXTENSION SERVICES & TRAINING

Agriculture needs skilled management for raising the level of productivity. For this, farmers have to be trained and educated in more efficient use of their resources, particularly land, use of fertilisers, pesticides, irrigation facilities, organic farming and agricultural implements. The other question is the rapid expansion of extension services of science and technology in agriculture. The Panchayat institutions with State support can be entrusted with all these responsibilities.

THE TRIBAL QUESTION

The land being tilled and used as house-sites by millions of tribals all over the country for years together must be vested in their names. For ensuring this, suitable amendments must be made to the Central Forest Conservation Act of 1980. Until this is done, any kind of eviction of tribals from their lands must be stopped forthwith.

All types of land belonging to tribals which was grabbed by money lenders and landlords should be immediately restored to them, by amending the relevant laws if necessary. Steps should be taken to find a solution to the issue of tribal land held by small non-tribal peasants by providing them alternative rehabilitation by the government and restoring the land to the tribals. Nomadic tribes and tribals in remote areas should be provided with adequate village-sites.

Land records in tribal areas should be completely updated to incorporate recognition of the customary rights of tribals to land and forest products. A proper marketing system and fair price to tribals for their forest products should be ensured by the State. Joint Forest Management schemes should be recast to give more share of the produce to tribals. Forest-based industries and other economic activities should be promoted so that tribals can become self-reliant.

Giving forest lands to multinationals and big business should be stopped. Eviction of tribals in the name of project-based development without prior consultation and without full rehabilitation should be stopped. The mining companies and other enterprises in the tribal areas should take appropriate measures for protecting the environment and provide necessary help to support the health system, particularly supply of safe drinking water. The development of tribal culture and languages and the expansion of tribal education should be promoted.

SOCIAL WELFARE

Safe drinking water facilities and civic facilities such as public health, nutrition, sanitation and public education should be greatly expanded in the rural areas. Commercialisation and communalisation of education must be stopped. A comprehensive rural housing scheme should be implemented to provide housing facilities particularly for agricultural labourers and poor peasants. Special schemes for the all-round welfare of women and children should be undertaken.

RURAL EMPLOYMENT

There is an urgent need for rapidly increasing rural employment. The National Employment Guarantee Act promised in the Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance government should be passed as early as possible.  The Act should provide a legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment to begin with for asset creating public works programmes every year at minimum wages for at least one able bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower middle class household.  In the interim, a massive food for work programme should be started. Self-help groups and self-employment programmes should be encouraged.

PANCHAYAT INSTITUTIONS

Regular elections and democratic functioning of the Panchayat Raj system should be ensured. Planning, administrative and executive powers should be decentralised by giving more powers and financial resources to Panchayat institutions. More active involvement of the Panchayat institutions and the people in the planning and execution of developmental activities are necessary for increasing productivity and production. All the local developmental activities can be entrusted to the Panchayat institutions and people's participation should be encouraged in them. Financial flows should be channelised through the Panchayats.

CENTRE-STATE RELATIONS

State governments bear the main responsibility for agriculture. But all state governments today are in deep financial crisis, necessitating a complete overhauling of the present centre-state relations, with much greater financial powers and resources to be given to the states. The present trend of further centralisation of powers instead of their devolution must be reversed. All the centre-sponsored schemes should be transferred to the states along with their fund outlays. 

TRADE RELATED ISSUES

In view of the disastrous effects of unequal trade and crashing prices of agricultural commodities, the Government of India must take a firm stand on WTO-related issues and must try to rally other developing countries to eliminate the unjust and iniquitous provisions in the agreement on agriculture in WTO. India should ask for:

1. Reduction of domestic and export subsidies of developed countries.

2. Elimination of all boxes like green, blue and amber. Fixed allowable minimum subsidy either on the basis of per acre or per capita.

3. Reintroduction of quantitative restrictions on import in the case of those commodities that get domestic or export subsidies above the allowable minimum.

4. Increase in import tariffs of developing countries to protect domestic agriculture. Reduction of tariff peaks of the developed countries.

5. Restoration of the Indian Patents Act of 1970.

6. Protect biodiversity and seed rights of farming communities and create an institutional State framework to fight biopiracy.

ENVIRONMENT

Take adequate measures for protection of environment, regeneration of degraded areas, prevention of soil erosion and river erosion, creation of an ecologically sustainable agriculture and cropping pattern, seepage of water, digging of water-tanks and minor irrigation networks to harness surface water, prevention and control of pollution and deforestation, survey and conservation of forests, wild life, flora and fauna, promotion of environmental research, dissemination of environmental information and creation of environmental awareness among the people.