People's Democracy

MAHARASHTRA

Women Agricultural Labour Mobilise For Mass Struggle

Prakash Choudhury

THE deplorable condition of agricultural labour as a result of the policies of neo-liberal economic prescriptions has resulted in better than expected mobilisations all over Maharashtra. The All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) has held a number of rallies in Nandurbar, Yavatmal, Jalgaon, Ambajogai, Parbhani, and now in Narsinghwadi in Kolhapur on February 1. This last was a rally of women agricultural workers and rural poor who are hardest hit by the persistence of lower wages for women agricultural labour, the collapse of the public distribution system (PDS), lack of house sites, and lack of a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labour, social protection and pensions. The rally was beyond expectation with a gathering of thousand who braved the heat for six hours, listening to the speakers and voting for the plan of action put forward by Kumar Shiralkar, Maharashtra state president of AIAUW.

Suneet Chopra, all India joint secretary of AIAWU, as chief guest, pointed out that the present miserable conditions of agricultural labour were the outcome of the policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation – that had brought our agrarian economy to ruin, especially by encouraging mechanisation and a shift from food to cash crops. He charged the former NDA led government with ignoring the urgent needs of the majority of peasants and agricultural labour, which pandering to the rich. He sharply criticised the provision of free electricity to landlords and absentee farm owners who were using their possession of agricultural land to keep out of the tax net while denying the poorest sections the same. He said that agricultural labour households should also be given free electricity if farmers were given it, as electricity today is not a luxury but a necessity for rural development.

He supported the demand for the below poverty live (BPL) limit to be raised from an annual income of Rs 15000 to Rs 50000, and for the target system to be scrapped. He highlighted the urgent need for the rural landless to be given plots of land so that their women do not have to go to the roadside or the fields of other to relieve themselves nor be forced to work for miserable wages or for fodder for their livestock. He also warned them of how big multinational agro-businesses are eyeing the lands of a peasants whose cost of production is rising daily because of the rising cost of fertiliser, seed and water because the open market policies of the NDA have created unstable markets that have ruined farmers. But unless the poorest in villages are organised to resist the onslaughts of the policies dictated by the WTO, the richer sections would cushion themselves by exploiting them instead of facing those responsible for their common misery. In conclusion, he warned the Congress led central government and the state government not to follow the ill-advised policies of the NDA if they did not wish to go the way NDA went. He urged the people to take advantage of the Left strength in parliament as never before in history, and launch mass movements to ensure that the promises made to the people under the Common Minimum Programme were implemented. Without such agitations the Congress and its allies who were formatted to neo-liberal policies would leave the vast majority of Indian in dire distress. He stressed the need of mass mobilisation to get any sort of justice from such elements.

Prakash Choudhury, AIAWU state secretary, highlighted the concrete demands of the Kolhapur rally: a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labour and Rs 100 a day minimum wages, guarantee for at least one member in every family of a minimum of 100 days work by law; the upper limit for the poverty line be raised to Rs 50,000 per year; agricultural labour and tabacco workers be given BPL cards; slum-dwellers be given the lands preserved for cattle pounds; kerosene should be distributed correctly in accordance with the PDS provisions; LPG gas card holders should get 5 litres of kerosene per card. He also demanded proper legal protection of unorganised labour, compensation in case of injury, and old age pensions for them.

Kumar Shiralkar, president of the Maharashtra state AIAWU, highlighted the favourable situation that had developed with the defeat of communal farces and the coming of the UPA to power with Left support and a common minimum programme that provided a good opportunity to fight for genuine demands. He issued a militant call for demonstrations on these demands on February 23, at taluka and district level to prepare for a one-lakh strong demonstration of CPI(M) and its mass organisations in Mumbai on April 4. The meeting closed with a rousing appeal to launch struggles on the issues of legislative protection, public distribution, water, employment, land and a minimum wage of Rs 100, by Saryaji Salunke, veteran CITU leader who presided over the mass rally.

Among those who addressed the rally were AIAWU leaders Bausaheb Kasabe, Babar, Mumtaz Haider, Narayan Gaekwad, Babasaheb Servade, Akhtar Teli, Chhaya Naik, Nanda Salunke, Dasrath Dalvi and Saheblal Mulla, CITU leaders Shakar Pujari, Raghunath Deshinge Datta Rawal and R B Sharma, and AIDWA leader Suman Pujai and Sarju Pijari. The enthusiasm, spirit and mass mobilisation in the rally gives us hope that the April 4 march to the assembly would be a big success.