People's Democracy

  'Save Agriculture - Save India'

The following resolutions were adopted at a joint convention of kisan and agricultural workers held in New Delhi on August 23, 2005. It was in this convention the decision was taken to hold rasta roko and rail roko on September 29 to highlight their demands.

This national convention of Kisans and Agricultural Labour being held at New Delhi, demands the enactment of Comprehensive Central Legislation for agricultural labour in the coming session of Parliament. This legislation is long overdue, as even today there is no law to protect 10.74 crore agricultural labourers whose number continues to grow with the dispossessed peasantry daily filling their ranks. Over the last three decades the work available for them has come down for 122 days a year to less than 57 days a year. They are in deep distress and over 70% of them below poverty line. Without legal protection they become bonded to unscrupulous landlords and money-lenders, they and their families suffer unpseakable oppression, they are forced to work long hours with no medical protection, accident relief or even old age pensions. It is shocking that successive governments have failed to table such a bill, although the draft has been in existence since 1980 and a state legislation has been in force in Kerala since 1974, bringing considerable relief to agricultural labour in the state. We demand that the central legislation be passed in keeping with the promise made in the CMP by the UPA government at the centre, and be implemented immediately ending this gross injustice to agricultural labour even after 58 years of independence.

THE REVERSAL OF LAND REFORMS

This national convention of Kisans and Agricultural Labour being held in New Delhi, demands the steps being taken to reverse land reforms and hand over large tracts of arable lands to facilitate the large scale plunder of our natural wealth by MNCs and corporates be stopped at once and the process of giving land to the tiller be carried forward in all states along the lines of the land redistributions effected already in states like Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.

Land Reforms are essential to expand not only rural productivity and employment, but they are essential to safeguard our food security. The successful implementation of radical land reforms in India is the best way of achieving growth in agricultural production while ensuring equitable distribution of resources in the process and breaking down the iniquitous structure of caste and feudal relations. As such, it is a far better path to develop along than that of handing lands over to those who, even if they show figures of growth, will increase their stranglehold on resources to intensify the exploitation and misery of the masses.

This convention calls on peasants and agricultural labour to come out militantly and demand the distribution of land to the landless, scheduled castes and tribes as promised in the CMP of the UPA government, to see to it that the land reform process is not reversed and growth with equity is carried forward relentlessly along the path shown by West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.

This national convention of Kisans and Agricultural Labour being held at New Delhi, welcomes the promise of tabling a new legislation on the rights and responsibilities of forest dwellers and the intention of the central government to regularise the land on which scheduled tribes and dalits have been settled for long periods of time without either the British or the government of India recognizing their ownership of those lands. This historic injustice must be righted.

In this respect, we condemn the moves of various governments at the centre to arbitrarily declare millions of acres of waste, ceiling surplus, village common and even legally occupied lands as forest, violating the rights of over sixteen lakh forest dwellers. This process was made even worse by the NDA government’s circular of May 2002 calling for the eviction of those whose rights were arbitrarily ignored earlier. It is noteworthy that the governments of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura not only refused to implement this order but have given the tribal people autonomy and are pursuing polices to better the lot of the scheduled tribes and dalits to ensure their speedy development.

We call on the democratic masses, and especially people belonging to the scheduled tribes and dalits, to launch a militant mass resistance against evictions, the scrapping of the circular of May 2002, and the quick passage of a Forest Rights Bill that genuinely addresses the problems of adviasis, dalits and other forest dwellers that have surfaced with the desire of multinationals and the corporate sector to appropriate our forest resources.

Resolutions were also passed on the likely outcome of the WTO meeting in Hongkong, on the ramifications of the Seed Bill 2004.