People's Democracy

HECTIC preparations are on in Maharashtra to host the 31st National Conference of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) that will take place at Nashik from January 28 to 31, 2006. An AIKS national conference is being held in Maharashtra after a long gap of 51 years, the last conference to have been held here being the 13th conference at Dahanu in Thane district in May 1955.

The Dahanu conference was held against the backdrop of the famed Adivasi Revolt and its subsequent consolidation under the leadership of the founders of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha, Comrades Shamrao and Godavari Parulekar. The present Nashik conference is aptly being held on the eve of the birth centenary year of former AIKS president Godavari Parulekar, that begins on August 14, 2006.

The Nashik conference is also being held in the year that marks the completion of 70 years of the AIKS on April 11, 2006. Formed at its first conference in Lucknow that day in 1936, the AIKS has led several historic struggles like Telangana, Tebhaga, Punnapra Vayalar and others of yesteryears upto the heroic Rajasthan struggle of recent months. These have helped the AIKS to emerge as the largest and most powerful peasant organisation in the country today, with a membership exceeding 1 crore 88 lakhs.

For the last 15 years, the AIKS, along with other Left-led mass organisations, has been fighting against the onslaught of imperialist-dictated neo-liberal policies in agriculture that are being implemented by successive central governments and all non-Left state governments led by ruling class parties of every hue. The result of these policies is the deep agrarian crisis which is reflected in the unprecedented tragedy of thousands of peasant suicides and malnutrition-related deaths of children in several states across the country. The AIKS Nashik conference will, of course, consider all these aspects in detail and will decide on the ways and means to confront this agrarian crisis and to rapidly strengthen the AIKS movement and organisation in the years ahead.

Like many other states, Maharashtra is also bearing the brunt of these disastrous policies. The state government has had to admit that during the last five years, as many as 1060 debt-ridden peasants have been forced to commit suicide. These suicides are still continuing, with over 200 indebted peasants, mainly in the cotton belt of Vidarbha and also in Marathwada, having ended their lives during the last six months. The state government’s callous response to this has been to slash the price paid to cotton farmers under the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme by Rs 500 per quintal!

So far as sugarcane, the other major cash crop in the state, is concerned, many of the cooperative sugar factories are in the doldrums. This is a combined result both of the neoliberal policies of the government and the massive corruption and mismanagement of the sugar barons. Along with big business, it is the sugar lobby that rules Maharashtra and it is this that accounts for the massive special packages made readily available to the sugar barons by union agriculture and food minister, Sharad Pawar. But despite these packages, the three toiling sections that are the mainstay of the sugar industry – sugarcane peasants, sugarcane cutters and sugar factory workers – have always got a raw deal in both prices and wages.

Due to the bankrupt policy of the privatisation of power (read Enron) followed by all state governments in the last 15 years, the rural areas of Maharashtra are today facing a massive 12-hour load-shedding per day while the urban areas have to bear daily power-cuts of 6 hours. This is seriously hitting both agriculture and industry. There is also great discontent with the state government’s casual handling of the rehabilitation of the flood-affected, thousands of whom have got no succour even after six months have passed.

On the eve of the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, there have been charges of large-scale corruption in the Employment Guarantee Scheme run by the state government for the last three decades. Agricultural workers, numbering over one crore, and including large sections of dalits and women, are facing acute problems of employment, wages, house-sites and ration. The public distribution system is in shambles and this is leading to great resentment amongst both the rural and urban poor.

The vital question of vesting forest land in the names of the adivasis who have been cultivating it for generations continues to hang fire. Malnutrition-related deaths of hundreds of tribal children every year have become a regular and tragic phenomenon in Maharashtra for over a decade. Commissions of inquiry into this malady are appointed, their reports are submitted, but nothing substantial is ever done, and the child deaths continue.

Another serious aspect is that, under World Bank pressure, the state government has recently passed a new Irrigation Act (which opens the door to privatisation along with stiff hikes in irrigation rates) and the Agricultural Markets Act (which opens the door to loot of the peasants by multinationals and big business). Multinationals and big business are, in fact, being encouraged by the powers that be in every sector concerned with agriculture – be it land, water, power, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides or marketing.

It is these issues that are being focussed upon in the extensive statewide campaign that is being run by the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha during the last six months as a run-up to the ensuing 31st National Conference of the All India Kisan Sabha at Nashik.

The first blueprint of the conference preparations was drawn up in the three-day state-level study-camp of the AIKS that was held at Parbhani in April 2005 under the guidance of AIKS general secretary K Varadha Rajan. The final touches were provided at the extended meeting of the AIKS state council held at Nashik in September 2005 under the guidance of AIKS president S Ramachandran Pillai. The reception committee of the conference was also formed at that time.

As part of the conference preparations, the AIKS plunged into three major struggles from September to December, mobilising tens of thousands of peasants in each of them. The first was the all India strike and the struggle for food, land and employment on September 29; the second was the actions demanding enactment of the Tribal Rights Bill on November 18; and the third was the demonstrations on the issues related to the WTO Hong Kong meet, to which were added the burning issues of peasant suicides, cotton prices, load-shedding of power and central legislation for agricultural workers, on December 13. Apart from these were the local struggles conducted for rehabilitation of the flood-affected.

In the month of November, a total of 25 district conventions of the AIKS were held throughout Maharashtra specifically for the all India conference preparations and they witnessed a mobilisation of over 12,000 activists and peasants. All state office-bearers of the AIKS, working as a collective team, attended the district conventions under their charge and also the extended district council meetings. The state council published a special issue of its journal Shetkari Sangharsh, which was sold out in these conventions.

On December 18, the state convention of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha was held at Nashik to take stock of the conference preparations and to elect delegates. It was inaugurated by renowned journalist P Sainath and was addressed by AIKS general secretary K Varadha Rajan. The last meeting of the AIKS state council before the all India conference will be held on January 16 at Belapur and it is in this meeting that the finishing touches to the conference preparations will be given.

Meanwhile, in the September meeting itself, one lakh copies of a four-page special folder giving a brief history of the Kisan Sabha, the current agrarian crisis, the alternative placed by the AIKS and AIAWU and the importance of the ensuing national conference was prepared by the AIKS state council and given to the districts for wide propagation among the peasantry. Fund books and advertisement forms were also distributed. In the December state convention, another two lakh leaflets and 25,000 posters specially for the conference rally were given to the districts. A last set of 10,000 posters is being prepared. Several district councils have also printed their own propaganda material.

Now the entire Kisan Sabha organisation in the state is busy with a big wall-writing and postering campaign; jathas and mass meetings; seminars in the districts; the membership and fund drive; and of course, all-out preparations for the conference rally. The membership of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha, which crossed the one lakh mark for the first time in the year 2000, has been steadily growing since then and has crossed the 1,75,000 mark in 2005. This year it will cross the two lakh mark for the first time. AIKS units now exist in about 100 tehsils in 28 districts, although of course they are weak in many places. Attempts are being made to consolidate the organisation by activating village committees and to expand the organisation to new districts and tehsils.

The reception committee of the conference is headed by its chairman Advocate Jayant Jaybhave, a leading progressive lawyer who recently won the election to the Maharashtra and Goa Bar Council. AIKS state joint secretary and Nashik district secretary Kisan Gujar is the general secretary of the reception committee and AIKS state council member and Nashik district president Bhikha Raut is the treasurer.

Hectic preparations are on in Nashik city and district by leaders and cadres of the CITU, NRMU, AIKS, AIAWU, AIDWA, DYFI, SFI and other organisations to make this conference a great success. It should also be underlined that the leaders and activists of all the above mass organisations are giving valuable help at the state level and also in all the districts for the success of the AIKS national conference.

The 31st National Conference of the AIKS will begin at 10 a m on January 28 with the inaugural session, immediately followed by the delegate session where the general secretary’s report will be placed. At 2 p m the same day will be the massive public meeting at the Golf Club Ground, where the main speakers will be West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, AIKS president S Ramachandran Pillai, AIKS general secretary K Varadha Rajan and other AIKS central and state leaders. The same evening there will be a cultural programme of the presentation of songs and lyrics written by the legendary progressive poet Sahir Ludhianvi. After conducting its business over the next three days, the AIKS conference will conclude on the evening of January 31.