People's Democracy

MAHARASHTRA

Massive Peasant Rallies Attack Govt Policies 

Leading To Peasant Suicides & SEZs

Prakash Karat addressing the peasant rally at Shegaon, district Bublana, on question of peasant suicides on September 20, 2006

Ashok Dhawale

TWO massive joint rallies of peasants ranging from 30,000 to 40,000 each were held on two consecutive days – September 20 and 21 – in two different regions of Maharashtra on two burning questions affecting the peasantry and agricultural workers. 

The first rally at Shegaon in Buldana district of Vidarbha region on September 20 focussed on the question of peasant suicides, the crashing price of cotton and the poor implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). In the last one year alone, there have been over 1000 suicides of debt-ridden peasants in the Vidarbha region alone, and this malady is spreading to the Marathwada and Western and Northern Maharashtra regions as well. The prime minister’s visit to Vidarbha in July and the package that he announced has not led to any abatement in peasant suicides. The main speaker at the Shegaon rally was CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, and it was jointly organised by the Bharatiya Republican Party-Bahujan Mahasangh (BRP-BM), the CPI(M) and the CPI.

The second rally at Konkan Bhavan in New Mumbai in the Konkan region on September 21 attacked the huge 35,000-acre proposed Maha Mumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) – perhaps the largest in the country – that is to be handed over to Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries for developing after displacing thousands of peasants in Raigad district. Notices under the antiquated Land Acquisition Act of 1894 framed during British rule, have already been issued by the state government to thousands of peasants, who are firmly resisting giving up their lands. The main speaker at the Konkan Bhavan rally was CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury, MP, and it was organised by the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) and the CPI(M), although affected peasants owing allegiance to all political streams took part.

Both these rallies were excellently covered by both the print and electronic media all over Maharashtra and also on national channels. The other political impact was that after a considerable period of time, they brought the Left and secular parties together in struggle around people’s issues. 

SHEGAON RALLY

The Shegaon rally was attended by peasants and agricultural workers in very large numbers from several districts of Vidarbha and some from Marathwada and Northern Maharashtra as well. Since the BRP-BM was one of the organisers, it had a substantial proportion of the Dalit rural masses. Red flags of the Communist Parties and blue flags of the Republican Party intermingled in the Shegaon rally after many years.

Addressing the rally, Prakash Karat welcomed the confluence of the red and blue flags that had come together for struggle on burning agrarian issues, which are among the most serious in the country. He attacked the neo-liberal policies of the erstwhile BJP-led regime and also the present Congress-led regime which were squarely responsible for thousands of peasant suicides and the grave agrarian distress stalking the country. 

The need of the hour, said Karat, was not just waiver of interest on debts, but waiver of the entire debt of poor farmers and agricultural workers. The other important need is to ensure remunerative price to cotton and all other crops, without which the peasantry, groaning under rising input costs, can never break even. The refusal to give remunerative price to wheat peasants, he said, has set in motion a chain of events whereby India has had to import massive amounts of wheat at unaffordable prices, threatening food security.

It is the sharp cut in public investment in agriculture over the years and the government bowing down to WTO dictates that has worsened the crisis in Indian agriculture, said Karat. The enactment of the NREGA was a step in the right direction, but its implementation leaves much to be desired. It has also to be extended to all the districts in the country. The peasantry is being fleeced by the SEZ policy of the government, which has to be resisted. The public distribution system continues to be attacked, and lakhs of poor families are still being denied BPL cards. As a way out of the present agrarian crisis, the National Commission on Farmers headed by Dr M S Swaminathan has made several valuable recommendations to the central government, which are not being accepted. 

Prakash Karat concluded by saying that the Left parties have been taking up all these issues with the UPA regime and also in parliament. This will be stepped up in the future, but at the same time, struggles of the people must also increase manifold if a Left, democratic and secular alternative is to be forged in the future, as has been done in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.

The rally was addressed by BRP-BM leader and ex-MP Prakash Ambedkar, who criticised the central and state government for their complete neglect of the peasants and agricultural workers. He said that union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was interested only in the sugar lobby in the state, whereas cotton farmers were committing suicide in droves. The price of cotton paid to farmers was sharply reduced by Rs 500 per quintal last year by the state government under the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme, and this has aggravated the situation in the cotton belt of Vidarbha, Marathwada and Khandesh. Agricultural workers were also hard hit and were denied minimum wage and other social security benefits. He called for a sustained struggle on all these burning issues in the days ahead.

Among others who addressed the rally were CPI(M) state secretary Ashok Dhawale, CPI National Council member Govind Pansare, BRP MLA Haribhau Bhade, Akola ZP president Balmukund Bhirud and Bhimrao Jadhav, who presided and placed the resolution of the convention. Professor Avinash Dolas conducted the proceedings.

The CPI(M) had mobilised in strength for this rally from the ten districts of Buldana, Wardha, Yavatmal, Amravati, Chandrapur, Nagpur, Jalgaon, Nashik, Hingoli and Jalna. Among the CPI(M) leaders who mobilised for and attended the rally were Vinayak Gaikwad, Dada Raipure, Narendra Kavishwar, Yashwant Zade, Udayan Sharma, Shankarrao Danav, Kisan Gujar and many others. 

KONKAN BHAVAN RALLY 

Sitaram Yechury addressing the peasant rally against SEZ at Konkan Bhavan, in New Mumbai, on September 21, 2006

The Konkan Bhavan rally on September 21 was attended by a massive number of peasants from the 45 villages in the Uran, Pen and Panvel tehsils of Raigad district that will be completely uprooted if the 35000-acre Reliance-led SEZ is actually set up according to the government plan. They were all up in arms against the proposed loot of their fertile rice fields. They already had a bitter experience two decades ago when land in Uran tehsil was usurped by the CIDCO, and in the valiant struggle that then took place, five peasants were martyred in police firing in 1984.

Addressing the rally, Sitaram Yechury attacked the central government for initiating and going ahead with the SEZ plans in various states with no concern whatsoever for the interests of the peasantry. Lakhs of peasants and agricultural workers, he said, would be mercilessly uprooted in several parts of the country if radical changes were not immediately made in the SEZ Act and in its Rules. The Left parties had decided to take up this issue with the UPA regime with the greatest seriousness. 

Yechury lambasted the SEZ scheme on other vital grounds as well. He attacked the provision that only 25 per cent of the land would be used for setting up industries, saying the rest would be a real estate bonanza for the developers. He criticised the unprecedented tax concessions that would result in a loss to the government of lakhs of crores of rupees. He attacked the fact that in many states led by the Congress and the BJP, labour laws would not apply in the SEZs. Most important, he said, was the danger that SEZs posed to the country’s sovereignty through various murky provisions.

He assured the huge crowd that the Left parties would fight this battle in parliament, and asked them to continue the struggle at the grassroots. It is a combination of these two struggles that would lead to victory. Saying that industrialisation was necessary for the country’s advance and also for generating employment, he gave the example of how a Left-ruled state like West Bengal was going about the task, taking the peasantry into confidence, and making provisions for handsome compensation and proper rehabilitation in the limited cases where land was to be acquired. But the SEZ scheme here and elsewhere was a completely different story, and the struggle for justice here must be intensified.

Among those on the dais of the rally were PWP MLAs Jayant Patil and Vivek Patil, former MLAs Mohan Patil and Meenakshi Patil, Raigad ZP president Balaram Patil, CPI(M) state secretary Ashok Dhawale, state secretariat members Krishna Khopkar, Narsayya Adam MLA, Mahendra Singh and D L Karad, state committee members Ghanashyam Patil and Mariam Dhawale, all members of the CPI(M) Raigad district committee and leaders of the Maha Mumbai Shetkari Sangharsh Samiti.

The CPI(M), AIKS, DYFI and AIDWA units in Raigad district had conducted an independent and sustained campaign of meetings for over three months in the affected villages. Thousands of leaflets were distributed by the Party outlining the danger of the SEZs. The Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha had published a special booklet against the SEZs written by Krishna Khopkar. The booklet was sold in Raigad district by the thousands.

Within two days of the Konkan Bhavan rally, the top Congress leadership, meeting at Nainital, was forced to signal a change in its SEZ policy and this raised the morale of the peasant participants of Raigad district to a great extent. However, the struggle is not yet over and has to be pressed with greater vigour in the days ahead. In other districts of Maharashtra like Pune, for instance, similar moves are being made for land acquisition for SEZs. Here also, the CPI(M) is a leading constituent of the broad-based committee that has been set up to fight back the SEZ attacks.