People's Democracy

ANDHRA PRADESH

Land Struggle Inspires Entire Country

S Ramachandran Pillai participating in the land struggle in Kottagangaram village of AP

M Venugopala Rao

S RAMACHANDRAN PILLAI, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) said that the land struggle in Andhra Pradesh was giving inspiration to the country. Inaugurating the movement for occupying land by the poor at Kottagangarm village of Mulakalapalli mandal in Khammam district on September 19, he gave a call to the poor to continue the struggle till they got land bravely facing the repression by the government to suppress the movement. Ramachandran Pillai warned the government that if it wanted to threaten the agitating poor people by using the police machinery, the movement would get further intensified. As a legacy of the heroic armed struggle of the Telangana peasants, the poor should intensify their movement for house sites and arable land, he said. He ploughed the land occupied by the poor and sowed seeds.
Earlier, on September 17 Ramachandran Pillai participated in the land movement at Kolkur village of Sadasivapet mandal in Medak district where the poor people occupied 60 acres of government land and ploughed it. Addressing a meeting organised on the occasion, he criticised the Congress government for its failure in distributing surplus land to the landless poor. Complimenting the poor participating in the land struggle, he pointed out that the land struggle in Andhra Pradesh was making one to recollect the movement for independence of the country. Announcing that the land movement would be extended at the national level, he said that it was decided to observe the October month as one of land movement by conducting struggles and the issue would be discussed in the meeting of the secretariat of the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union and also in the meeting of the national council of All India Kisan Sabha to be held near Chennai in the last week of this month. Ramachandran Pillai gave a call for a struggle at the national level for protecting the agricultural sector which was in a crisis.