People's Democracy

AIKS To Resist Anti-Peasant Policies

MEETING at New Delhi on July 2 and 3, with members from across the country attending it, the Central Kisan Committee (CKC) of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) discussed the serious agrarian situation in the country and concluded that the Congress-led UPA government’s policies are further deepening the agrarian crisis. The CKC highlighted the burning issue of corporate land grab taking place across the country. Lakhs of acres of land are being acquired across the country and millions of people are getting affected by such acquisition. The meeting stressed the need of building strong resistance against such moves. The CKC also decided to launch struggles to protect the rights of the peasantry in the case of unjust land acquisition. Greater efforts will be made to intervene effectively on this matter.

The CKC condemned the violence perpetrated by the Trinamul Congress-Maoist combine on the Left activists and Kisan Sabha cadre after the assembly elections in West Bengal. The CKC unanimously adopted a resolution, titled “Stand with the Battle against State Repression in West Bengal,” against the brutal attacks by the Trinamul-Maoist combine and members from across the country expressed solidarity with the fighting people of Bengal who are resisting these attacks on democracy.

The CKC also discussed the issue of very important legislations like the Land Acquisition Act Amendment Bill, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, Seed Bill, Food Security Legislation, Biotech Regulatory Authority Bill, and Pesticide Management Bill which have been pending in the parliament for long. Many of these bills pose serious problems and are aimed at promoting corporate interests at the expense of the peasantry. There are also many free trade agreements (FTAs) in the pipeline. Many rounds of negotiations on the India-EU FTA have been held but no text is in the public domain and the parliament as well as the state governments have been kept in the dark about the content of these agreements. These legislations and FTAs that are pending may come up posing a serious threat to the interests of the peasantry. The CKC called upon the peasantry to be vigilant and build up enough pressure to ensure that these legislations are not passed in their present form.

The CKC noted with concern the reports that the kharbooz (musk melon) has been patented by Monsanto. Kharbooz was one of the 190 crops that were removed from the purview of the Biodiversity Act by the UPA government and the AIKS had then warned of the implications of this act. This threat looms large over the remaining crops also and we should stall any move to loot our biological resources.

The CKC resolved to intensify struggles against the anti-peasant policies of the UPA government.

RESOLUTION ON

BENGAL ATTACKS

This meeting of the Central Kisan Committee (CKC) condemns the attacks that have been unleashed against the agrarian and wider Left and democratic movements by the ruling classes and ruling combine in West Bengal in the months following the elections to the Assembly and the formation of the Trinamul Congress-led government in the state.

With these attacks, the ruling combine has attempted to effectively demobilise the Left across wide areas of the state.

The attacks include:

1) 21 CPI(M) and Left Front activists and supporters murdered, thus taking the murder toll to 405 since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

2) 3 cases of forcing comrades – as a result of physical and mental torture – to commit suicide

3) More than 1000 Left workers and supporters injured, with 643 having suffered grievous injuries. An uncounted number of injured workers have been prevented from seeking medical aid or filing police complaints.

4) 7 cases of rape of women supporters of the Left; one of whom was killed.

5) 186 incidents of molestation, including physical torture, of women comrades.

6) 628 CPI(M) offices attacked and ransacked.

7) 193 CPI(M) offices captured and occupied.

8) 702 offices of mass organisations of the Left captured and occupied.

9) 55 offices of elected student unions captured and occupied.

10) About 40,000 comrades forced to leave their homes and residential areas, of whom 11,457 are now in temporary shelters organised by the CPI(M).

11) More than 100 leading comrades arrested on false and fabricated charges.

12) 354 recorded sharecroppers (bargadars) and vested land allottees prevented from ploughing their land.

13) More than 20,000 acres of agricultural land currently under litigation but in the possession of landless farmers under threat of being reoccupied by landlord claimants who had been displaced by land reform.

14) Crores of rupees (our current estimate is 25 crore or 250 million rupees) extorted by goons of the ruling combine from villages as “penalty” (a large share of that money has been extorted from schoolteachers, other professionals and peasants).

15) 11 major incidents of trumped-up “arms recovery” cases against the CPI(M). In addition there have been innumerable smaller incidents of such false cases.

16) Hundreds of Left-controlled village panchayats forced out of office. This has been done in three ways: by forcing resignations, by forcing defections, or by coercing the panchayat chairpersons to follow the illegal diktats of the local representatives of the ruling combine.

17) Hundreds of representative institutions, from cooperative societies to elected university bodies, have been captured, made defunct and denied their rights.

18) The pioneering Left daily Ganashakti is under severe attack. Hawkers and distributors are being threatened, and bundles of newspapers are being burnt.

19) The state government is now – vindictively and mala fide -- reviving cases against Left leaders that were disposed of more than 40 years ago.

20) The two major institutional achievements of the Left Front, land reform and panchayati raj, are sought to be undermined and destroyed by the ruling classes and ruling combine.

The CKC warns that this attack represents a grievous offensive against the hard-earned rights of the working people in one of the most advanced outposts of the democratic movement in the country. It is a historic fact that the attacks will be against not only the political representatives of the Left, but also against all toilers and the democratic rights of the people at large. History has shown, as have the early signs from the new dispensation that even those who voted for the ruling combine will not be spared.

The CKC recognises the historic mission of the West Bengal peasantry and agricultural workers and other democratic sections in this difficult period and in the years to come. The tasks of restoring democracy, civil rights and the right to decent livelihoods rest on them. Our experience is that, in times of such repression and trial, our movement and organisation are steeled, and emerge stronger.

The CKC sends its revolutionary greetings to the West Bengal unit of the Kisan Sabha and to all fighting people of the state. It calls on all its state units to organise -- independently and with other democratic organisations and individuals -- protests and demonstrations against state repression in West Bengal.