People's Democracy

AIAWU Victory in Allahabad

IT was on June 10, 2008 that a team led by Suneet Chopra, Ambika Prasad Mishra, Ram Kripal and Ram Narayan Maurya --- leaders of the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) --- visited the scene of dastardly attacks in Allahabad district, Uttar Pradesh. These attacks were inspired by a former DIG of Punjab Police who has been grabbing 13 bighas of land in Karti village under Ghoorpur thana in Allahabad that was allotted to dalits as far back as in 1993 and on which they were settled.

They were brutally evicted, their women were brutally tortured, huts were burnt and arrests made to terrorise them. The AIAWU took up the issue with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Now the false registration in the name of dalits posing as a front for the Punjab Police officer has been cancelled and the lands have been restored to the original owners. The struggle has been long but justice has prevailed in the end.

The organisation had noted in the letter sent to the NHRC that “…..it should create a cell to ensure that new problems for dalits, tribals and the poor by the sky rocketing prices of land are dealt with fast and effectively while opportunities created for them by land reforms acts and the Tribal and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Rights) Act are actually afford them.” The AIAWU has recently taken up this struggle in earnest in Allahabad, Mirzapur and Son Bhadra successfully.

The organisation has also asked all its units in northern India that they should makes special efforts to ensure the land rights of dalits along with their ongoing struggle to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) without allowing corruption.