People's Democracy

AIKS Plans Campaign Against Neo-Liberalism

MEETING in New Delhi on June 11 and 12, the Central Kisan Committee (CKC) of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) made an assessment of the present agrarian scenario and noted that the Congress-led UPA-2 government has come up with newer forms of attacks on the peasantry. An all round distress in the countryside has become a hallmark of this dispensation.

The persistent acute agrarian crisis has triggered off a new wave of farm suicides. Even in states like Bengal and Kerala which were free of farmers’ suicides under Left governments, an alarming situation is developing, with more than 50 farmers having committed suicide in each of the two states after the Trinamul Congress and Congress led UDF formed governments.

Through a statement issued by AIKS president S Ramachandran Pillai and president K Varadharajan from New Delhi on June 13, the CKC said input costs have risen drastically while prices of for farmers’ produce are not remunerative. The seed and pesticide sectors have been taken over by big monopolies, and deregulation has led to uncontrolled rise in their prices. There are reports of fertiliser shortages in the peak seasons every year, often artificially created by traders and black-marketers. Fertiliser subsidies have been cut in the 2012-13 budget drastically by Rs 6,000 crore. The Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBD) regime in fertilisers has led to huge increases in fertiliser prices in the last one year. The CKC demanded scrapping of the NBS and freezing of prices at the pre-NBS rates.

The CKC took serious note of the crash in prices various crops like turmeric, jute and cotton as well as the non-receipt of even minimum support price (MSP) for paddy and other crops in most states. Turmeric prices, which were Rs 16,000 per quintal last year, have come down to as low as Rs 2,000 per quintal. Paddy is getting only Rs 800 per quintal, which is over Rs 300 less than the MSP, while procurement centres are absent in most parts. Different parts of India are reeling under severe drought conditions and the peasantry is in a state of acute distress. The CKC demanded adequate relief and compensation for the crop losses suffered by farmers.

The UPA government and different state governments are undertaking policies of reversing the land reforms. Peasants are being dispossessed of their land; corporate takeover of land is being facilitated.

Unorganised retail trade at present provides jobs to more than four crore people, meaning nearly 20 crore people are dependent on this sector for livelihood. The government’s move to allow FDI in retail will threaten their livelihood. The draft National Water Policy 2012 proposes to privatise water delivery services and abolish subsidies to agricultural as well as domestic consumers. This retrograde move will allow the profit-seeking corporate sector to rake in huge profits, as millions of Indians will be forced to pay hefty amounts for getting water for cultivation as well as daily use. The CKC called for resisting any such efforts and called upon all its state units to remain vigilant against such moves.

On the basis of fraudulent poverty estimates, the Planning Commission has claimed that the proportion of BPL persons has gone down by seven per cent between 2004-05 and 2009-10, even as millions of poor are in a state of hunger. Crores of people are deprived of minimum basic needs but have been wrongly classified as APL and thus denied access to subsidised food under the PDS and other benefits. The insensitive government is contemplating wheat exports while the poor live in hunger.

The CKC decided to run a nationwide campaign and intensification of struggles against neo-liberal policies and on local issues in all states in August-September 2012. it will seek to build up broadest possible unity against the anti-peasant, anti-people policies of the central and different state governments.