People's Democracy

AIAWU Successfully Holds Political Schools

THE All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) successfully held a political school for its cadre from North Indian states on July 12-13, 2013, in Jalandhar in Punjab. A total of 126 delegates participated from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajashtan and Madhya Pradesh.  All India general secretary, A Vijayaraghavan hoisted the union flag. All India Agricultural Workers Union joint secretary, Kumar Shiralkar was in-charge of the school. In his opening remarks, president of Punjab unit of AIAWU, Bhup Chand Channo underlined the importance of keeping abreast with socio political developments. He also said that these political schools will help the comrades working on the ground to familiarise themselves with the developments and also in giving confidence in building the organisation.

On the first day, AIAWU joint secretary Suneet Chopra opened the session with “ Agrarian Crisis and Impact of Neo-liberal Policies on the Rural Poor ”. He explained the basic workings of capitalist society and the contradictions involved in the process of exploitation and accumulation of wealth in the hands of monopolists, corporates and landlords contrasted with the growing impoverishment of the many. Under the neo-liberal policies, farming is rendered economically unviable leading to increasing landlessness, unemployment, poverty and hunger driving the rural masses to desperation like suicides, migration and unheard of misery. This could not be tolerated anymore. He also elaborated on the aspects of the agrarian crisis and how important it is to organise the rural proletariat as they are the link between the working class and peasantry in building the basis of an agrarian revolution.   For this, the rural proletariat had to be galvanised and organised to struggle on immediate issues like unemployment,  price rise, PDS and house-sites; confronting it so that it can draw the peasants alongside it in struggle.

AIAWU general secretary A Vijayaraghavan followed up with a class on “The History of the Peasants and Agricultural Workers Movement”. He narrated how the mass resistance movements and rural mobilisations in India began with the advent of brutal exploitation of the peasants after the independence.  He explained how changes were taking place in agrarian relations in India under the colonial rule and the contribution of AIKS in building the organised farmers movement in India and its role in initially organising the agricultural labour till the  inception of the AIAWU was necessitated by the development of capitalist relations in agriculture in different regions. This required calibrating the struggle of the agricultural workers with that of the peasants and of the building up of worker-peasant unity with the rural proletariat playing a crucial role.

On the second day, AIAWU’s joint secretary Kumar Shiralkar dealt with the “Caste System, Social Reforms and Dalit Politics in India”. He explained the basis of different social reform movements which were a part of national movement and also dealt with the caste based polarisations in post independent India. He explained how the growing forces of production forced relations of production to make both varna and jati less relevant in the face of class exploitation and oppression. This made it necessary to fight against casteist ideology, the patriarchal system that uphelds it and give support to the struggle of the oppressed for social justice and ensure the building of class organisations. He also stressed the relevance of Dr Ambedkar and the limitations of his position once organisations committed to an agrarian revolution had emerged.

Joint secretary Hannan Mollah dealt with “Strategy for Expanding the Agricultural Workers Movement – New Issues for Struggles”.  While dealing with the strategies for expanding the agricultural workers movement, he stressed that it is the primary responsibility of the AIAWU to organise the rural proletariat in which the agricultural workers are the majority. He also called on the AIAWU activists to organise various streams of workers who are engaged in agriculture-affiliated work and other rural developmental activity, other than MGNREGA, as the state and central governments would not implement pro-poor legislation, and use it only as propaganda. Not all the rural poor were agricultural workers but they are part of rural proletariat which AIAWU is committed to organise. He suggested that each state committee of AIAWU has to undertake the  task of setting up of at least three new sub-committees to deal with organising the rural landless in the new situation in the rural areas today. He called for evolving a bold approach of struggles with an innovative approach of drawing different sections into broader united agrarian mass movements.

52 comrades participated in discussion who raised certain interesting points from their field experiences. One such issue brought for discussion is that on the question of organising the MGNREGA workers as a whole and not dividing them on the basis of petty government schemes or attempting to lump them together with building labour. What was stressed was that a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labour and state legislation to match  was necessary and not piecemeal welfare schemes that were poorly implemented and were used to accumulate funds from those who could ill-afford to pay them were only diversionary at best and looting the poor at worst.

The southern class was held from March 21-24,  2013 at Trichur in Kerala.  A total of 119 delegates participated from Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu. Paturu Ramaiah was in-charge of the school and Prof. V K Ramachandran dealt with  agrarian crisis and neo-liberal policies, Prof K M Gangadhar dealt with impact of globalisation on the rural poor on the first day, Kumar Shiralkar dealt with social reform movements and dalit politics in India and A Vijayaraghavan dealt with the history of peasants and agricultural workers movements. In the end, Suneet Chopra dealt with strategies for expanding agricultural workers movement and new issues for struggles.