People's Democracy

AIKS to Work against UPA, NDA

MEETING at New Delhi on March 2, 2014, the office bearers of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) discussed the state of the peasantry in India and the agrarian crisis that has been intensifying under the Congress-led UPA as well as in various states ruled by the BJP and its NDA allies. The AIKS decided to work for the defeat of the anti-peasant, anti-people and corrupt Congress-led UPA as well as the BJP-led NDA. It will also unite the peasantry against divisive communal propaganda of the BJP, RSS and their allies. All its strength will be harnessed to defeat the Trinamool Congress in whose regime in West Bengal a reign of terror and corruption has been unleashed on the peasantry and rural poor.

The AIKS statement, issued by its president Amra Ram and general secretary Hannan Mollah on March 3, also said the peasantry and the tribal population will be adversely affected by the unscientific and anti-peasant recommendations of the high level working group (HLWG), headed by Kasturirangan, on the Western Ghats. It decided to carry out an intense campaign against the anti-peasant recommendations and the Congress-led UDF government in Kerala as well as the UPA government which are seeking to impose these recommendations despite widespread opposition. The Kisan Sabha decided to work to defeat and isolate the divisive communal forces and make victorious the Left, democratic and secular forces in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

The AIKS also condemned the blatant lies of Narendra Modi regarding the issue of Sikh farmers in Kutch. While Narendra Modi claimed in Punjab recently that his government is not asking these Sikh farmers to leave the Kutch region and not branding them as “outsiders,” the AIKS said he is spreading falsehood to gain votes in Punjab. The reality is that the BJP government of Gujarat has challenged in the Supreme Court the Gujarat High Court judgement which was favourable to the farmers. This exposes the doublespeak of Modi, the Kisan Sabha said, adding that would side with the affected farmers and resist this fascist step of seeking to forcibly evict these farmers to facilitate the corporate land-grab.

The AIKS also condemned the brutal police attack on farmers by the Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab, in which a farmer was killed.

The office bearers’ meeting noted with concern the massive crop losses suffered by farmers in various North Indian states due to the recent unprecedented hailstorm. Unfortunately the central and state governments have done nothing to mitigate the suffering of the farmers. The AIKS said the existing norms for compensation are unscientific and the farmers are eligible for any compensation only when their losses are more than 50 percent. The AIKS has demanded that all farmers who have suffered losses must be compensated on the basis of a proper assessment of the losses. This assessment must take into consideration the cost of cultivation incurred, the expected yield as well as the income lost. The Kisan Sabha’s units in all the affected states will organise massive protest actions till fair compensation is effectively paid to the affected farmers.

The meeting also decided to organise in a befitting manner the birth centenary of Comrade Harekrishna Konar, revolutionary leader of the peasantry and three times general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha, from August 5, 2014 onwards.