THE MASSIVE PEASANT STRUGGLES IN MAHARASHTRA
1. UNITED
STRUGGLES
The
unprecedented peasant strike in Maharashtra from June 1 to 11, 2017, with
farmers refusing to get their produce like milk, vegetables and fruits to the
market, was truly a historic struggle. The two cardinal demands of the strike
were peasant loan waiver and implementation of the recommendations of the
National Commission on Farmers (NCF) that was headed by Dr. M. S. Swaminathan,
particularly the one about setting the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all
crops to cover the cost of production plus fifty per cent profit.
Other demands
included increase in the price of milk paid to the farmer; pension to peasants
and agricultural workers above the age of 60 years; waiving of arrears of
electricity bills; and increased irrigation facilities. Some other demands that
have been raised are to stop the conspiracy of snatching farmers’ lands in the
name of the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Highway and the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial
Corridor; scrapping of the pro-corporate Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and
providing comprehensive insurance security to all farmers.
The spontaneous
response of the peasantry of Maharashtra to the strike was not without reason.
Of the three lakh suicides of debt-ridden peasants that have taken place in
India during the last 25 years of neo-liberal policies, Maharashtra has the
dubious distinction of topping the list of states, with nearly 70,000 farmers
having committed suicide. Vidarbha region has the largest number of peasant
suicides, followed by the Marathwada region. 12,602 farmers committed suicide
in India in the year 2015. Compared to 2014, this is a massive 42 per cent
increase. Maharashtra had 4,291 farmer suicides in 2015. The situation has aggravated
with the ascent of the BJP-led Modi regime three years ago.
The
consistent independent struggles in Maharashtra led by the AIKS helped to
popularise the issues and the demands of the present joint struggle. For two years, the AIKS has led several massive independent actions,
which we shall recount later in this piece.
THE STRIKE
A village called
Puntamba in Ahmednagar district held a gram sabha which passed a resolution
calling for a statewide farmers’ strike from June 1, 2017, on the two main
demands of loan waiver and remunerative prices. Due to the massive latent
discontent amongst the peasantry, this became a point of discussion and support
started slowly building up in both the mainstream media and the social media in
the month of May 2017 for this action.
The AIKS
intervened in this build-up right in the beginning. On May 25, a week-long
dharna began in Puntamba village to propagate the strike. AIKS joint secretary
Dr. Ashok Dhawale, state general secretary Dr. Ajit Nawale and state president
Kisan Gujar were among the several peasant leaders who addressed the dharna
there on the first day. On June 1, the novel peasant strike began and it
elicited very good spontaneous response from the peasantry.
The attempt by the BJP chief minister Devendra
Fadnavis on June 2/3 to abort the peasant strike by using two pliant and
servile RSS-connected blacklegs who were masquerading as ‘peasant leaders’ was
smashed by the decisive intervention of the AIKS. The AIKS immediately took the
initiative to bring all farmers’ organisations together to fight this betrayal
and to continue the strike. This happened in the following way.
A delegation of
farmers, mainly from Puntamba village, met the Maharashtra chief minister
Devendra Fadnavis at his bungalow in Mumbai in a delegation at midnight of June
2/3. In spite of the CM not concretely conceding even a single demand of the
fighting peasants after a three hour discussion, the so-called peasant leaders
unilaterally declared a withdrawal of the strike at dawn without consulting any
of the peasant organisations who were actively supporting the strike. It became
crystal clear that both the RSS-BJP state government and these blacklegs had
connived to undermine this historic peasant struggle.
But to their
utter misfortune, the young general secretary of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan
Sabha (AIKS), Dr. Ajit Nawale was also a part of the delegation that met the
CM. He was the only one of the 17-member delegation who hotly argued that none
of the vital demands of the strike like loan waiver and remunerative prices
were agreed to by the CM and hence the strike must on no account be withdrawn.
The CM, during the discussions, went to the extent of branding him as a
‘disruptive Communist’ and the two blacklegs declared that ‘he was not even a
member of the core committee, and hence need not be taken seriously.’
Dr. Ajit Nawale
then consulted AIKS national joint secretary Dr. Ashok Dhawale on phone at 3.45
am on June 3. Both decided that he should walk out of the talks with the CM in
protest and should immediately report the full details of the connived betrayal
to the media that was waiting outside the CM’s bungalow. This was flashed all
over the state by the electronic media and it led to a massive uproar amongst the
peasantry all over the state against both the chief minister and these
blacklegs. AIKS leaders Dr. Ashok Dhawale and Dr. Ajit Nawale immediately
contacted leaders of other peasant organisations who were against this sell-out
and it was jointly decided by all of them to give the Maharashtra Bandh call
for June 5.
On June 2, CPI (M)
General Secretary Sitaram Yechury addressed a press conference in Mumbai in
which he fully supported the peasant strike. On June 3, Dr. Ashok Dhawale, Dr.
Ajit Nawale, AIKS state president Kisan Gujar and state working president Arjun
Adey addressed another jam-packed press meet in Mumbai organised by the AIKS.
They thoroughly exposed the above betrayal and called for intensification of
the strike. Both these press meets were excellently covered by all the media.
On June 4, a
meeting of peasant organisations was held at Nashik, where the old core
committee that held discussions with the CM was declared as dissolved and a new
35-member Coordination Committee, comprising leaders of various peasant
organisations, was formed to lead the strike. Dr. Ajit Nawale was unanimously
elected Convenor of this Coordination Committee. He has carried out all his responsibilities as
Convenor for the last four months with admirable courage and fortitude that has
been acknowledged by all.
This, together with the fact that the AIKS has
consistently and independently led militant mass struggles in recent years on
burning peasant issues, has a state membership of well over two lakh and has
functioning units in 23 districts – more than any other farmers’ organisation
- has put the AIKS at the centre stage
of the current peasant struggle in Maharashtra.
June 5 was a red
letter day in the history of the state. On that day, practically the whole of
rural and semi-urban Maharashtra came to a halt as part of a Maharashtra Bandh
to support the historic statewide farmers’ strike that began on June 1. The
call had been given jointly by several peasant organisations, among whom the AIKS
is playing a major role.
Hundreds of
towns, mandis, roads, shops and government offices were closed down by lakhs of
farmers who came on to the streets in solidarity with the demands of the
strike. In several places, effigies of the BJP state government and of the
chief minister were burnt. There were police lathi charges in several places in
which innumerable peasants were injured. One of them died while running to
escape from the police repression. There were hundreds of arrests.
The strike and
the Bandh reflected the long pent-up anger of the peasantry at always being
given a raw deal by the powers that be. The rage against the government was
palpable everywhere. Maharashtra had never seen such a novel phenomenon of
peasant protest.
As per the call
of the Coordination Committee, on June 6, the day after the Maharashtra Bandh,
tens of thousands of peasants closed down many of the district collectorates
and tehsil offices in the state, putting padlocks on several of them. On June
7, the peasants picketed the houses of MLAs and MPs.
On June 6, there occurred the horrendous police firing
by the BJP state government on farmers who were agitating for the very same
demands in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, killing six of them. This had big
repercussions throughout the country and it put the BJP, along with its central
and state governments, on the defensive.
On June 8, a massive state convention of the
Co-ordination Committee of Farmers’ Organisations of Maharashtra was held at
Nashik. The unity of all peasant organisations and the militancy of thousands
of farmers displayed at that convention, together with the vibrant success of
the then week-long farmers’ strike, conveyed its own powerful message.
This convention gave a clarion call for a statewide
Rail Roko and Rasta Roko struggle slated for June 13 if the government still
refused to relent. This unnerved the powers that be, who began seeing
nightmares of a repeat of Mandsaur in several places in Maharashtra. The
preparations for that decisive action had begun in full swing all over the
state.
Special mention must be made that the print and
electronic media as a whole, especially the Marathi media, prominently and
consistently highlighted the novel peasant strike and its demands, the Maharashtra
Bandh, the Nashik state convention and all the peasant actions that took place.
Public opinion thus turned against the BJP government.
THE VICTORY
As a result of all these factors, on June 9, the very
next day after the Nashik convention, the state government announced the
formation of a high-powered committee of six Cabinet ministers headed by
revenue minister Chandrakant Patil, to hold negotiations with the Co-ordination
Committee and sent a letter inviting the Committee for negotiations at the
Sahyadri State Guest House in Mumbai on June 11. This itself was a climb down
for the government, which had claimed for a week that it would talk only to
‘real farmers and not to those who were using the farmers for their own ends’.
On June 10, to ensure unanimity within the 35-member
Coordination Committee when talking to the government, a special committee
meeting was held. A Charter of Demands was prepared with the concurrence of all
participants. A jam-packed media conference was held.
On June 11, the entire 35-member coordination committee
was present at the talks with the state government. Prominent among them were
Raju Shetty MP, Bachhu Kadu MLA, Jayant Patil MLC, Raghunathdada Patil, Dr.
Ashok Dhawale, Namdev Gavde and Convenor Dr. Ajit Nawale. The state government
was represented by Cabinet ministers Chandrakant Patil, Pandurang Fundkar,
Divakar Raote, Girish Mahajan, Subhash Deshmukh, and secretaries and officials
of related departments.
With strenuous and protracted negotiations for over three
hours, after the ministers present consulted the chief minister, the state
government finally agreed as follows: 1. Complete loan waiver to the peasantry,
subject to certain criteria to exclude the rich sections; 2. These criteria
will be decided within one month by a 10-12 member committee, which will have
half the members from the Co-ordination Committee and half from the government;
3. Implementation of loan waiver to all peasants holding less than five acres
of land with immediate effect and new loans to be given to them immediately for
the coming sowing season; 4. Substantial increase in the price of milk to be
paid to the peasantry as per the formula that 70 per cent of the selling price
of milk will go to the peasant and 30 per cent to the processing institute for
its expenses; 5. The chief minister will take a delegation of farmers’
organisations to the prime minister to insist on the Swaminathan Commission
recommendation of fixing the minimum support price (MSP) to cover the cost of
production plus 50 per cent profit; 6. The state government will give a written
reply to all the other demands in the charter; 7. Police cases in this struggle
will be immediately withdrawn.
The committee strongly insisted on two aspects in the
loan waiver and these were conceded by the government. One, there should not be
a land limit because dry land farmers everywhere generally have more than five
acres of land. This is especially the case in both Vidarbha and Marathwada, the
cotton and soyabean-growing backward and largely unirrigated regions, which
have the largest number of suicides of debt-ridden peasants. It is the peasants
here that need loan waiver the most. Two, the loan waiver should not be limited
only to peasants who have defaulted on their loans. In the largely irrigated
regions of Western and Northern Maharashtra, lakhs of peasants with less than
five acres of land who grow sugarcane, vegetables and fruits and who cannot pay
off their loans, simply renew them each year in record books. They should not be
left out of the loan waiver ambit.
After the leadership placed these decisions before the
Committee for its approval, the group of ministers was requested to place the
same decisions before the entire Co-ordination Committee for its acceptance. It
was only after this democratic and transparent procedure was followed that a
joint media meet was held and all the above decisions were reported. They were
flashed with lead and banner headlines by all the media in Maharashtra. The
same evening, a wave of joy swept through the rural areas across the state. In
thousands of towns and villages, people burst crackers and distributed sweets
to celebrate the victory of this magnificent struggle.
Apart from the significance of the demands won, the
characteristics of this peasant struggle were: it was led by young peasants all
across the state; most peasant organisations and their leaders stood united in
this struggle; peasant issues came to the forefront in discussion and decision
making after a very long time; unity of the peasantry and the working class
(CITU, AITUC and other trade unions held joint solidarity actions in several
cities) and intellectuals in the agrarian field began taking shape; most
sections of the print and electronic media played an excellent role, supported
by the social media; and peasant struggles on these issues began to spread to
other states across the country.
THE BETRAYAL
However, as was only to be expected, the BJP-led state
government betrayed its promise of a complete loan waiver minus the richer
sections, within a fortnight.
On June 24, without consulting the coordination
committee, it unilaterally announced a loan waiver package of Rs. 34,000 crore
and released a government resolution to that effect a few days later. It was
unsatisfactory on several counts.
Firstly, the government had itself earlier declared
that the total peasant crop loan is Rs. 1.14 lakh crore. The Rs. 34,000 crore
government package means that a crop loan of Rs. 80,000 crore still remains. In
percentage terms, only 29.82 per cent of the crop loan is waived, while 70.18
per cent of the crop loan still remains.
Secondly, the government has completely ignored the
medium term loans taken by the peasantry for other agricultural purposes like
irrigation, implements and other items.
Thirdly, it has set a limit of Rs. 1.5 lakh for
defaulters only, with the further condition that only if the farmers who have a
loan of more than that amount pay all their remaining crop loans in a one-time settlement,
will they get this Rs. 1.5 lakh loan waiver. There was no talk of setting any
limit in the June 11 talks.
Fourthly, for the non-defaulters (lakhs of whom just
renew their loans in the record books every year by paying off the interest and
not the capital) the government has announced that as an ‘incentive’, only 25
percent of their loan or Rs. 25,000 (whichever figure is less) will be waived.
Again, this paltry amount will be given only if they pay off all their
remaining crop loans in a one-time settlement.
Fifthly, instead of keeping the loan waiver up to June
30, 2017, it has declared it up to June 30, 2016. This itself ensures that a
large majority of peasants will be excluded.
There are some other onerous conditions as well. All
this makes a mockery of the loan waiver and throws lakhs of farmers out of the
loan waiver net. In fact, the scheme is being dubbed by farmers not as a loan
waiver scheme but as a loan recovery scheme.
THE CONVENTIONS
On June 25, the very next day after the government
announcement of its so-called loan waiver package, the Coordination Committee
met and denounced the state government for the betrayal of its promise given on
June 11. It was decided to organise large joint peasant conventions for mass
awakening (jan jaagran) on behalf of the Coordination Committee in major
districts all over the state from July 10 to 23.
The national struggle jatha of farmers’ organisations
was warmly welcomed at Dhule (July 9) and Nashik (July 10), after which it went
on to Gujarat.
15 massive joint conventions of farmers took place in all
the five regions of Maharashtra - Northern Maharashtra, Konkan, Vidarbha,
Marathwada and Western Maharashtra - from July 10 to 23. Over 40,000 farmers
took enthusiastic part in all these conventions despite the sowing season in
the monsoons, which was in itself an extraordinary phenomenon.
These conventions took place in the districts of
Nashik (Nashik and Kalwan), Thane-Palghar (Vikramgad), Ahmednagar (Sangamner),
Dhule-Nandurbar (Saakri), Amravati (Chandur Baajaar), Buldana (Khamgaon),
eastern Vidarbha (Wardha), Nanded (Kinwat), Parbhani, Beed (Dharur), Solapur,
Sangli, Kolhapur and Pune.
The AIKS initiative and mobilisation in almost all
these conventions has been something of which we can be proud. In many
districts, AIKS leaders have been elected the Convenors of the district
coordination committees. The AIKS state council met twice during this period of
struggle – on June 3 and July 3 – and it took several decisions to take forward
this united movement effectively with independent initiative.
The anger and discontent of the farmers against the
BJP regime both at the centre and in the state was palpable in all these
conventions. The leaders flayed the Modi regime for betraying its promise of
implementing the Swaminathan Commission recommendation on remunerative prices
by shamelessly filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court in February 2015,
declaring that it cannot fulfill its election promise since it will ‘distort
the market’. The central government was also castigated for washing its hands
off any responsibility for farmers’ loan waiver on the one hand, while giving
away lakhs of crores of rupees to its corporate cronies in loan waivers, NPAs
and tax concessions. The Fadnavis regime was flayed for its betrayal of the
loan waiver assurance given publicly after negotiations.
On behalf of the AIKS, national joint secretary Dr.
Ashok Dhawale, state general secretary and coordination committee convenor Dr.
Ajit Nawale and state president Kisan Gujar toured the entire state from July
10 to 23. They were accompanied in different places by leaders of the other
farmers’ organisations like Raghunathdada Patil of the Shetkari Sanghatana,
Bachchu Kadu, MLA, of the Prahaar Shetkari Sanghatana, Namdev Gavde of the AIKS
(Ajoy Bhavan), Kishor Dhamale of the Satyashodhak Shetkari Sabha, Ganesh Jagtap
of the Baliraja Shetkari Sanghatana and many others.
The Maharashtra AIKS urgently published 10,000
informative and attractive booklets of the fifth and final report of the
Swaminathan Commission with a preface, for sale during this tour and it met
with excellent response. Thousands of copies were sold. Copies of the AIKS
central Hindi journal ‘Kisan Sangharsh’ were also sold in the tour.
THE ROAD BLOCKADE
The last district convention at Pune on July 23 gave a
call for complete road blockade (called Chakka Jaam) of national highways and
state highways all across Maharashtra for the above demands on August 14, the
eve of Independence Day.
The struggle reached a new crescendo on the eve of
Independence Day. On August 14, over 2,00,000 peasants blocked national and
state highways (Chakka Jaam) for hours together in over 200 centres in 31
districts of Maharashtra. Bullock carts and tractors were also used by the
peasants to enforce this blockade. Highways were blocked spontaneously by
peasants in several centres even where there was no peasant organisation. That
was the most remarkable feature of this struggle. In several centres, thousands
of peasants were shown to have been arrested, since the police had no machinery
to actually arrest such a huge mass.
A significant feature was that nearly half of the
total participation in this Chakka Jaam action was of the AIKS, which mobilised
over 85,000 peasants in this struggle in 23 districts. The AIKS had the largest
total mobilisation in the 15 district conventions in July as well.
The districts with the largest total participation
were: Ahmednagar - 39,000, Thane-Palghar – 25,000, Parbhani – 20,000, Nashik –
12,000, Beed – 10,000, Nandurbar – 10,000, Dhule – 7000, Amravati – 5,000 and
Kolhapur – 5,000.
The districts with the largest AIKS participation
were: Thane-Palghar – 25,000, Ahmednagar – 13,000, Nashik – 10,000, Parbhani –
10,000 and Beed – 6,000.
Leaders and activists of the CITU, AIAWU, AIDWA, DYFI
and SFI also participated in the struggle in several places. The SFI and DYFI
led an independent and effective campaign in rural areas around the slogan ‘We
are Children of Peasants’ in support of the peasant struggle.
All the leaders of the Coordination Committee –
Convenor Dr Ajit Nawale, Raju Shetty MP, Raghunathdada Patil, Bachhu Kadu MLA,
Jayant Patil MLC, J P Gavit MLA, Dr Ashok Dhawale, Kisan Gujar, Namdev Gavde,
Kishor Dhamale, Pratibha Shinde, Sushila Morale and many others led the road
blockade actions at various places across the state.
THE STATE CONVENTION
A massive statewide convention of over 10,000 peasants
was held at Jalgaon on September 26, 2017, under the banner of the Coordination
Committee of Farmers’ Organisations of Maharashtra. This was the next step in
the ongoing struggle for loan waiver and remunerative prices, directed against
the BJP-led government in the state and at the centre.
Although the state government, under intense pressure
of the joint peasant struggle, was forced to announce a Rs. 34,000 crore loan
waiver up to Rs. 1.5 lakh per farmer, this was riddled with all kinds of
conditions cited above, which made a mockery of the promise of a complete loan
waiver minus the richer sections, that it gave on June 11.
Further, in a move that was completely unnecessary and
meant precisely to kill time, the state government asked for online individual
applications from farmers to avail of the loan waiver scheme. The situation in
this regard is shocking. The number of farmers who made online registrations
for loan waiver is 1 crore 4 lakh. Of this, only 58 lakh actual applications
for loan waiver were made online till September 22, which was the last date. 46
lakh farmers who had made the registrations could not submit the actual loan
waiver applications. This was because of a host of reasons, viz. the government
laying down the criterion of family (there are a large number of joint families
in rural areas) instead of individual land holdings or individual bank
accounts; the large number of deactivated Aadhaar cards and non-matching of
thumb impressions; the time frame prescribed for loan waiver which left a large
number of sugarcane growers and others out of the net; innumerable difficulties
in making online applications in the villages and so on.
But that is not all. Realising that there were several
inaccuracies in the application forms, the state government has now asked the
banks to fill in a 66-column questionnaire as regards each bank account holder
farmer, the number of these being around 90 lakh. This will obviously take
months to complete. The simplest thing would have been, as happened in the
implementation of the 2008 central government loan waiver scheme, to directly
tell the banks to give the loan details per farmer and then waive those loans
by reimbursing the banks from the government. There is deep unrest and
discontent all over the state about the current nonsensical procedure, which
will increase manifold as soon as lakhs of applications are rejected due to the
onerous conditions.
It is in this background that the Jalgaon convention
was held and it flayed the state government on its crass betrayal of the loan
waiver assurance and on other issues like implementation of the Swaminathan
Commission recommendation ensuring remunerative prices, comprehensive crop
insurance, pension at Rs 5000 per month for poor peasants and agricultural
workers, arbitrary and unjust land acquisition and so on.
Prominent among the peasant leaders who addressed this
convention were Raju Shetty MP, Bachchu Kadu, MLA, Raghunathdada Patil, Baba
Adhav, Dr Ashok Dhawale, Dr Ajit Nawale, Namdev Gavde, Pratibha Shinde, Kishor
Dhamale, Sushila Morale and others.
The convention resolved its full support to the 15-day
old joint statewide strike of two lakh Anganwadi workers that was being
valiantly fought for just demands.
The Jalgaon convention gave a clarion call to hold
massive peasant (Baliraja) rallies at every district and tehsil centre in
Maharashtra on October 20, which is Balipratipada day in Diwali. These
statewide rallies of thousands of peasants each will demand that since the
policies of the BJP government are directly responsible for the rising spate of
suicides of debt-ridden peasants, cases under IPC section 302 (murder), 306
(abetment to suicide) and 420 (cheating) must be instituted against it. This
call was welcomed by thousands of peasants amidst resounding cheers and
slogans.
2. INDEPENDENT
STRUGGLES
TWO DAY MAHAPADAV OF
ONE LAKH PEASANTS AT NASHIK
The historic one lakh-strong independent AIKS state-wide rally on March
29, 2016 and the unprecedented day and night sit-in satyagraha on March 29-30
in the heart of Nashik city, placed the AIKS for the first time at the centre
stage of the peasant movement in Maharashtra. The four main issues of this
struggle were peasant loan waiver, remunerative prices, drought relief and land
rights. This militant peasant action received massive and sustained coverage in
both print and electronic media. Sections of the electronic media covered the
rally and satyagraha live on both days.
The rally was addressed by CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury,
AIKS General Secretary Hannan Mollah, renowned journalist P Sainath, AIKS
leaders Dr Ashok Dhawale, J P Gavit MLA, Kisan Gujar, Dr Ajit Nawale and
leaders of other mass organisations.
On March 30, the beleaguered Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Devendra
Fadnavis invited the Kisan Sabha for talks. A one hour discussion was held with
the CM, three other Ministers and senior officials in the Vidhan Bhavan in
Mumbai in the midst of the assembly session.
The CM conceded the following demands: 1. A proposal for loan waiver to
farmers would be sent to the Central Government. 2. The state government would
send crop wise proposals to the Centre for remunerative prices as per the
Swaminathan Commission recommendation of cost of production plus 50 per cent
profit. 3. In the drought-hit areas of the state, the farmers would be given
100 per cent electricity bill waiver and in all other areas they would be given
30 per cent relief in power bills. 4. Efforts would be made on a war footing to
provide drinking water, ration grain, fodder and work under MNREGA in the
drought-hit areas of Marathwada and Vidarbha regions. 5. The tens of thousands
of rejected claims of Adivasi peasants made under the Forest Rights Act (FRA),
as well as the accepted claims with much less land given than is cultivated by
them, would be re-examined within three months and justice done. Immediate
orders to this effect would be given to the District Collectors. 6. A statewide
survey would be conducted of lakhs of acres of temple lands and pasture lands
to record the farmer-cultivators and the necessary legal steps would be taken
to vest these lands in their names. 7. Steps would be taken to see how the
water from the West-flowing rivers can be given to the Nashik, Thane and
Palghar districts and diverted to the drought-hit areas in the state.
However, only some of the above assurances were implemented, and those,
too, partially.
PEASANT RIGHTS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
For the success
of the Nashik struggle, a statewide AIKS campaign called the Peasants Rights
Awareness Campaign was launched for a month from October 5 to November 10,
2015. Extended AIKS district council meetings were held in 24 districts of the
state in which a total of around 1,500 activists took part. In these meetings,
the burning issues of peasant struggle were identified; the nature of the struggle
was discussed; and the steps for organisational strengthening were decided.
In the second week of December 2015, over 50,000 peasants under the AIKS banner came on to the
streets in 29 tehsil centres of 15 districts in all the five regions
of the state on
the four burning issues of land rights, loan waiver,
remunerative prices and drought relief.
On January 7 and
8, 2016 respectively, the AIKS held two regional-level loan-waiver and drought
relief conventions at Selu in Parbhani district for the Marathwada region, and
at Malkapur in Buldana district for the Vidarbha region. Both were
well-attended.
On January 19,
as per the call of the joint state convention of the CITU-AIKS-AIAWU on October
31 at Parbhani, over 1,33,000 workers, peasants and agricultural workers held a
massive joint statewide jail bharo stir for their main demands against the
BJP-led central and state governments. The largest number of those arrested –
over 92,000 – was of the AIKS.
On January 28,
the AIKS held a state-level convention in Nashik that gave a clarion call for
an unprecedented statewide siege (mahapadav) of one lakh peasants from March 29
onwards in Nashik city. The convention was attended by over 700 leading
activists from 21 districts. This struggle call was the culmination of the
four-month long AIKS campaign in Maharashtra outlined above. Two lakh
persuasive and attractive leaflets and 12,000 posters for the campaign had been
published by the state centre and they were distributed to all the districts in
the convention itself. District councils later also published thousands of
leaflets.
From February 7
to March 1, 23 AIKS district conferences were held after village and tehsil
conferences. They prepared for the struggle and also strengthened the
organisation.
NOVEL COFFIN
RALLY AT THANE
The AIKS state
conference began on May 30, 2016, with a novel 10,000-strong Coffin Rally in
the heart of Thane city, near Mumbai. The peasants carried bamboo frames
(called tirdi in Marathi) covered with white cloth, on which dead bodies
are carried. This dramatically highlighted the grave issue of suicides of
debt-ridden peasants in Maharashtra. This rally, which was addressed by AIKS
President Amra Ram, was widely covered by the media, especially since it
highlighted the grave issue of mounting peasant suicides. The subsequent state
conference at Talasari was attended by AIKS General Secretary Hannan Mollah.
WHIPCORD RALLY AT
KHAMGAON
On May 11, 2017,
the AIKS organised an ‘Aasood’ (Whipcord) State Convention followed by the
‘Aasood’ State Rally to the house of the state agriculture minister at Khamgaon
in Buldana district of Vidarbha region to focus on the issues of peasant
suicides, loan waiver and remunerative prices. Mahatma Jotirao Phule had written
a celebrated book titled “The Whipcord of the Peasant” (Shetkaryacha Aasood).
It was from this that the Whipcord Rally was so named.
50,000 ADIVASIS GHERAO HOUSE OF ADIVASI DEVELOPMENT
MINISTER
On October 3-4, 2016, around 50,000 Adivasi peasants, women,
youth and students from various tribal districts of Maharashtra held a gherao
of the house of the BJP Tribal Development minister Vishnu Savara at the sub
divisional centre of Wada in Palghar district. The struggle was jointly led by
the AIKS, AIDWA, DYFI, SFI and AARM and the districts that participated were
Thane, Palghar, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Pune, Yavatmal, Buldana, Satara and others.
AIKS Joint Secretary Vijoo Krishnan participated in this struggle along with
the state leadership of all the above organizations.
The main issues were the stringent and immediate
implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), malnutrition-related tribal
child deaths, work and wages under MNREGA, the plight of the PDS, health
services and the problems of tribal students.
The gherao continued for 16 hours and all highways
leading from Wada to Mumbai, Thane, Bhiwandi, Palghar, Dahanu, Talasari, Surat
and Nashik were completely blocked. The minister had fled a day before in fear
of this action.
When the people refused to move nonetheless, the
minister had to send the state Tribal Development commissioner for talks with
the delegation and had to send a fax agreeing to a high-powered meeting in the
state secretariat at Mumbai on October 7. It was only after a four hour nightlong
discussion with the commissioner, where he conceded many demands, that the
gherao was lifted at dawn on October 4 with a huge public meeting.
The meeting of the delegation with the Tribal
Development minister, half a dozen secretaries of related departments and half
a dozen district collectors of tribal districts took place in Mumbai on October
7. It continued for over five hours and the minister was forced to concede
several long-standing demands about FRA implementation and others. The minutes
of the meeting and a special government circular was released to all concerned
officials in the state, which put the demands conceded in writing. This
struggle resulted in a major victory.
Before the Wada
action, on January 12, 2016, an AIKS regional convention of peasants
cultivating temple lands was held at Satara where the main demand was the
vesting of these vast lands in the names of the cultivating peasants. Over 500
peasants from the four districts of Western Maharashtra and also from
Thane-Palghar districts, attended the convention.
In November
2015, over 5,000 peasants from Wada and Vikramgad tehsils laid siege to the
Wada SDO office continuously for six days and five nights and wrested written
assurances from the SDO and Tehsildar about their demands concerned with land
rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), employment under MNREGA, ration grain
under the Food Security Act (FSA) and local issues about electricity, roads and
health.
In a similar
action in December 2015, over 4,000 peasants laid siege to the tehsil office in
Shahapur for three days and three nights and wrested a similar written
assurance from the Tehsildar. In both places, the actual implementation of the
assurances by the authorities also began. These successful actions enhanced the
morale of the people and attracted people from new villages and even from
political streams opposed to us.
In
Tryambakeshwar tehsil of Nashik district, 2,000 peasants laid siege to the
tehsil office for three days and wrested their demands.
It is this series
of struggles led by the AIKS that put the organisation for the first time in
the mainstream of the current peasant struggle in Maharashtra.
AIKS NATIONWIDE JATHAS AND DELHI RALLY
The two southern Jathas that crossed the two ends of
Maharashtra in November 2016 were well received – the Virudhunagar Jatha led by
Vijoo Krishnan in the districts of Nanded, Yavatmal, Wardha and Nagpur in the
Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, and the Kanyakumari Jatha led by P. Krishna
Prasad and Dr. Ashok Dhawale in the Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Pune, Ahmednagar,
Thane, Palghar and Nashik districts of Western Maharashtra, Konkan and Northern
Maharashtra. Large public meetings took place in some centres and literature
also sold well.
For the Delhi Rally of the AIKS on November 24, 2016,
the Maharashtra unit of the AIKS mobilised around 4,000 peasants from 17
districts. Had it not been for demonetisation which affected peasants badly,
this figure would have doubled. An AIKS state workshop was held on October
24-25, 2016 at Belapur, to prepare for the Jathas and the Delhi Rally. 142
activists from 22 districts participated. AIKS Finance Secretary P. Krishna
Prasad attended the workshop.
STRUGGLE AGAINST MODI REGIME’S LAND ACQUISITION ORDINANCE
On June 20, 2015, as per the call of the AIKS Maharashtra state
council, demonstrations were held in several districts to oppose the draconian
anti-peasant land acquisition ordinance of the Modi-led BJP regime. Despite heavy
rains and the sowing season being in full swing, the call was vigorously
implemented in several tehsils of both Nashik and Thane-Palghar districts,
where around 20,000 peasants participated in rallies. Dharnas and
demonstrations against the land acquisition ordinance were held in other
districts like Ahmednagar, Beed, Jalna, Parbhani, Nanded, Buldana and Yavatmal,
in which hundreds of peasants took part.
On May 19, 2015, a 25,000-strong statewide Adivasi rally was held in
Mumbai, in which opposition to the land acquisition ordinance was one of the
major demands. The other major demand was the stringent implementation of the
Forest Rights Act (FRA). Although the rally was held under the banner of the
CPI (M) and the Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM), over 80 per cent of the
participants in this rally were from the AIKS. It was addressed by CPI(M)
General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, AIKS General Secretary Hannan Mollah and
AARM national convenor Jitendra Choudhary.
STRUGGLE
AGAINST DROUGHT, UNSEASONAL RAINS,
HAILSTORMS
On May 3, 2016, around 1000 peasants and students from all the eight
districts of the Marathwada region, led by the AIKS and the SFI, broke two police barricades and marched right
inside the compound of the Aurangabad Divisional Commissioner’s office. This
militant and unprecedented action was conducted on the burning demands related
to the grim drought situation in the region. The agitators occupied the office
for over an hour until the officers agreed to hold a meeting with the AIKS-SFI
delegation the next day, in which all officials dealing with drought-related
issues were summoned from all the eight districts. For two days and one night
on May 3 and 4, all the agitators camped right outside the Commissionerate.
Under this
pressure, in meeting that was held on May 4, most of the major demands that lay
within the administration’s purview were conceded. The specific demands that
were conceded related to the provision of drinking water, work and wages under
MNREGA, fodder for cattle, agricultural inputs for peasants, fee waiver for
students, land issues related to the temple lands and forest lands and so on.
The Aurangabad struggle was also widely covered by both print and electronic
media due to the grave nature of the drought and also due to the militant
nature of the two-day action.
From April to
June 2015 also, large actions by the AIKS on drought-related demands like
compensation for crop losses, food security, pensions for the destitute,
corruption in the public distribution system, work under the MGNREGA, starting
of cattle camps and provision of fodder, compensation for hailstorms etc were
held in districts like Nashik (25,000 peasants), Ahmednagar (15,000), Parbhani
(5,000), Nanded, Beed, Jalna, Buldana, Yavatmal, Wardha and Solapur.
3. ORGANISATION
WARDHA AIKC MEETING
The AIKC meeting and rally were held at Wardha in the Vidarbha region
on July 10-11-12, 2015. This was the first AIKC meeting held in Maharashtra in
several years. The AIKS 31st All India Conference was successfully
held at Nashik in January 2006, with a one lakh strong state rally.
After the Wardha AIKS meeting, teams of AIKS central and state
activists visited several districts in the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions and
met several families of peasants who had committed suicide due to indebtedness.
STATE AIKS PUBLICATIONS
The AIKS state
council re-started the publication of its journal Kisan Sangharsh and
5,000 copies each of three issues were published and well-sold. It also
published 5,000 copies of a booklet on Remunerative Prices to the Peasantry
written by AIKS state joint secretary Dr. Ajit Nawale and this also sold
briskly all over the state.
As mentioned earlier, the AIKS state council urgently
published 10,000 booklets of the fifth and final report of the Swaminathan
Commission with a preface, in July 2017. It met with excellent response in the
district conventions held that month as part of the joint statewide peasant
struggle.
STATE CONFERENCE,
MEMBERSHIP AND ORGANISATION
The 22nd state conference of the
Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha was held from May 30 to June 1, 2016, in Thane-Palghar district, with 271 delegates from 23
districts who represented a membership of 2,65,127 - the highest AIKS
membership recorded in the state so far. AIKS membership in the state has
steadily increased from 1,92,121 in 2011-12 to 2,13,331 in 2012-13 to 2,25,978
in 2013-14 to 2,65,127 in 2015-16. There was a small drop to 2,40,107 in
2016-17.
23 district
conferences were held in February and March 2016, preceded by over 1000 village
unit conferences and over 75 tehsil conferences. Kisan Gujar was elected state president and Dr. Ajit
Nawale was elected state general secretary at the state conference.
The AIKS state office bearers and state council meet regularly
every three months, but there is need to bring in much more regularity in the
functioning at the district, tehsil and especially village unit levels. There
is also a need to boost the membership drive and to increase the ideological,
political and organisational level of activists.
-Dr. Ashok
Dhawale, J. P. Gavit, Kisan Gujar, Arjun Adey and Dr. Ajit Nawale
Maharashtra
Rajya Kisan Sabha
