PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE CKC ONLINE MEETING OF THE ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA

July 18, 2020

Dr Ashok Dhawale

Respected Comrades S R Pillai, Hannan Mollah, Amra Ram and my dear comrades

I welcome and greet all of you to this first-ever online meeting of the CKC in the 84-year old history of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) that is being held during the Covid pandemic, which has underlined the age-old basic contradiction of man versus nature.

We pay our respectful homage to our former general secretary Comrade K Varadha Rajan, who was very close to all of us, our former vice president and renowned tribal leader of Tripura Comrade Bajuban Reang, and to other leaders of the AIKS and our fraternal organisations who have passed away since our last meeting.

We condole the deaths of thousands of our countrymen who have lost their lives to Covid, cyclones and floods. We mourn the deaths of hundreds of our migrant workers who have met unfortunate deaths due to hunger, exhaustion and road and rail accidents. We salute the martyrdom of 20 of our jawans in the recent border clashes.

We extend our revolutionary greetings to our veteran leader from Tamil Nadu and our former general secretary and former president, Comrade N Sankaraiah, who has entered his 100^th year.

We are holding our meeting on July 18, the 103^rd birth anniversary of one of the worldwide icons of the national liberation struggle, Comrade Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years of his life in apartheid jails and who was the first universally elected President of South Africa, a towering leader of the African National Congress (ANC) and a former member of the central committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP).

It is also the 7^th death anniversary of Comrade Samar Mukherjee from West Bengal, freedom fighter, a top leader of the Left, an effective parliamentarian and former general secretary of the CITU; and the 51^st death anniversary of Comrade Anna Bhau Sathe from Maharashtra, a gifted Dalit poet, writer and shaheer. We salute the memory of these extraordinary leaders.

UNPRECEDENTED TIMES

Comrades, we are meeting in unprecedented times of the Corona pandemic. Over 210 countries have been affected worldwide. The USA with 37 lakh cases as of today, Brazil with 20 lakh cases and India with 10 lakh cases, are the first three countries in the world so far as the rising Covid cases are concerned. It is no accident that all three of them have extreme right-wing leaders and governments. Most of the other countries in the list of the first ten are advanced capitalist countries.  The pursuit of neoliberal policies in these countries for the last several decades, putting profits before people, have led to crass privatisation and commercialisation of their public health systems. This has far worsened the situation in them.    

On the other hand we have the socialist countries like Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and DPRK, who, because of their universalised public health systems, have minimum Covid cases. Vietnam and Laos have zero Covid deaths. Although Covid began in China, it has been largely controlled there. Some of these socialist countries have sent doctors, PPEs and medicines to several other countries. They have again shown the world the vast superiority of socialism over capitalism.

In India, too, while the utter failure of the BJP central government and many state governments has been thoroughly exposed, the silver lining is the admirable performance of the LDF state government and people of Kerala, led by their chief minister Comrade Pinarayi Vijayan – both in controlling Covid and in substantially helping all sections of people through a Rs 20,000 crore package. This performance has won international acclaim from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and even from influential sections of the imperialist media. We salute the LDF government and the people of Kerala for this remarkable achievement.

The Covid pandemic has greatly aggravated the global economic crisis and has pushed the world into a deep recession. Unemployment, poverty, inequality and suffering of millions of working people has increased exponentially, but so has the wealth of the corporate lobby.

BANKRUPTCY AND HEARTLESSNESS OF BJP REGIME

The Narendra Modi-led BJP central government stands exposed for its bankruptcy and heartlessness in tackling the Covid pandemic and in helping the people in distress. For three full months, from January to March, the Modi regime did nothing to combat Covid. But on the contrary it was busy spreading the red carpet to welcome its ideological soul mates Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on Republic Day in January, and American president Donald Trump in February. The BJP-RSS then put its energies in inciting and carrying out the ghastly communal riots in Delhi in February. They then shamelessly toppled the elected state government in Madhya Pradesh. They are even now trying to repeat this dastardly manoeuvre in Rajasthan.

It was only on March 24, one day after installing his own government in Madhya Pradesh, that Narendra Modi clamped his first three week nationwide lockdown, with just a four hour notice. He bragged that just as the Mahabharata war was won in 18 days, so also India would triumph over Covid in 21 lockdown days.  On March 24, the active Covid cases in India were only 564 and the deaths were just 10. Today, on July 18, despite constant lockdowns, the same figures have crossed 10 lakh cases and 25 thousand deaths, and they are still growing very rapidly.

The lockdown with just a four hour notice led to unprecedented misery and suffering for millions of migrant workers, including pregnant women, children and the aged, all of whom were forced to walk home for hundreds of kilometres in the scorching sun. Their shocking images have deeply moved all of us on our TV screens. Hundreds of them died on the highways from hunger, exhaustion and accidents. Most of them hailed from the peasantry. Millions of unorganised and daily wage workers, peasants, agricultural workers, artisans were, and are still being, severely hit by loss of employment and fall in income. Women, Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, backward castes, students and youth are bearing the brunt in myriad ways.

For nearly two months since the lockdown began, all that the Prime Minister did was to give calls to the country to clap, bang vessels or light lamps. There was not a word of relief to the people. Finally, in the third week of May, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister announced a so-called Rs 20 lakh crore Covid relief package, which they claimed was 10 per cent of the GDP. Eminent economists have calculated that only Rs 2 lakh crore of this will actually be shelled out by the central government out of its treasury, which is barely 1 per cent of the GDP. The rest is pure jumlebaji. The vast peasantry has been given a ‘princely’ sum of just Rs 5,000 crore! There is hardly any help from the centre to the states who are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. Even the GST arrears to the states for several months remain unpaid. The charges for the Shramik trains to take migrants home were foisted on the state governments, some of whom even charged the destitute migrant workers themselves. 

CRISIS FOR PEASANTRY

Peasants and agricultural workers in India were already in dire straits due to the neoliberal policies of successive governments even before the Covid lockdown began. Farmer suicides and indebtedness were on the rise. Over four lakh farmers have been forced to commit suicide due to indebtedness in the last 25 years. The prices they received for their produce were nowhere near the Swaminathan Commission formula of one and a half times the cost of production (C2 + 50 per cent). The same was the case with tribal farmers vis a vis their minor forest produce. The Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), meant to shield farmers against drought, floods and other natural calamities, was helping not farmers, but insurance companies. And funds for MNREGA, the lifeline for agricultural workers, had been slashed during the first five years of the Modi regime, thus undermining the scheme itself.

The peasantry, especially the poor and middle sections, the annadatas of the country, were hard hit by a chain of insurmountable lockdown problems. The disruptions caused by the lockdown resulted in great additional economic burden because of higher costs, increased debts, lack of transport, closure of mandis, inability to sell the produce at reasonable prices and resultant crop losses. A massive number of farmers, especially of vegetables and fruits, milk and eggs, pulses and oilseeds, were forced to sell their produce at ridiculous prices to local traders because of disruptions in the markets. Even the Rabi state procurement of wheat and paddy was limited to only a few states and was much less than last year.

In a press briefing on June 1, the Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare announced the MSP for Kharif crops. The Government falsely billed it as a massive increase of 50 to 83%! But what was the reality? The government announced an increase of just Rs. 53 (2.92 per cent) for common paddy and just Rs. 33 (1.8 per cent) for Grade A paddy. For most crops, the increase in MSP over last year was less than 5 per cent. For none of the crops was the MSP anywhere near the Swaminathan Commission formula of C2+50%. Since almost no state procurement happens for any crop other than paddy and wheat, and that too in a limited number of states, the MSP anyway does not have any meaning. Farmers are thrown to the mercy of the market. Even last year, the market prices that the farmers received for most crops were well below the MSP. The situation this year is much worse.

The government’s response to this distress was a mockery since it merely announced payment of the already pending installment of Rs. 2,000 through PM-Kisan. As per the data released by the Finance Minister, even this has amounted to only Rs. 18,700 crore. This implies that only 9.35 crore farmers were provided this installment rather than the 14 crore farmers that were supposed to be covered in the scheme. Many crore tenant farmers and tribal farmers were not covered by the scheme at all. Even among those who were covered, there were persistent complaints from lakhs of farmers that, except for the election-eve instalment of PM-Kisan, some of the later instalments were never received.

With the Rabi season ending disastrously due to the factors enumerated above, farmers prepared for the coming kharif season in great distress. Their loans remained unpaid due to their massive losses, and hence getting fresh loans from banks was a far cry. As always, this pushed large numbers into the hands of rapacious private money lenders who charge exorbitant rates of interest. There were innumerable problems about the quality and price of seeds, fertilizers and insecticides. In spite of the sharp fall in international oil prices over the last six years, the centre constantly increased the price of diesel and petrol. On top of all this, the central government on June 3 promulgated three ordinances that were totally anti-farmer and pro-corporate, thus carrying forward its nefarious and vicious neoliberal agenda.

BONANZA FOR CORPORATES

On the other hand, the BJP central government has started a totally non-transparent and non-accountable private PM Cares Fund, in which corporates and government employees have been made to contribute thousands of crores of rupees and in which large scale corruption has already raised its ugly head. The BJP regime refuses to give a loan waiver to farmers, but it writes off loans worth Rs 68,000 crore to its crony corporates, some of whom have fleeced our banks and have fled abroad. PM Modi refuses to transfer Rs 7,500 per month during the Covid period to 23 crore Indian families who are outside the Income Tax net, but has embarked on spending Rs 20,000 crore for the Central Vista project in Delhi, to build a new palace for himself and a new parliament. He refuses to give 10 Kg of grain per head to the poor or to expand MNREGA, but aims to go ahead with spending Rs 1.10 lakh crore for his pet Bullet Train project by evicting thousands of farmers from their land.  

The shameless sale and privatization of valuable national assets like the railways, coal mines, banks, insurance, telecom, electricity, and even defense production, ordinance factories and other sectors is going on unabated.  This loot of national resources is accompanied by callous moves to dilute labour laws. Many states have increased working hours from 8 to 12. All these steps are leading to a bonanza for the corporates, both Indian and foreign. Mukesh Ambani during the lockdown period has emerged as the fifth richest person in the world.   

ATTACKS ON DEMOCRACY, SECULARISM AND FEDERALISM

Taking advantage of the lockdown, the BJP-RSS-led central government is attacking the pillars of our Constitution - democracy, secularism and federalism - with a vengeance. This is not confined only to removing these chapters from the CBSE syllabus, which is serious enough. Akin to an undeclared Emergency, several intellectuals, activists, student and peasant leaders have been incarcerated under draconian laws like UAPA, some of whom are in jail without trial for over two years. They are detenus in the Bhima Koregaon case, detenus from Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru Universities, from Assam and elsewhere.  The cases of three month pregnant student Safoora Zargar, of poet Varavara Rao and peasant leader Akhil Gogoi who contracted Covid in jail, of intellectuals and activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen, Dr Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navalakha are shocking.

Just the other day, a Dalit farmer couple’s standing crop was destroyed by the police of the BJP-led MP state government, forcing both of them to consume pesticide. Goonda Raj is rampant in BJP-ruled UP, where journalists and minorities are regularly killed in ‘encounters’. Repression is the rule in BJP-ruled Gujarat and Tripura, and also in TMC-ruled West Bengal. Adivasi farmers are being mercilessly attacked and evicted from their lands in several states by the police and forest department. Prominent lawyers and journalists are being targeted.

The BJP regime is attacking federalism in every way possible. Laws and ordinances are being enacted without consulting the states, and by cutting down their powers unilaterally. Financially, states are being starved and even their dues are being withheld by the centre. 

Rabid communal propaganda and actions by the BJP regimes at the centre and in the states continue unabated. On August 5, 2020, which is the first anniversary of the repeal of Article 370 and revocation of the special status of Jammu & Kashmir, a massive function will be held at Ayodhya to lay the foundation stone for the Ram Temple. Throwing all Covid norms to the winds, Prime Minister Modi and other BJP-RSS bigwigs will be present. This will be another occasion for inciting communal polarization and diverting attention from the Covid danger.

OUR CRUCIAL TASKS

My dear comrades, we have to fight back with grit and determination in this situation. AIKS units all over the country have done magnificent work during this lockdown to help the peasantry and the working class in distress. They have also fought on burning peasant issues. I warmly congratulate all our comrades for the admirable work that they have done.

But we have to strengthen it much further. We must bend all our strength to make the August 9 nationwide joint struggle call a massive success. Our sister class organizations like the CITU and AIAWU, our sister mass organizations like the AIDWA, DYFI and SFI, large and powerful joint platforms like the AIKSCC, BAA and CTUs will fight shoulder to shoulder with us in these struggles against the policies of the Modi regime, and also to secure relief to all sections of the working people. Worker-Peasant Unity is the paramount need of these times.

August 9 is the anniversary of the Quit India Movement. This year, we will observe it nationwide with the slogans: India Not For Sale! Save India! Save Agriculture! Save Industry! Stop Corporate Loot! Long Live Worker Peasant Unity! We must build a strong and credible left and democratic alternative to the neoliberal, communal and authoritarian Modi regime. 

Along with this, we must take up every local issue of the peasantry through struggle and try to ensure that it is resolved. This will require us to make concerted efforts to activate all our village and local committees. We must continue to expand our membership and strengthen our organization manifold. Our General Secretary Comrade Hannan Mollah will place before you our note on the “Current Political Situation and the Tasks ahead of the Peasant Movement”. This must be taken to every AIKS activist and enthusiastically implemented.

Let the great slogan of our AIKS Hisar Conference be our guide to action in the coming days: “Kisan Sabha in Every Village! Every Kisan in Kisan Sabha!”

Long Live AIKS!                        Long Live Worker-Peasant Unity!                   Inquilab Zindabad!