Ashok Dhawale
On January 28, 2016, the AIKS Maharashtra
Council held a vibrant state-level convention in Nashik that gave a clarion call
for an unprecedented state-wide siege (mahapadav)
of one lakh peasants from March 29 onwards in Nashik city. It was attended by
over 700 leading activists from 21 districts. This struggle call was the
culmination of a four-month long AIKS campaign in Maharashtra. The campaign
will be further intensified in the next two months.
It was an interesting
coincidence that exactly ten years ago to the day on January 28, 2006, Nashik city had
witnessed the massive one lakh strong peasant rally of the AIKS 31st
National Conference that was held from January 28-31.
Vibrant State
Convention
After the welcome
speech by AIKS Nashik District Secretary Irfan Shaikh, the election of AIKS
state president Dada Raipure as chairman of the convention and the condolence
resolution placed by AIKS State Vice President Udayan Sharma, the convention was
inaugurated by Dr R Ramakumar, Professor, Mumbai. In an enlightening address, he succinctly
analysed various facets of the agrarian crisis in the country and in the state.
The new issue of the AIKS quarterly state journal ‘Kisan Sangharsh’ was
released by AIKS former state president J P Gavit, who is seven-time MLA from the
Kalwan seat in Nashik district. AIKS State General Secretary Kisan Gujar and
State Vice President Yashwant Zade conducted the proceedings.
The main resolution of
the convention,
along with the demands,
preparation and nature of the coming struggle from March 29, was placed by AIKS
National Joint Secretary Dr Ashok Dhawale. It was seconded by AIKS state
office-bearers from the five major AIKS districts – Arjun Adey (Nanded), Savliram Pawar
(Nashik),
Barkya Mangat (Thane-Palghar), Uddhav Poul (Parbhani) and Dr Ajit Nawale (Ahmednagar).
The convention was greeted
by CITU State General Secretary Dr D L Karad, AIDWA State President Mariam Dhawale, DYFI State President
Sunil Dhanwa and SFI State President Mohan Jadhav. All of them pledged full
support to the ensuing peasant struggle.
The convention then
broke up for district-wise group discussion for an hour. Here the main contours
of the district planning for the struggle and of strengthening the organisation
were decided upon. Each district filled out its specific replies to a
questionnaire on the above points given by the state centre. This was a vital
part of the convention. Two lakh persuasive and attractive leaflets for the
ensuing campaign had been published by the state centre and they were
distributed to all the districts in the convention itself.
After speeches by
other AIKS state office-bearers Umesh Deshmukh (Sangli), Sidhappa Kalshetty
(Solapur) and Vilas Babar (Parbhani), the rousing concluding speeches were
delivered by J P Gavit and Dada Raipure. A press conference was also organised.
Sustained AIKS
Campaign
This convention was
preceded by a four-month long sustained campaign by the AIKS. It actually began
by the Maharashtra AIKS hosting the AIKS national council meeting at Wardha in
the Vidarbha region in July 2015. This was accompanied by a spirited rally.
A state-wide AIKS
Peasants’ Rights Awareness Campaign was held for a month from October 5 to
November 10, 2015, in which meetings of the main AIKS district activists were
held in 24 districts of the state. Around 1,500 activists attended these meetings.
In all these meetings, attended by AIKS National Joint Secretary Dr Ashok
Dhawale, State General Secretary Kisan Gujar, State Joint Secretary Dr Ajit
Nawale and other state office-bearers as a collective team, the burning issues
of peasant struggle were identified; the nature of the struggle was discussed;
and the steps for organisational strengthening were decided.
In
December 2015,
over 50,000
peasants under the AIKS banner came on to the streets in 29 tehsils 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 by 400 to 500 peasants each from 11 districts of Marathwada and
Vidarbha regions.
On January 12, an AIKS
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
attended.
On January 19, as part
of the joint CITU-AIKS-AIAWU call for a state-wide Jail Bharo stir, 92,272 peasants
from over 60 tehsil centres in 25 districts under AIKS leadership marched in
rallies and courted arrest around their demands and to condemn the BJP-led
governments.
From February 7 to
March 1, all AIKS district conferences are being held and they are being
preceded by village and tehsil conferences. In March district-level jathas will
be organised. The state conference will be held at Talasari in Thane-Palghar
district by the end of April.
The AIKS state council
re-started the publication of its quarterly journal Kisan Sangharsh. The
AIKS 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
sold briskly all over the state.
As a result of all
this activity, AIKS membership in Maharashtra this year has crossed the 2 lakh
mark and concerted efforts are on to cross the 3 lakh mark for the first time
this year.
The Major Issues of the
Coming Struggle
Maharashtra has been
a sad witness to 3228 peasant suicides in the year 2015, according to official
figures released by the NCRB. Of these, 1179 have been in the Amravati division
of Vidarbha; 1130 in the Aurangabad division of Marathwada; 459 in the Nashik
division of Northern Maharashtra; 362 in the Nagpur division of Vidarbha; 96 in
the Pune division of Western Maharashtra; and 2 in the Konkan division of
Coastal Maharashtra.
In the last 20 years since
1995,
Maharashtra has had the grim record of over 65,000 peasant suicides, the highest in the
country which has seen over 3,50,000
peasant suicides during the same period. Of these 20 years, the state has been
ruled by the Congress-NCP regime for 14 years and by the BJP-Shiv Sena regime
for 6 years; and the country has been ruled by the Congress alliance for 11
years and
by the BJP alliance for 8 years.
There is a clear class
convergence in the neo-liberal agrarian policies pursued by both these governments.
It is these very class policies that are at the root of the grave issue of
peasant suicides, which
is one of the stark symptoms of the deep agrarian crisis in
the country.
The NSS Situation
Assessment Survey 2013 on the Indebtedness of Agricultural Households in
Maharashtra is an eye-opener. Its highlights are collated and given in two
charts below:
Profile of
Agricultural Households’ Outstanding Debt by Region
Region % of Indebted
Number of Indebted Average
Outstanding Debt Total Outstanding Debt
Marathwada 74.5 12,51,877 Rs 94,962
Rs 1,18,88,07,43,674
West Vidarbha 66.4 7,58,638 Rs 64,734 Rs 49,10,96,72,292
East Vidarbha 36.5 1,84,739 Rs 49,594 Rs 9,16,19,45,966
North Maharashtra
56.4 5,58,041 Rs 93,507 Rs 52,18,07,39,787
Western Maharashtra
52.4 11,53,958 Rs 1,02,428 Rs 1,18,19,76,10,024
Konkan 27.7 1,59,972 Rs 2,55,751 Rs 40,91,29,98,972
Maharashtra 57.3 40,67,225 Rs 95,508 Rs
3,88,44,37,10,715
Profile of
Agricultural Households’ Outstanding Debt by Landholding and Sector
Landholding No. of Indebted Average Outstanding Debt % Formal Sector %
Informal Sector
Landless 22,139 Rs 31,383
15.3 84.7
Upto
1 Hectare 15,09,470 Rs
65,627 55.7 44.3
1-2 Hectare 12,10,858 Rs 73,946 64.7 35.3
2-4 Hectare 8,62,227
Rs 87,363 66.8 33.2
4-10 Hectare 4,37,551 Rs 2,59,332 69.6 30.4
Above 10 Hectare 24,989 Rs
4,14,233 82.3 17.2
Maharashtra 40,67,225 Rs 95,508 62.6 37.4
Some Major Conclusions
from Survey
Space does not permit
a detailed analysis of the above charts but some facts are very clear:
1. As many as 57.3 per
cent,
i. e. 40.67 lakh peasants in the state were indebted in 2013. With the severe
drought conditions in large parts of the state in the last two years and the
even more retrograde agrarian policies of the Modi-led BJP regime, both these figures
are certain to have increased in the last three years. This is reflected in the
stark rise of peasant suicides in the state to the tune of 40 per cent in the
last one year. The total quantum of agricultural debt in the state which is Rs
38,844
crore,
includes crop loans and also loans taken by agricultural households for other
purposes.
2. The worst position
of the debt-ridden peasantry is in the two backward regions of Marathwada and
Western Vidarbha,
where the main crop is cotton and where the drought is most severe. The
situation in Northern Maharashtra is also worsening. Eastern Vidarbha and
Konkan have relatively low debt since here the main crop is paddy, its cost of
production being low. The large quantum of debt in Konkan is explained by the
huge amounts of notorious so-called ‘agricultural loans’ given by banks to the
corporates and to the urban rich in Mumbai. Although the loan quantum in
Western Maharashtra is large, the peasantry of the sugarcane belt here is protected by
two factors – much better irrigation facilities and a stronger co-operative
sector which,
however,
is fast deteriorating under the twin onslaught of neo-liberal policies and the
venality of the landlord-sugar baron lobby.
3. The chart giving
the debt of various categories of land-holding shows that 36 lakh of the 40
lakh indebted agricultural households have land-holdings of less than 4
hectares (10 acres) each. Unfortunately, the NSS survey has not given a
separate classification of the debts of irrigated and dryland farmers. The
sectoral debt figures clearly show that as land-holding increases, the proportion of
debt from the formal sector (banks, co-operative societies and government)
also increases. The poor farmers face a crunch when it comes to loans from the
formal sector. Nevertheless, the overall proportion of agricultural loans from the
formal sector in Maharashtra is higher than that of many other states.
Is Peasant Loan-Waiver
Feasible?
4. If we multiply by 20
times the total outstanding agricultural debt in Maharashtra – around Rs 40,000 crore – we will
probably come close to the figure of the total outstanding agricultural debt in
India – around Rs 8 lakh crore. The Congress and BJP central governments have
given huge tax concessions to corporates and other richer sections to the tune
of Rs 20 lakh crore in their union budgets during the last 5 years. If only these
tax concessions to the rich are diverted to waiver of peasant loans, crores of peasants
all over India can be made debt-free in just two years! We are not taking into
account the massive Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) of banks, i. e. the loans taken
and not repaid by corporates and others, which are currently estimated to be to
the tune of Rs 5.42 lakh crore! Nor are we considering the massive amounts
stashed away by the rich and the powerful in Swiss and other foreign banks, which are officially
estimated to be to the tune of 20.92 lakh crore! It was this amount that
Narendra Modi promised to bring back to the country and distribute it at the
rate of Rs 15 lakh per Indian citizen!
5. It goes without
saying that the issue of peasant debt is a direct result of a whole gamut of
factors that have been intensely aggravated by the neo-liberal policies of
successive central governments. These include the sharply escalating costs of
agricultural inputs as a result of the rapacious loot by the multinational and
corporate lobby; the consistent refusal since independence to give remunerative
prices to the peasantry based on the cost of production, and in particular the
short shrift given in the last one decade to the seminal recommendation of the
National Commission on Farmers headed by Dr M S Swaminathan to give a
remunerative price which includes cost of production plus 50 per cent profit
for all crops,
along with an efficient state machinery for procurement at these rates; the
crunch in formal credit especially to poor and middle peasants and agricultural
workers; the lack of an effective and comprehensive crop insurance scheme to
deal with natural calamities like drought and floods; and the sharp cuts in
public investment in agriculture, irrigation, power, R & D, MNREGA and other
social welfare schemes concerning education and health.
The Issues of Drought
and Land
The other major
question in the state is that of chronic drought. In spite of the mammoth sum
of Rs 8000 crore spent by the state government on irrigation schemes since the
state was formed 55 years ago in 1960, irrigation is limited to just 18 per
cent of the cultivated land in the state. This is because huge amounts have
been siphoned off by the nefarious nexus of ministers, bureaucrats and
contractors in mind-boggling corruption scams. Along with other important factors, this is the root
cause of the chronic drought situation. The principle of equitable distribution
of water has been thrown to the winds. Today drinking water, fodder, work and food have
become scarce in thousands of villages in Marathwada and Vidarbha regions. The
crops of lakhs of peasants have been destroyed by drought and they have hardly
been paid any compensation by the government.
Lastly, there is the vital
question of land. The most important and burning land issue in Maharashtra
today is that of the non-implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Of the
3,50,908 claims that were
made predominantly by Adivasis, as many as 77 per cent i. e. 2,72,675 were rejected. This has naturally
led to great anger and discontent. The AIKS has led massive and militant
struggles of tens of thousands of Adivasi peasants on this issue in 2011 and
2013. These struggles had forced the state government to the negotiating table.
But the assurances given were belied and the progress in implementation is
tardy. Along with this is the question of temple lands. There are over 6 lakh
acres of temple lands in the state which are owned by various temple trusts, but have been
cultivated by peasants for several decades and even generations. However, they are not vested
in the names of the cultivating peasants and this makes them ineligible for
bank loans and other benefits. The drive by corporates, urban and rural rich
and the land mafia to grab land all over the state by hook or by crook is
another major issue. The BJP-led state regime has begun moves to amend the law
that prohibits non-tribals from acquiring the land of tribals.
It is on these major
issues that the March 29 struggle of the AIKS will be launched.
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