21st Maharashtra State Conference of AIKS held at Amravati

Ajit Nawale

The 21st Maharashtra state conference of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) was successfully held in a spirit of unity and determination from July 11-13, 2013 at Amravati, which is in the centre of the peasant suicide-affected Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. The conference was being held four and a half years after the 20th AIKS state conference that was held at Selu in Parbhani district in the Marathwada region in January 2009.

The conference venue was named after veteran AIKS leader Krishna Khopkar; the public meeting venue after veteran CITU leader M K Pandhe; the conference hall after AIKS state leader Vinayak Gaikwad; and the stage after another AIKS state leader Narendra Kavishwar.

The conference was inaugurated by renowned journalist P Sainath and it was attended by AIKS president S Ramachandran Pillai and AIKS joint secretary Vijoo Krishnan, both of whom remained present on all three days. The conference was attended by 257 delegates from 23 districts of Maharashtra, who represented a membership of 2,13,331 for 2012-13.

INAUGURAL SPEECH

On the morning of July 11, after the flag-hoisting by veteran AIKS leader L B Dhangar, floral tributes to martyrs, condolence resolution and welcome address by reception committee chairman Udayan Sharma, the conference was inaugurated by P Sainath.

Referring to the fact that this conference was being held in Vidarbha which has gained notoriety for peasant suicides, Sainath said that as per the latest data released by the NCRB, a total of 2,84,694 farmers have committed suicide in India during the last 18 years. Of these, the largest number of over 57,000 peasant suicides is from Maharashtra. The main reason for these suicides is, of course, indebtedness. In addition, there are lakhs of peasants who, for the same reason, have simply left agriculture. These are some of the major symptoms of the deepening agrarian crisis as a result of the neo-liberal policies of the rulers.

Sainath then analysed the factors behind this crisis – the massive increase in the cost of inputs and consequently of the cost of production in agriculture, the sharp fall and fluctuations in the price of agricultural outputs and the crunch in institutional credit to the peasantry – along with the policy-related reasons for these factors. While banks give loans to buy a luxury Mercedes Benz car at 7 per cent interest, a farmer has to buy a tractor at 14 per cent interest! 50 per cent of agricultural credit in Mumbai is being given to corporates!

Recommendations of the National Commission for Farmers headed by Dr M S Swaminathan were gathering dust for the last six years. They included many seminal pro-farmer steps like a price stabilisation fund, farm output price to comprise cost of production plus 50 per cent profit, agricultural credit at 4 per cent rate of interest etc. But Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, said Sainath, was more interested in Lavasa than in taking these steps!
Sainath sharply criticised the new central scheme of doling out Rs 7000 crore to corporates in the name of so-called training of 10 lakh farmers; the growing concentration of land and water resources in the hands of a few; the trend towards corporatisation of agriculture; the skewed viewpoint as regards irrigation; and the withdrawal of the public sector in agricultural research which is now fast becoming a monopoly of the corporates.

To increase agricultural production and productivity, Sainath suggested steps like concerted agricultural research, scientific testing of soil and water, co-operative management of agriculture and so on. At the same time, he stressed that the paramount need is to build a powerful struggle against the anti-peasant policies of the ruling classes. He concluded by saying that “Mass Movements, not Mass Suicides!” must be our slogan in the days ahead.

PUBLIC MEETING      

The public meeting was held on the afternoon of the first day, July 11. It was presided over by AIKS state president J P Gavit, and the main speaker was AIKS president S R Pillai. Others who spoke were AIKS joint secretary Vijoo Krishnan, CKC member Dr Ashok Dhawale, AIKS state general secretary Kisan Gujar, veteran leader L B Dhangar and state office-bearers Dada Raipure, Udayan Sharma, Shankarrao Danav, Yashwant Zade and Arjun Adey.
 
The public meeting was a success despite constant rains for the preceding few days. Peasants, agricultural workers and unorganised workers had come from tehsils of Amravati district, and also from adjoining districts of Vidarbha like Yavatmal, Wardha and Buldana.

CONFERENCE REPORT    

The conference report was placed in the delegate session on the evening of July 11 by AIKS state general secretary Kisan Gujar. Copies of the 88-page printed report were given to all the delegates. The report comprised the following six main sections: 1. Current Political Challenges; 2. The Crisis in Indian Agriculture; 3. The Agrarian Situation in Maharashtra: 4. Work Report; 5. Organisational Report; 6. Future Tasks.

The Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha has led a number of struggles in the last four years:

• A massive independent statewide Jail Bharo stir by the AIKS in January 2011 for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and on burning issues like peasant suicides, in which over 1 lakh peasants courted arrest.
• Revival of the same struggle for FRA implementation and on the question of severe drought by the AIKS in April 2013, in which over 50,000 peasants conducted Rasta Roko at several centres for over 40 hours. The state government was forced to concede many important demands on April 17 after negotiations with the AIKS.
• Independent statewide demonstrations of 1.25 lakh rural poor in 2012 led by the AIKS for their demand for inclusion in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) lists. The struggle was successful in some districts, where the names of thousands of rural poor were included in the BPL lists.  
• A joint struggle from 2007 to 2010, in alliance with the PWP against the proposed 25,000-acre MahaMumbai SEZ allotted to Mukesh Ambani. It entailed two huge rallies of over 50,000 peasants each and a referendum. The state government was finally forced to denotify the SEZ, which was a major victory for the peasantry.    
• Two independent AIKS statewide rallies of thousands of peasants to the Nagpur state assembly on a set of burning peasant demands on several vital issues.
• Struggles for remunerative prices for crops like cotton and sugarcane.
• Struggles on the burning issue of bank credit to the peasantry.
• Struggles against the severe load-shedding of power and exorbitant power bills.
• Struggles for getting temple lands, pasture lands, waste lands etc vested in the names of the cultivating peasants.
• Campaigns against price rise, for food security and universalisation of the PDS.
• Statewide campaign against the irrigation scam and other corruption scams.
• Successful local struggle on the issue of canals of the Nilwande dam in Nagar district.
• Mass marriage programmes of thousands of Adivasi couples in Nashik district.
• Active support to All India working class strikes and to the Sangharsh Sandesh Jathas.
• Regular holding of AIKS state camps for activists and publication of literature.

After group discussion in their district delegations, 43 delegates from 23 districts spoke on the report on July 12 and enriched it with their experiences, suggestions and criticisms. After the general secretary’s reply, the report was unanimously adopted amidst cheers.

GUIDANCE BY AIKS LEADERS

AIKS president S R Pillai, while addressing the conference, congratulated the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha for the struggles that it has led and the expansion that it has achieved in the last few years. However, he underlined the point that in view of the severity of the agrarian crisis in the country, there is much more that the AIKS must do all over the country.

He said that the roots of today’s agrarian crisis must be traced to the immediate post-Independence period. The refusal of the ruling classes under successive Congress regimes to carry out radical land reforms led to the concentration of land in the hands of the landlords and rich peasants, and therefore to the inequitable distribution of rural wealth and incomes. The green revolution also helped mainly the irrigated areas, further accentuating the gap between the rural rich and the rural poor, and also between irrigated and dryland areas.

With the neo-liberal policies that were unveiled two decades ago, things only got worse. The government withdrew from its responsibilities in agriculture, slashed public expenditure, cut subsidies to the peasantry, embarked on the privatisation drive, encouraged multinational corporations and indigenous corporates and surrendered to the unjust WTO regime.

As a result of all this, said SRP, the share of agriculture in the country’s GDP is now down to just 14 per cent. Agriculture is increasingly becoming an unviable option. Along with peasant suicides, innumerable farmers are being driven into the ranks of landless agricultural workers. Land acquisition by corporates and other sections of the land and real estate mafia is sharply increasing, displacing thousands of peasants from their land and livelihood.

The government says that it does not have any money for agriculture. But it has enough money to squander on massive tax concessions to the corporates year after year, and for the stinking corruption scams that are being unearthed every day. 

To change this situation, concluded SRP, massive and consistent struggles of the peasantry are the need of the hour. These struggles must be directed towards ensuring that alternative agrarian policies are put in place. For this, the right issues must be selected at the right time, local struggles must be intensified and the organisation must be strengthened. He expressed confidence that all this would be carried out in Maharashtra.

AIKS joint secretary Vijoo Krishnan also made an effective intervention on the last day, wherein he dealt with various important agrarian and organisational issues.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

The state conference was greeted by CITU state secretary Amrut Meshram, AIAWU state joint secretary Maroti Khandare, AIDWA state president Mariam Dhawale, DYFI state president Bhagwan Bhojane and SFI state joint secretary Balaji Kaletwad.

One of the highlights of this conference was the placing of a 35-page document entitled “The Question of Irrigation in Maharashtra”. After discussion in the AIKS state council, this document was prepared and placed by AIKS state joint secretary Dr Ajit Nawale. Printed copies of it were given to all the delegates. One delegate from each district placed his views on this document. This document will soon be finalised in the light of a wider discussion and will become the basis of future struggles on this vital issue.

The other highlight was a reporting on the “Current Agrarian Situation in China” by AIKS state council member Dr R Ramakumar, who had recently been to China as part of a delegation. He provided very interesting insights into the agrarian situation of a socialist country, which were not only informative but also provided inspiration to the delegates.

The first issue of the revived journal of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha, “Shetkari Sangharsh” was released in this conference. It was decided to bring it out regularly as a bi-monthly. After discussion in the district delegations, it was decided to enrol over 8000 subscribers to this journal in advance. It was also enthusiastically decided to enrol over 3 lakh members of the AIKS in Maharashtra in the coming year 2013-14, and the district targets were finalised in the conference itself.

Several resolutions on important issues were unanimously adopted by the conference. Another 44-page booklet with all the draft resolutions was also circulated to delegates.

The conference unanimously decided to observe August 3 every year as Peasant Day all over Maharashtra. August 3 happens to be the birth anniversary of former AIKS national president Comrade Krantisimha Nana Patil and also the death anniversary of the founder general secretary of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha, Comrade Shamrao Parulekar.

Amidst great enthusiasm, AIKS president S R Pillai felicitated four veteran leaders of the AIKS who had devoted their entire lives to the cause – L B Dhangar (Thane), Nanasaheb Pokle (Beed), Sarangdhar Tanpure (Ahmednagar) and Prabhakar Nagargoje (Beed). He also felicitated two young comrades Irfan Shaikh (Nashik) and Sonu Kakwa (Thane) for extraordinary work in different areas of struggle.

AIKS state joint secretary Arjun Adey placed the credentials report, which had many interesting features. However, space does not permit their inclusion in this report.

Progressive literature worth over Rs 20,000 was sold during this state conference of the AIKS, and literature worth an equal amount was sold during the 23 district conferences of the AIKS that took place earlier. Also, subscriptions worth over Rs 18,000 to progressive journals were collected during this state conference.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The state conference unanimously elected a 77-member state council, which in turn unanimously elected its office-bearers: President – Dada Raipure; Working President – Arjun Adey; General Secretary – Kisan Gujar; Treasurer – Sanjay Thakur; Vice Presidents – L B Dhangar, Dr Ashok Dhawale, J P Gavit, Lahanu Kom, Rajaram Ozare, Nanasaheb Pokle, Udayan Sharma, Ghanashyam Patil, Jaisingh Mali, Ramkrishna Shere, Ratan Budhar, Gunaji Gavit; Joint Secretaries – Shankarrao Danav, Pandurang Rathod, Yashwant Zade, Barkya Mangat, Uddhav Poul, Manoj Kirtane, Dr Ajit Nawale, Sidhappa Kalshetty, Hemant Waghere, Irfan Shaikh, Radka Kalangda, Umesh Deshmukh, Dr R Ramakumar.

After inspiring concluding speeches by the incoming president Dada Raipure, veteran leader L B Dhangar, CKC member Dr Ashok Dhawale and outgoing president J P Gavit, all the activists and volunteers of the AIKS, AIAWU, CITU, AIDWA, DYFI and SFI from Amravati district who had spared no efforts to make this conference a great success, were felicitated by the leaders with rose flowers amidst resounding cheers and slogans. The 21st Maharashtra state conference of the AIKS then ended in an atmosphere of great unity, enthusiasm and determination.

Comrade T. N. Seema's dissent note on the Food Security Bill

The National Food Security Bill, 2011 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 22, 2011. The Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution presented its report on January 17, 2013. It made recommendations on key issues such as the categorisation of beneficiaries, cash transfers and cost sharing between the centre and states. A dissent note was presented by one MP from the CPI (M), Dr. T.N. Seema. We are happy to publish the dissent note below:
 
I wish to record my disagreement and dissent on some recommendations of the Committee as well as on some recommendations not made by the Committee which 1 feel should have been made. I have expressed these views in the course of the discussions in the Committee also. However, the final report in my opinion is not satisfactory on these issues fundamental to the question of food security; hence this note of dissent.

1. The entitlements in the Bill should be universal in nature with no caps artificially decided. However the Committee has recommended only a uniform entitlement not a universal one. Thus the numbers of those to be covered by even a uniform entitlement will be subject to the arbitrary caps put by the Planning Commission of 75 per cent (rural) and 50 per cent (urban). In fact the committee specifically recommends these caps in paraa 2.5. This undermines food security in a fundamental way. The recommendation of the Committee is only that the State Governments if they want can increase the coverage at their own cost. This is both meaningless and unfair. At present, the Bill specifically states that all foodgrains provided by the centre to the States have to be distributed as mandated. This means that the States which are using the foodgrains at present to ensure near universal coverage will no longer be able to do so. They will now have to buy the extra foodgrains required at the market price. This will mean the elimination of the effective food programmes being run by several State Governments. The committee has failed to take these factors into account.

2. The uniform entitlement recommended by the Committee at 5 kgs per head is quite unacceptable as it would reduce even the present entitlement for BPL and AAY families of 35 kgs effectively by 10 kgs for a family of five. This cut in entitlement will be creating food insecurity for 6.52 crore families (presently identified as BPL/Antodaya). This will only help the Government to contain its subsidy but not provide food security which is the aim of the Bill. It would have been better to have kept the entitlement to 7 kgs per individual for all with a minimum of 35 kgs ensured by law. Larger families would in any case be covered through the individual entitlement.

3. The Committee has correctly recommended a uniform price for all. However, it has adopted the prices of three rupees, two rupees and one rupee, for one kg of rice, wheat and millets respectively. While this is beneficial for those who would have been categorized as "general sections" in the Government Bill, it is not doing justice to the Antodaya sections who are getting their allotments at two rupees per kg, which has also been adopted as the price norm for non-Antodaya sections in many States. Thus, the committee's recommendation should have taken into account the present situation in the States and suggested a uniform price of 35 kgs (minimum) at two rupees a kilo.

4. The Bill has been rightly criticized by many of the representations being highly centralized. This is more so as far as the cost sharing issue is concerned. In a central Bill the centre must bear the major share of the cost. Many State Governments said that the entire cost should be born by the centre. However, the committee has recommended categorization of States. This is opening up a pandora's box and will lead to giving the centre even more powers to pick and choose the categories. States with a particular problem of transportation, such as the north-east States should get the benefit of the centre paying for the full amount. In any case, no cost sharing can be decided by central Government arbitrarily as is being done with many schemes and laws. The relevant clauses in the Bill which deal with this topic must be deleted; otherwise, it is extremely unfair to the States and moreover undermines the federal character of the constitution.

5. On the issue of direct cash transfers the recommendation of the committee is that "at this juncture" it should not be introduced as the infrastructure is absent. While this note of caution should be taken seriously by the Government, the committee however has failed to recommend, as it should have, that reference to cash transfers in the Bill should be removed altogether. I believe it is essential to emphasise in the recommendation that cash transfers instead of food at a time of high food inflation is bound to lead to food insecurity. The increase in market prices of foodgrains will mean that the cash subsidy will not cover the entire cost of 35 kgs entitlement. Further, since there is no guarantee as to how the cash will be spent, it may lead to further malnutrition. Retaining the cash transfer clause in the law would mean that a Government would have the legal right to enforce it.

6. I think it is wrong for the committee to make a specific recommendation to limit the allowance of 1000 rupees to a pregnant woman for only the first two children. This is imposing a two child norm which is objectionable. The problems she faces will be the same, if not more with a third child. Why should we make the woman suffer, when she rarely has the power to take the decision about the numbers of children she should bear. As far as anganwadis are concerned, the committee has wrongly absolved the Government from providing free meals and added nutrition for pregnant mothers. There are other points such as fixing control prices for pulses, edible oil and other essential commodities which should be included in the Bill.

Condemn the brutal attack on Abdul Rezzack Mollah by TMC goons

The All India Kisan Sabha condemns the brutal attack on Comrade Abdul Rezzack Mollah by Trinamool Congress goons led by former MLA and history-sheeter Arabul Islam. We demand immediate arrest of the perpetrators of the crime.

Rezzack Mollah is a senior leader of the Kisan Sabha and member of the Central Kisan Committee. He has been a popular leader who has been elected 8 times to the West Bengal Assembly and also held important ministerial responsibilities during different Left Front Governments.

Comrade Mollah had gone to visit Kantatala in South 24 Paraganas District where the Trinamool Congress goons had burnt down a office of the CPI (M) on 5^th January when the Trinamool goons made the murderous attack on him. The police officials were mute spectators to the violent attack on him. He suffered serious injuries in the attack and is undergoing treatment.

The Trinamool Congress is grossly mistaken if they believe they can stifle voices of protest through violent attacks and politics of physical annihilation. Kisan Sabha and the democratic forces will build resistance to the politics of violence and intimidation and respond with a wave of protests against the brutal attack on our leader. AIKS calls upon our units to protest against this attack and call upon all democratic sections to respond as well as isolate the perpetrators of the heinous attack.

Talasari, Thane: New Building of Godavari-Shamrao Parulekar College inaugurated

B A Rajput

On December 27, 2012, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Leader of the Party in Parliament, Sitaram Yechury, inaugurated the three-storeyed new building of the Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar (GSP) Senior and Junior College of Arts, Science and Commerce in the predominently Adivasi area of Talasari in Thane district. The inaugural programme also commemorated two other happy events.

The first was the completion of the golden jubilee year of the Adivasi Pragati Mandal (APM), the educational institution founded by Shamrao and Godavari Parulekar in 1961 in the presence of two stalwarts of the progressive movement in Maharashtra – Balraj Sahni and Acharya P K Atre – for the express purpose of the spread of education amongst the then largely illiterate Adivasi population. The second was the completion of the platinum jubilee (75th) year of the founder president of the Adivasi Pragati Mandal, Lahanu Shidva Kom, veteran leader of the CPI(M), ex-MP and also ex-MLA.

Three months ago on October 10, Sitaram Yechury had inaugurated the new spacious office of the CPI(M) Thane district committee at Talasari, called the Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar Bhavan. The foundation stone for this new office had been laid two years ago by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Tripura Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar. The Party state committee meeting held there three months ago had culminated in a massive 50,000-strong districtwide rally.

The inaugural programme on December 27 marked the culmination of a three-day student cultural festival from December 24-26. In this festival, the Adivasi students of the schools, junior colleges and senior college run by the APM presented various cultural items in which they displayed their talents. The annual issue of the college magazine called ‘Godavari’, which had a number of good articles and poems written by the students themselves, was released at the function by Sitaram Yechury.   

Apart from the senior and junior college at Talasari, the APM runs schools and hostels for Adivasi students in villages like Udhva, Vasa, Kochai and Vevji in Talasari tehsil and Ashagad in Dahanu tehsil. It also runs two junior colleges in Udhva and Ashagad respectively. The total student strength in all the APM-run institutions is 8000, and the total staff strength is 200. Over 90 per cent of the students in these schools, hostels and colleges are Adivasis, and many of them are first generation learners.

Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar senior college is affiliated to Mumbai University and it also runs a centre for the Yashwantrao Chavan Open University. Apart from the three main streams of Arts, Science and Commerce, the college runs special courses ranging from modern computer science to traditional Warli Adivasi painting. Many other social and constructive activities include mass marriages to save expenses, eradication of superstitions, water conservation, cleanliness campaigns, women’s empowerment, health camps, educational improvement and so on. The GSP college has won a number of awards and prizes at the university and inter-collegiate levels.

At the inaugural function, Sitaram Yechury warmly felicitated Lahanu Kom and the entire team of the Adivasi Pragati Mandal for the great efforts and the progress that they had made in providing education to the tribals who had always been deprived of it. He said that in the country as a whole, with the drive towards privatisation and commercialisation, education was being sold to the highest bidder. While on the one hand, Indian youth with its intelligence and hard work was excelling in computer software in the most competitive places like the Silicon Valley, the youth in India were facing the grim prospect of unemployment. Due to government’s wrong policies, the great potential of our country was not being realised. He denounced the heinous attacks on women as seen in the gruesome Delhi gang-rape case. Finally, he called upon the students to retain and deepen their sensitivity, and to always stand firmly on the side of truth and justice, come what may.

The elegant function was presided over by CPI(M) MLA Rajaram Ozare, and it was addressed by CPI(M) state secretary Dr Ashok Dhawale, Secretary of the Rayat Shikshan Sanstha Dr Arvind Burungale, veteran leaders Lahanu Kom and L B Dhangar, secretary of the APM B V Mangat and Principal of the GSP College B A Rajput. Students, staff and well-wishers attended in large numbers.             

First Krishna Khopkar Memorial Lecture delivered

The first Krishna Khopkar Memorial Lecture, organised by the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), was held in Nashik on the 15th September 2012, Saturday. The memorial lecture was delivered by Professor V. K. Ramachandran, Professor, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Professor Ramachandran spoke on "Resolving the Agrarian Question in India".

After paying rich homages to Comrade Krishna Khopkar, Ramachandran spoke on "Resolving the Agrarian Question in India". He said that the agrarian question continues to be the foremost national question before the people of India. This question had deeply influenced selfless leaders of the kisan movement like Krishna Khopkar through their life. The significance of the agrarian question in India lies not merely in the fact that more than 70 per cent of India’s population lives in rural areas (an important reason in itself), but in the fact that the agrarian question is the axis of the people’s democratic revolution, and its overwhelming significance will remain as long as the people’s democratic phase continues.

When India gained Independence 63 years ago, the major economic problems of the newly independent nation could be characterised thus: hundreds of millions of India’s people lived in the depths of income poverty, in conditions of hunger, illiteracy, lack of schooling, avoidable disease, and subject to what were among the worst forms of class, caste, and gender oppression in the world. The truly appalling feature of more than six decades of independent development is that that characterisation of India’s economic problems remains true even today. The basic reason is clear: modern historical experience has shown us that no fundamental transformation of conditions of poverty and oppression in Indian society is possible without a resolution of its agrarian question.

He explained that to solve the agrarian question today is to address seven major issues: 1) to free the countryside of all forms of landlordism, old and new; 2) to free the working peasantry and manual workers from their present fetters of unfreedom and drudgery and to guarantee them the means of income and livelihood; 3) to redistribute agricultural land; 4) to provide the rural working people with house-sites, and basic, clean, sanitary homes and habitations; 5) to create the conditions for the liberation of the people of the scheduled castes and tribes, of women, and other victims of sectional deprivation (including in most parts of India, the rural Muslim population); 6) to ensure universal formal school education; 7) to achieve the general democratisation of life and progressive cultural development in rural India.

Comrade M. K. Pandhe passes away

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member and long-time President of CITU, Comrade M.K. Pandhe died at the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in New Delhi a little after midnight on Friday following a cardiac arrest. He was 86.

Comrade Pandhe was admitted to the hospital around 8 p.m. after he complained of chest pain. His end came at 12.20 a.m. Saturday.

Born July 11, 1925 in Pune, Pandhe joined the undivided Communist Party in 1943 and rose through the ranks to become a secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), a trade union wing, in 1966.

He joined the CPI-M after the division of the Communist Party in 1965 and was elected secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in 1970.

He was elected to the CPI-M central committee in 1978 and took over as CITU general secretary in 1990.

Pandhe, a PhD from Pune's Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, became a CPI-M politburo member in 1998. A year later he became the CITU president.

A brief life history below:

• Born on July 11, 1925 at Pune, Maharashtra

• M.A (Pune University), Ph.D from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune.

• Joined the Communist Party in 1943

• Secretary Solapur Students Union (1943)

• Went Underground during 1948-51 for 27 months

•  Elected Secretary Solapur City Committee of CPI

• Elected Secretary Goa Vimochan Samity, Sholapur Branch in 1955

• Joined Central office of AITUC in 1958 and Elected Secretary in 1966

• In-charge Parliamentary Party office from 1964 to 1969

• Went underground for 14 months during 1965-66

• Coopted into the underground CC after arrest of leadership

• Elected Secretary CITU in 1970

• Elected to the Central Committee in 1978 At the Jalandhar Congress

• Elected CITU General Secretary in 1990

• Elected to the Polit Bureau in 1998 at the Kolkata Congress

• Elected President of CITU in 1999

OBITUARY – Comrade Vinayak Gaikwad

Ashok Dhawale

Comrade Vinayak Gaikwad, member of the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee, secretary of the Party’s Buldana district committee, state vice president of the AIKS and former state president of the SFI, passed away at his home on June 22, 2011 due to a sudden heart attack. He was only 58 years old and leaves behind his wife Manda and daughter Sneha.
 

Vinayak Gaikwad was born in a peasant family on March 10, 1953 in his village Durgadaitya in the Sangrampur tehsil of Buldana district in the Vidarbha region. He did his MA in Political Science at Khamgaon in the same district. While a student, he founded the SFI in Buldana district in 1978 and successfully organised its second state conference at Khamgaon in 1979. He led several victorious student struggles and was elected state president of the SFI in the period from 1987 to 1990. He was also elected to the SFI central executive committee for two terms. He was among the SFI-DYFI delegates to the World Youth Festival held in Moscow in the then Soviet Union in 1988.
 

After working in the DYFI in the state leadership during the early 1990s, Vinayak joined the AIKS and led several struggles of the cotton growing peasants in Vidarbha. Along with his comrades, he was arrested on several occasions in the course of these struggles. During one such militant struggle of cotton farmers at Malkapur, the police resorted to a severe lathi-charge, in which an arm of the veteran AIKS leader Krishna Khopkar was fractured. Vinayak was among those who played a major role in the successful hosting of the 31st AIKS national conference at Nashik in January 2006. In 1999 he was elected AIKS state joint secretary and in 2009 as AIKS state vice president.
 

Vinayak Gaikwad, along with Mangala Singh Thakur, Dr Virendra Kavishwar, Dada Raipure, Prof Sadashiv Kulli and Narendra Kavishwar (another CPI(M) and AIKS leader who also passed away two months ago) took the lead in the formation of the CPI(M) in Buldana district in 1978. In the early 1990s, after leaving Khamgaon at the end of his SFI tenure, Vinayak went back to live in his village and, through painstaking efforts, built up the Party from scratch in his own Sangrampur tehsil and also in the adjoining Jalgaon Jamod tehsil. In 1995, Vinayak was elected district secretary of the CPI(M) and later the same year, he was elected to the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee. He was elected a delegate to the 19th Party Congress held at Coimbatore in 2008.
 

Vinayak was known and loved for his simple, selfless and straightforward nature. He built up a dedicated team of young Party activists throughout the district. He had a fine political grasp and sharp organisational sense, with an uncanny ability of observing and correctly evaluating cadres. In spite of coming from an extremely backward rural background, Vinayak always consciously opposed religious and obscurantist rituals and also all forms of caste, communal and gender discrimination.
 

On June 23, thousands of people and Party activists from all over the district came to his village and bade him a tearful farewell. A condolence message sent by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury, with whom Vinayak had worked in his SFI days, was read out. Among those who addressed the condolence meeting were CPI(M) state secretary and AIKS CKC member Dr Ashok Dhawale, CPI(M) state secretariat member Manohar Muley, CPI(M) state committee member and AIKS state general secretary Kisan Gujar, CPI(M) Amravati district secretary Subhash Pandey, AIKS Nagpur district secretary Arun Latkar, CPI(M) Buldana district secretariat member and AIKS state vice president Dada Raipure, renowned physician Dr Virendra Kavishwar, CITU district leader Punjabrao Gaikwad, journalist Narendra Lanjewar, leaders of the PWP and other political parties.     
 

The CPI(M) and AIKS Maharashtra state committees pay heartfelt homage to the memory of Comrade Vinayak Gaikwad, an excellent, selfless and dedicated Communist fighter.