IN 1930, every attempt was made to suppress the news when 100 farmers protesting against the forest policies were cut down by police bullets because they wanted justice against the arbitrary writs of their masters, who wanted to snatch from them what was naturally theirs and not for some tax surveyor to levy a cess on. In 2015, the news that farmers are committing suicide and that they are being exploited by the insidious mechanism of unfair laws is not really suppressed, but drowned out by the insistent beating of the drum of 'acche din'.

Nothing has changed, but the echoes of a people's movement against injustice are difficult to kill and the CPI(M) Uttarakhand unit last month observed a vigil of 30 days to commemorate the martyrs of the 30 May uprising, or the Rawain insurrection, of the farmers of Tehri kingdom who were gunned down for wanting to reclaim their rights to the forest and the natural bounty of their habitat.

Like the Kol or the Santhal rebellions before and simultaneously with the raging anti-British movement gripping the country, the farmers of Tehri stood up against the blatant expropriation of their rights and the price that scores of them paid for it during the course of their struggles against the foreign lords and their indian vassals is what the farmers of the country are still paying now, that of silent, unnoticed destruction. The rights to forest, which those who dwell in them have fought for all these years, is still denied to them, even after the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was passed in 2006 by the UPA-I government. Neither the Centre nor the state government has done anything to suggest that they are serious about letting the farmers of Uttarakhand have what ought to be theirs.

On May 30, 1930 when the farmers of Tehri state gathered in Barkot against pressure from their feudal lords, they unfurled the flag of an 'Azad Panchayat'. The overpowering force manifested that day -- born of the belief in the inalienable right to freedom from exploitation -- stood the test of brute force and bullets on May 30, 1930, and eventually overcame all on January 11, 1948, when after another bloody engagement of the agitating farmers with the barbaric machinery of oppression, in which Comrades Nagendra Saklani and Molu Bhardari fell to the tyrant's bullets, Tehri state was finally attached as a part of the Republic of India.

Mention must be made here of the newspaper 'Garhwali', which did not cow down before threats and harassment and reported the incident of the Barkot massacre of farmers. Its brave editor Vishwambar Dutt Chandola even went to jail for being steadfast to his commitment to reporting the true news surrounding the farmers' protest and the horrific crackdown of Tehri state.

To keep the flame alive of that farmers' movement, the CPI(M) Uttarakhand committee has every year since the state's formation observed May 30 as Farmers' Resistance Day because the farmers of Uttarakhand are to this day being denied their rights by the Union and the state governments. As much 67 per cent of Uttarakhand falls under the purview of the Forest Department, yet the farmers of Uttarakhand are still to benefit from the forest rights act passed by UPA-I.

Thus from Labour Day on May 1 to CITU Foundation Day on May 30, the Party in Uttarakhand organised various events bringing together farmers and labourers which culminated with a signature campaign against the Land Ordinance and dharnas in Dehradun, Chamoli, Tehri, Nainital and the entire region on May 30.