THE Assam State Kishan Sabha organised a massive dharna in Guwahati on November 19 against the state and central governments over growing peasant suicides in the state. "Not suicides and self-annihilations, but united mighty struggle against the anti-peasant and anti-people policies of the BJP government at the Centre and Congress government in the state is the only way to lift the peasantry out of the present crisis" was the central slogan that reverberated in the massive dharna at Lakhidhar Bora Khetra in the heart of the city. Assam has been witnessing an alarming rise in peasant suicides in the recent months. In the months of September and October, at least fifteen peasants committed suicides. Even as per official statistics, which is mostly unavailable in regard to peasant suicides, in the last year in Morigaon district of Assam alone 14 peasants committed suicides. This rising trend of peasant suicides is an index of the severe crisis the agriculture sector and the peasantry of the state are beset with at present. Leaders and activists of Kisan Sabha visited many of the families of the peasants who committed suicides. Interaction with them and field survey revealed the grinding poverty and unbearable debt-burden were the immediate causes of these suicides in most of the cases. Underlying these immediate causes, however, is the deeper malaise caused by the policies pursued by the Congress government in the state. It has been compounded further by the anti-peasant policies being pursued aggressively by the Modi government at the Centre. In Assam, even after 68 years of Independence, only five per cent of the arable land has been brought under irrigation. Inefficiency and corruption have been plaguing the state irrigation department. A CAG report pointed out that in Assam it takes 33 to 38 years to complete a big or medium irrigation project. As such draught has been affecting the agri-production in a large part of the state. Added to this is the yearly devastation caused by flood and erosion. Flood is an annual affair in the state. Every year eight thousand hectares of arable land are being washed away by erosion. Thousands of peasant families become completely pauper and homeless. The central government has so far taken no steps to declare the problem of flood and erosion in Assam as a national problem and tackle it on a permanent basis. The Congress government in the state also does not take proper steps to control the flood. As a result, Assam’s agriculture has remained completely dependent on the vagaries of nature. Rural job scheme MGNREGA is a devastating failure in the state, thanks to the utter ineffeciency and corruption of the Congress dispensation. On an average only twenty to twenty-five days of work in a year could be generated under the scheme. As such the rural areas of Assam has been facing an acute crisis of employment. Now with the Modi government launching a 'jihad' against MGNREGA, things have worsened further. The peasantry in Assam has also been a victim of steep rise in prices of fertiliser, pesticides, seeds and other components of agri-production vis-à-vis sharp fall in the prices of agri produce. Many are deserting agriculture which has become a loss making enterprise and are swelling the ranks landless peasants and unorganised sector labourers. All these have led to the growing debt-burden of the peasantry in the state. Here also due to neo-liberal economic policies, the access to institutional borrowing for small and marginal peasants who constitute 85 per cent of the peasantry in Assam have considerably narrowed down. Besides, majority of the peasants in Assam are not provided with land pattas which disable them to have any access to institutional borrowings. Such a situation forces them to the clutches of usurious moneylenders who charge exorbitant rate of interest. All these factors are responsible for rising trend of peasant suicides in the state. The Assam State Kishan Sabha took up the issue of peasant suicides in right earnest and carried out a campaign against the anti-peasant policies of central and state governments. More than five hundred strong dharna on November 19 was part of that campaign. The family members of peasants who committed suicides took part in the dharna with photos of the departed souls. They came from different districts of Assam like Sonitpur, Nalbari, Morigaon, Darrang, Barpeta, Kamrup Metro, Chirang, Kamrup Rural etc. The condition of these families beggars description. However, they found a voice and strength in the organised movement launched by Kisan Sabha. The Joint Council of Trade Unions, Assam (JCTU) and CITU also came forward in solidarity with the struggling peasants. A large number workers and employees took part in the dharna. It was an inspiring spectacle of the worker-peasant unity. The dharna was addressed by Jiten Chaudhury, MP from Tripura and a leader of AIKS, Hemen Das, a veteran peasant leader of the state, Deben Bhattacharjee, Secretary CPI(M), Assam State Committee, Satanjib Das, Joint Convenor, JCTU, Assam and Tiken Das, Secretary State Kisan Sabha. Jiten Chaudhury elaborated on the alternative policies carried out by the Left Front government of Tripura as a result of which the phenomenon of peasant suicide is absent in the state. All the speakers lambasted the anti-peasant policies pursued by the BJP government at the Centre and the Congress government in the state and held these responsible for the growing peasant suicides. They called for a powerful united struggle to reverse these policies. On behalf of the State Kisan Sabha, a token monetary assistance as a mark of solidarity was given to the 14 families. Leaders of several trade unions and mass organisations distributed the assistance. JCTU, Assam contributed a sum of Rs 50,000 towards this monetary assistance. From the dharna, a memorandum was sent to the chief minister, demanding Rs 10 lakh each to the suicide affected families as help. The memorandum also raised other demands of the peasantry like remunerative price to the agri produce, institutional credit at soft rate of interest, providing land pattas to the peasants, declaration of the problem of flood and erosion in the state as a national problem and its solution on a permanent basis, expansion of irrigation, proper implementation of MGNERGA etc. Kisan Sabha has also sought an appointment with the chief minister to discuss the issues.