IN the second week of December 2015, over 50,000 peasants under the banner of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha (AIKS) came onto the streets in 29 tehsil centres 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.

The districts in which these actions took place were Yavatmal, Amravati and Buldana in the Vidarbha region; Parbhani, Nanded, Hingoli, Beed and Jalna in the Marathwada region; Nashik and Nandurbar in the Northern Maharashtra region; Ahmednagar, Satara and Solapur in the Western Maharashtra region; and Thane-Palghar and Raigad in the Konkan region. A district peasant rally was organised in Pune in October for the first time in years.

The largest and most militant actions took place in Thane-Palghar district – the second-largest base of the AIKS in the state – and they mobilised over 35,000 peasants from the eight tehsils of Dahanu (10,000), Jawhar and Mokhada (7,000), Talasari (6,000), Vikramgad and Wada (5,000), Shahapur (4,000), and Palghar (3,000). All these actions in Thane-Palghar district were fully supported by the AIDWA and DYFI and they mobilised thousands of women and youth as well.

In Wada over 5,000 peasants from Wada and Vikramgad tehsils laid siege to the SDO office continuously for six days and five nights and wrested written assurances from the SDO and tehsildar about their demands concerned with land rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), employment under MNREGA, ration grain under the Food Security Act (FSA) and local issues about electricity, roads and health. In a similar action, over 4,000 peasants laid siege to the tehsil office in Shahapur for three days and three nights and wrested a similar written assurance from the tehsildar. In both places, the actual implementation of the assurances by the authorities also began. These successful actions enhanced the morale of the people and attracted people from new villages and even from political streams opposed to us.

In Nashik district – the largest base of the AIKS in the state – due to local reasons, the struggle could take place in only one tehsil. In Tryambakeshwar tehsil of Nashik district, 2,000 peasants per day laid a relay siege to the tehsil office for three days and wrested their demands from the authorities.

Before these actions, a concerted campaign of filling thousands of individual application forms of peasants for a loan waiver and drought relief on the one hand, and for land under the FRA on the other, was conducted in several districts of the state in the respective areas.

STATEWIDE

CAMPAIGN

The call for these December mass actions was given after a statewide AIKS campaign called as the Peasants Rights Awareness Campaign was held. For a month from October 5 to November 10, meetings of main AIKS district activists were held in 24 districts of the state. In these meetings, the burning issues of peasant struggle were identified; the nature of struggle was discussed; and the steps for organisational strengthening were decided.

In this month-long campaign, AIKS national joint secretary Dr Ashok Dhawale, state general secretary Kisan Gujar and state joint secretary Dr Ajit Nawale toured almost all the 24 districts. They were accompanied in different regions and districts by AIKS state office-bearers of that region – AIKS state president Dada Raipure, state working president Arjun Adey, state vice-presidents J P Gavit MLA, Yashwant Zade, Ramkrishna Shere, Jaising Mali, Barkya Mangat, Pandurang Rathod, Ratan Budhar, Savliram Pawar and state joint secretaries Shankarrao Danav, Uddhav Poul, Sidhappa Kalshetty, Umesh Deshmukh, Radka Kalangda, Irfan Shaikh and state treasurer Sanjay Thakur. Veteran 86 year-old AIKS leader L B Dhangar also remained present in his district. It was an excellent collective team effort.

The identification of issues for struggle was also helped by another initiative taken by the AIKS all India centre. In July 2015, after the All India Kisan Council (AIKC) meeting was held for the first time in Maharashtra at Wardha in the Vidarbha region, AIKS central and state leaders visited families of peasant suicide victims in various districts of Vidarbha and Marathwada. These visits helped to identify the reasons for peasant suicides first-hand. Lack of space does not permit an elaboration of all the issues of struggle in this report.  

ENSUING

PROGRAMMES

On January 7 and 8 respectively, the AIKS will hold 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. On January 12, an AIKS state convention of peasants cultivating temple lands will be held at Satara where the main demand will be the vesting of these vast lands in the names of the cultivating peasants.

On January 19, as per the call of the joint state convention of the CITU-AIKS-AIAWU that was held on October 31 at Parbhani, over one lakh workers, peasants and agricultural labourers will conduct a massive joint state-wide jail bharo stir for their main demands against the BJP-led central and state governments.

On January 28, a state-level struggle convention of the AIKS will be held at Nashik and this will give a call for a massive struggle in the end of March, as per the decision of the AIKS central office-bearers meeting held last month.

From February 6 to 28, all AIKS district conferences will be held and they will be preceded by village and tehsil conferences from January 1. The district conferences will be accompanied by a state-wide jatha campaign on the four burning peasant issues identified above.

The end of March will see an unprecedented state-level peasant struggle led by the AIKS, the form and details of which will be decided in the struggle convention on January 28.

The 22nd Maharashtra state conference of the AIKS will be held at the Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar Bhavan at Talasari in Palghar district in April and it will commemorate the completion of 80 years of the AIKS and 70 years of its Maharashtra unit, as well as the birth centenary year of AIKS stalwarts Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Dasarath Deb.

AIKS membership in Maharashtra this year has already crossed the 2 lakh mark and concerted efforts are on to cross the 3 lakh mark for the first time this year.