THE historic one lakh-strong state-wide rally on March 29, 2016 and the unprecedented day and night sit-in satyagraha on March 29-30 in the heart of Nashik city, squarely placed the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha (AIKS) for the first time at the centre stage of the peasant movement in Maharashtra. The four main issues on which the Kisan Sabha launched this struggle were peasant loan waiver, remunerative prices, drought relief and land rights. (See the report in People’s Democracy/Loklahar, February 15-21, 2016, for details of the issues.) Some of the burning demands of the peasantry of the state that were highlighted in this struggle were: Complete waiver of peasant loans and electricity bills for those holding up to 25 acres of dry land and up to 10 acres of irrigated land; remunerative prices for all crops as per the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission; water, fodder, work under MNREGA and crop compensation to drought-hit areas of Marathwada and Vidarbha regions; stringent implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and forest land, pasture land and temple land to be vested in the name of the actual tillers. As a welcome change, this militant peasant action received massive coverage in both print and electronic media. The electronic media covered the rally and satyagraha live on both days. Marathi dailies covered the rally and the satyagraha with banner headlines and large pictures on their front pages. Many English and Hindi dailies also covered the struggle well. Widely read Marathi dailies like the Maharashtra Times (Times of India group), Loksatta (Indian Express group) and the prestigious daily for farmers Agro One (Sakaal group) ran editorials and Op-Ed page articles on the AIKS struggle. The Agro One editorial was titled “Settle the Struggle, or Revolution Inevitable”. The Loksatta article was titled “Pendulum Swings to the Left”. The Maharashtra Times editorial was titled “Fury of the Adivasis”. Our SFI-DYFI social media team also worked day and night to take this struggle far and wide. HISTORIC RALLY On March 29, one lakh farmers from 25 districts of the state converged on the Golf Club Maidan at Nashik. They included thousands of peasant women. By far the largest contingents were adivasi peasants from Nashik and Thane-Palghar districts. The huge mass from these two districts had come despite hundreds of crucial gram panchayat elections that had been hurriedly advanced by the powers that be with a view to mar this struggle. The first day for filing nominations was scheduled for March 29, the day of the rally itself! These two districts were followed by impressive contingents of farmers from Ahmednagar, Wardha, Parbhani and 20 other districts from all the five regions of Vidarbha, Marathwada, Western Maharashtra, Northern Maharashtra and Konkan. The main speakers at the massive rally were CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, AIKS general secretary Hannan Mollah and renowned journalist P Sainath. The rally was also addressed by AIKS joint secretary Dr Ashok Dhawale, CPI(M) state secretary Narasayya Adam, former AIKS state president J P Gavit MLA, state general secretary Kisan Gujar, state president Dada Raipure and AIKS state office-bearers Arjun Adey, Dr Ajit Nawale, Savliram Pawar, Ratan Budhar, Yashwant Zade, Uddhav Poul and Dr R Ramakumar. It was presided over by the 86-year old veteran AIKS leader, L B Dhangar. The rally was greeted by CITU state vice president Mahendra Singh, AIDWA state president Mariam Dhawale, DYFI state president Sunil Dhanwa and SFI state secretary Datta Chavan. The Praja Natya Mandal from Solapur regaled the audience with revolutionary songs. Sitaram Yechury congratulated the peasants who had come in such huge numbers for this struggle. When the farmer who feeds the country has to commit suicide, it is a symbol of the gravest crisis. He came down heavily on the government policies of denial of fair prices to farmers and its callousness in dealing with drought. On the issue of land, he said it was only the Left Front government of Tripura that had seriously and swiftly implemented the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and had vested land in the names of 99 percent of adivasi claimants. As regards the question of peasant debt, Sitaram said that Rs 5.62 lakh crore of bank loans were outstanding with corporates and industrialists. Nothing was being done about this; on the contrary Vijay Mallya who had fleeced the banks of Rs 9,000 crore was allowed to flee the country. In this union budget itself Rs 6.11 lakh crore of tax concessions were gifted to the rich. But the farmers’ lands and houses were taken away when they defaulted on even small sums of loans. Loan-waiver for peasants, he said, was the need of the hour. Yechury then squarely attacked the BJP-led Modi regime for trying to divert the attention of the people from its all-round bankruptcy on all fronts by raising emotional and divisive non-issues, as seen recently in the events in HCU which led to Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder, the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar and others in JNU on false charges of sedition, the jingoism let loose over the Bharat Mata ki Jai slogan and so on. Recounting the string of electoral defeats faced by the BJP in the assembly elections and local body elections so far, he said the BJP would meet the same fate in the ensuing assembly elections. Finally, he called for a sustained struggle for the rights of the working people and in defence of democracy, secularism, national unity and socio-economic justice. Hannan Mollah recounted the glorious legacy of the AIKS in fighting against British imperialism and its struggles for land to the tiller and peasants’ rights. In line with this legacy, the AIKS was recently in the forefront of the victorious struggle against the draconian Land Acquisition Ordinance of the Modi-led BJP regime and also on the issue of suicides of 3,50,000 debt-ridden peasants in our country in the last 20 years. He strongly supported the demands of the current struggle being waged in Maharashtra. Mollah then took the RSS-BJP to task on the issue of patriotism. Those who acted as agents of the British during our freedom struggle and those who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, have no right to lecture anyone on patriotism. The RSS-BJP, who make a brother fight against a brother in the name of religion, are the real enemies of our country. He called for a fight till the end until the demands are won. There was no other way except struggle, he concluded. P Sainath, armed with damning facts and figures, tore apart the promises and performance of the Modi-led BJP regime vis-a-vis agriculture. He also dealt with the concrete problems facing the peasantry in Maharashtra. He demanded a radical change in policies so that the peasantry is freed from debt and drought and called for a sustained struggle to this end. MASSIVE SATYAGRAHA After the public meeting, the huge peasant mass marched with determination to the district collector’s office, and in a move that stunned the police and the administration, it occupied the pivotal Central Bus Stand Square in the heart of Nashik city, disrupting all life in this major city. Here the Kisan Sabha began a day and night sit-in satyagraha. The leaders declared that this action would continue indefinitely until the major demands were conceded by the state government. All four major arteries of Nashik city leading to the square were blocked by tens of thousands of peasants. The mood of the occupying peasants was infectiously vibrant. The farmers put up Kisan Sabha district banners and hundreds of placards with the major demands of the struggle. They put up make-shift huts and shelters. They had brought three days chatni-bhakri to eat. Many had even brought rice, utensils and firewood for cooking. Women had brought their children along and they also enjoyed this novel form of protest. The peasants sang and danced to the tune of their musical instruments to express their determination. They slept on the roads at night and all Kisan Sabha leaders and activists also joined them. The whole day of March 30 was spent like a public meeting, interspersed with revolutionary songs. CITU state general secretary Dr D L Karad, CITU state vice president Sitaram Thombre, CPI(M) municipal corporator of Nashik Tanaji Jaybhave greeted the agitators. The CITU had organised a motor-cycle rally on March 29 to support the AIKS struggle and provided food to the peasant participants on the night of March 30. AIKS leaders from various districts also effectively addressed the agitators the whole day. Leaders of Left and secular parties like the CPI, PWP, AAP, BRP-BM also came to express support. Ordinary citizens from Nashik thronged to sympathise with the struggle. Various charitable institutions and shopkeepers spontaneously provided free water and snacks. A tea vendor served tea to the poor agitators at whatever price they could afford. This, he said, was his proud contribution to the farmers’ cause! The farmers were full of anger against the callousness of the BJP-led governments both at the centre and in the state. A peasant woman from Nashik district said hundreds of crores were spent by the state government to cater to the saffron sadhus during the Kumbh Mela in Nashik last year, but it could not spend even a paisa for providing basic amenities for the peasants who have come to fight for their rights. Another peasant woman from Thane-Palghar district challenged the ministers to come out of their air-conditioned offices to face the wrath of the peasants over their failure to vest forest land in the names of the adivasis. Farmers from Vidarbha and Marathwada related their terrible plight as a collective result of the grim drought, unpayable debt, crop destruction and unremunerative prices. Peasants from Western Maharashtra talked of temple lands being tilled by farmers for decades, but which were not vested in their names and so they could get no loans or any other facilities. On both days, tens of thousands of red AIKS plastic badges, and thousands of copies of the new issue of the AIKS state journal Kisan Sangharsh, as well as the CPI(M) state journal Jeewan Marg, were briskly sold to increase the political consciousness of the participants. On the morning of March 30, CPI(M) MLA J P Gavit moved an adjournment motion in the state assembly which was in session. This led to a heated discussion in which MLAs from the PWP and some other opposition parties supported the ongoing AIKS struggle in Nashik. ASSURANCES BY THE CHIEF MINISTER On March 30, the beleaguered Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis invited the Kisan Sabha for talks. A one hour discussion was held with the CM, three other ministers holding the portfolios of irrigation, cooperatives and tribal development, and senior officials in the Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai. The CM conceded the following demands: 1. Loan waiver to all farmers would be given and a proposal to that effect would be sent to the central government. 2. The state government would send crop wise proposals to the centre for remunerative prices as per the Swaminathan Commission recommendation of cost of production plus 50 percent profit. 3. In the drought-hit areas of the state, the farmers would be given 100 percent electricity bill waiver and in all other areas the farmers would be given 30 percent relief in power bills. 4. Efforts would be made on a war footing to provide drinking water, ration grain, fodder and work under MNREGA in the drought-hit areas of Marathwada and Vidarbha regions. 5. The tens of thousands of rejected claims of adivasi peasants made under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), as well as the accepted claims with much less land given than is cultivated by them, would be re-examined within three months and justice done. Immediate orders to this effect would be given to the district collectors. 6. A state-wide survey would be conducted of lakhs of acres of temple lands and pasture lands to record the farmer-cultivators and the necessary legal steps would be taken to vest these lands in their names. 7. Steps would be taken to see how the water from the West-flowing rivers can be given to the Nashik, Thane and Palghar districts and diverted to the drought-hit areas in the state. 8. On all other issues, a special three-hour meeting will be held with the Kisan Sabha delegation after the end of the current assembly session. The delegation that met the CM comprised Dr Ashok Dhawale, J P Gavit MLA, Narasayya Adam ex-MLA, Kisan Gujar, Dr Ajit Nawale, Barkya Mangat, Yashwant Zade, Uddhav Poul and Umesh Deshmukh. While the AIKS delegation spent the day going to Mumbai and back, the day-long struggle in Nashik was led by AIKS leaders Dada Raipure, Udayan Sharma, Arjun Adey, Shankar Danav, Siddhappa Kalshetty, Vilas Babar, Sunil Malusare, Irfan Shaikh and Vijay Patil. In view of these assurances, the Kisan Sabha decided to suspend the sit-in stir for three months and this was announced by Dr Ashok Dhawale and J P Gavit at midnight on March 30/31 at Nashik before tens of thousands of farmers. But they also warned that if there was any betrayal in implementation of these assurances, this struggle would be conducted with much greater force in the state capital Mumbai. Three days after the satyagraha was suspended, the BJP-led government and its police slapped cases under IPC Section 341 on 28 main leaders of the AIKS, CITU and AIDWA! They did not have the courage to do so while the satyagraha was on! CULMINATION OF SIX-MONTH CAMPAIGN The March 29-30 state-wide struggle in Nashik was the culmination of a six-month long campaign led by the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha. In the months of October and November 2015, a peasant awareness campaign was conducted, with extended meetings of Kisan Sabha activists in 25 districts. In December, over 50,000 farmers came out on the streets on the above issues in 23 districts under AIKS leadership. In January 2016, peasant loan-waiver conventions were held in Marathwada and Vidarbha regions and a temple land farmers convention was held in Western Maharashtra. On January 19, over 92,000 farmers led by the Kisan Sabha participated in a joint CITU-AIKS-AIAWU jail bharo stir across the state. In February, Kisan Sabha district conferences were held in 23 districts to prepare for the March 29 struggle. In March, farmers’ jathas were organised in all districts. Around five lakh leaflets were distributed, 11,000 printed posters were put up and hundreds of village meetings were held. It has been decided to follow up the March 29-30 action by constant local struggles, effective political intervention in the coming local body elections, and membership enrolment (which has already crossed 2.5 lakh so far) and organisational consolidation, leading up to the 22nd state conference of the AIKS to be held at the Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar Bhawan at Talasari in Palghar district from May 27-29, 2016.