THE 10th all India conference of AIAWU concluded successfully at Howrah in West Bengal with the slogan “reach out to people, build class unity and struggle for victory”. The conference elected a general council with 155 members. The general council in its first meeting elected A Vijayaraghavan as president and B Venkat as general secretary of the union. The general council also elected a central working committee consisting of 61 members and 15 office bearers.
The general secretary's report highlighted the current political, economic, and social situations and their impact on agricultural workers and the rural poor. These groups are among the most marginalised in rural India, often landless and without homes, with limited access to economic and natural resources. Without any means of production, they only have their labour to sell, but they are not in a position to negotiate their wages and are often forced to work for wages well below the minimum wages. They remain economically exploited, and are at the margins of rural society.
Most of the agricultural workers come from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who suffer from various types of atrocities and social oppression in this feudal society based on the chaturvarna of Manusmriti and are not considered equal human beings. They face numerous forms of social discrimination and are also subjected to social violence. Due to their social and economic backwardness, they fall behind in the development process. Earlier, most of them were illiterate, and currently, their children are denied opportunities for quality education, resulting in their backwardness. They are not organised, which means there is very little chance to involve them in struggles that expose them to revolutionary ideas. On the contrary, they have feudal values and superstitions. As a whole, despite being the major section of rural proletariat, they lack revolutionary ideas and consciousness and are bound by various feudal ideas such as patriarchy, casteism, and anti-democratic views, as well as superstitions.
The report underlined that, “Our task is to unite and mobilise this section of rural India on their issues and to educate them through their own experiences of struggle. Organising them and politicising them to raise the level of their consciousness is our task. For organising agricultural workers, it is very important to understand the changes taking place in agriculture, their impact on the lives of agricultural workers, and changes in rural India during the last three decades.”
The report noted that it is essential to understand the existence of the neo-rich in rural India, as earlier struggles were directly waged against feudal landlords. Although there have been changes in their nature, they still control most of the economic, social, and political power. Additionally, with the diversification and multiplicity of work, there is a division of the rural proletariat. Our task is to unite agricultural workers on their issues and identify the class enemy in rural India. The struggle should be against the ruling class, including the neo-rich. The main focus of our struggle has to be against this class, and agricultural workers must lead this fight. The unity of agricultural workers, poor and marginal farmers, and the working class in rural India is of utmost importance for this struggle.
The report pointed out that presently, there is growing anger among rural people against the economic policies of the BJP-led central and state governments. The high levels of unemployment are further dispelling the illusion of ‘welfare’ created through BJP-sponsored propaganda, especially among the youth. The recent victories achieved at the all-India level as well as in local struggles, especially the kisan struggle, have created hope among people and inspired the progressive movement. This is the right time to build and expand our union based on these struggles.
Apart from this, the report also critically analysed the organisational structure and its expansion in various states. It shared experiences of the struggles conducted during the last three years and evaluated the work of the central working committee (CWC) and the all India centre.
More than 44 delegates from different states participated in the discussion on the general secretary’s report.
A seminar was also organised on the second day of the conference which was inaugurated by the Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Prakash Karat. While inaugurating the seminar, he explained in detail the Hindutva-corporate nexus in India and the role of the Left. While speaking on the topic “Food security of India and rural employment” Madhura Swaminathan, professor, and head of economic analysis unit of Indian Statistical Institute explained in detail the growing hunger, its basic reasons, high unemployment, and its relation with malnutrition. The third speaker for this session was R Ramakumar, a professor at School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He spoke on the issue of land and emphasised that rural India is not homogenous but heterogeneous with various layers. Based on the data from government sources he explained the landlessness, huge inequality in land ownership and the increase of landlessness in recent decades. He argued that sufficient surplus land is available for the distribution of land to all landless people. The last speaker was Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, member of parliament, Rajya Sabha and president of All India Lawyers Union. While speaking on the topic ‘Attacks on the Constitution of India’ he explained in detail the conspiracies of BJP and RSS to weaken the constitution of India and called for a struggle to resist this onslaught.
The credentials report was presented by Vikram Singh. According to the report, which was unanimously adopted by the conference, a total of 684 delegates and 11 observers participated in the conference. Out of the total delegates, 566 were male and 118 were female, while out of the total observers, nine were male and three were female. In addition to this, 12 fraternal delegates from AIKS, CITU, and DSMM also attended the conference.
Most of the delegates (304) belonged to the age group of 51 to 65 years. The oldest and youngest delegates were Suneet Chopra, aged 81 years and 2 months, and A Sarathchandra, aged 24 years. A total of 321 delegates belonged to the agricultural workers class, which indicates that leadership of the union is being developed from this class which is very important for advancing the class struggle. In addition to this, 148 delegates belong to the class of poor and marginalised farmers. There were 368 whole-timers and 105 part-timers who attended the conference. As far as social background is concerned, 233 delegates belonged to Scheduled Castes, 34 to Scheduled Tribes, and 282 to Other Backward Castes. The credential report also highlights the importance of the student and youth movement as it shows that 113 delegates started their political life from the student movement and 195 from youth organisations before joining the agricultural workers union.
The leadership of the organisation is also at the forefront when it comes to leading movements and struggles. Almost all the delegates participated in some struggle and faced repression. 187 comrades have served jail time for different spans. P Venkateshwar from Telangana has served the longest jail period of 11 years and 10 months, and Sachindranath Ray from West Bengal was in jail for 7 years and 6 months. Similarly, 110 delegates have experienced underground life. Himangshu Das and Ganesh Chaudhary were underground for 7 years and 6 months.
Two senior comrades who led the agricultural workers' movement for years were relieved of their organisational responsibilities. Suneet Chopra and Hannan Mollah were felicitated at the conference. Both comrades addressed the delegates and shared their rich experiences.
A massive public meeting was organised on the occasion of the conference in Howrah on February 17, 2023. Thousands of agricultural workers and the local public attended the meeting and showed their solidarity with the agricultural workers' movement. Despite the TMC government's restrictions on public gatherings at the Howrah ground and denial of permission for the public meeting, the mobilisation at the public meeting was significant. The rally ground for the public meeting was filled with people, and thousands more occupied the roads on both sides of the ground. Before the public meeting, a procession was held from the conference venue to the rally ground. The main speaker of the public meeting was Pinarayi Vijayan, chief minister of Kerala and Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M). Other speakers included Mohammad Salim, Polit Bureau member and secretary of West Bengal state committee of CPI(M), Sridip Bhattacharyya, chairperson of the reception committee, A Vijayaraghavan, all India president, B Venkat, general secretary, and Tushar Gosh, state secretary of the union. Amiya Patra, all India vice president of the union, presided over the public meeting. Also, present on the stage were Biman Bose, chairperson of the Left Front in Bengal, Vijoo Krishnan, general secretary of AIKS, and Ramchandra Dom, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) and general secretary of DSMM and Hannan Mollah.
The conference adopted 15 resolutions. After detailed discussions and reply from the general secretary, the conference report was adopted unanimously. The conference gave a call to expand the organisation into 300 districts and set an organisational target of one crore members.
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