Ajit Nawale
THE All India Kisan Sabha’s (AIKS) Maharashtra state council once again took the lead to begin a massive three-day march of over 15,000 farmers from 17 districts of the state, from Akole to Loni in the Ahmednagar district of western Maharashtra, on April 26, 2023. The march was to culminate at the Loni office of the revenue and dairy development minister of Maharashtra, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil of the BJP. If the demands were not met, the AIKS had announced that an indefinite mahapadav would be conducted at Loni.
Realising that such a large peasant mass reaching Loni, the town of the state revenue minister, and conducting a mahapadav there, would discredit the state government no end, three ministers specified by the AIKS descended on Sangamner in the same district (near where the marchers had camped the previous night) on April 27 afternoon to hold talks.
It may be recalled that Akole tehsil, and in fact Ahmednagar district, were in the forefront of the bitter anti-imperialist freedom struggle in Maharashtra. Raghoji Bhangre and other prominent adivasi peasant fighters from this tehsil fought the British tooth and nail, and were martyred through hanging. Akole tehsil and Ahmednagar district were also till the 1960s in the forefront of the Communist movement in Maharashtra and its valiant struggles. However, the scourge of revisionism took a very big toll of the Communist movement in this district.
Buwa Nawale of Akole was elected the first president of the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha at its foundation conference at Titwala in Thane district on January 7, 1945. Shamrao Parulekar was elected general secretary and Godavari Parulekar was elected one of the joint secretaries in that same conference. From 2000 onwards, work of the Left began newly and with vigour in Akole, Sangamner and adjoining tehsils, and it has been constantly growing. Akole has seen many big struggles of the peasantry and the working class since then. It has hosted two important state conferences – of the CPI(M) in 2012 and of the AIKS in 2022.
Unlike the earlier AIKS long marches in Maharashtra, in which the lion’s share of mobilisation was from Nashik district, the lion's share of mobilisation in this Akole march was from Thane-Palghar (over 8,000 peasants had come by trucks and tempos from a distance of over 225 Km) and Ahmednagar (over 3000 peasants and workers) districts.
Districts like Nashik, Pune, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Solapur in western Maharashtra, Beed, Parbhani, Nanded, Jalna and Aurangabad in Marathwada, and Amravati, Buldana, Wardha in Vidarbha were also well represented.
A large proportion of the marchers were adivasi peasant women and men from Thane-Palghar, Ahmednagar, Nashik, Pune, Nanded, Buldana, and some other districts. For them land rights was a vital issue. But the marchers this time also included a large number of non-adivasi farmers from Vidarbha, Marathwada and western Maharashtra regions. Significantly, this march had thousands of women and youth. The CITU, AIAWU, AIDWA, DYFI and SFI were also represented by some of their state and district leaders.
Carrying innumerable red flags of the AIKS and some of the CITU, they marched with red caps, red badges and red placards, giving resounding slogans around their demands, and castigating the corrupt and discredited BJP-led state government. After walking a distance of around 12 km, the march halted for the night at Dhandarfal village in Sangamner tehsil.
A large public meeting was held at Akole to begin the march. It was presided over by AIKS president Ashok Dhawale; it was inaugurated by renowned journalist P Sainath who himself walked all the way with the farmers; and it was addressed by the eminent economist R Ramakumar, AIKS joint secretary Badal Saroj, AIKS state vice presidents J P Gavit, ex- MLA, and Uday Narkar, AIDWA general secretary Mariam Dhawale, CITU vice president D L Karad and state secretary Vinod Nikole, MLA. AIKS state secretary Ajit Nawale welcomed the gathering and state president Umesh Deshmukh gave the vote of thanks.
NEGOTIATIONS AND VICTORY
On April 25, the day before the march began, revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, on whose office at Loni this march was to culminate, invited an AIKS delegation for talks at the Sahyadri state guest house in Mumbai. While some progress was made in the discussion as regards his revenue and dairy development departments, no other minister concerned with the issues raised by this march was present. That is why the AIKS decided to go ahead with this march, despite pleas from the BJP-led state government to call it off.
It was under this pressure that, on the second day of the march on April 27, revenue and dairy development minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, tribal development minister Vijaykumar Gavit, and labour minister Suresh Khade held talks with the AIKS delegation that was led by Ashok Dhawale, Ajit Nawale, Umesh Deshmukh, Kisan Gujar and all AIKS state office-bearers, D L Karad of CITU, and selected leaders from Ahmednagar district.
The talks lasted three hours, and all three ministers conceded most of the major demands of the AIKS. As per the insistence of the AIKS, it was agreed that the written minutes of the talks with the government on April 25 and 27 will be given very soon; and all the three ministers will come to Dhandarfal village, address the marchers, and publicly declare which demands they have conceded.
Accordingly, a huge victorious public meeting was held on the evening of April 27. It was presided over by Ashok Dhawale, and was addressed by Badal Saroj, Ajit Nawale, and by all three ministers. AIKS leaders stressed that this victory was achieved only through sustained struggle, and underlined the need to strengthen the AIKS manifold. The march was then declared to be suspended amidst resounding slogans. Thousands of farmers went back to their districts with a great sense of victory and achievement.
WHAT THE MARCH ACHIEVED
The demands of this march that the state government had to concede after two rounds of talks on April 25 and 27 were as follows:
Implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA): As a result of a 50,000-strong statewide gherao of the house of the then tribal development minister by the AIKS at Wada in Palghar district in October 2016, a full meeting of the concerned state government ministers and officials with the AIKS was held, and a special government circular dated November 11, 2016 was issued. It dealt comprehensively with all the big deficiencies and weaknesses in the implementation of the FRA, and laid down clear directives for improvement which the AIKS had proposed in that meeting. However, that circular was never sincerely implemented. It was decided in the meeting with three ministers on April 27 that this circular will henceforth be the main basis for stringent FRA implementation. That will take care of the chronic problems in FRA implementation, like the notoriously negative interference of the forest department and the revenue department, wrong rejection of claims, claims pending for long, giving much less land than what is actually being cultivated by tribals for generations, wrong interpretation of FRA provisions so far as non-tribals are concerned, and so on.
Temple Trust, Inam, Waqf Board lands: This is another serious and chronic issue in Maharashtra, with lakhs of acres of lands in the names of the above bodies, which are being cultivated for generations by poor and middle peasants, but are not in the names of the cultivating peasants. Lands not being in the peasants’ names means that they are not eligible for bank or cooperative society credit, or for any of the government schemes. It was decided that the state government would bring in legislation to ensure that these lands are vested in the names of the cultivating peasants; a copy of this draft bill would be given in advance to the AIKS for its suggestions; wherever the names of such tenant farmers have been removed from the land records, they would be restored as before; these peasants would get compensation from the government for natural calamities; and all lands that have been illegally transferred from tribals’ names to names of non-tribals, will be restored to tribals.
‘Varkas’ lands: This is a serious problem in Palghar district which arose after the famed Warli Adivasi Revolt of 1945-47. The revolt was so powerful that it swept away the landlords from their lands, which were again regained by the adivasis, to whom they had originally belonged in the first place. But while thousands of acres of these lands came into possession of, and began to be cultivated by, the adivasi peasants, land records kept showing the landlords as the land owners. When these absentee landlords sold these lands, it was they who got the money, while the cultivating peasants were driven out. An important decision was taken to vest these lands in the name of the cultivating peasants, and the legal methodology of doing this was worked out.
Regularising housing encroachments on government lands: It was decided to regularise encroachments made for housing on government lands. Many other important decisions were taken on various other land-related issues, with which both the revenue ministry and the tribal development ministry were jointly concerned.
Government procurement of Hirda crop and crop loss compensation: The Adivasi Development Board will positively consider procuring the Hirda crop at proper prices. In the 2020 cyclone, the Hirda crop was destroyed but compensation was denied to the peasants. This compensation will be immediately given to thousands of peasants.
Issues concerning milk: On issues such as FRP and revenue sharing for milk, and government milk policy to regulate private milk producers, a committee will be set up with the dairy development minister as chairman. Two representatives of the AIKS will be included in this committee. An early decision will be taken by speeding up this committee’s work.
Construction workers: For construction workers a Family Mediclaim Scheme will be started at the earliest. A positive decision will be taken to increase their housing subsidy from the present Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per worker. Cumbersome conditions for the housing scheme will be removed. Some of the present wasteful schemes will be replaced by useful ones and the funds will be reallocated accordingly. Pension and Diwali subsidy will be considered.
Scheme workers: The arrears of honorarium due to all scheme workers will be cleared at the earliest. As regards making scheme workers regular government employees, constant follow-up will be made with the central government. As regards all other pending issues of scheme workers, the government will take positive steps.
Debt relief, land acquisition and rehabilitation, land registration, natural calamities and assistance, remunerative prices for farm produce, electricity, housing, ration, irrigation: On all these issues, the decisions of the AIKS meeting with the revenue minister on April 25, 2023 and the decisions of the AIKS meeting with the chief minister and deputy chief minister on March 16, 2023 after the Dindori to Vasind march, shall be implemented.
