THE political situation at the all India level has been increasingly influenced by the main contradiction between capital and labour and the consistent corporate efforts to intensify the exploitation of the two major producing classes – workers and farmers. The concrete steps taken by the NDA-3 government to impose the four Labour Codes and introduction of the National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM) are a clear proof of this.

The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions (CTU) has displayed strong resistance by publicly warning that the workers all over India will be left with no other option but to engage in a series of militant and massive struggles including a countrywide General Strike if the four Labour Codes are imposed on April 1, 2025. In the coordination meeting with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) held on January 15, 2025 at New Delhi, the CTU leadership urged the farmers to support the workers' resistance.

Similarly, the SKM had been vigilant and called for burning the copies of the NPFAM across the country on December 23, 2024 – within one month of the release of the draft by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. SKM described the NPFAM as being more dangerous than the three repealed Farm Laws, because it aimed at corporatising the entire span of agriculture production, marketing, processing and export including the food industry. The CTU has extended its support to the farmers to retaliate against the new corporate offensive.

When the fast-unto-death struggle by the farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal which began on November 26, 2024 was ignored by the government, the SKM took the principled stand to put pressure on the NDA-3 government and rallied farmers across the country behind the demand of save the life of Dallewal and hold discussions with all the farmer organisations on the pending demands by calling for protests in districts across India on December 23, 2024. Tens of thousands of peasants took part in these protest actions.

After this, the SKM held two huge Kisan Mahapanchayats – the first at Tohana in Haryana on January 4, and the second at Moga in Punjab on January 9. The unity resolution adopted in Moga set the direction of massive struggles and enthused farmers across the country. The SKM six-member committee visited Dallewal at the Khanauri border. The SKM held meetings exploring issue-based unity with SKM (NP) and KMM at Patran in Punjab.

Considering the importance of putting maximum pressure on the NDA-3 government to withdraw the dangerous NPFAM immediately and force it to accept other long-pending demands, the SKM convened successful meetings of the national general body and extended national coordination committee (NCC) on January 24-25 at New Delhi. 

These SKM meetings unanimously and firmly rejected the NPFAM as a reincarnation of the three black Farm Laws being forced through the back door via state governments. The policy is basically anti-farmer and anti-state governments and oriented to facilitate hegemony of both domestic and foreign corporate houses over agricultural production, market network, processing industries and exports.

The meetings came to a consensus that the Modi government being under the tight grip of the corporate monopolies cannot drop the NPFAM and the series of pro-corporate reforms. Hence, to force the government, massive, determined, pan-India struggles larger than the historic farmers' struggle of 2020-21 at the Delhi borders have to be planned.

The two prerequisite factors to build such a countrywide and powerful mass movement are, first the issue-based unity among farmers, and secondly the expansion and consolidation of worker-peasant unity at all levels across the country. SKM stands for the widest possible unity of all sections of the working people including workers, agricultural workers, peasants, and small traders.  

The NDA-3 government is hell-bent on implementing the four Labour Codes by April 1, 2025 and the CTU has declared resilient resistance including General Strike against this onslaught on workers’ rights. In order to force the NDA-3 government to withdraw the NPFAM, farmers also have to intensify the struggle including All India Grameen Hartal and ensure the support of workers and agricultural workers. The meeting appealed to all anti-corporate sections of the people to support the farmers' struggle against the corporate forces.  

The major demands in this phase are withdrawal of the NPFAM, implementing the pending agreement of December 9, 2021 signed by the NDA-2 government with SKM that covers demands of MSP@C2+50 per cent with legally guaranteed procurement of crops, comprehensive loan waiver for farmers and farm workers, no privatisation of electricity among others, implementation of LARR Act 2013, and the solidarity demand of repeal of the four Labour Codes.

In order to make the struggle pan-India, the state coordination committees (SCC) of the SKM have a decisive role to accomplish. Apart from the above policy demands, the state-specific local demands on burning issues must be included by linking them with the policy issues. That will ensure participation of many more farmers in the pan-India struggle.

All the SCC’s have to meet by February 10, 2025 to plan the next phase of the united struggle by initiating “Pakka Morcha” (continuous mass sit-in protests) at the state centre, district and sub division level at least from March 5 onwards. SCC’s have to hold farmers’ mahapanchayats ensuring participation of the all India leadership. The details, such as form, venue and duration of this phase of struggles could be decided by the respective SCCs. Bihar SCC has planned a massive kisan mahapanchayat on February 11 at Patna and the NCC leadership will attend.  

The SCC delegations have to meet the respective chief ministers and persuade them to adopt a resolution in the state assembly session to demand that the union government withdraw the NPFAM.  Mass deputation actions at the residences/offices of all Members of Parliament including Rajya Sabha should be held preferably on February 8-9 or any other date in order to convince them of the gravity of the impact of the corporate reforms on the livelihood of farmers and agricultural workers and appealing to them to support the cause of farmers and demand that the Prime Minister save agriculture and save India.  

SKM will invite all the political parties for a discussion at New Delhi on the above mentioned demands. SKM extends support to the electricity workers struggle in Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh against the electricity reforms for privatisation and imposing smart meters.

In the context of the systemic crisis that has gripped world capitalism and the crisis of capitalism at the national level, the corporate aggression aided by the NDA-3 government is forcing the working people to unite for a counteroffensive. We hope that in 2025, India will witness yet again waves of mass struggles, more pan India in form and more widespread in participation, under the banner of worker-peasant unity.