AS part of birth centenary celebrations of Comrade Achintya Bhattacharyya (AB), the Assam unit of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) held a state-level organisational workshop at Thelamara in Sonitpur district on August 24 and 25. As many as 130 delegates from different districts of the state took part in the workshop.

A public meeting marked the beginning of the two-day workshop on the afternoon of August 24. Despite heavy rains, people in large numbers attended the rally, which was presided over by Sonitpur district unit president of AIKS Kiran Dutta. AIKS district secretary Maneswar Boro explained the purpose of the meeting. AIKS general secretary Hannan Mollah and its Assam state unit secretary Khemraj Chettri and vice-president Manoranjan Talukdar also addressed the meeting.

Mollah offered tribute to Comrade AB -- eminent peasant leader, freedom fighter and one of the prominent founders of AIKS in Assam. Highlighting Comrade AB’s sacrifice for the cause of the people and his unflinching commitment to the ideology, Mollah said Comrade AB joined the Independence movement as a student and was jailed many times. Comrade AB studied with utmost sincerity the land relations and question of nationality of Assam. He was taking a leading role in building the peasant movement not only in Assam but throughout the country. We have to emulate him and carry forward his legacy through our struggle, Mollah said.

Mollah also spoke about various problems faced by the peasants. Although the Narendra Modi-led BJP sold dream of ‘acche din’ and came to power, it is following the footsteps of the erstwhile UPA Government; and now the ‘acche din’ turns out to be illusion. The Modi Government has magnified the problems of peasants by following the path of PPP instead of radical land reforms, and is thus paving the way for the corporates. He called upon the people to build a strong movement against anti-peasant policies and defeat the holy alliance of the Modi Government and the corporates.

After the public meeting, the AIKS flag was hoisted and people paid tributes to the martyrs. The workshop started with Fazlur Rahman, Manuranjan Talukdar and Kiran Dutta as the presidium.

The president of reception committee, Aamir Hamza, addressing the workshop recalled how 13 martyrs faced bullets of the British imperialists in the pious land of Thelamara on September 20, 1942. Twenty delegates discussed on the paper presented by the state secretary Khemraj Chettri. The workshop called for a permanent solution to flood, revise the taxation on land and a solution to the border problem afflicting Assam.

Hannan Mullah, in his inaugural speech, highlighted the crisis in the agricultural sector. He said the government had gradually withdrawn public funding in the agricultural sector. Production cost is on the rise and peasants do not receive adequate profit. In the past fifteen years, 2.65 lakhs of farmers have resorted to suicide and the trend is still on. But the government has turned a deaf ear to their problems and is bent on promoting corporatisation of the agricultural sector. A poor state like Assam continues to be engulfed with flood, erosion, land problems and the host of other crisis due to anti-peasant policies of the government. In his concluding speech, Mollah stressed the need to build a strong peasant organisation and provided an insight into the tasks to be done. He laid emphasis on primary membership and formation of unit committees. Mollah also published the first issue of the organ of the state unit of AIKS, Krishak Sangram.