National Conference of All India Kisan Mahasabha held in Bihar
The fourth two-day national conference of All India Kisan Mahasabha concluded in Bakramganj of Bihar on 24 September with a call to strengthen the farmers’ unity and movement to carry forward farmers struggles against the betrayal of Modi government and non-fulfillment of promises made after the successful yearlong Delhi agitation. Hundreds of delegates from various states as well as representatives from many constituent organisations including Punjab Kisan Union, Satyashodhak Shetkari Sabha, Shramik Shetkari Sangathan and Jalla Kisan Sangharsh Samiti attended this conference which reelected Ruldu Singh and Rajaram Singh as its national President and General Secretary respectively.
The conference venue was renamed to honour the memory of senior AIKM leader Kripal Singh Bir who passed away last month in Punjab. Comrade Kripal Bir represented a generation of farmers’ leaders who fought and won land rights during the historic Mujara Struggle in Punjab. Then he in his 90s, stood firmly with the farmers at the Tikri Border against Modi’s three farm laws. The dais of the conference was named after the martyr Bhaiyyaram Yadav. The Bikramganj town was decorated in honour of farmer delegates with flags, banners and welcome gates remembering martyrs and leaders of farmers’ struggles.
The Conference began on 23 September with a Kisan Mahapanchayat attended by thousands of farmers at the Inter College grounds in the town. The Mahapanchayat was addressed by eminent farmers leaders and representatives of fraternal organisations including All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) president Ashok Dhawale, Narmada Bhachao Aandolan leader Medha Patkar, Terai Kisan Sangathan’s Tejinder Singh Virk, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti leader Dr. Sunilam and many others. CPIML General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya inaugurated the Conference.
The Mahapanchayat reiterated country’s farmers’ demands of a legally mandated MSP with C2+50 formula for all crops, extension of PDS for all poor and guaranteeing food security for all along with Bihar farmers’ long pending demands for rejuvenating Sone Canal System and building of Kadawan Dam.
Comrade Dipankar said in his inaugural speech that the government has no dearth of money but that money collected as taxes from the common people is being spent to fill the coffers of greedy corporates like Adani and Ambani. We demand that the people’s money must be spent on the needy people. We are forced to live under a government which is looting farmers by not paying them even the minimum support prices and not giving workers their minimum wages, while corporates and capitalists have full freedom to decide and sell their products at a maximum retail price of their choice. This is huge injustice. He called upon the farmers present in the Mahapanchayat to further spread the message of farmers’ struggle of Delhi’s borders to each village of Bihar because it has always been the land where people’s movements have given a new turn in the politics of the country in the past. The struggle of Bihar’s poor and middle peasants and sharecropper farmers will also effectively counter BJP’s false propaganda that the farmers’ movement represents only the rich farmers.
He added that Modi government is fulfilling the vested interests of its crony corporates by facilitating corporate takeover of Indian agriculture as well as handing them out all the country’s resources and institutions. But the farmers had shown their strength by forcing the government to first withdraw three ordinances pertaining to corporate land grab and then three anti-farmer farm laws just last year. This unity and struggle must be strengthened and expended to all the farmers and all the workers in the country for bringing a total revolutionary change.
Leader of Narmada Bhachao Aandolan Medha Patkar said that we must fight back to protect our agriculture and environment. We must oppose corporate companies which are trying to snatch away produce of farmers. And now a huge population is being deprived of very basic rights like education and health, while big corporates are endangering whole of humanity by damaging our environment and ecosystem. We are being ruled by those who had opposed and insulted our tricolour in the past, but the farmers have proved that only peoples’ movement have power to give a befitting reply to such anti-people regimes.
Ashok Dhawale of AIKS called for a wider movement against the government allowing the corporates to loot country’s resources under the pressure of WTO and other world institutions. Three farm laws were enacted for the same reason but the movement forced the Modi government to withdraw them. He also demanded from the Bihar government to implement the Bihar tenancy Act and the recommendations of Land Reforms commission. Dr. Sunilam emphasized on need for a strong movement to save the democracy from those sowing the seeds of communal poison in society. He condemned the Lakhimpur Kheri administration for the attempts of building up communal atmosphere against the Sikhs in that district.
Tejinder Singh Virk of Terai Kisan Sangathan said that the farmers will only be able to profitable farming when the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission are implemented and complete loan waiver for all farmers is declared, hence we all must work to spread the movement further. Cultural team Hirawal presented revolutionary songs in the mahapanchayat.
The Mahapanchayat organisers honoured by presenting mementoes all the guests which included leaders from fraternal organisations, and dozens of activists who dedicatedly organised camps, libraries and medical help at various Delhi borders during the farm agitation.The AIKM Conference continued till the next day which was attended by farmers representatives from UP, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, MP, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and other states. The conference was presided over by a presidium comprising Ruldu Singh Mansa, Prem Singh Gahalawat, KD Yadav, Phoolchand Dhewa, Shiv Sagar Sharma, Manju Devi, Ishwari Prasad Kushwaha, D Harinath and Kripa Verma. Rajaram Singh presented the work report before the delegates and Sudama Prasad read out the resolutions of the conference which were unanimously adopted. The conference concluded after the election of new National Executive and office bearers with the resolve to take the farmers’ movement to new heights by strengthening the struggles with emphasis on the needs of poor peasants, sharecroppers and middle peasants and to fight out the current regime which has imposed an agrarian crisis over the nation.
