THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS TALKS AGAINST CASTEIST HEGEMONY IN SOUTH ASIA

THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS TALKS AGAINST CASTEIST HEGEMONY IN SOUTH ASIA INDIA AGAINST ITS OWN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

PalahBiswas On Unique Identity No1.mpg

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

I have been out of Kolkata since 22nd Dec and got Home back only today. I had the opportunity to address Mulnivasi Bamcef National Convention at Gulbrga in Karnataka twice. You may get the VCD. There I came to know about South Indian Anti Caste Anti

I have been out of Kolkata since 22nd Dec and got Home back only today. I had the opportunity to address Mulnivasi Bamcef National Convention at Gulbrga in Karnataka twice. You may get the VCD.  There I came to know about South Indian Anti Caste Anti Brahaminism Lingayat Movement and met current Lingayat Movement Leaders. It is also BI Centenary year of Harichand Thakur who mobilsed Matua Movement against Fascist Imperialist Exploitation of the Peasantry. Both Basav Anna and Harichand Thakur had been essentialy the leaders of the Peasantry and Aboriginal Humanscape.Both Rejected  Brhaminical Religion to fight for the Outcaste Peasantry and Muslims also. But the Brahaminical system absorbed Linagayat as well as Matua Movement in its fold and scceeded to Brahaminise these Revolutionary Anti Brahamin Anti Aryan Movement of the Peasantry. I had to speak on Trade Union Movment and the urgency of Mulnivasi Tarded union. I concentrated on the legacy of Aboriginal Peasant Movement which led Ayyankali, Nrayan Meghaji Lokhande and DR BR Ambedkar to launch Indian Trade Union Movment. But th Brahamins led by False Brahamin Marxists HIJACKED Trade Union Movement. I dealt the subject in a workers` meeting in Kalayan, Mumbai on 1st January once again. Dr BR Ambedkar as well as stalin emphasised that Trade Union Movement in itself is not the OBJECTIVE. The Objective is the Libetation of the Proletariates, the Excluded Communities. Dr BR Ambedkar clarified that Trade Unions have to Fight against Two ENEMIES. He identified Brahaminism as the Greatest Enemy of the Working Class.But Indian Trade unions are led and guided by the Brahamins only. How may it fight against either Brahaminism or Capitalism, the secondary Enemy? Likewise, the Brahamins have also HIJACKED the Peasants` Movement.Left peasants' organisations in West Bengal said on Wednesday that they will support theBharat Bandh called by the Left trade unions on February 28. The president of the CPIM-controlled peasants' organisation, Madan Ghosh said on Wednesday that they had no option left before them than to support the Bandh called by the Left trade unions.

Just remeber, that the Marxist Peasant Union has Official FIVE HUnderd Thousand Memebers. but it failed to lead Indian Peasantry for Exclusion or Ethnic Cleansing. It Never did oppose Green Revolution and the Impending Disaster in Indian Rural World. Rather it supported Indiscriminate Land Acquistion, SEZ, Nuclear Energy, UID, Industrial Corridor, Urbanistion and Industrial Drive.  

Tattering finances: Government's market borrowings to exceed budget by at least 25%,Bills such as Land bill, DTC, Companies bill will not be killed, awaits Parliament in 2012
In Maharashtra, specifically in Mumbai, workers and employees complained that their Salaries and Bank Accounts are FREEDGED and they have been notified to get UID to get the salary. All Trade Unions are led by the Marxists and NO Trade UNION or the Leaders Of Civil SOCIETY like JAP and NO UID Campaign has come forward to defend the suffering working class. As you know this is a CORPORATE Project violating Sovereignty of the CITIZEN. breaking into Prvacy and led by Extra Constitutional element , the South Indian Brahamin Nandan Nilekani! The Parliament has DISCAREDED the NATO Project already abondoned by Nato partners like England, Germany and France. Without any Legislation bypassing the Parliament, Nilekani and company has spent SEVENTEEN THOUSND CRORE! This is a greater Scam than TWO G Spectrum and the CULPRITS should be HANGED! But No protest, No Agitation and NO PIL. Anna Brigade does not bother about this SCAM! This is theBrahaminical system. Basv Anna and Harichand Thkur, namdev and Tukaram understod this phenomenon better than us and they simply Revolted against the Brahaminical religion to defend the Peasantry!  

Sri Sri Harichand Thakur

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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[edit]Introduction

One of the greatest social reformer in Bengal .He carried out his mission among the subaltern population .Later people from all sections, irrespective of caste and creed or religion joined him to make it a great success. Whether Catholic Missionaries or The Hindus or The followers of Brahmoism, all acknowledged his great contribution in the Bengal Renaissance among the poor and marginalised people. He started his mission with a view to spread education and create self-respect among these people and at the same time he insisted for removing of all kinds of social bashing which is a curse in Indian society.

[edit]Life and Family

He was born in a Namasudra (Namassej)(then called candala) peasant religiously vaishnab family. His original name was Sri Harichand Biswas. His family was believed to be belonging to Gautama Clan ( later the community members agreed to be identified as belonging to Kasyapa clan ; in the different census reports of eightieth century the "namasudras" were found to identifying themselves as belonging to four different clans or gotras kasyapa,bhardwaja,goutama or(n)lomoso ) .He was born in 1812. His place of birth is Safaldanga, Gopalgaunge( now in Bangladesh ).Later He moved to Odakandi,Faridpur. His family had five brothers(pancha shahadar, found in vandana): Krishnadas, Harichand, Vaishnavdas, Gouridas and Sharupdas. At a very early age he accepted the path of religious reformation for giving service to and uplifting the subaltern people of Bengal. He experienced atmadarshan ( self-realisation ) and preached his ideologies and religious philosophy in twelve commandments and asked his followers to pursue his works .He established Matua Mahasangha. His followers consider him as God ( Thakur ) Harichad and as an Avatar of Lord Vishnu .Thus He became Sri Sri Harichand Thakur. He left us in 1877 in Odakandi. He married Shantimata and his son was Shri Shri Guruchand Thakur, born in 1846.

[edit]Matua_Mahasangha and His Mission

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[edit]External links


[edit]References

  • [The Namasudras and other Addresses, Adelaide,1911 : C.S.Mead]
  • [Matua Dharma Darshan ( in Bengali ), Thakurnagar,1393 B.S. p-47 : Paramananda Halder]
  • [Sekhar Bandyopadhyay :Popular religion and social mobility : The Matua sect and the namsudras in R.K.Ray (ed) Mind Body and Society, Life and Mentality in colonial Bengal ( Calcutta) 1995]
  • [Hitesh Ranjan Sanyal : Social Mobility in Bengal, Calcutta,1985]
  • [Tarak Chandra Sarkar: Sri Sri Hari Lilamrita ( in Bengali ) Faridpur, 1323BS]
  • [Adal Badal (Bengali Monthly) June–July,1995 No IV and V ]
  • [ The Family genealogy and community identity are after the living members of the clan in Thakurnagar as on 23 March 2011 ]

    1. Basava - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basava

    3. Basava (also known as Guru Basavanna (Kannada: ಬಸವಣ್ಣ) or Basaveshwara (Kannada: ಬಸವೇಶ್ವರ), (1134–1196)) was a philosopher and a social ...

    4. Basavakalyan - Channabasavanna - Basavana Bagewadi - Basava purana

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    8. www.freeindia.org/biographies/sages/basaveshwara/page1.htm

    9. Largest Hindu and Indian Biographies site on the net. Contains comprehensive biographies of various Indian and Hindu leaders, ranging from Gods ...

    10. Introduction - Basaveshwara

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    12. Before the birth of Basavanna it was customary to write religious and ethical texts ...Several Shaiva Saints (Shivasharanas) followed the example of Basavanna ...

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    19. www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6dOsLJIy7o30 Mar 2008 - 6 min - Uploaded by dymanu

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    1. List of revolutions and rebellions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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    3. 184: Zhang Jiao led an unsuccessful peasant revolt called the Yellow Turban ..... 1857: The failed Indian rebellion against British East India Company, marking ...

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    9. The early years of British rule in India were marked by widespread peasant rebellions. Long before the Sepoy Rebellion -- often regarded as the first war of ...

    10. Peasant Movement and Uprisings in India

    11. www.indianetzone.com › ... › History of India › Modern History of India

    12. 26 Jul 2011 – Peasant Movement and Uprisings in India - Informative & researched article on Peasant Movement and Uprisings in India from Indianetzone, ...

    13. Indian Peasant Uprisings

    14. www.jstor.org/stable/4363915

    15. by K Gough - 1974 - Cited by 79 - Related articles

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    17. INDIAN HISTORY: Adivasi Revolts, Armed Struggles against British ...

    18. india_resource.tripod.com/revolts.html

    19. While much has been written on the Indian Freedom Movement as led by the Congress and Gandhi, little is known of the numerous uprisings by peasants, tribal ...

    20. Peasantry in India - G. Krishnan-Kutty - Google Books

    21. books.google.co.in › Social Science › Sociology › Rural

    22. A Brief Study Of Peasantry In India Is Undertaken By The Author Who Has Earlier ...Peasant Revolts in India. 33. Peasant Revolts in France Russia and China ...

    23. Peasantry in India - G. Krishnan-Kutty - Google Books

    24. books.google.com › Social Science › Sociology › Rural

    25. A Brief Study Of Peasantry In India Is Undertaken By The Author Who Has Earlier Made A Study Of Colonialism ... Peasant Revolts in France Russia and China ...

    26. Peasant Revolts in Ancient India - Sulekha coffeehouse Forums

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    29. Our peasantry in India did not dare revolt their culture being submissive and the attitude being that to take shit from the landlords would a French revolution even ...

    30. Indian Peasant Uprisings - Research and Read Books, Journals ...

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      I have been out of Kolkata since 22nd Dec and got Home back only today. I had the opportunity to address Mulnivasi Bamcef National Convention at Gulbrga in Karnataka twice. You may get the VCD.  There I came to know about South Indian Anti Caste Anti Brahaminism Lingayat Movement and met current Lingayat Movement Leaders. It is also BI Centenary year of Harichand Thakur who mobilsed Matua Movement against Fascist Imperialist Exploitation of the Peasantry. Both Basav Anna and Harichand Thakur had been essentialy the leaders of the Peasantry and Aboriginal Humanscape.Both Rejected  Brhaminical Religion to fight for the Outcaste Peasantry and Muslims also. But the Brahaminical system absorbed Linagayat as well as Matua Movement in its fold and scceeded to Brahaminise these Revolutionary Anti Brahamin Anti Aryan Movement of the Peasantry. I had to speak on Trade Union Movment and the urgency of Mulnivasi Tarded union. I concentrated on the legacy of Aboriginal Peasant Movement which led Ayyankali, Nrayan Meghaji Lokhande and DR BR Ambedkar to launch Indian Trade Union Movment. But th Brahamins led by False Brahamin Marxists HIJACKED Trade Union Movement. I dealt the subject in a workers` meeting in Kalayan, Mumbai on 1st January once again. Dr BR Ambedkar as well as stalin emphasised that Trade Union Movement in itself is not the OBJECTIVE. The Objective is the Libetation of the Proletariates, the Excluded Communities. Dr BR Ambedkar clarified that Trade Unions have to Fight against Two ENEMIES. He identified Brahaminism as the Greatest Enemy of the Working Class.But Indian Trade unions are led and guided by the Brahamins only. How may it fight against either Brahaminism or Capitalism, the secondary Enemy? Likewise, the Brahamins have also HIJACKED the Peasants` Movement.Left peasants' organisations in West Bengal said on Wednesday that they will support theBharat Bandh called by the Left trade unions on February 28. The president of the CPIM-controlled peasants' organisation, Madan Ghosh said on Wednesday that they had no option left before them than to support the Bandh called by the Left trade unions.

      Just remeber, that the Marxist Peasant Union has Official FIVE HUnderd Thousand Memebers. but it failed to lead Indian Peasantry for Exclusion or Ethnic Cleansing. It Never did oppose Green Revolution and the Impending Disaster in Indian Rural World. Rather it supported Indiscriminate Land Acquistion, SEZ, Nuclear Energy, UID, Industrial Corridor, Urbanistion and Industrial Drive.  

      In Maharashtra, specifically in Mumbai, workers and employees complained that their Salaries and Bank Accounts are FREEDGED and they have been notified to get UID to get the salary. All Trade Unions are led by the Marxists and NO Trade UNION or the Leaders Of Civil SOCIETY like JAP and NO UID Campaign has come forward to defend the suffering working class. As you know this is a CORPORATE Project violating Sovereignty of the CITIZEN. breaking into Prvacy and led by Extra Constitutional element , the South Indian Brahamin Nandan Nilekani! The Parliament has DISCAREDED the NATO Project already abondoned by Nato partners like England, Germany and France. Without any Legislation bypassing the Parliament, Nilekani and company has spent SEVENTEEN THOUSND CRORE! This is a greater Scam than TWO G Spectrum and the CULPRITS should be HANGED! But No protest, No Agitation and NO PIL. Anna Brigade does not bother about this SCAM! This is theBrahaminical system. Basv Anna and Harichand Thkur, namdev and Tukaram understod this phenomenon better than us and they simply Revolted against the Brahaminical religion to defend the Peasantry!  

      Now, the Indian railway is further PRIVATISED as PPP Model already introduced inConstruction and maintenance, Premises commercialised, Ticket Booking Franchised, Catering Monopolised and now they introduce MOBILE Tickets to Streamline the Workers strength!

      Economic Times reports:

      "The Centre has withdrawn subsidy on fertiliser. They are not considering the plight of the farmers while determining the support price for rice and other agricultural products. In our state more than 8 farmers have committed suicide as they failed to repay the loans they had obtained from money lenders at higher rate of interests. The state government is not procuring rice directly from the farmers by paying them the support price fixed by the Centre. We can not allow the state government to ignore the farmers and we will support the Bharat Bandh on February 28," Ghosh said on Wednesday.

      He also came down heavily on the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her government's failure to procure rice from the farmers by giving them the minimum support price fixed up by the Centre. "The state government has procured just 2 lakh metric tonnes of rice against their target of collecting 20 lakh metric tonnes. Naturally, the farmers are in distress and not in a position to sell their product (rice). Never in the Left Front regime, such a pathetic situation had occurred in our state," complained Ghosh.
      http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/west-bengal-farmers-to-support-february-28-bharat-bandh/articleshow/11365072.cms

      The Union Budget will be presented after the completion of elections in five states, but the government has not yet decided the final date of presentation, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today.


      "We have not yet decided the time (for the Budget), but naturally it will be after the elections," Mukherjee told reporters here.


      He was replying to a query on the likely date for presentation of the Budget.


      The announcement of the Assembly election schedule in five states between January 30 and March 3 has raised the possibility of rescheduling of the Budget for 2012-13 this year.


      As per the schedule worked out by the Election Commission, last polling will take place on March 3 in Goa and counting of votes will begin on March 4.


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      As the market conditions are not conducive for disinvestment through public offer route, the DoD has been planning to raise funds through other methods like, buyback and cross holding among PSUs.

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      1. Farmers' suicides in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers'_suicides_in_India

      3. Block all en.wikipedia.org results

      4. Official reports initially denied the farmer suicides but as more and more information came to light the government began to accept that farmers in India were ...

      5. Statistics - History - Causes - Responses to Farmers suicides

      6. India Together: Farmer suicides in India: news reports, opinions and ...

      7. www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/suicides.htm

      8. Five States did manage a significant decline in the average number of farm suicidesbetween 2003 and 2010. However, more States have reported increases ...

      9. [PDF]

      10. FARMERS SUICIDE IN INDIA

      11. www.yashada.org/organisation/FarmersSuicideExcerpts.pdf

      12. File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat

      13. Table 5: Farmers and agricultural labourers as % of total suicides in. Yavatmal district ...Table 8: Incidence of farmer suicide in Yavatmal reported by the local ...

      14. News for Farmers suicides

        1. Farmers' suicide on rise in Bengal

        3. India Today - 9 hours ago

        4. Farmers' suicides have come back to haunt the West Bengal government. Unable to handle the rising inflation, several farmers have committed suicide recently ...

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        8. Farmer suicides: NGO points to Punjab reporting fewer numbers

        9. Times of India

      15. The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation By Vandana Shiva

      16. www.countercurrents.org/glo-shiva050404.htm

      17. 5 Apr 2004 – 1997 witnessed the first emergence of farm suicides in India. A rapid increase in indebtedness, was at the root of farmers taking their lives. ...

        *

      18. madhura chakraborty shared this on Blogger · 28 Apr 2007

      19. Farmer suicides: NGO points to Punjab reporting fewer numbers ...

      20. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../Farmer-suicides...to.../11300072.cms

      21. 5 days ago – The number of farmer suicides in Punjab seems to vary according to the source providing information about that.

      22. [PDF]

      23. Farmers' Suicide in India: Agrarian Crisis, Path of Development and ...

      24. viacampesina.net/downloads/PDF/Farmers_suicide_in_india(3).pdf

      25. File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View

      26. by M Assadi - Cited by 5 - Related articles

      27. This paper examines the causes of farmers' suicide in Karnataka from different ... For the past couple of years, farmers' suicide has become a major issue in the ...

      28. Farmers' Suicides » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

      29. www.counterpunch.org/2010/05/07/farmers-suicides/

      30. 7 May 2010 – A mere digit in the nearly 250 farm suicides that hit Vidarbha in four months; but a villager desperate to be heard on the reasons for his action: ...

      31. Farmer suicides increase at an alarming rate - India News - IBNLive

      32. ibnlive.in.com/news/farmer-suicides-increase-at-an.../140746-3.html

      33. 18 Jan 2011 – Between 1995 to 2010, about 2.5 lakh farmers have committed suicides.

      34. Farmers` suicides unabated in Chhattisgarh: Cong

      35. zeenews.india.com/.../farmers-suicides-unabated-in-chhattisgarh-con...

      36. 2 days ago – The Congress in Chhattisgarh on Monday said it would step up campaign against the state`s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for ...

      37. [PDF]

      38. FARMERS' SUICIDES IN INIDA: MAGNITUDES, TRENDS AND ...

      39. www.macroscan.org/anl/mar08/pdf/farmers_suicides.pdf

      40. File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View

      41. The large number of suicides by farmers in various parts of the country is ....underestimation of the actual number of farm suicides in the country during this ...

      42. India Together: P Sainath - Homepage for opinions and reports

      43. www.indiatogether.org/opinions/psainath/

      44. In 2006-08, Maharashtra saw 12, 493 farm suicides. ... Farmer suicides in the country since 1997 now total 182936, but the real causes behind this devastation ...

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      45. madhura chakraborty shared this on Blogger · 20 Feb 2008


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      30 DEC, 2011, 12.21AM IST, JOHN SAMUEL RAJA,ET BUREAU

      Bills such as Land bill, DTC, Companies bill will not be killed, awaits Parliament in 2012

      RELATED ARTICLES



      When finance minister Pranab Mukherjee presentedUnion Budget 2011-12, he listed out an ambitious agenda of proposed legislations that could change the way businesses are regulated, taxes are paid, and the limits of foreign direct investment in a clutch of sectors are set.


      Nine months later, Mukherjee, the government's chief troubleshooter, is struggling to make progress. An indicator of work pending in parliament can be gauged from numbers collated by PRS Legislative Research, a not-forprofit institution. It says the government planned to pass 31 pending bills in the 21 sittings slotted in the ongoing winter session of the Parliament - a tall order given that both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha did not function for many days. In addition, it also wanted to introduce 23 new bills.


      The government is way behind schedule but it can still attempt to make haste. It has to at a time when factory output has dipped for the first time in over two years; when inflation has soared; when the rupee has lost a fifth of its value against the US dollar in four months; thereby, imports have become dearer. Clearly, it's time to bite the bullet.


      "The time to initiate reforms was from the very day they [the UPA] came into office," says Sunil Sinha, head of research and senior economist, CRISIL, a research and ratings firm. "It seems that the political management is going out of control and the government is not able to build political consensus on important issues. Time is running out on reforms."


      All is not lost. One view is that a depreciated rupee can be turned into an advantage. "Bringing in the Land Acquisition Bill can be a positive in the current scenario," says Richard IIey, chief Asia economist with BNP Paribas.


      "Indian real estate has suddenly become 20% cheaper for foreigners in the recent months (because of the depreciated rupee), which could help the market." But a leading political analyst says that land acquisition is a tough legislation to pass given the current mood, as it falls in a category where it is important both politically and economically.


      "The government should focus on bills that are economically important in the current scenario. There is little chance that politically-sensitive bills will be passed now," adds the analyst on condition of anonymity.


      However, there are many that fall in the apolitical category and are important from the economic point of view. Two such reform measures are: The Direct Tax Code (DTC) and The Companies Bill. While the Direct Tax Bill will change how income taxes are levied and collected, the Companies Bill will change the landscape for corporate regulation like creation of a one-person company and class-action suits.

      *


      "Any reform measure to help in the medium-term should be carried out as it will send a positive signal to citizens," says Madan Sabnavis, chief economist with Care Ratings, a credit rating firm. "I believe that financial sector reforms should be the first ones to be carried out. The important ones here are the reforms in insurance and banking."


      The introduction of the Goods and Service Tax (GST), which proposes to create a pan-India market, could also boost business confidence as total tax liability would fall. At the same time the government's revenue could increase as new taxpayers will be brought into the net.


      http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Bills-such-as-Land-bill-DTC-Companies-bill-will-not-be-killed-awaits-Parliament-in-2012/articleshow/11291824.cms

      31 DEC, 2011, 01.45PM IST, ET BUREAU

      Tattering finances: Government's market borrowings to exceed budget by at least 25%


      31 DEC, 2011, 01.45PM IST, ET BUREAU

      Tattering finances: Government's market borrowings to exceed budget by at least 25%


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      Government's market borrowings to exceed budget by at least 25%

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      MUMBAI:The government's market borrowings this fiscal will now be at least 25% more than what it budgeted, highlighting the tattered state of its finances under assault from unprecedented subsidy payments and faltering revenue growth.


      The finance ministry said it would borrow another 40,000 crore from the bond markets between now and March-end, the second revision in government borrowing figures in four months. This makes the year's overshoot of the borrowing target the biggest in recent history, and is expected to send shockwaves throughfinancial markets when they open next week.


      The ministry also announced plans to raise an additional 65,000 crore via short-term treasury bills, all of which are expected to send bond yields higher on Monday and are already fanning talk in the markets of another revision in the borrowings figure.


      The first breach of the borrowings figure for the fiscal year came in September, when the government said it had raised the target by 52,800 crore. After two increases, the total borrowing will touch about 5 lakh crore, breaching the fiscal target of 4.6% of the gross domestic product by a mile. Some estimate it to reach 5.5%.


      "The additional borrowing through T-bills could put a strain on the liquidity, also because large chunk of funds will be locked up with companies like Power Finance Corporation and NHAI that are issuing tax-free bonds," said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, Care Ratings. "So open market operations will have to be a definite part of the system for the next three months."


      India's macroeconomic health has been weakening in the last few quarters when the government's assumptions on revenue growth began to go wrong and economic activity slowed due to high interest rates and slowing overseas inflows. With high interest rates squeezing profits, tax collections are lower. The government's plan to raise 40,000 crore throughdisinvestment has failed.

      *



      The rate on the 8.79% note due November 2021 rose 2 basis points to 8.57%, making it 20 basis points this week. The notes are off from the 9% peak since the central bank began buying government bonds and boostingliquidity in the system.

      http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/Tattering-finances-Governments-market-borrowings-to-exceed-budget-by-at-least-25/articleshow/11309872.cms

      Congress workers in Bengal protest state govt's apathy towards farmers


      The state unit of Congress on Wednesday protested against the West Bengal government as it denied payment of fair price to paddy farmers in the state.


      The West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC), held a protest meet in the Kolkata demonstrating against the state government's refusal to pay the paddy farmers the minimum support price of Rs.

       E-mail Article  Printer Friendly  Text-Size  

      1080, which was stipulated as per central government rules.


      Commenting on the issue, the state Congress party President, Pradip Bhattacharya said that the refusal of the state government to pay the farmers their due added to the woes of the farmers.


      "The farmers have been deprived. They have been deprived because they are not getting their support price of Rs. 1080 per quintal. They are in a state of distress. They have to sell it to the middleman for Rs. 500 or Rs. 600, which is very derogatory for the farmers and their financial condition is very bad. So we would like to come out from that situation. We thought we must go to the farmers and we are to stand behind them to help them, to assist them, so that they can get their price properly," he said.


      The difference over various issues has strained the relations between the Congress party the Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) which is heading the state government of West Bengal under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.


      Bhattacharya also added that the state government should evolve a mechanism to fund out the problems of the farmers and should take into account the views of all the political parties.


      "The government has not got the proper machinery through which they can purchase the paddy, they can purchase the wheat, and they can protect the interests of the potato growers. The government should discuss and if necessary they should talk with the expert committee, so that they can do all these business to protect the farmers of Bengal," he said.


      Since the past few days, several cracks have appeared in the Congress party- TMC ties.


      Strains were visible during a Parliamentary debate on the anti-graft Ombudsman Bill, when TMC did a volte-face and opposed certain provisions in the government's draft of the anti-graft bill.


      Despite several attemppts by the government, the TMC has so far refused to budge from its stand on the issue, leaving the Congress party fuming.


      The TMC and Congress had voiced their differences on several platforms in the past on the issue of price rise too


      Black Money:Tip of ICE Berg EXPOSED Only as Tax notices to over 100 Swiss bank account holders in Mumbai!But TAX EVATION still in Vogue!Pranab  refused to make public information received from foreign countries with regard to Indian account holders!

      More than 100 individuals in Mumbai, including a few corporate biggies, have received notices from the Income-Tax Department this month for holding undisclosed bank accounts with HSBC Geneva. They are among the 700 Swiss bank account holders whose names figure in the list shared by the French authorities with the Indian government a few months ago. The French had obtained the information from a former HSBC employee. On the other hand, Advance tax collection from country's top 100 companies, as per the final numbers, declined by 1.4 per cent to Rs 30,763 crore in the third quarter of 2011-12, indicating sluggishness in economy.These corporate houses had paid Rs 31,203 crore in the same period last year.  

      Black money refers to funds earned on the black market, on which income and other taxes has not been paid. The total amount of black money deposited in foreign banks by Indians is unknown, but one estimate by Professor R Vaidyanathan at Indian Institutes of Managementestimated the total at over ₹ 7,280,000 Crores (US$1.4 trillion).In January 2011 the Supreme Court of India asked why the names of those who have stashed money in the Liechtenstein Bank have not been disclosed.[2] The court argued that the government should be more forthcoming in releasing all available information on what it called a "mind-boggling" amount of money that is believed to be held illegally in foreign banks.


      Rejecting Opposition demands, government on Wednesday refused to make public information received from foreign countries with regard to Indian account holders but expressed readiness to issue an elaborate document on the problem.However,the government on accepted senior BJP leader L K Advani's demand and assured Parliament that it would bring a white paper on the black money issue while rejecting the opposition's insistence that names of those who have accounts in the Geneva branch of HSBC be revealed.Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee declared in theHouse that none of the present MPs figured in the list that the government had of illegal account holders in HSBC, Geneva.Concluding the debate in Lok Sabha on the adjournment motion moved by BJP on black money, Mukherjee said the white paper that the government will bring on the issue will address most of the queries raised by opposition members.

      While official numbers are not available, Swiss banking officials have said that the largest depositors of illegal foreign money in Switzerland are Indian.In August 2010, the government revised the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement to provide means for investigations of black money in Swiss banks. This revision, expected to become active by January 2012, will allow the government to make inquiries of Swiss banks in cases where they have specific information about possible black money being stored in Switzerland.To curb black money, India has signed TIEA with 10 countries - Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin islands, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Island, the British island of Jersey, Monaco, St. Kitts and Nevis, Argentina and the Marshal Islands - where money is believed to have been stashed away.

      Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that revealing the information received from other countries would violate the understanding with a sovereign government and could hurt the Indian businesses as some of them could be genuine investors abroad.

      Mukherjee said no Member of Parliament figures in the list of account holders abroad that he had received.

      He was replying to a debate on Adjournment Motion on Blackmoney moved by BJP leader L K Advani which was later defeated by voice vote. Samajwadi Party staged a walkout.
      Mukherjee said the government has received 36,000 pieces of information.

      "If I publish it, same country will say you violated the Agreement and we will not share information in future...We will dry up our source of information," the Minister argued.
      Rejecting the Opposition charge of "inaction" or "lagging behind", he said the government would prefer to go after those having illegal accounts abroad rather than publicising details as the account holders could even withdraw money.

      "Should I publicise or go and seize it... How is intelligence collected? There is an element of surprise," he said.


      India Incs and MNC India recite policy paralysis and inaction as theme song to push hard Renewal Reform Agenda. for them it depends on how the events pan out over the next two-three months. If the government can implement certain much-required reforms, we will be nearing the dawn. But, if you continue to see policy paralysis and inaction which we have seen for the last couple of years now, then you could see the current situating prevailing for some more time. So, if the government can implement some taxation reforms, we can get our revenues up. GST and DTC have been talked about and debated for some time, but it is time to implement the norms because of our increasingly worsening fiscal position as taxation reforms are very very important.


      Meanwhile,Indian equity markets will end 2011 as one of worst performers among global peers, after being on top for the major part of the decade.


      But experts hinge hopes on the India growth story to reenergize the markets in the year ahead. The 30-scripBSE Sensex, which had been surpassing most other widely-tracked global indices for about a decade, suffered a 26% fall this year.


      On the other hand,Banks have committed to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to make the know-your-customer (KYC) process easier for individuals holding a bank account, a move that will come as a blessing to thousands of people moving from one city to another. This was conveyed by bank chiefs to the RBI at a recent meeting to discuss issues relating to the implementation of the M Damodaran committeereport on customer services.


      The KYC norms, which were introduced after the 9/11 attacks in the US, are aimed at establishing a customer's identity and proof of residence and plug any loopholes in catching bogus accounts.


      The Damodaran committee was formed to look into banking services rendered to retail and small customers and pensioners. The committee was also mandated to look into the grievance redressal mechanism practised by banks and suggest measures for expeditious resolution of complaints. It submitted its report in August this year.


      The banks told the RBI that an individual who already has a bank account will not be required to furnish information on proof of residence. Instead, the person can just provide a statement of account from the bank.


      The tax department is in a hurry to meet the December 31 deadline set by the Central Board of Direct Taxes for sending notices to these individuals.


      "A few prominent names in Mumbai's corporate world are in the list," a senior incometax official told ET. He said some of them have voluntarily disclosed their numbered accounts following which they were served notices under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act.


      It's a procedure the taxman follows to regularise an assessment after collecting the unpaid tax amount together with the interest. In some cases, the department also uses its discretion to slap penalties. Members belonging to a leading industrial family have disclosed their HSBC Geneva accounts.


      "One of them is based in Mumbai while the other family member is based down South. The latter is a beneficiary of a trust that holds Rs 300 crore in its HSBC Geneva account.


      The amount disclosed by the person in Mumbai is about Rs 50 crore," said a source in the tax department. He confirmed that subsequently these individuals have revised their tax returns as allowed under Section 148.


      Of the 700 in the list, close to 200 account holders of HSBC Geneva are from Mumbai. The tax department is expected to serve notices to more people once it surveys their offices and in a few cases residences.


      "Not all who have received notices have replied," said a tax official. According to him, the department will soon have to deal with more such lists of Swiss bank account holders.


      "Some of the largest corporates, including SBI, paid less advance tax in the third quarter against the year-ago period. Besides, oil marketing companies did not pay any tax either in the second quarter or the third quarter," a Finance Ministry official said.


      The dip in the advance tax collections from the 100 big corporates is in sync with the drop in industrial output in the recent months. Growth in factory output measured on the Index of Industrial Production ( IIP) is slowing and dipped by 5.1 per cent in October.


      While the GDP numbers of the third quarter are awaited, the economic growth had slowed to 6.9 per cent in July- September period against 8.4 per cent year-on-year.


      Amid slowing economy, the revenue collection target of Rs 9.32 lakh crore (including Rs 5.32 lakh crore from direct taxes) for the fiscal is looking difficult.


      The government today said it has asked the tax authorities to make concerted efforts to achieve the revenue targets.


      Indian Black Money: The Swindler's List

      ASHISH KHETAN accesses the black list that has been kept away from Indians for two years

      *

      It is almost two years since the German Government had passed on the names and bank account details of eighteen Indians who had stashed their alleged ill-gotten wealth in the LGT bank of Liechtenstein, a well-known tax haven nation, 190 km from Munich, Germany.

      Germany had officially handed over the list to the Indian Government on 18 March 2009. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee have since said more than once that this list cannot be disclosed to the Indian people. Opposition parties like the BJP and the Left Front have repeatedly said the names must be disclosed. The BJP has been accusing the government of shielding the names of the tax evaders and not doing enough to bring back the crores of rupees stashed away in tax havens.

      Thus, the list has become a subject of tremendous controversy and suspense.

      TEHELKA has accessed 16 of the 18 names, of which we are putting out 15 right now. These names include individuals as well as trusts. At this point, we are putting out 15 names without disclosing details like their addresses, the businesses they are involved in and the total money they have stored away in Liechtenstein. Abiding by the basic journalistic principle of proving the accused an opportunity to present their side of story, TEHELKA has approached each of these individuals involved and is awaiting their response.

      Once these individuals respond, we shall share the full details of who these people are and what they do. We shall also put out their responses. This, then, is the list.

      1. Manoj Dhupelia

      2. Rupal Dhupelia

      3. Mohan Dhupelia

      4. Hasmukh Gandhi

      5. Chintan Gandhi

      6. Dilip Mehta

      7. Arun Mehta

      8. Arun Kochar

      9. Gunwanti Mehta

      10. Rajnikant Mehta

      11. Prabodh Mehta

      12. Ashok Jaipuria

      13. Raj Foundation

      14. Urvashi Foundation

      15. Ambrunova Trust

      The three trusts in this list are registered outside India.

      The government has been claiming so far that a detailed investigation into all the bank account details provided by Germany is underway and making the names public would violate the agreement between two sovereign countries, India and Germany.

      *

      According to highly placed sources, the investigation into the 15 names that TEHELKA is disclosing, is close to completion and the Central Board of Direct taxes would soon prosecute these trusts and individuals under the relevant provisions of the Income tax Act.

      The sources told TEHELKA that the two main charges proved against these individuals are of tax evasion and concealment of income.

      The authorities also believe that some of these account holders could be fronts for high profile individuals. One name in particular is being investigated for suspected links with a well-known Indian politician.

      The name of the chairman of a major Indian corporation is also part of the list, but TEHELKA is holding back his name until we have his full version.

      According to Pranab Mukherjee, the German Government has provided the information under the strict confidentiality clauses of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, and hence they could not be disclosed at the stage of investigation.

      However, once the government launches prosecutions, the name would be made public, he had said.

      These 18 names are part of the list of 1,400 clients, which were stolen from the databank of LGT Group, the Liechtenstein bank owned by the principality's ruling family, and passed on to German tax authorities in 2008.

      The German government had paid as much as €5 million, or $7.4 million, for information on German account holders in Liechtenstein on a disk provided by an informant to the German Federal Intelligence Service, or BND.

      After this, Germany and England had launched massive investigations into the suspected tax evasions and have since prosecuted dozens of their citizens on charges of tax evasion and concealment of income.

      The German Government alone had initiated action against over 600 of its tax payers.

      Besides taking action against its own citizens, the German Government had also shared this information with other countries including India.

      *

      Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: "Investigations are on"



      But the Indian names figuring in LGT Bank list are only a tip of the iceberg. Experts estimate that Rs 65 lakh crores of ill-gotten wealth earned by Indians is stored in Swiss banks alone.

      According to R Vaidyanathan, Professor of Finance at the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, the average amount stashed away by Indians in offshore tax havens between 2002 and 2006 was $136.5 billion. "These illegal funds lying in tax havens are not just related to the issue of tax evasion. It is capital flight from India and part of a corrupt nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and corporate companies," says Vaidyanathan.

      Different Indian governments over the past 20 years have done little to bring this money back by making necessary changes in existing Indian taxation and foreign exchange management laws.

      Besides, the government has been slow in renegotiating double taxation avoidance treaties with different tax havens and making provisions for clauses under which the governments and banks could be compelled to disclose the account details.

      For instance, under the existing Indo-Swiss Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), information on the Swiss bank deposits of Indian residents could not to be revealed until the Indian Government furnishes evidence of criminality behind these banking transactions.

      *

      Pranab Mukherjee: "We can't reveal the names"



      India enters into DTAAs with other countries to encourage flow of foreign capital and technology, and also to check tax evasion. The purpose of a DTAA is to mitigate the hardship caused by dual taxation on the same source of income. Double taxation on a single source earned by an individual is possible under income tax, as taxation depends not on citizenship, but on residential status.

      To date, India has signed comprehensive double taxation avoidance agreements with 77 countries.

      "I have asked the revenue department to reopen negotiations for all 77 double tax avoidance agreements with all countries that we have entered into so far, so that we can have real time exchange of information on tax evasion and tax avoidance," Mukherjee had said at the India Economic Summit in November 2009.

      Since the recession hit the economies of developed countries, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been leading a campaign for transparency in the international banking system, and making the tax havens to necessarily exchange information with other countries where tax evasions are involved.

      The US in particular has been proactive in using the might of its economy to make different tax havens fall in line, and share the names of US citizens who have deposited money in these tax havens.

      For instance, the UBS Bank, a Swiss bank and the world's largest wealth management company, came under US scrutiny in June 2008 to uncover the identity of US nationals who maintained secret accounts in the bank and were defrauding the American revenue department.

      When the US Government threatened to prosecute the USB Bank, the bank paid a fine of $780 million and also agreed to reveal the details of the hidden assets of US nationals within a fixed time frame failing which it would face prosecution.


      ashish.khetan@tehelka.com

      http://www.tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ne120211TheList.asp


      Recent development in America and internal Economic Crisis in USA is all set to upset the Apple Cart of Indian IT Sector!

      Mulnivasi news service

      The Manusmriti Brahaminical Hegemony LPG Mafia ruling India has Killed Indian Peasantry, the Rural world and Indigenous Aborigin Mulnivasi Humanscape for Free Market which subjected the Agrarian Livelihood for infinite persecution and opted for Service sector as the base of economy. Sensex selected as the Fundamental for the Baseless Economy. Natural resources opened to MNCs. Disinvestment and SEZ drive led to JOB Insecurity. Outsourtcing in IT Sector centred in BPO Call Center became the Key Stone of GDP. FIIs Benefitted most. The State is MILITARISED for enabling the State Power Dictatorship to Kill the SC, ST, OBC and Minorities in the best interest of the Foreign Capital. Recent development in America and internal Economic Crisis in USA is all set to upset the Apple Cart of Indian IT Sector!


      A new US Bill tabled in the House of Representatives seeks to bar US call centres operating in locations such as India from seeking federal grants or loans for five years. The bill, if passed, will also penalise US call centres with a penalty of $10,000 per day, for failing to report a relocation to an offshore location, within 60 days to the US Department of Labor.


      The new law may impact the growth of the already sluggish $14-billion Indian BPO market, which is under pressure, due to a slowdown in US markets and competition from other locations.


      "It's clearly a protectionist bill. Though, none of the Indian call centres apply for a US federal loan or grant, it will impact everybody if it is passed. The likelihood of bill to pass is very low," said Ameet Nivsarkar, Vice President, Global Trade and Development at Nasscom.


      Large US centres such as Convergys, Teleperformace and Sitel, which have presence in India, may be impacted with the decision. Even captive units of companies such as UnitedHealthcare Group, which operate in India, along with US headquartered call centres such as EXLService, would be impacted with this decision.


      The bill, United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act, is tabled by four lawmakers - one Republican and three Democrats, indicating a bipartisan support to the bill. The law is also endorsed by the Communication Workers of America, which has 5.5 lakh members, including some from the broadcast and media industry. US representative Timothy Bishop, who introduced the bill earlier this month, terms outsourcing as "one of the scourges of US economy".


      "Outsourcing is one of the reasons we are struggling to knock down the unemployment rate," Bishop said in the House. Bishop added that there are 47 lakh call centre employees in US today, down from 53 lakh in 2006.


      The bill mandates that before relocating a call centre to a location outside of the United States, an employer shall have to notify the US Secretary of Labor, failing which a civil penalty of $10,000 will be levied for each day of violation on the call centre. Such employers would be barred from seeking indirect or direct Federal grants or Federal loans for five years, the bill mandates.

      Indian Railways (IRCTC) launches new mobile site for ticketing [Review]

      The mobile portal of the Indian Railways is flawless in enabling you to book and cancel tickets from your phone, but you still need to sign up for a login ID online

      January 4, 2012Mihir Patkar
      IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) has just launched a new mobile website, announcing its ambitious plans to expand its reach to the masses. It is a much needed move since a cell phone has become the most ubiquitous device of the 21st century. The Indian Railway department will soon follow it up with mobile apps for all major platforms including Symbian, Android and iOS. While we are eagerly waiting the apps, we decided to check out the mobile portal: http://www.irctc.co.in/mobile
      What we love about the site: One-stop shop for booking and cancelling tickets. Glitch-free.
      What we hate about the site: Looks and feels rudimentary. You can't create a new login ID from the mobile itself.
      Our Recommendation: Although the site won't charm your way through, it really works. It performs extremely well and there is no reason why we would have any qualms using the mobile portal while booking our tickets.

      Directing our browser to the website, it definitely failed to make a strong first impression. The login screen looks bland and asks for your IRCTC username and password. So those who don't already have an IRCTC account will have to access the desktop website and sign up, because the mobile portal does not currently allow you to create a new ID.
      The homescreen has three tabs: 'Book Ticket/Enquiry', 'Booked History' and 'Cancel Ticket'. The first option caters to your ticket booking. You are shown a form – not unlike the desktop version – which asks you to enter your departure and arrival station, date of departure, class, quota and ticket type (e-ticket or i-ticket).
      When you are entering your departure and arrival station, the station names do not appear in a drop down list as you would expect. Instead, after typing the name of the station you are taken to a new web page, asked to select your exact station and return to the original page. This felt slightly inconvenient and outdated.
      The next page gives you a list of trains plying on the route and date you specified. You can select any train and check for availability, as well as see the route. When you are satisfied, you can move to selecting your departure station and arrival station on the train's route map. You are taken to the next page where you can add individual passengers. This form too resembles the desktop website and asks you to enter the passenger details including food preference. Passenger info is saved for future reference which would surely help in saving time.
      After completing this step, you can proceed to making payment through credit/debit card. When the transaction is complete, you will receive a message on your device. Fortunately, you don't need to take a print-out of this e-ticket. You can take the received message in its digital form, saving paper and reducing hassles.
      'Booked History' allows you to check your bookings made for the future. You can see your ticket details including PNR number.
      And of course, 'Cancel Ticket' can be used to cancel a previously booked ticket.
      The mobile portal of IRCTC is a step in the right direction. With mobile phone usage growing in India, it is of great practical application. And the mobile portal delivers. It seems to have no problem in performing any functions it is made to perform. It doesn't offer any eye-candy, but that can be forgiven considering the audience includes people not accessing the portal through heavy-duty smartphones. Using the portal, we felt no reason to complain and we feel confident that we will be using it to book our tickets in the future.
      http://phonemantra.com/2012/01/indian-railways-irctc-launches-new-mobile-site-for-ticketing-review/

      Basava

      From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
      *

      This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011)

      *

      Basava Statue


Basava (also known as Guru Basavanna (Kannada: ಬಸವಣ್ಣ) or Basaveshwara (Kannada:ಬಸವೇಶ್ವರ), (1134–1196)) was a philosopher and a social reformer in present-day Karnataka, IndiaHe is also called Vishwa Guru and Bhakti-Bhandari. His teachings and preachings which are universal, go beyond all boundaries of belief systems. He was a great humanitarian and preached a new way of life wherein the divine experience being the center of life regardless of gender, belief, tradition, religion, caste,social status or whatever. The key aspect of his preaching is monotheistic concept of God A true visionary with ideas ahead of his time; he envisioned a society that flourished enriching one and all. He was a great mystic,of his time and originated a literary revolution through his literary creation called Vachana Sahitya. He was a mystic by temperament, an idealist by choice, a statesman by profession,(He was the Prime Minister of the Southern Kalachuri Empire in South India) a man of letters by taste, a humanist by sympathy, and a social reformer by conviction. Many great yogis and mystics of his time joined his movement enriching it with the essence of divine experience in the form of Vachanas
Basava spread social awareness through his poetry Known as VACHANAAS. These are rational and progressive social thoughts coupled with established perception of God in Hindu society. "Brahminical thought" interpret the VACHANNAS as essence of vedic knowledge while attempting to explain the social revolution, Basava was able to bring in. But this theory however fails to explain why other well known religious leaders like Shankaracharya and Madhwacharya, who were very well acquainted with vedic knowledge did not address the issues, that Basava did in later part of the history in 12th century. Basava, like Gautama Budda, did not preach people the intricate aspects of spirituality; but, he taught people how to live happily in a rational social order later came to be known as Sharana movement. Basavanna has been reduced to another deity.

Basava fought against the inhuman practice of caste system,which discriminated people based on their birth, and certain rituals in Hinduism. He spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as Vachanaas. These are rational and progressive social thoughts coupled with established perception of God in Hindu society.

[edit]Early life

It is believed that Lord Basava was born into a Veerashaiva family residing in a small town ofIngaleshwar, now known as Basavana Bagewadi in Bijapur district of northern Karnataka, India in 1134 AD(Hindu Calendar Ananada nama samvatsara vashakah masada akshaya triteeya Rohini Nakshatra). Basava, said to have grown up in an orthodox Hindu religious household and rejected many practices in vedic society based on some of the religious sriptures called Agamas, Shastras, and Puranas in Sanskrit language.
He left Bagewadi and spent the next 12 years studying Sangameshwara, the then-Shaivite school of learning at Kudala Sangama. There, he conversed with scholars and developed his spiritual and religious views in association with his societal understanding. Játavéda Muni, also known as Eeshánya Guru, was his guru. Basavanna invented Ishtalinga.he was driven by his realisation; in one of his Vachanas he says Arrive Guru, which means one's own awareness is his/her Teacher. Many Contemporary Vachanakaras( people who have scripted Vachanas) have described him as Swayankrita Sahaja, which means self-made.

[edit]Religious Developments

Basavanna used Ishtalinga to eradicate untouchability, establish equality among all human beings and a means to attain spiritual enlightenment. Ishtalinga is very much different from Sthavaralinga and Charalinga. Ishtalinga is the universal symbol of God.Sthavaralinga represents Shiva in Dhyana Mudra. Charalinga is a miniaturized form of Sthavaralinga.
Guru Basavanna started his career as an accountant at Mangalaveda in the court of Kalachuri king Bijjala, a feudatory of the Kalyani Chalukya. When Bijjala acquired the power at Basavakalyana, by overpowering Tailapa IV (the grandson of Vikramaditya VI, the great Chalukya king), Basavanna also went to Kalyana. With his honesty, hard work and visionary mission, Basava rose to the position of Prime Minister in the court of king Bijjala, who ruled from 1162—1167 at Kalyana (presently renamed Basavakalyana). There, he established theAnubhava Mantapa, a spiritual parliament, which attracted many saints from throughout India. He believed in the principle Káyakavé Kailása(Work puts you on the path to heaven, Work is Heaven). It was at this time that the Vachanas, simple and easy-to-understand poetic writings which contained essential teachings, were written.

[edit]Fight against casteism

Guru Basavanna statue in Bangalore

Basava created much controversy by actively ignoring the societal rules associated with the caste system, which he wished to abolish. By allowing untouchables to have lunch at his residence and praising the historic marriage of a Brahmin woman and an untouchable man, Basava caused orthodox members of King Bijjala's court to go to the king with such stories, some true and some false. Bijjala, afraid of a possible uprising in orthodox society, ordered the newly married couple to be harshly punished. Before punishing the couple, Bijjala asked Basava to agree with the caste system; but Basava strongly opposed the caste system and said both Haralayya and Madhuvaras were Lingayats and the rules of the caste system were not applicable to them. Bijjala did not agree with Basavanna's ideas, and asked Basavanna to be silent and accept the punishment to the couple or leave Kalyana. The "Being punished" (Danda-gonda) Basavanna left Kalyana with a heavy heart and marched towards Kudala Sangama. He left Kalyana in 1196 A.D. of Rakshasa nama samvatsara, phalguna masada 12th day for Kudala Sangama and en route to Kudala sangama, he preached to the people about the humanity, morality, honesty, simplicity, and the dignity of labour, equality among all human beings, human rights, etc. Being a perfect yogi, he released the bonds of the body and soul and took nirvana (Lingaikya) on 30-7-1196 A.D. (Hindu Calendar: NaLanama samvatsarada Shravan shuddha panchami), in response to the call from Kudala Sangama Devá, the Almighty.[citation needed]

[edit]Philosophy

Basava said that the roots of social life are embedded not in the cream of the society but in the scum of the society. It is his witty saying that the cow does not give milk to him who sits on its back, but it gives milk to him who squats at its feet. With his wide sympathy, he admitted high and low alike into his fold. The Anubhava Mantapa established by Basava laid down the foundation of social democracy. Basava believed that man becomes great not by his birth but by his conduct in the society. This means faith in the dignity of man and the belief that a common man is as good a part of society as a man of status.
He proclaimed that all members of the state are labourers: some may be intellectual labourers and others may be manual labourers. He placed practice before precept and his own life was of rigid rectitude. Basava brought home to his countrymen the lesson of self-purification. He tried to raise the moral level of the public life in the country, and he insisted that the same rules of conduct applied to the administrators as to the individual members of the society. He also taught the dignity of manual labour by insisting on work as worship. Every kind of manual labour, which was looked down upon by people of high caste, should be looked upon with love and reverence, he argued. Thus arts and crafts flourished, and a new foundation was laid down in the history of the economics of the land.
The Sharanas had no caste divisions and accepted everyone as equal. Jedara Dasimayya was by profession a weaver, Shankar Dasimayya a tailor, Madivál Máchayya a washerman, Myadar Ketayya a basket-maker, Kinnari Bommayya a goldsmith, Vakkalmuddayya a farmer, Hadapada Appanna a barber, Jedar Madanna a soldier, Ganada Kannappa an oilman, Dohar Kakkayya a tanner, Mydar Channayya a cobbler, and Ambigara Chowdayya a ferryman. There were women followers such as Satyakka, Ramavve, and Somavve with their respective vocations. The curious thing was that all these and many more have sung the Vachanas (sayings) regarding their vocations in a very suggestive imagery.

Kudala Sangama in Bagalkot district, where Guru Basavanna's samadhi is located

[edit]Basavanna's Vachanas

Main article: Vachana sahitya
Kannada:
ಉಳ್ಳವರು ಶಿವಾಲಯ ಮಾಡುವರು ನಾನೇನು ಮಾಡಲಿ ಬಡವನಯ್ಯಾ
ಎನ್ನ ಕಾಲೇ ಕಂಬ, ದೇಹವೇ ದೇಗುಲ, ಶಿರವೇ ಹೊನ್ನ ಕಳಸವಯ್ಯಾ
ಕೂಡಲಸಂಗಮದೇವಾ ಕೇಳಯ್ಯಾ, ಸ್ಥಾವರಕ್ಕಳಿವುಂಟು ಜಂಗಮಕ್ಕಳಿವಿಲ್ಲ,

uLLavaru shiválaya máduvaru nánénu mádali badavanayyá
enna kále kambha dehavé degula shiravé honna kaLashavayyá
Kúdala Sangama Devá keLayya sthavarakkaLivunTu jangamakaLivilla ?

The rich will make temples for Shiva. What shall I, a poor man, do?

My legs are pillars, The body the shrine, The head a cupola of gold.

Listen, O lord Kudal Sangama deva, Things standing shall fall, But the moving ever shall stay.

Below are some of the thousands of Vachanas:

The power of knowledge destroys ignorance;

The power of light dissipates darkness;

The power of truth is foe of all untruth;

The sharana's experience of god is the sole cure of worldliness;

- Lord Kudala Sangamadeva

ಜ್ಞಾನದ ಬಲದಿಂದ ಅಜ್ಞಾನದ ಕೇಡು ನೋಡಯ್ಯ

ಜ್ಯೋತಿಯ ಬಲದಿಂದ ಅಂಧಕಾರದ ಕೇಡು ನೋಡಯ್ಯ

ಸತ್ಯದ ಬಲದಿಂದ ಅಸತ್ಯದ ಕೇಡು ನೋಡಯ್ಯ

ಕೂಡಲ ಸಂಗನ ಶರಣರ ಬಲದಿಂದ ಆತ್ಮನ ಅಹಂಕಾರದ ಕೇಡು ನೋಡಯ್ಯ

-ಕೂಡಲ ಸಂಗಮ ದೇವ......


Don't rob, Don't kill, Never ever lie

Don't get angry, Don't think negative about others

Don't self describe, Don't tease others

This is the way of self respect, this is the way to get respected by the world.

This is the way of impressing my lord Koodala sangam deva.

ಕಳಬೇಡ, ಕೊಲಬೇಡ, ಹುಸಿಯ ನುಡಿಯಲುಬೇಡ

ಮುನಿಯಬೇಡ, ಅನ್ಯರಿಗೆ ಅಸಹ್ಯ ಪಡಬೇಡ

ತನ್ನ ಬಣ್ಣಿಸಬೇಡ , ಇದಿರು ಹಳೆಯಲುಬೇಡ

ಇದೆ ಅಂತರಂಗ ಶುದ್ದಿ, ಇದೆ ಬಹಿರಂಗ ಶುದ್ದಿ

ಇದೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಕೂಡಲ ಸಂಗಮ ದೆವನೊಲಿಸುವ ಪರಿ.

-ಕೂಡಲ ಸಂಗಮ ದೇವ......


[edit]Insignia

The Kudala Sangama Deva is - his insignia of all his vachanas in Kannada.
Ramanujam in his book, speaking of Shiva, has translated Basavanna's insignia Kudala Sangama Deva into Lord of the meeting rivers. But that is only literal translation. It does not fit to the Definition of Kudala Sangama Deva given by Basavanna.
Basavanna Defines GOD as:

jagadagala mugilagal migeyagal,

nimmagala, pataLadindattatta nimma shricarana,

brahmanDadindattatta nimma shri mukuta,

agammya, agOcara, apramana lingave,

neevenna karasthalakke bandu

cuLukadirayya kudala sangamadeva.

In this Vacana, Guru Basava has made it clear that, Kudala Sangamadeva in not Lord of meeting rivers. He is infinite, eternal, and beyond the reach of the physical senses. Basavanna gives perfect shape in the form of Ishtalinga to the formless and absolute GOD. Thus Ishtalinga represents the eternal, omnipresence, and Absolute GOD.

[edit]Views on Basaveshwara today

Mahatma Gandhi spoke thus at the Belgaum session of the Indian National Congress in 1924[1]:
" It has not been possible for me to practise all the precepts of Basaveswara which he taught 800 years ago and which he also practiced… Eradication of untouchability and dignity of labour were among his core precepts. One does not find even shades of casteism in him. Had he lived during our times, he would have been a saint worthy of worship.

"



The Times of India in its issue dated May 17, 1918 paid a glowing tribute to Basava:
" It was the distinctive feature of his mission that while illustrious religious and social reformers in India before him had each laid his emphasis on one or other items of religion and social reform, either subordinating more or less other items to it or ignoring them altogether, Basava sketched and boldly tried to work out a large and comprehensive programme of social reform with the elevation and independence of womanhood as its guiding point. Neither social conferences which are usually held in these days in several parts of India, nor Indian social reformers, can improve upon that programme as to the essentials. The present day social reformer in India is but speaking the language and seeking to enforce the mind of Basava.

"



The movement initiated by Basava through Anubhava Mantapa became the basis of a sect of love and faith. It gave rise to a system of ethics and education at once simple and exalted. It sought to inspire ideals of social and religious freedom, such as no previous faith of India had done. In the medieval age which was characterized by inter-communal jealousy, it helped to shed a ray of light and faith on the homes and hearts of people. But the spirit soon disappeared after the intermarriage that Basava facilitated came to an abrupt end when the couple were punished for the same by the King.
The movement gave a literature of considerable value in the vernacular language of the country, the literature which attained the dignity of a classical tongue. Its aim was the elimination of the barriers of caste and to remove untouchability, raising the untouchable to the equal of the high born. The sanctity of family relations and the improvement in the status of womanhood were striven for while at the same time the importance of rites and rituals, of fasts and pilgrimages was reduced. It encouraged learning and contemplation of God by means of love and faith. The excesses of polytheism were deplored and the idea of monotheism was encouraged.[2][citation needed] The movement tended, in many ways, to raise the nation generally to a higher level of capacity both in thought and action.

[edit]Legacy


[edit]See also


[edit]References

  • Prophets of Veershaivism by His Holiness Mahatapasvi Shri Kumarswami.
  1. ^ Basava International School ::
  2. ^ M. R. Sakhare, History and Philosophy of the Lingayat Religion, Prasaranga, Karnataka University, Dharwad

[edit]External links

*

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Basava


Lingayatism, also known as Veerashaivism, is a distinct Shaivite denomination in India. It makes several departures from mainstream Hinduism and propounds monotheism through worship centered on Lord Shiva. It also rejects the authority of the Vedas and the Caste system.[1][2] The adherents of this faith are known as Lingayats (Kannada: ಲಿಂಗಾಯತರು,Telugu: లింగాయత, Marathi: लिंगायत). The term is derived from Lingavantha in Kannada, meaning 'one who wears Linga on their body'.

[edit]Early history

Main article: History of Lingayatism
Basavanna also known as Mahatma Basaveshwara was a social reformer and a great humanitarian who was mainly responsible for spreading this religion in 12th Century. He was not the founder of the Lingayat Religion. After sakshakthar of god he discovered the system of wearing of Ishta-Linga upon one's body. Basaveshwara lived in the 12th century (1134 – 1196 CE). When he was young, he travelled from his native Bagevadi to Kalyan in India between 1157–1167 CE during the rule of King Bijjala.[3]

Basava

It is said that Basava, though born a brahmin, rebelled against the rigid practices of the caste system then prevalent in Hinduism, and eventually began expounding philosophy of veerashaiva with a casteless society at its core. Soon, this philosophy began attracting large numbers of people. Saints like Allama Prabhu, Akka Mahadevi and Channabasavanna also played pivotal roles in the spreading of the message and the true meaning of Lingayatism(veerashaiva).
Basavanna lived and taught in the northern part of what is now Karnataka. This movement found its roots during the brief rule of the southern Kalachuri dynasty in those parts of the state. Like Martin Luther who came about three hundred years after him, Basavanna preached that the devotion of people to God was a direct relationship and did not need the intervention of the priestly class.

[edit]Worshiping God

The Lingayaths worship Lord Shiva in the form of Ishta-Linga. Ishta-Linga is worn on body. Any human being on earth can wear Ishta-Linga initiated by a Guru of Lingayat religion. Lingayatism does not make any partiality of humankind based on caste, creed, gender, language, country, or skin color. Everybody is equal in the eyes of God.

[edit]Lingayat theology

Main articles: Panchachara, Ashtavarana, and Shatsthala
The early followers and adherents believed in a monotheistic world where Linga is the supreme God and the Self and God are one and the same.[4] Early Lingayats placed importance on the Vachana sahitya, which was promulgated by Lord Basaveshwara.
Central to Lingayat theology are five codes of conduct (called Panchāchāras), eight "shields" (Ashtāvarana), and the concept of six levels of attainment that the devotee can achieve (known as Shatsthala).

[edit]Panchacharas

Kudalasangama in Bagalkot district, where Guru Basavanna's samadhi is located

The Panchacharas describe the five modes of conduct to be followed by the believer. ThePanchacharas include:[5]
  • Lingāchāra – Daily worship of the individual Ishtalinga, It includes daily thrice, twice or at least once in day.
  • Sadāchāra – Attention to vocation and duty, and following 7 rules explained by GuruBasavanna kaLa beDa (Do not steal), kola beDa (Do not kill,hurt), husiya nuDiyalu beDa(Do not speak lie), thanna baNNisabeDa (Do not praise your self), idira haLiyalu beDa (Do not scold anyone), muniya beDa (do not get angry on anyone), anyarige asahya paDabeDa(Don't hate poor people).
  • Sivāchāra – acknowledging will do all the (Mangala maya) good activities .
  • Bhrityāchāra – Humanity towards all creatures
  • Ganāchāra – Defense of the community and its tenets

[edit]Ashtavarana

The Ashtavaranas, the eightfold armour that shields the devotee from extraneous distraction and worldly attachments.The Ashtavaranasinclude:[5]
  • Guru – obedience towards Guru,
  • Linga – wearing a Ishta-Linga,
  • Jangama – worship of Shiva ascetics as an incarnation of the Lord himself,
  • Pādodaka(Karunodhaka) – sipping the water from bathing the Linga,
  • Prasāda(Karuna Prasada) – sacred offering,
  • Vibhuti – smearing holy ash on oneself,
  • Rudrāksha – wearing a string of rudraksha (holy beads) and
  • Mantra – reciting the mantra "Namah Shivaya" and not "Om Namah Shivaya" or "Om Namah Shivaya Namaha", Since Namah Shivaaya Is A Panchaakshari Mantra(5 Letters) Where as Om Namah Shivaaya is a Shatakshari Mantra(6 Letters). Hence Namah Shivaaya is the mantra recited.

[edit]Shatsthala

Shatsthala, or the concept of six phases/states/paths, is pivotal to the Lingayat philosophy. Shatsthala is a conflation of Shat and Sthala, which means 'six phases/states/levels' through which a soul advances in its ultimate quest of realisation of the Supreme. The Shatsthala comprises the Bhakta Sthala, Maheshwara Sthala, Prasadi Sthala, Pranalingi Sthala, Sharana Sthala and the Aikya Sthala. The Aikya Sthala is the culmination where the soul leaves the physical body and merges with the Supreme.
While the origins of the Shatsthala may be traced to the Agamas, particularly the Parameshwaratantra, with the evolution of Veerashaivism the evolution of the concept of shatsthala was also unavoidable. While Basava understood shatsthala as a process with various stages to be attained in succession, Channabasavanna, Basava's nephew, differed radically from his uncle and held that a soul can reach its salvation in any stage.

[edit]Concept of Shoonya

True union and identity of Shiva (Linga) and soul (anga) is life's goal, described as shoonya, void or nothingness, which is not an empty void. One merges with Siva by shatsthala, a progressive six-stage path of devotion and surrender: bhakti (devotion), mahesha (selfless service),prasada (earnestly seeking Siva's grace), pranalinga (experience of all as Siva), sharana (egoless refuge in Siva) and aikya (oneness with Siva). Each phase brings the seeker closer, until soul and God are fused in a final state of perpetual Siva consciousness, as rivers merging in the ocean.

[edit]Anubhava Mantapa

The Anubhava Mantapa was an academy of mystics, saints and philosophers of the Lingayata faith in 12th century Kalyana. It was the fountainhead of all religious and philosophical thought pertaining to the Lingayata. It was presided over by the mystic Allama Prabhu and numerous sharanas from all over Karnataka and other parts of India were participants. This institution was also the fountainhead of theVachana (spoken word) literature which was used as the vector to propagate Veerashaiva religious and philosophical thought. Other giants ofVeerashaiva theosophy like Akka Mahadevi, Channabasavanna and Basavanna himself were participants in the Anubhava Mantapa.after the revolution of Kalyana, sharanas are went to Ulavi and established II Anubhavamantapa.

[edit]Scriptures


[edit]Lingayat customs and practices

[edit]Ishtalinga

An idol of Akka Mahadevi holding Ishta Linga in her left hand

The Lingayats make it a point to wear the Ishtalinga at all times. The Istalinga is made up of light gray slate stone coated with fine durable thick black paste of cow dung ashes mixed with some suitable oil to withstand wear and tear. Sometime it is made up of ashes mixed with clarified butter. The coating is called Kanti (covering). Though the Ishtalinga is sometimes likened to be a miniature or an image of the Sthavaralinga, it is not so. TheIshtalinga, on the contrary, is considered to be Lord Shiva himself and its worship is described as Ahangrahopasana.
Thus, for the Lingayats it is an amorphous representation of God. Lingayat thus means the wearer of this Linga as Ishta Linga. Here the word Ishta is a Sanskrit term meaning 'adored' or 'desired'. Unlike Advaitins however, Lingayats do not treat the Ishtalinga as merely a representation of God to aid in realising God but worship the Ishtalinga itself as God. Lingayats eat only vegetarian food and should not consume meat of any kind including fish. Drinking of liquor is strictly prohibited.

[edit]Lingadharane

Lingadharane is the ceremony of initiation among Lingayats. Though lingadharane can be performed at any age, it is usually performed when a foetus in the womb is 7–8 months old. The family Guru performs pooja and provides the instalinga to the mother, who then ties it to her own instalinga until birth. At birth the mother secures the new instalinga to her child. Upon attaining the age of 8–11 years, the child receivesDiksha from the family Guru to know the proper procedure to perform pooja of instalinga. From birth to death, the child wears the Linga at all times and it is worshipped as a personal Istalinga. The Linga is wrapped in a cloth housed in a small silver and wooden box. It is to be worn on the chest, over the seat of the indwelling deity within the heart. Some people wear it on the chest or around the body using a thread.
Unlike brahmin beliefs in Hinduism, which permit only males to participate in the Upanayana or Deeksha ceremonies, both Lingayat men and women participate in these ceremonies in the presence of a satguru. This practice was begun by Basavanna himself, who refused to undergo Upanayana, because it discriminated against women.

[edit]Kaayakave Kailaasa

Kayakave Kailasa in Kannada

This is originally a Sanskrit phrase, Vrutti Chaitanya Roopini Karanika, preached by Jagadguru Renukacharya. Kaayaka means the exertion of the Kaaya (body) for the liberation of the soul imprisoned therein. Kailaasa means "abode of Shiva" – heavenly.
  • Kaayakave Kailaasa literally means, Kaayaka or the body which exerts itself for nishkaamaKarma – Karma without any expectation is nothing but Kailaasa – the abode of Shiva – heavenly.

There is a vachana complementary to this which talks about keeping the Kaaya (body) pure:
  • Yenna kaale kamba dehave degula shirave honna kaLashavayya sthaavarakkaLivuntu jangamakkaLivilla – meaning, 'My legs are the pillars, my body the temple, and my head the golden spire. That which is immobile is transient. That which is mobile is not.'

As one theory goes, the Indian subcontinent is divided into North and South by the Vindhya mountain ranges. While the North has the Himalayan rivers flowing year-round and boasts the river Ganges, the South has the river Kaveri, which originates at Talakaveri and dries up in the summer. Hence the North is referred as Punya Bhoomi, whose residents believe that taking a dip in the Ganges with Bhakthi will wash off all your sins. But the South is referred as Karma Bhoomi, whose residents believe that their Karma which will decide their fate. The Kaayaka Tatva of Basavanna also bases itself on the Karma Siddhantha (Philosophy of Karma).

[edit]Daasoha

Among the many injunctions prescribed for the devout Lingayat, Daasoha is a very important one. Basava created this as a protest against the feudalistic ideologies present at that time. He shunned the sharp hierarchical divisions that existed and sought to remove all distinctions between the hierarchially superior master class and the subordinate, servile class. Even though he himself served as a minister under the king, Bijjala, he pointed out that he worked only as a daasohi or one who serves. Daasoha to him meant working hard for one's livelihood and for the maintenance of society. In Basava's view, a daasohi should consider himself, but a servant of society. Therefore, daasoha in principle assumed that what belongs to God must return to Him and what came from society should be given back by way of selfless service. Basava exhorted all wearers of Ishta linga to practice daasoha without reservation.
A famous vachana says: Soham yennade Daasoham yendenisayya – which means "be selfless [Daasa Aham] rather than selfish [Naanu or Aham]".

[edit]Burial

Unlike most Hindus who cremate the dead, the Lingayat sect buries its dead. The dead are buried in the Dhyana mudra (meditating position) with their Ishta linga in their left hand.

[edit]Festivals

Main articles: Basava Jayanthi and Maha Shivaratri

[edit]Lingayata literature

Main articles: Vachanas and Vachana Sahitya

A popular vachana (poem) composed by Akka Mahadevi

The rise of Lingayatism heralded a new chapter in the annals of Kannada literature. Basavanna and other saints communicated their beliefs and ideas in Kannada which was the commoners' language unlike Sanskrit which was understood only by the Brahmins at that time. It saw the birth of the Vachana style of literature with the Lingayat philosophy at its core. The Vachanas were pithy poems of a devotional nature that expounded the ideals of LIngayatism. Saints and Sharanas like Allama Prabhu, Akka Mahadevi, Siddarama and Basava were at the forefront of this development during the 12th century. Some of the bestvachanas are the padas or the devaranamas of the dasas. The dasas were a group of religious singers of the Madhva faith who wandered around the kingdom singing about social injustice and true worship.[6] Siddarama (Siddarameswar) of Solapur (Sonnalagi) is considered to be one of the five prophets of the Lingayat (Veerashaivism) religion and a Kannada poet who was a part Basavanna's Veerashaiva revolution during the 12th century. Siddharama claims to have written 68,000 vachanas, out of which 1379 remain in existence. His philosophy was one of service to mankind, the path of Karmayoga. He shared the worldview of other vachana poets in his rejection of blind conventions and caste and sex discrimination and emphasis on realization through personal experience. He borrowed metaphors from diverse spheres of everyday life. Apart from vachanas, he wrote several devotional works in tripadi. Sarvagna was a later lingayat vachana poet of the 17th century who wrote thousands of succinct vachanas in tripadi style.
The entire corpus of these works was in Kannada. As with the Dasa Sahitya of the later Haridasas, the Vachanas were also primarily targeted at the common person and sought to demystify God, as large sections of society had been deprived of access to the texts. TheJangamas played a central role in the propagation of the Vachanas.

[edit]Lingayat demographics

[hide]Community

Population

Maratha

52,45,040

Kunbi

21,16,500

Brahmin

9,14,757

Mali caste

7,05,799

Bharwad

4,09,935

Veershaiva Lingayat

3,16,225


Lingayats today are spread all over the state of Karnataka mainly in North karnataka and Central karnataka with sizeable population native to south karnataka. They are Karnataka's largest community with 21% of the state population. Sizeable populations are also found in parts ofMaharashtra and Andhra Pradesh bordering Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Gujarat also has Lingayat population. In north India more prominently they are called Kashmiri Shaivites or Veerashaiva. In Karnataka, the Lingayat population is quite large and widespread.
The Lingayat diaspora can be found in countries around the world, particularly the United States,Britain and Australia.

[edit]Lingayata

Basavanna discovered and wore the Ishta linga for the first time. Ishta linga is the miniaturized approximation of formless, nameless, infinite and omnipresent God. All people who believed in Shivasharana movement had to wear the Isthta linga and follow the principles of Veerashaivaism. While Veerashaivaisim is the faith, the one who practices it is called Lingayath.
Basava established Anubhava Mantapa to establish spiritual social and economic democracy. People from all walks of life embraced Basava's thoughts and became Lingayats. In the same way, Veerashaivas also embraced Lingayatism and became Lingayats, Veerashaiva lingayats.
While the Indian society had converted workmanship into castes, Basava reversed the castes into workmanship again. The Society differentiated people based on birth while Basava offered equal status to all. As a result, large numbers of different caste people took Linga-Deeksha and became Lingayats.

[edit]Lingayats and social work

The Lingayat community, under the aegis of several Mathas, has been very active in the field of social work, particularly in the field of education and medicine. Thousands of schools are run by the Lingayat Mathas where education, sometimes free and with boarding facilities, is provided to students of all sections of society irrespective of religion or caste. In addition, various Lingayat organizations run numerous schools, colleges and hospitals across the length and breadth of Karnataka. Some of these institutions also have branches in other states of India. Some of the notable Lingayat-run institutions include the JSS group of institutions, KLE Society, Siddaganga Education Society, Vishweshwar Sahakari ( Cooperative ) Bank, Pune.

[edit]Famous Lingayats

Main article: List of Lingayats

[edit]See also


Kumar Gandharva ( Shivaputra Siddaramayya Komkalimath )

[edit]Notes

  1. ^ A. K. Ramanujan, ed (1973). Speaking of Śiva. UNESCO. Indian translation series. Penguin classics. Religion and mythology. Penguin India. p. 175. ISBN 9780140442700.
  2. ^ "Lingayat." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 09 Jul. 2010.
  3. ^ A History of Indian Philosophy, by Surendranath Dasgupta
  4. ^ M. R. Sakhare, History and Philosophy of the Lingayat Religion, Prasaranga, Karnataka University, Dharwad
  5. ^ a b A Survey of Hinduism, by Klaus K. Klostermaier
  6. ^ Indian Music, by Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva
  7. ^ Singh 2004, p. xliii.

[edit]References


[edit]Further reading

  • Basavanna and other sharanas, Vachana sahitya
  • Lingayata Dharmada Modalaneya Pustaka Kannada, 1982, PM Giriraju.
  • Jatigala Huttu Kannada, 1982, PM Giriraju.
  • Sadbhakta Charitra Kannada. PM Giriraju.
  • Ishwaran, K. 1992. Speaking of Basava: Lingayat religion and culture in South Asia. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.
  • Farquhar, J. N. 1967. An outline of the religious literature of India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
  • People of India : Karnataka : Volume XXVI/edited by B.G. Halbar, S.G. Morab, Suresh Patil and Ramji Gupta. New Delhi, Affiliated East-West Press for Anthropological Survey of India, 2003. ISBN 81-85938-98-9
  • Thesis: Veerashaivism in Maharashtra: A sociological analysis with special reference to Kolhapur District

[edit]External links


[edit]Statistics

Farmers in India became the centre of considerable concern in the 1990s when the journalist P Sainath highlighted the large number ofsuicides among them. Official reports initially denied the farmer suicides but as more and more information came to light the government began to accept that farmers in India were under considerable stress. On figures there was much debate since the issue was so emotive. The government tried to underplay the cases of farmer deaths, intellectual supporters of the farmers preferred to inflate them. More than 17,500 farmers a year killed themselves between 2002 and 2006, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics.[2] Others traced the increase in farmer suicides to the early 1990s.[3] It was said, a comprehensive all-India study is still awaited, that most suicides occurred in states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab.[4][5][6][7][8] The situation was grim enough to force at least the Maharashtra government to set up a dedicated office to deal with farmers distress.[9]
In 2006, the state of Maharashtra, with 4,453 farmers' suicides accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total of 17,060, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB also stated that there were at least 16,196 farmers' suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1997 to 199,132 .[10] According to another study by the Bureau, while the number of farm suicides increased since 2001, the number of farmers has fallen, as thousands abandoning agriculture in distress.[11] According to government data, over 5,000 farmers committed suicide in 2005-2009 in Maharashtra, while 1,313 cases reported by Andhra Pradesh between 2005 and 2007. In Karnataka the number stood at 1,003, since 2005-06 till August 2009. According to NCRB database number of suicides during 2005-2009 in Gujarat 387, Kerala 905, Punjab 75 and Tamil Nadu 26.[12] In April 2009, the state of Chattisgarh reported 1,500 farmers committed suicide due to debt and crop failure.[13] At least 17,368 Indian farmers killed themselves in 2009, the worst figure for farm suicides in six years, according to data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).[14]

[edit]History

In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. One of the major reporters of these suicides was the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, P. Sainath. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh.[15] In the beginning it was believed that most of the suicides were happening among the cotton growers, especially those from Vidarbha.[16] A look at the figures given out by the State Crime Records Bureau, however, was sufficient to indicate that it was not just the cotton farmer but farmers as a professional category were suffering, irrespective of their holding size.[17] Moreover, it was not just the farmers from Vidarbha but all over Maharashtra who showed a significantly high suicide rate.[18][19] The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm related distress in general. Subsequently Prime Minister Manmohan Singhvisited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs.110 billion (about $2.4 billion) to be spent by the government in Vidarbha. The families of farmers who had committed suicide were also offered an ex gratia grant to the tune of Rs.100,000 (about $2,000) by the government. This figure kept on varying, depending on how much criticism the government was facing from the media and the opposition parties for being uncaring towards the farmers' plight. Such a high figure was ironic considering that the net average income of a family of farmers in this region was approximately Rs.2700 (about $60) per acre per annum. The economic plight of the farmer might be illustrated with the fact that a farmer having as much as 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land, and hence considered a well-off farmer, had an income of just a little more than what he would have earned were he to merely get the legal minimum wage for all of the 365 days of the year. Little wonder that despite government efforts at pumping in more money into the suicide belt the suicide epidemic among farmers remained unabated through 2006-07. The problems of the farmers were quite comprehensive. There was little credit available. What was available was very costly. There was no advice on how best to conduct agriculture operations. Income through farming was not enough to meet even the minimum needs of a farming family. Support systems like free health facilities from the government were virtually non-existent. Traditionally support systems in the villages of India had been provided by the government. However, due to a variety of reasons the government had either withdrawn itself from its supportive role or plain simple misgovernance had allowed facilities in the villages to wither away.[20]

[edit]Causes

Research by various investigators like Raj Patel,[2] Nagraj,[18][19] Meeta and Rajivlochan,[21] identified a variety of causes. India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; moreover, a downturn in the urban economy was pushing a large number of distressed non-farmers to try their hand at cultivation; the farmer was also caught in a Scissors Crisis; in the absence of any responsible counselling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became an option for them [22]
Research has also pointed to a certain types of technological change as having played an instrumental role in the problem. One study from the Punjab showed dramatic misuse of agricultural chemicals in farmer households in the absence of any guidance on how to correctly use these deadly chemicals and linked it to the rise in farm suicides wherever farm chemicals were in widespread use.[23] Important research in Andhra Pradesh showed the very rapid change in seed and pesticide products to have caused "deskilling" in the cotton sector.[24]

[edit]GM crops

There have been claims of genetically-modified (GM) seeds (such as Bt cotton) being responsible for the farmer suicides.[25][26][27][28] A short documentary by Frontline (U.S. TV series) suggested that farmers using GM seeds promoted by Cargill and Monsanto have led to rising debts and forced some into the equivalent of indentured servitude to the moneylenders.[29]
A report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2008 provided evidence that the introduction of Bt cotton was not a major factor in farmer suicides in India.[30] It argues that the suicides predate the introduction of the cotton in 2002 and has been fairly consistent since 1997.[30][31] Other studies also suggest the increase in farmer suicides is due to a combination of various socio-economicfactors.[32] These include debt, the difficulty of farming semi-arid regions, poor agricultural income, absence of alternative income opportunities, the downturn in the urban economy forcing non-farmers into farming, and the absence of suitable counseling services.[32][33]

[edit]Responses to Farmers suicides

Vidarbha was in the media for a spate of farmer suicides in recent years ostensibly because of the falling Minimum Support Price for cotton. The problem is complex and root causes include lopsided policies of the World Trade Organisation and developed nations' subsidies to their cotton farmers which make Vidarbha's cotton uncompetitive in world markets. Consequently Vidarbha is plagued by high rates of school drop outs, penniless widows left in the wake of suicides, loan sharks and exploitation of the vulnerable groups.[34]
The Indian government had promised to increase the minimum rate for cotton by approximately Rs 100 ($2) but reneged on its promise by reducing the Minimum Support Price further. This resulted in more suicides as farmers were ashamed to default on debt payments to loan sharks. "In 2006, 1,044 suicides were reported in Vidarbha alone - that's one suicide every eight hours."[35]
In April 2007 a development consulting group named Green Earth Social Development Consulting produced a report after doing an audit of the state and central government relief packages in Vidarbha.[36][unreliable source?] The report's conclusions were:
  • Farmers' demands were not taken into account while preparing the relief package. Neither were civil society organisations, local government bodies, panchayats etc. consulted.
  • The relief packages were mostly amalgamations of existing schemes. Apart from the farmer helpline and the direct financial assistance, there was scarcely anything new being offered. Pumping extra funds into additional schemes shows that no new idea was applied to solve a situation where existing measures had obviously failed.
  • The farmer helpline did not give any substantial help to farmers except in Karnataka.
  • The basis for selection of beneficiaries under the assistance scheme was not well-defined. Also, type of assistance to be given led to problems like a farmer needing a pair of bullocks getting a pump set and vice versa (or a farmer who has no access to water sources being given pump sets)
  • Awareness regarding the package was also fairly low.

The report concluded quite alarmingly that the loan burden of the farmers would double in 2008.
To attract attention a variety of catch phrases were coined such as 'SEZ' or (Farmers) 'Special Elimination Zone' states.[37]
The government set up a dedicated group to deal with farm distress in 2006 known as the Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission, based in Amravati [9] A group to study the Farmers Suicides was also constituted by the Government of Karnataka under the Chairmanship of Dr Veeresh, Former Vice Chancellor of Agricultural University and Prof Deshpande as member.[38]

[edit]In popular culture

"Summer 2007" by producer Atul Pandey, focused on the issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, as did the 2009 Bollywood film Kissan.[39] Prior to this "The Dying Fields", a documentary directed by Fred de Sam Lazaro was aired in August, 2007 onWide Angle (TV series).
In 2006, A documentary by Indian film maker Sumit Khanna titled "Mere Desh Ki Dharti" , did a comprehensive review of the way we grow our food. A well researched and in-depth understanding of the agrarian crisis, it won the national award for the best Investigative film.
In 2009, the International Museum of Women included an examination of the impact of farmers' suicides on the lives of the farmers' wives and children in their exhibition Economica: Women and the Global Economy. Their slideshow "Growing Debt" and accompanying essay by curator Masum Momaya entitled "Money of Her Own" showed how many widows were left with the burden of their husbands' debts, and were forced to work as indentured servants to repay the debt. The widows were also unlikely to remarry, because other men in the community were unwilling to take on the widows' debts for themselves.[40]
The 2010, award winning film Jhing Chik Jhing is based around the emotive issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. It looks at how the farmer has very little in his control and looks at the impact of indebtedness on his family.[41]

[edit]See also


[edit]References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ a b Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved, Portobello Books, London, 2007
  3. ^ 1. Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune.
  4. ^ "Drought, debt lead to Indian farmers' suicides". Associated Press. Auhust 28, 2009.
  5. ^ "Spate of farmers' suicides in India worrying WHO". The Hindu. Oct 15, 2006.
  6. ^ Waldman, Amy (June 6, 2004). "Debts and Drought Drive India's Farmers to Despair". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  7. ^ Huggler, Justin (2 July 2004). "India acts over suicide crisis on farms". London: The Independent. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  8. ^ Pinglay, Prachi (5 May 2008). "No let up in India farm suicides". BBC News.
  9. ^ a b VNSS Mission
  10. ^ India together
  11. ^ "Farm suicides worse after 2001 — study". The Hindu. Nov 13, 2007..
  12. ^ "Farmers' suicides in India not due to Bt cotton: IFFRI". Mint (newspaper). Nov 11 2008.
  13. ^ "1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India". London: The Independent. 15 April 2009. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  14. ^ The Hindu-December 2010 column
  15. ^ Rediff News
  16. ^ Planning Commission report
  17. ^ 1. Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune, pp. 11-13.
  18. ^ a b Macroscan reports
  19. ^ a b Nagraj, K. (2008) Farmers suicide in India: magnitudes, trends and spatial patterns
  20. ^ M Rajivlochan (2007) "Farmers and firefighters" in Indian Express, August 28, 2007, [2]
  21. ^ Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune, pp. 75-101.
  22. ^ Behere PB, Behere AP. Farmers' suicide in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state: A myth or reality?. Indian J Psychiatry [serial online] 2008 [cited 2009 Oct 23];50:124-7. Available from: http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/text.asp?2008/50/2/124/42401
  23. ^ Kaur, Raminderjeet, 2008. "Assessment of genetic damage in the workers occupationally exposed to various pesticides in selected districts of Punjab", unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Human Biology, Punjabi University, Patiala.
  24. ^ Stone, Glenn Davis, 2007. "Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal." Current Anthropology 48:67-103
  25. ^ "Farmer's Suicides". Z Magazine.
  26. ^ "Indian Farmer's Final Solution". countercurrents.org.
  27. ^ "Rough Cut Seeds of Suicide India's desperate farmers". PBS Frontline. 26 July 2005. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  28. ^ P. Sainath (August 2004). "Seeds of suicide – I I". InfoChange News and Features.
  29. ^ Seeds of Suicide: India's desperate farmers from the Public Broadcasting Service
  30. ^ a b Guillaume P. Gruère, Purvi Mehta-Bhatt and Debdatta Sengupta (2008). "Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India: Reviewing the Evidence". International Food Policy Research Institute.
  31. ^ Sheridan, C. (2009). "Doubts surround link between Bt cotton failure and farmer suicide". Nat Biotechnol. 27 (1): 9–10. doi:10.1038/nbt0109-9. PMID 19131979.
  32. ^ a b Nagraj, K. (2008). "Farmers suicide in India: magnitudes, trends and spatial patterns".
  33. ^ Mishra, Srijit (2007). "Risks, Farmers' Suicides and Agrarian Crisis in India: Is There A Way Out?". Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR).
  34. ^ Deshpande and Arora. Agrarian Crisis and Farmer Suicides. Sage,. ISBN 978-81-321-0512-1(HB).
  35. ^ "The Dying Fields". Wide Angle (TV series). PBS. 2007.
  36. ^ "GreenEarth report on Impact of Relief Packages on farmers suicides in Vidarbha". Retrieved 4 January 2012.
  37. ^ "17,060 farm suicides in one year". The Hindu. Jan 31, 2008.
  38. ^ Deshpande(2002)
  39. ^ "Has Bollywood shut its eyes to movies on farmers?". The Economic Times. 29 Aug 2009.
  40. ^ "Marriage and Money". Economica: Women and the Global Economy. October 2009.
  41. ^ "Jhing Chik Jhing - a story of hope". January 2010.
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    Categories:

    Shibdas Ghosh

    Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movement in India


    Source: Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) (used with kind permission)

    Date : March 29, 1970

    First published : November, 1970

    HTML Markup : Salil Sen for marxists.org October, 2007

    Public Domain : Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit "Marxists Internet Archive" as your source.


    Analysing the root cause of agrarian problems and those facing the poor peasants and agricultural labourers, Comrade Ghosh elaborately discussed in this address to the delegates of the Twelfth West Bengal State Conference of the All India Krishak O Khetmazur Sangathan, how in a backward country like India, capitalism, and capitalist land relation stand in the way of modernizing and mechanizing agriculture and creating alternative employment opportunities without which agrarian problems cannot be solved and rural uplift achieved. At the same time he brought home that land reforms by themselves — projected as the panacea to all the ills of peasants' life by the self-styled Marxist parties in this country — cannot bring to an end the problems and abject misery of peasants, and how the question of alleviating their plight, of solving the burning problems of their lives is inextricably linked up with the task of anti-capitalist socialist revolution. He charted the way for building the truly revolutionary peasant movement to achieve the goal of emancipation.


    Comrades,

    You requested me to address this concluding session of the three-day long Delegates Conference of the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation[1]  . You are assembled here as delegates from different villages, different police station areas, different parts of this district of Birbhum[2]  and other various districts of West Bengal. Many of you, those present here, are aware that more than seventyfive out of one hundred of India's population live in the villages. These millions of common people in rural areas have a thousand and one problems in life. But the issue I need to point out to you in the first place is that the problem of getting jobs for the whole year for every able peasant is the one which comes foremost among all the problems of rural life today. Providing jobs for the rural poor throughout the year, it may be farming the land or any other type, so that as wage of their work their minimum income is such that they can live a healthy social life, which means, in plain terms, they could make both ends meet all through the year, feeding their children, getting them medicine at times of illness, at least giving them a minimum of education which ought to be given to all — just this stands out today as the main problem facing the rural life.

    You should know, recovery of benam[3]   lands grabbed by jotedars[4]  , making fallow lands cultivable, and distributing lands vested in the government among agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants on the principle of equitable distribution — all this is vital no doubt, but is not the main problem. Because, considering the minimum amount of land that needs to be allotted to a family for its sustenance and meeting the other necessary expenses throughout the year, there is dearth of that quantum of land needed for distribution among the whole population in the villages today in India. This means, the character of today's rural problem is not such that by simply carrying out the task of distributing land to the rural masses we can put an end to the destitution of agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants in the villages. You have to particularly bear this in mind with respect to peasant movements.

    Distribution of recovered benam lands, vested lands and fallow lands made cultivable among peasants is an important task of peasant movement

    It does not mean however that by saying this I am disregarding the need or am trying to underplay the importance of effecting the one task of peasant movement which calls for recovering and distributing among agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants all benam lands above ceiling limits which are illegally kept under occupation by big jotedars or former zemindars<[5]  , or allotting those lands which are vested in government but have been appropriated by others, depriving agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants through deceit in connivance with government officials. I maintain, on the contrary, that recovering vested and benam lands, making fallow lands arable, and distributing all these lands among agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants are indeed an important task of your peasant movement. All I need to emphasize is that even if you did allot all recovered vested and benam lands and all the fallow lands made arable to agricultural labourers, poor and landless peasants, you just could not give to most of them that minimum of land with which they can just make ends meet for a peasant family. It is because, as we had calculated it at an all-India conference some twenty years ago, the minimum land with which a peasant family could make both ends meet, or what is called an economic holding, works out to be 12 bighas[6]   — by now the figure must come up to 15 bighas, considering the ever increasing price-level till now. But even this I am leaving aside. Say, all benam lands of the country are recovered, all fallow lands made cultivable, and these along with all the vested lands are distributed equally. Even so, considering all available lands and the total population engaged in rural economy, that is, the total population of agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants taken into account, it is hardly possible to allot even 7 to 9 bighas of land to each of the families of even half of this population of India — although in my estimation this size of land does not make the holding economic today. In any case, it means, the other half of people will not be recipient of any land at all. As a result, even after allotting all these lands, so many in the villages will have been left unemployed, or will be going without job the year round. Neither could you give them land, nor are they getting jobs. What happens then ? If they do not get any job in the village, they have to leave home and hearth and move to the town anyway. Many village people are thus crowding towns in search of jobs as wage-labourers. There too they are turning destitutes. Some may be working as porters, who could anyhow make it. Or, some such means they take to and live on streetsides in subhuman existence. After some time, many go back to their village home and swell the ranks of the rural unemployed and semi-employed. Thus, distributing land cannot in itself save the peasant.

    Problem of peasants cannot be solved only through distribution of recovered benam and vested lands and fallow lands turned arable

    Examining the issue from another angle will also help you grasp that even by distributing the requisite land among peasants the problems of the agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants cannot be solved. In the first place, because, as I did point it out earlier, carrying out the task of land distribution will not make land available to all agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants. Secondly, those getting land cannot hold on to it. Because, as you know, members in each family and in society keep on increasing in numbers but land does not grow in size. Land remains as it is. There is a finite limit to available land, like there is a limit to enhancing land's productivity. Whereas, the number of members in each family keeps on increasing. Say, you are a peasant and you have got nine bighas of land. You thought, you could manage your household with this. Then, say, five children are born to you. Or, if you went by government's prescribed norm, you had then, say, three children. Now divide your land among the three. If one or two of the issues are female, even then your land will have to be divided equally among the three. Just because, in India at present sons and daughters have equal right to parental property. It may be that women in many families, weighed down by age-old convention as they are, do not assert their claim. But when awareness dawns on them, women will claim their due shares. Anyway, nine bighas divided equally among three leave three bighas to each as share. Afterwards, if these three get married and each has three issues then the share of each will be one bigha of land. To a family it hardly makes a difference whether it owns or does not own a bigha of land.

    Secondly, in the case of a poor peasant having land of the measure of a bigha is of little use. Even if a land of three bighas is allotted to every family, it will not turn out to be really effective. Because, even if a poor peasant is allotted that amount of land, he will be forced to sell it out the next year. He cannot retain it simply because he cannot manage his household with a land of three bighas. As a result, the land will get sold up to buyers who have the money for it. Indeed this way most of the poor and lower-middle peasants have been dispossessed of their lands. Just think how the lands which these poor and lower-middle peasants had in possession till twenty years back went out of their hands. The elderly among you are aware that during the famine of fifty[7]   in Bengal poor and lower-middle peasants had to sell out many lands. At that time, jotedars and moneylenders took advantage of the extreme privation of the poverty-stricken peasants to cheat them, grabbing their lands virtually at no price. Again, as the peasants were incapable of repaying the loans they had taken by mortgaging their lands at times of dire want, or when under duress, times of illness, or to meet expenses at times of family ceremonies, they could not recover their lands and were thus dispossessed of all the many lands of theirs. Therefore, even if the peasants received two or, say, three bighas of land, could that solve the problems of their lives ? Could that either nullify the grounds for which peasants and agricultural labourers are waging struggles ? Can a landless peasant hold on to two or three bighas of land he might be allotted ? If the able sons in the family have no alternative employment and the peasant cannot add more land to his possession of land with savings from his sons' earnings and maintain the farming adequately, he will be forced again to mortgage his land at times of want, illness, ceremonies, or to sell it out and become the landless peasant he was before. This is an inevitable destiny in the capitalist rural economy in a backward country like ours, and it is thus that the ranks of agricultural labourers and landless peasants are swelling by the day at growing rates.

    Whereas, many in this country believe that the problem could be resolved by enacting a law to bar sale of land by poor peasants. What they fail to realize is that, let alone bring benefit to the poor peasant, such legal bars to the sale of land in the capitalist system will hamper the agricultural production itself. Because a land of two or three bighas does not make an economic holding for a family, that is, a holding not adequate as a means for subsistence, the peasant cannot farm this land the way it should be. It may be that at times he will be even circumscribed to leave the land uncultivated. In that event, as a consequence, a food crisis will break out in the country, agricultural production will get hampered, and its retrograde effect will have repercussions on the entire national economy. For the sake of economy itself in the present capitalist set-up, legal bar to sale and purchase of land is not viable therefore. Although, it has been suggested by many that following the example of socialist countries purchase of land by individual owners be barred in the present circumstance and the state instead buy these lands. But what will the state do after buying these lands ? The government has to undertake state farming in that event to cultivate these lands. Today it is not possible that the government in a backward capitalist country like ours will buy all these lands and set up large-scale state farms to cultivate these lands as there is no way then to provide alternative employment to the millions of peasants who will be thrown unemployed if mechanization is introduced in agriculture in this country at the state's initiative.

    The urban areas are already teeming with the army of the unemployed and semi-employed, their numbers soaring up at increasing rates. Therefore, any attempts to mechanize agriculture in the present condition, that is, to modernize agriculture with tractor-machines will throw millions in the villages out of employment at a single stroke. The urban unemployed in hundreds of thousands added to the surplus millions in agriculture thus thrown unemployed will create a situation under whose weight this capitalist system will be on the verge of collapse. With the unemployment problem already acute and ever more aggravating, capitalism cannot undertake this task for the sake of its own survival. If modern tractor-machines are introduced in the land to which thousands of agricultural labourers, sharecroppers and poor peasants in the village remain somehow attached — maybe like half-dead souls subsisting somehow on this land — they will all become surplus labour. In a country where unemployment is constantly proliferating even before introduction of tractor-machines has begun in land farming, and these peasants cannot be given employment in mills and factories, where the situation is such that even those employed in the industries are getting retrenched or laid off and so many factories are closing down, people from villages are flocking into towns because they have no employment scope in the countryside, capitalism can by no means somehow maintain its existence if attempts are made for modernization of agriculture with tractor-machines. This is why, in their bid to extend the lease of life of this moribund, reactionary capitalist system as long as they can, the ruling bourgeoisie are administering a host of palliatives like Green Revolution, Japanese way of cultivation, Tai-Chung, IR-8, and so forth. So many diverse attempts are going on with purport to work magic with how many different crops could be grown and how much more could be harvested in piecemeal lands by various plannings. And every year crores[8]   of rupees are being spent for all this. However, they cannot pluck the courage to come up with plans for big land farming or state farming with tractor-machines. Therefore, with the capitalist economic order and capitalist state machine remaining in place, this road cannot lead to the solution of the problem. From this angle too it can be seen that the question of completing the task of the half-baked agrarian revolution in our country is indispensably interwoven with the task of accomplishing anti-capitalist socialist revolution.

    From this discussion you could then see that simply by distributing land the sufferings in the rural life cannot be ended and the peasant cannot survive unless provisions of employment could be made for each able individual of the poor peasant families in the villages. To provide employment is the basic issue confronting the rural life today, whether by allotment of enough lands, or by other means. Had there been provision of job all through the year for every individual in the village to earn sufficient wages, their privation would not have reached the present dimension in that event. In my consideration, the minimum wage prescribed by the present bourgeois government of India for industrial workers in some sectors has not been fixed on the principle of social justice. Had it been so, the prescribed wage would have been much higher on account of today's ever rising price-level. Let us leave aside even this. If every able individual in a family, which does not own, say, two bighas of land, could be given employment round the year carrying a salary of rupees two hundred and fifty to three hundred, his distress would not have been so much acute. On the other hand, a family owning even ten to twelve bighas of land but having eight to ten members, who have no alternative employment, cannot arrange for two square meals all through the year, let alone meet expenses for medical treatment, or for education. It does not mean however, and I emphasized it earlier too, that you have no need to build movements to recover and distribute all those lands which are either held in benam, or are vested lands not allotted properly, or are lands lying fallow and not made cultivable. Nor do I mean to underplay its importance in the present phase of peasant movement. These movements are necessary to build up as it will mitigate to a certain extent the sorrows and sufferings and the rural people's purchasing capacity will also improve, even if by a whit. But my point is that this will not solve the basic problem.

    Basic issue of rural life today is round-the-year employment provision for every able individual by opening the road to unhindered industrialization

    So, no doubt, distribution of recovered benam lands, equitable redistribution of vested lands and proper allotment of arable lands previously fallow is an important issue of peasant movement but is not its central and pivotal issue. The pivotal issue of peasant movement in today's context is to develop the rural economy through mechanization and modernization of agriculture and to open up side by side the road to industrialization in order to provide employment to the surplus population in the villages and the rural unemployed and semi-employed. That is, to provide employment to all those of the village people who could not be allotted land in the course of distribution of the requisite minimum lands to agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants in pursuit of a programme of just and proper allotment of recovered benam lands, fallow lands made cultivable and equitable redistribution of vested lands. Now the question is, how to provide employment to every able individual in the village ? Who will provide ? The only way to create such kind of employment is to open the road to continuous industrialization. If factories and mills could be set up and development of industries could go on unhindered, if, in other words, the road to full-scale industrialization could be opened up, then attempts could alongside go on also in agricultural economy for modernization and mechanization. Ancillary and auxiliary industries in agricultural economy could start developing in the rural areas making possible rapid growth of agricultural production. In that event, in the industries that would come up in order to cater to the very need of modernization and scientific development of agriculture, a section of all those could be absorbed who will have been left over landless following allotment of requisite minimum lands to other peasants. After this, those still left over unemployed could be absorbed if industrial development could be carried on in the neighbouring urban areas. With the situation so developed, no able individuals in any of the families would be left unemployed, everybody would be absorbed. In that event, whatever land a family might have, they will cultivate it and whatever necessities cannot be fulfilled through that cultivation, for that those in the family not engaging in cultivation will take on other employments. Thus, with the earnings of all, agriculture will develop, its mechanization and modernization can be made possible, agricultural production will grow, the look of the village will radically change. Electricity will come to the villages, roads will be built, schools, parks and hospitals will be set up, there will be provisions for sports and games, cultural functions will be held. If all these can be realized, then the present condition of the villages — these haunts of ghosts, as others call it, where snakes and frogs inhabit, and with them you also inhabit — this condition will change altogether. Then the villages will become fit for human habitation. The incomparable gap between rural and urban life will diminish. So, you see, for the uplift of villages in order that they become fit for human habitation and to bring about mechanization and modernization of agriculture, you have to solve the problem of the country's industrial development and provision of employment to all able people. You should bear in mind that the solution to this problem is inextricably linked with the resolution of the crisis that stems inexorably from the Indian capitalist state and capitalist economy. Unless you could establish the socialist state and the socialist economic system by doing away with the present capitalist state and capitalist economy, you cannot open the road to unhindered industrial development in the country simply by effecting the programme of distribution of land at present. And unless you can carry this out, no provision can be made for employment to all able people in the villages, their poverty and sufferings cannot be removed, uplift of the present condition of the villages cannot be made possible.

    Capitalist economic order stands today as main hurdle on road to unhindered industrialization of the country

    Because India's production system runs on capitalist production relations, that is, production takes place here, whether in agriculture or in industry, under control of private ownership with the motive of earning maximum profit, there is no growth in industrial production, though the problem is not so acute in agriculture. Private owners determine the prices of all industrial products of mills and factories on the basis of maximum profit and, you know, the owners sell these products in the market only when there are people who have the purchasing power for buying these. But by far the majority of people in the country do not have the capacity to buy the goods at these prices. Because, in the first place, of the seventyfive to eighty per cent of the total population of our country who are attached to land in the rural areas, fiftyone to fiftyfive per cent, on an all-India count, are landless peasants and agricultural labourers. This is a highly conservative estimate though. The figure is much higher in reality. Of them, the majority are unemployed and semi-employed, people who do not have employment round the year. Moreover, the number of poor peasants, that is, those who own land from two or three bighas to six or seven bighas, is fifteen per cent. Besides, the lower-middle peasants, who own six or seven to fifteen bighas of land, also number around fifteen per cent. It means, these eightyfive per cent of rural population are proletariat to semi-proletariat — people who have no employment all through the year. They cannot arrange for two full meals a day. These eightyfive per cent of the rural population have almost zero purchasing power, or so we may say. To get some clothings, the barest to wear, a few rags for the women, and two bare meals — for this little just they are burning out. How could they afford to buy the industrial commodities they need so badly ? Where is their purchasing power ?

    Secondly, in the present economic system, taking into account the increased price-levels of all articles of necessity, the real wages of all who work in mills and factories in urban areas and get pay at the end of the month have gone down much compared to what they earned previously. In terms of figures, of course, that is, in terms of money, their wages have gone up comparatively. But considering the case in terms of comparative price-levels, one could not deny, unless one had his eyes and ears shut or had some ulterior motive and vested interest, that the real wages have come down a lot. Comparing how one did manage things earlier with an earning of a rupee a day, say, does he feel better off now though his wage has gone up today ? No, he doesn't. This is because, in our country the minimum wage a labourer is to be paid is not calculated by taking into account the prices of all articles of necessity to live a life as befits man. In this country, the minimum wage to be paid is fixed at a level at which the labourer could have bare sustenance and gasp on to turn the wheels of the owner's machine, he could seek out a shelter in a stenchy slum where one might easily contract tuberculosis, managing there to live with a woman, and for that matter his wife. The minimum of pay with which a labourer could manage to meet the barest of necessity is reckoned as his wage, whereas the minimum wage should have been determined in consonance with prices of essential commodities in order that even a very ordinary family could meet the expenses of living a healthy life, whereupon a nation could be built up. But in no capitalist country is this norm followed to fix the wage of a labourer. The situation is even worse in our country. As a result, the majority of people working in mills and factories of our country do not own the capacity to buy necessary industrial commodities. Besides, the millions of educated and semi-educated unemployed people crowding the urban areas, whose numbers are swelling at galloping rates, do not have any purchasing capacity at all. In this situation, naturally, because the majority lack the purchasing capacity and whatever little capacity they have is continuously on the decline, the market is squeezed in very much for the industrial owners, each day this market gets squeezed in further. On the other, no vast market abroad remains now to which the industrialists could export their products for sale. Because, in the first place, following the emergence of the world socialist system and the world socialist market after the second World War parallel to the world capitalist system, the old traditional world capitalist market has become squeezed in drastically. Moreover, the newly independent Afro-Asian countries like India, for instance, whom the imperialists used to exploit by establishing their absolute rule over them — with the emergence of these countries as new competitors in the world capitalist market after they had restructured their economies, breaking free from the imperialist chain and colonial slavery following the second World War, the already squeezed-in world capitalist market has suffered further squeezes, this in turn having led to further aggravation of the crisis of the world capitalist market.

    Thirdly, keep in mind, the character and nature of the crisis into which the world capitalist market plunged at the end of the second World War is different in essence from all its previous crises. Prior to the second World War, in all of its crises at different periods, the world capitalist market enjoyed a relative stability. But the nature of the present crisis is such that this relative stability of the past exists no longer. The crisis has now turned into a daily, an hourly affair. You can understand therefore that whereas the advanced capitalist countries fought no less than two world wars among themselves in their bid to capture the market even while the whole of the world market was under their control, in the present condition of an extremely squeezed-in world capitalist market the situation is no longer such that the industrial owners of a backward capitalist country like India could at will sell their industrial products in competition with the advanced capitalist countries.

    Task of completing agrarian revolution in our country today is intertwined with the task of accomplishing anti-capitalist socialist revolution

    Thus, this being the condition of the world capitalist market, the Indian capitalists do not have a market for even the small volume of production they make, let alone go on increasing the production continuously. As I told you before, this absence of the market does not mean however that the people of the country don't have any needs, or that they don't want to buy. The type of clothes most of the poor peasants of this land wear — don't they feel like wearing better clothes, don't they wish to dress their children nicely ? Don't they wish to provide good food for their children ? When somebody around eats rasogollas[9]  , doesn't a poor peasant feel like eating rasogollas himself ? Doesn't he wish to give some to his child ? They do, but what of it ? How could they have the means ? To be relieved of the pangs of this inability they invoke their fate, call it the will of God, or seek consolation in senseless utterings. Else, they try to satisfy the child giving it a lump of sugar or gur[10]. How could they have the ability to buy good things ? In this condition, how could the market within the country expand, how could the development of industries go on unhindered ? How could new industries come up ? On the contrary, not to speak of new industries coming up, even the existing factories and mills are closing down, one after another, owing to the market crisis of the capitalists under the present capitalist economic system. In the given situation, whereas for a backward country like ours the need was to carry on industrialization with ever new initiatives, it is the prevailing production system in the country with its motive of earning maximum profit on the basis of capitalist production relations, in a word, the prevailing capitalist economic system which stands out as the main obstacle today to unhindered industrial development. This in fact is giving rise to the crisis in industry despite ours being a backward country. It can be seen, therefore, unless this obstacle can be removed we cannot open the door of uninterrupted industrial development. And so long as this task remains unfulfilled, we cannot complete the half-baked task of agrarian revolution — which means modernizing and mechanizing agriculture and providing employment to the entire rural population all through the year.

    Therefore, to resolve the basic problem of the rural life and to bring about unhindered industrial development, we need to put an end to the present economic system, that is, the capitalist system, in a word — the system which runs on the capitalist production relation with the object of earning maximum profit. Doing away with the present capitalist state and the capitalist government, the rule of the workers and peasants has to be established, and in the place of the capitalist economic system the socialist economic system has to be established. That is, in a word, in order to accomplish this very task you have to organize anti-capitalist socialist revolution. But among the parties claiming to be Marxist-Leninists, neither the CPI(M), nor the CPI, in fact no one except our party, the SUCI, does openly stand for anti-capitalist revolution. What they say is that the main struggle of the exploited masses of India, that is, of the workers, peasants and the lower-middle class is against monopoly capital and feudalism. Let us now see what this anti-monopoly capital, anti-feudal struggle in a capitalist country like India means in real terms.

    Bear it in mind, while it is the capitalist system as a whole from which stems this exploitation, then those who put the onus of this capitalist class exploitation as a whole on a handful of monopoly capitalists instead of taking the stand for overthrowing the capitalist state and the capitalist order as a whole are actually seeking to hide the character of the capitalist exploitation itself. Because, monopoly capitalism is but a form of capitalism itself. Therefore, if these people do not have the programme of anti-capitalist revolution then all their task of fighting monopoly capital reduces into an empty slogan, it is a fake slogan. Indira Gandhi[11] too delivers speeches against monopoly capital. The Chhatra Parishad[12] and the Youth Congress[13] too raise voice against monopoly capital. They also try to shield the bourgeois class as a whole from people's wrath by shifting the onus of all misdeeds of the bourgeoisie as a whole on to the shoulders of a few monopoly capitalists. So, flying the banner of Marxism, whether in the name of people's democratic revolution or of national democratic revolution, if some people engage in shielding the capitalist class as a whole, shifting the onus of bourgeois class exploitation on to a handful of monopoly capitalists, their real motive must be then like Indira Gandhi's.

    Secondly, a little reflection also reveals that the slogan of these two parties for fight against feudalism is no more than an empty talk. Whatever the shape of capitalism in our country, howsoever backward it may be, but that capitalist exploitation is the main feature and that the exploitation perpetrated on all engaged in the agricultural economy is capitalist, too, is brought out clearly by analysis of the agricultural economy in this country. Just for the sake of argument if we accept, for the time being, that feudal relations continue to hold in the agricultural economy of our country as maintained in the analyses of these parties, even so, as every student of Leninism knows, the moment the national bourgeoisie of this country usurped the state power, India became a bourgeois state. Therefore, the main object of revolution becomes overthrowing the bourgeois state, no matter whether feudalism continues in agricultural economy or not.

    Agricultural economy of our country is capitalist economy

    Now let us see what is the nature of the agricultural economy of our country. From the preceding discussion we could gather that about eightyfive per cent of the rural population of our country have been reduced to the level of proletariat and semi-proletariat — they have lost all their land holdings, or are losing the same gradually. Adding to this the number of the somewhat well-off middle peasants, that is, those who own land from above fifteen to fifty or sixty bighas, who make up about ten or eleven per cent, it comes out that in the hands of the remaining five or six per cent of the rural population some fiftyfive to sixty per cent of the total lands of the country have become concentrated. This feature that, on the one side, most of the lands of the country have been concentrated in the hands of a few people, whereas, on the other side, most of the rural people, that is, eightyfive per cent of the rural population are reduced to the level of rural proletariat and semi-proletariat — what is the reason that it became so? All with a modicum of knowledge of economics will understand that this came about following the inexorable law of the capitalist economy.

    Secondly, you should realize and constantly bear in mind that it is the capitalist state of India and the capitalist economic system which is the root cause of the exploitation and oppression perpetrated on you. Whether in the factories of the towns or in the lands of the villages, production is being carried on everywhere on the basis of the capitalist production relation. Everybody understands it easily that the character of the production relation as the basis of production in the factories in the urban areas in our country is the owner-wage labourer. In the rural economy, too, in this country this character of production relation is basically that of the owner-wage labourer. Though in India, as a backward country, the form of this owner-wage labourer relation in the rural areas differs from place to place depending upon specificities of localities and regions, peculiarities of the people, still its basic character everywhere at present is that of the owner-wage labourer. In some places the labourer is a monthly wage earner, in some other places he is a daily wage labourer. It may be that in some places a section of the agricultural labourers even own land from one to three bighas each. But they are wage labourers. Some of them are paid the wage — part in money, part in food. Some others receive a share of the crop in place of wage in money. In this country we call this type of labourers share-croppers, maybe some of them even own land of a bigha or two. But all these are only different forms of the same owner-wage labourer relation, depending upon the specificities of a region and pecularities of the people in a backward capitalist economy of today. Because, all of them work as wage labourer in others' lands. And, this very relation of owner-wage labourer in the sphere of production is called capitalist production relation.

    Examining the issue from another angle also will help you realize that in the rural economy in our country production takes place on the basis of the capitalist relations. What is it we call capitalism ? The fundamental economic law of capitalism is that, based on capitalist-wage labourer production relation, capital grows by investment of capital — whether it is investment in land or in industry — that is, to grow capital through production by investing capital. In the capitalist system, the capitalists invest capital and produce goods in mills and factories. By selling the goods in the market they come out with profit which is the amount in excess over the invested capital. This profit they garner by exploiting the worker, exploiting the labour-power of the worker, depriving him of his due wage. This is what we call capitalism. Let us examine now the character of our rural economy. Is it the character of the rural economy today that like in the feudal system the owners of the lands produce mostly for their own consumption and, to meet the other necessities of living, they sell part of this produce in the local market as per the law of this local market ? Or, whether the land owners produce in the lands with an eye on the demands of the national market ? Moreover, is the price of the agricultural produce in the village fixed in terms of the law of the local market, or is the agricultural commodity transformed into commodity of the national market today ? Turn on the radio set and you can listen to that all the agricultural produce is being controlled today by the share market, wholesale market and the stock exchange. The land owners are selling their produce in the market as per the prices fixed by them and they are increasing their capital thereby. Thus, today, the land too is transformed into a means or instrument of capital investment like the factory is. Thus, it is seen, that through investment of capital in the land capital is growing. Besides, I pointed it out earlier, the production of agricultural commodity by land owners through investment in land also takes place on the basis of the owner-wage labourer relation, that is, on the capitalist production relation itself — whatever its form depending upon the specificities and pecularities of regions and people.

    Therefore, all these features — the concentration of most of the lands in the hands of a few, the continuous decline of most of the village people to the level of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, the transformation of the land into a means of capital investment, agricultural production taking place on the basis of owner-wage labourer relation and, above all, the transformation of the agricultural produce into commodities of the national market — they go to demonstrate that the Indian agricultural economy is wholly capitalist economy. However backward and underdeveloped Indian capitalism is, except as hangover of feudal habits, conduct and behaviour in the cultural life of the country and in the rural relationships, nowhere in land relation or in agricultural production relation does feudal relation linger to be present. The capitalist agricultural production relation has taken its place, whatever may be its form on account of differences in the specificities and peculiarities of regions and people, and trade and commerce in agricultural commodity too run according to the laws of the capitalist national market.

    However, on the grounds that farming in our country is not carried out with tractor-machines, or that there are the hangovers of old feudal habits and practices in the Indian cultural life and in the rural relations, those who deny that the agricultural economy of our country is capitalist economy actually display utter ignorance of how capitalism makes inroads into agricultural economy in a backward country in this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. In the eighteenth century, when capitalism was progressive, world revolution was in the stage of capitalist revolution, capitalism was making strides through uncompromising struggle against religion, on the one hand, and the feudal system, on the other hand, a revolutionary transformation of production and industrialization on extensive scales was taking place on the basis of capitalist relation itself, capitalism made inroads into agriculture with tractor-machines for supply of raw materials to meet the requirements of industrialization and create surplus labour out of the majority of the village people for absorption in the industries. But in this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, when capitalism has not only turned reactionary but is in its third intensive phase of world market crisis and let alone creation of employment made possible through setting up new industries, production in the existing industries is coming down or has to be closed down because of absence of the market and this is leading to further aggravation of the unemployment problem, capitalism can no longer effect modernization and mechanization of agriculture with tractor-machines in its own interest.

    On the grounds that in the interest of capitalism itself the capitalists cannot go about modernizing agriculture with tractor-machines, it cannot however be concluded that the rural economy in our country is not capitalist economy. It is by breaking the feudal relation that capitalism is making inroads into this backward or underdeveloped economy. In its own interest, however, capitalism is engaging in the bid to tie down the majority of the rural people to the land in order that the unemployment problem did not assume such dimensions under whose weight this order could collapse and the revolution for the overthrow of the existing state could materialize. If millions of people in the villages are thrown off unemployed in just one stroke, then this vast army of the unemployed would explode in towns and villages and no kind of state machinery could save the situation. That is why, under this capitalist system in our country, full-scale modernization and mechanization of the agricultural system conducive to industrialization is no longer possible. Hence this capitalist conspiracy to tie down the majority of people to the rural economy in a half-clad, half-starved state. The land reform programme of the Congress, the agent of the ruling bourgeoisie, and the approach and programme of the votaries of national democratic and people's democratic revolution on the issue of land reform, are just revelations of this conspiracy.

    Secondly, you should bear in mind, since in this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution capitalism developed in our country in the period when the bourgeoisie at the international level had become extremely reactionary, this capitalism grew up in compromise with religion and feudalism. Because of this, ours being a backward country, feudal hangover in habits and practices persist as admixtures in the basic capitalist relation and exploitation in the process of agricultural production, just like an impurity mixing up in gold. In this case, whom to deal the blow ? The hangover, or capitalism which is the root cause of exploitation ? In these circumstances, people who advocate dealing the blow to whatsoever feudal remnants persist as admixtures in the capitalist exploitation in this backward country instead of advocating for the overthrow of capitalism, are in reality pleading for the capitalist exploitation itself, no matter the rhetoric they employ against the bourgeoisie. You should grasp this point clearly. You should realize, the main enemy of the revolutionary struggle of the workers, peasants and the lower-middle class is the bourgeoisie of our country who are in state power. People who seek to create confusion over this issue in particular, who try to mislead on this matter and highlight the minor issues, much less important issues relatively, in order to hide the real truth and distract attention from the main enemy thereby, are actually subverting the people's cause even as they claim to be Marxist-Leninists.

    So, from every angle we find that of the three problems in the peasant's life one concerns provision of adequate employment to the surplus population whose numbers will be growing every day, to those who cannot be allotted land and will be the surplus numbers after distribution of the recovered lands. Another problem concerns modernization and mechanization of agriculture. And the solution to both these basic problems is inseparably linked with the issue of industrial revolution and opening the door to unhindered development of industries. And unhindered progress of industries we can achieve only when we can free production from the capitalist production relation and profit motive, overthrowing the capitalist state and capitalist economic system with the force of the anti-capitalist revolution.

    But if it transpires that a party calling itself Marxist-Leninist has also adopted 'land to the tiller' as the basic and the sole programme of its land reform policy, it follows then that they too seek, in a different verbiage and a different approach though, to tie down the majority of the rural people to three bighas, one and half bighas of land in the half-starved and half-clad condition of primitive uncivilized men. This could only be the task of the political agents of the capitalists who seek to extend the lease of life of capitalism — this is no task of the Marxist-Leninists. The Marxist-Leninists would want development of agriculture, they would stand for modernization and mechanization of agriculture. They would seek to demolish the whole moribund system for that matter. They would do away with capitalism because this capitalism stands out as the main hurdle to carrying out this demolition. At the same time they would voice the slogan of 'land to the tiller', they would also raise voice for scientific method in agriculture. Indeed it strikes me when I hear these Marxist-Leninists call for 'stop introduction of tractor-machines as this will go to aggravate unemployment'. I find it in the programme of some of these parties that in respect to the peasant movement it is their policy to resist introduction of tractor-machines and to unite this movement to resist tractor-machines with the revolutionary line to overthrow feudalism. What a self-contradiction[14] ! I just cannot make head or tail of it. Why to unite the anti-tractor-machine movement with the struggle to overthrow feudalism ? It is the introduction of tractor-machines which is to go to overthrow feudalism in the rural economy. That is what happens. Is introduction of tractor-machines getting obstructed by feudalism ? See, this is the same policy-plan like that of the bourgeoisie to oppose tractor-machines — the bourgeois politics to guard capitalism against the thrust of unemployment, something like the bourgeois land reform policy. In the situation where, say, in the course of a peasant movement, peasants become unemployed as a result of introduction of tractor-machines, then while rallying them in the movement against that particular move, I will explain to them that the people are not against introduction of tractor-machines. The peasant, in fact, favours introduction of tractor-machines. How could uplift of the rural economy be otherwise possible ? How could the rural life improve ? How could the woes of agricultural labourers and poor peasants come to an end ? How could the market expand ? How could the door to industrial revolution open up ? How could production of agricultural commodities or raw materials for the industry be made possible ? And the food problem of the country be solved ?

    So, for the cause of progress, for ending the sufferings of the agricultural labourers and poor peasants, to remove darkness from the rural life, modernization and mechanization of agriculture is a necessity. But in today's situation this cannot be achieved under the capitalist system. If attempted, a very vast section of the agricultural labourers and poor peasants will be thrown off unemployed in one single stroke. Even the small provision for sustenance they have will come to cease. Hence, before overthrowing the capitalist state and economic order and installing the socialist state and economic system in its place, it is not possible to lay hand on this task. Whereas, without modernization and mechanization of agriculture, the sufferings and woes of and the darkness that prevails in the rural life at present cannot be eliminated too. Therefore, for the sake of survival and in the interest of uplift of the rural life, the agricultural labourers, landless peasants, poor peasants, lower-middle peasants are all to come together without further delay and join forces with the industrial proletariat and other working masses to engage in the task of accomplishing the anti-capitalist revolution. So, they are to prepare for replacing capitalism and till the time they could replace capitalism, the right slogan on the issue of introduction of tractor-machines should be : Give us alternative employment, else we will not allow tractor-machines. We, the agricultural labourers and peasants, we are for modernization of agriculture. It is introduction of tractor-machines which is exactly what we want, and exactly for that we need to overthrow capitalism, because overthrowing capitalism will ensure unhindered progress of industry, modernization and mechanization of agriculture will be made possible, opening the road to all-out uplift of the rural life will be possible, and thus it will be possible to change this face of the rural life.

    You must have realized from this discussion that this question of completing the half-baked agrarian revolution in our country, that is, modernization and augmentation of agricultural production and the question of providing permanent employment to the surplus population in land is deeply interwoven with the question of accomplishing anti-capitalist socialist revolution. This being the real problem, those in our country who are voicing the slogan of national democratic or people's democratic revolution instead of taking to the programme of anti-capitalist socialist revolution, who are agitating the peasants with firebrand revolutionary slogans are in reality staging mock fights for certain reforms only within the existing capitalist economic order. By this act, indirectly though, they are only helping to strengthen the present capitalist rule. Remember, until and unless you can overthrow this capitalist economic order with the force of revolution, the order which this capitalist state protects and keeps going with its police, military, judiciary, and until you can establish in its place your own police, military, court and judiciary, that is, your own state, you cannot bring about industrialization in accord with your needs, nor can you change the face of the village. There will be no solution to the basic problems of the peasant life. This is indeed the main problem confronting at present the movement for the peasant's emancipation.

    Peasant cadres should give up reactionary, superstitious mentality and practice revolutionary politics

    To accomplish this anti-capitalist revolution, which great task devolves upon you, you should grasp a few things more in the first place. Bear it in mind, if in your thoughts and outlook you remain victim of the reactionary and superstitious mentality of the old society, you cannot bring this great revolution to success. But you will notice, the same attitude still prevails in some measure in many of you. For instance, most of you carry the mentality that when you are in want, you have no means to pull through, you cannot pay the usurious interest to the money-lender, you come together then and make protests. If your immediate demands come to be realized, you think you have achieved everything, nothing remains to be done. You come to believe, by organizing yourselves and waging some fights and all that, sparing no means whatever, you could evade to pay the interest to the money-lender. You can never convince yourselves to think that you have not evaded to pay the interest. Because, the money-lender has no right to charge you usurious interest. You never think that by charging you in this way the money-lender was committing a crime and you resisted it by fighting against him. You think on the contrary, you have evaded paying the interest. Your enemy resides in the recess of your mind — it is the wrong sense of religiosity which the owners inculcate in your mind to undo you. They tell you : 'Don't you obey God ? Is it the bidding of your faith that you won't pay the interest for the loan you took ?' And you nod to agree. I would ask : Is the religious sense to be invoked only when it comes to charging the interest ? Has it no other meaning than just this ? If that be so, then this religious sense had better be gone. If religion has nothing to do in matters of ending the sufferings and woes of people, in stopping perpetration of injustice upon them, resisting police repression, providing jobs to people, then better bid farewell to that religion. The religious sense which teaches merely to pay interest to the money-lender brings ruin only. Anyway, this sort of religious sense prevails in you. With this religiosity you won't be able to accomplish revolution. Revolution and this religious sense do not go together. Those who want to win freedom from subjugation, who want to change the face of the village, who want this capitalist exploitative system replaced, if they remain in so narrow a world — victims of the canons of scripture, bigoted habits and superstitions — can they accomplish revolution ? Is it possible for them to liberate the country from the shackles of capitalist exploitation ? Remember, those workers and peasants would be capable of running the industries and the agriculture of the country under their own control, running their own state, own police force and judiciary after demolishing this vast and overbearing capitalist state, who are free from superstitions and from this religiosity — peasants who are upright, who have the spirit to wage struggle, who have rectitude and are capable of laying down their lives. Those peasants can achieve it who realize that to live like humans, to build the road for their children to live like humans, they have to struggle against all oppressions, all injustice and superstitions. To acquire this make-up of mind you will have to practise the revolutionary politics.

    Give up mistaken attitude to rural gentry

    In this connection I need to discuss yet another aspect. It is, you have in you so many wrong perceptions about the rural gentry. Exploiting others they are quite enjoying themselves in this exploitative social system, and most of them who have left the village to reside in the town are having a good time. Occasionally they visit the village when they dole out some money and maybe they will donate for a make-shift bridge, hand out some funds for the school committee, and with all this they get themselves accepted by you as noble-hearted donors. Parting with a few silvers from the millions of rupees, from the vast riches amassed in their troves by sucking your blood, they contrive each to present himself as a noble donor. And you come to think, the master landlord is noble-hearted. You receive them with garlands when they set foot in the village. For, you think the master has done a lot for the village. Not for once you pause to think wherefrom came the money into the master's pocket which he doled out. Or, why he did need to donate. Why should you accept charity from him who robbed you of your money by cheating you ? The selfsame man who looted your money by fraud doled out a very petty sum out of it and had himself received as a noble donor. So weak-kneed are you that just because you need seeds for cultivation, you need a road bridge in your village, no sooner the master obliged than you became his purchased man. Those whose fleecing brought ruin to the village got themselves looked upon by you as noble-hearted great souls, setting foot in the village once and sinking a tubewell, laying a road, once constructing a make-shift bridge, or setting up an elementary-level school. And you too started thinking that the master is indeed a good soul, he has a very magnanimous heart. A rogue actually who cheats you to bring ruin to your life played the tricks to get himself reckoned by you as a noble donor, and in this way exactly you are getting yourselves cheated through the ages. You got yourselves fooled by this circumstance because you lack revolutionary consciousness, thoughts, education and a firm base of your own organization, everything in fact. You must give up this mentality which still persists in you.

    Interest of revolution and organization should be regarded as far greater than individual interest

    Other than this, you will notice, because of the lack of correct revolutionary political consciousness while leading the peasant movements, the sense of individual interest sometimes raises its head very dangerously under impact of daily privations, and this harms the revolutionary movement. As is the case with the owners of big land holdings who have greed and avarice for property and for which they cheat each other, the mentality in you too which is born of greed for private property spits venom during allotment of land amongst yourselves. As the owners of big land holdings are afflicted with immense greed for property, the same poisonous vice thrives in you too. Notice carefully, you will feel that so strong is your fascination for land and so deep your attachment to property you often get embroiled in bitter quarrels among yourselves during distribution of land as to who will receive allotment and who will not. Seldom you spare a thought to realize that all cannot get land at once. Even if you distribute equally the lands you recovered together, not everyone can get land. So, preserving the unity of the organization you the people of the village should sit together first to settle who are the ones among you who need to be allotted land in the first place. After allotment to them first, if any land remains to be allotted then others will receive. Whereas, what happens, without first settling it among yourselves, everybody joins in the scramble to get land first. You start scrambling among yourselves for just two or three bighas of land, which perhaps you won't be able even to retain in the end. This tussle leads to infighting among you and as a result unity among people becomes its victim. Among the cadres of the organization not having that level of consciousness this even creates envy, bad blood and infightings. With what outcome ? Thereby you weaken your own organization.

    To resolve the problem arising from land distribution and allotment, you should attend to two measures. First, since the land you recovered by your struggle falls short of what is required by all who need land, so instead of undermining your organization by fighting among yourselves you should first sit together in your village under the leadership of the party or the leadership of the local committee of the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation to settle whose needs among you come foremost. Say, for example, the case of an able-bodied poor peasant. He has a holding of one katha[15] and he can anyhow make some earnings by his labour. Another peasant residing next to him is old and incapacitated, he too has a holding of one katha. Both have want in their families. But of the two the one who is able-bodied somehow does some sundry jobs, he can somehow run his household even by carrying head-loads if needed. Whereas, the old man is without the same capacity. If now the question of land allotment arises between these two, then if he were a conscious peasant cadre, a revolutionary, the able-bodied peasant would offer on his own that the old peasant should receive first and he will get if land in excess is available. Such should be the attitude of everyone. If all of you have this attitude, no agent of the enemy can succeed to drive a wedge into the organization, no one from outside can create a division within you.

    Problem of land distribution is to be resolved by keeping intact organization's unity

    Secondly, you have got it in the Report here that in many places during land allotment poor and landless peasants sat together and with the help of the leadership they have resolved the issues democratically. Maintaining their trust and confidence in the party and the party leadership they have preserved the organization's unity like the apple of the eye. For no reasons whatsoever, at no one's instigation either, did they allow the unity and solidarity to suffer. Because, you have witnessed how in such cases not only the counterrevolutionary parties but even those who masquerade as revolutionaries and by the red banner confuse the poor peasants, they too instigate poor people to fight against poor people. Say, you have recovered three bighas of benam land by your struggle, while another party came up flying the red banner and they instigated some peasants by stoking up petty self-interest in them to come to fight against you and seize the land. You should know, by inciting petty self-interest no noble task can be accomplished. What happens when a party goes after confusing you in this way, with such unfair conduct and reprehensible acts ? The poor masses become divided among themselves. Divided under banner of this and that party, the poor peasants start fighting each other. Due to sheer opportunist politics of these sham red flag-waving parties, the jotedars who are the bourgeoisie of the rural society get the opportunity of watching these infights among you and they merrily enjoy this. Even more, these jotedars, when they find it expeditious, themselves pay some money to some poor peasants to send them with the red banner in hand, so that they shout a few militant revolutionary slogans, gather up a few bighas of land from this or that corner and having misguided the poor peasants they set up a separate organization among them. How do they carry out this act ? Say, some lands were recovered and from these some peasants got land while some others did not get anything. Immediately after, an agent of the jotedars or someone from a counterrevolutionary party came up to mislead those who received no land : 'Just see, they gave land to the others but not to you. Join our party, we will snatch away those lands'. Because they had not received land, so these peasants thereupon left their organization to join this agent. This manoeuvre amounts to treachery within one's own home. Thus, at every turn of issue, at minor turns and passing issues, the focal point of your base politics, that is, the revolutionary preparation for transforming the capitalist state and capitalist economy is getting undermined. With the organization so loosely knit, its cadres shifting from this to that organization for self-interest, revolution cannot come about. With the poor peasants engaging in infights over allotment of land, they cannot accomplish revolution. They cannot be revolutionaries, after all, who instigate some poor people to seize the lands of other poor people. These are some common but pertinent considerations — you must be alive to them.

    Sad history of forcible conversion of social property into individual property

    Remember, it is true the peasant is to wage struggle to get land, but he need not indulge in greed for land. To get land is a just demand of yours. Because, it was your ancestors who fought ferocious animals, cleared forestlands and dug up rocky wastes to make land cultivable. 'God created cultivable lands and made the landlords owners of these lands' — no, nobody became the owner that way. All members of society together made land suitable for cultivation. Long past, all men in society lived together divided into clans and they wandered from one place to another in quest of livelihood. Thus wandering they came to settle in different places in the course of that quest. Then it was almost humanly impossible struggles they had to carry out against tigers, say, and many other ferocious animals, against nature as a whole, and with inhuman toil they cleared forestlands and turned rocky and barren lands suitable for cultivation. After making the land suitable for cultivation when they settled down permanently and started raising crops then some chieftains among them who had greater muscle power and could use force in their interest became the owners of land, depriving others through sheer force. Who did thus forcibly appropriate the wealth which was created by the labour of all the people together ? They were the forefathers of the zemindars you know today.

    The big owners with their sleek look you witness today — some hundred or thousand years back their ancestors did not have so shapely, graceful feet, say, as today, they were not as gentlemanly then. They lived off muscle power, the gang leaders of robbers. In the initial stage they lived together with your forefathers, they struggled together. Afterwards, through sheer force they became the masters, the ruling elite, the feudal lords. Thereafter, during the British rule, they served the British and became the zemindars. So it happened that the lands which all people had one day collectively made fit for cultivation with hard toil and over which all the people of society had an equal right, the same lands were subsequently usurped through sheer force by a band of men who deprived you criminally. Therefrom came the monarchical system, feudalism from it, the zemindar system thereafter during the British rule. Now they have established individual ownership over lands. Now they are instilling it in you that these are all the properties of the owners and you are the slaves of the owners. So, as slaves, your sacred duty is to protect your master's property. That you are born slaves is the consequence of your sins in the preceding life. Whereas, the masters are born the owners as a reward for the virtuous work in their preceding life, so they drink and outrage women as they desire. On the other hand, for all your many commissions you have turned out to be their slaves today. For thousands of years they have been teaching you that the king is on a par with God. The king is God himself whether the king is a tyrant, he is given to drunken revelries, is an outrager of women. You are obliged to serve him. Driving this into your head they have even turned your mind servile. For, you have forgotten a history of thousands of years. There lies behind a sad history of how a handful of men became the owners of all lands and you became their slaves. You who will take on political activity, if you will just keep to struggling on the demand for land, wage-rise and relief, you cannot have fostered in you that sustainable strength to draw upon for that struggle. You ought to know this history. Leaders and cadres of the party will relate to you this history. As you will come to know of it, it will spark off a fire in you. How come you are slaves today in the same land which your ancestors had all collectively made fit for cultivation, together you had owned it collectively. And even if someone has belief in the existence of God, it has to be presumed that he by no means made anybody master or owner of the land. How were you dispossessed forcibly of the lands ? Later, when the owners set themselves up as the rulers in order to retain the ownership over this land, they made it the law and you came to submit to it, obeying the law as you went about, forgetting the sad history of how you got dispossessed of the lands.

    Later, towards the end of the British rule, under the Rayatwari Act [16] ownership was allowed to those who held tenancy of land. But, these land-tenants could hardly avail of this provision because of their ignorance, their lack of awareness and the weakness of the organization. The big landowners deprived them by fraud on legal provisions and, in connivance with officials, they usurped those lands. Afterwards, during the rule of the Congress government, when the Abolition of Middle Proprietary Act or the Zemindari Abolition Act was enacted — I told you about it earlier — poor peasants were deprived and others appropriated most of the lands in connivance with officials. Even so, the very few among you who got whatever land, could not retain the same land. How did that land go out of your hands ? It became the grist of the grinding mill of capitalist exploitation which in fact stands out at present as the main obstacle on your way to survival — the one without overthrowing which you have no prospect of emancipation. Should you now want to secure a firm base for your struggle against this prevailing capitalist social system, you should know the past history to some extent. Only in this way will you be able to sustain strength in this struggle. Only then could you free yourselves from the deceit of the religious sense, from the guiles of sense of property. Long back your ancestors were overwhelmed by muscle-men, by the might of chieftains, and they made you slaves. Grabbing the lands by force they became the masters. But the same poisoned blood runs in your veins too. For which you start scrambling among yourselves over possession of three meagre patches of land, or one patch of land — just that. This is the same poisoned blood as flows in the veins of the zemindars. They battle over big lands, you too are victim of the same illusion centring round land. Just for, say, two or three kathas, eight kathas, or a bigha or two of land, even poor peasants are fighting poor peasants over possession of land. On the contrary, it should have been your task that you will recover all benam and vested lands and you will distribute these lands first among those who are the most needy, the poorest and the most helpless by comparison, and ensure that no ill-feeling ensues among you by any means over this distribution. Because, ill-feeling will undermine the unity among you. Consequently, the ultimate struggle against capitalism will suffer.

    Abjure your individual interest for the cause of revolution and organization, learn revolutionary politics

    I said earlier, to grasp all these you are to learn the revolutionary politics. Only then you can realize all these. From whom will you learn the revolutionary politics and how ? Remember, to learn the revolutionary politics it is the prime requisite that in the first place you will recognize the revolutionary party and develop voluntary submission to that party. In the second place, learn the revolutionary politics, as you engage in day-to-day struggles, from those political workers equipped with the revolutionary politics who can reveal layer by layer the truth of everything around. But the fact is, you are just not following this. You do not participate in the organization to learn politics. Rather, you look for something or other from your organization. Or, you ask them to look after your court case. If your need could not be fulfilled, you get into a bad mood. I might ask you here whether the need to organize your revolutionary political party is to plead for your court cases. What is your necessity for the leader ? Remember, the leaders are the commanders of the people's army. They guide you in two ways. Firstly, they give you counsel, wise guidelines, help you build revolutionary character and teach you how to attain the right outlook to judge each problem. On the other, they acquaint you with the intricacies and concrete form of the struggle against your powerful enemy, its police-military organs, all its diverse means and trickeries. But, as things go, you do not learn these from your leaders. You would rather like them to work as pleaders for your case. To that I say, a pleader can be hired with money — what is the need of a revolutionary party for that ? You take the party workers to be your pleaders for free. You seem to think, since you have cast your vote for the party, you participate in the processions they organize and lend your voice for the slogans raised, so they will do the pleader's job for you for free. The truth is that they do it but not in return for something. To do it for you is part of their work. But you should realize, if you keep them busy this way for all the twentyfour hours a day, when are they going to teach you politics ? When will they organize you ? When will they build up your volunteer corps ?

    Another mentality is also noticeable in the ordinary-level peasants among you. Facing a problem, they would rather go straight to a leader of high level, if they get him close at hand, rather than go to the village committee. Their idea is that with a big leader his capacity to get them some concession is also greater. For this, they do not feel happy unless they approach the big leader. If this way thousands of peasants keep the high ranking leaders busy every day with their day-to-day problems, how could the party leaders get time to effect big plans for developing the organization, building party committees in the villages and larger areas, and imbue thousands of people with the revolutionary ideology to develop a steel-strong organizational base ? If you would persist in your practice of pleading with the leaders only for getting you a land, asking them to plead with the court offices in favour of your case, get something for you from the BDO[17] , arrange something for your son, and if you argue that some one else has got what he had asked for and so he can stay in the organization but why you will stay if you do not get your needs fulfilled, then you will be gravely harming your own cause. You need to remember, all this thinking goes against your revolutionary movement, your united struggles. Because, as a result of this mentality and mode of thinking, self-interest becomes more dominant than the greater interest of keeping the organization alive. As a result, the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation, the instrument of your day-to-day struggle, gets weakened. With the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation getting weakened, your collective interest comes to suffer in the end. You must therefore wage a resolute struggle against this mentality and train the peasant cadres with proper political education.

    There is another important issue in this regard which I intend to discuss with you. I explained firstly that so long as the capitalist state exists some of your problems might be solved through reforms within its framework or by realizing some demands in the course of movements. But unless this capitalist state could be overthrown with the force of revolution and seizure of power by workers and peasants did materialize, all the problems in the peasants' lives will not be solved, these cannot be solved. You should as well grasp clearly what this seizure of power by workers and peasants means. You should remember, that workers and peasants seizing power does not mean securing ministerial positions by formation of a government through elections within the framework of the present state. Workers and peasants seizing power means workers and peasants establishing their own state by overthrowing this capitalist state, workers and peasants setting up their own police-military organs in the place of the capitalist police-military organs, installing a system of justice conducive to the interests of workers and peasants in the place of the present judicial system of the capitalist state, that is, completely restructuring the judiciary anew on the basis of the socialist ideology and principles, this new system being conducted by those who are from the ranks of workers and peasants — in a word, workers and peasants themselves running their own state. Till creation of this situation, even though it may be possible to realize some demands in the course of movements or by way of negotiation with the authorities, the real problems of the poor people cannot be solved. Politically conscious peasant cadres will explain this point to others. Because, it is often seen that whenever an issue is not resolved and remains unresolved, some elements from an agent party of the owners come in to create division among you. They say many adverse things to sow confusion in you about your organization. Pointing to a leader of the organization they would say : 'Well, he is now an MLA, a minister at that, but what has he done for you ?' That leader did a lot for you, as far as possible, or, maybe, he could not do many things, and you can understand that it is not possible either to solve all the problems before revolution. So, it comes down to knowing which party it is which has taught the poor to stand up with head high for the cause of revolution — the revolution without which all your problems cannot be solved, which party it is which has taught the peasants to rally in their organization for the cause of revolution. This shall be the moot point with you. Whereas, over this issue at different times, even over trifles, serious confusions are seen to prevail among you. Taking full advantage of this, your opponent party and the agents of the enemy undermine your organization, the one which is the prime instrument for your struggle. So, you must give up this mentality in the interest of the struggle for your own emancipation.

    What should be the character of the organization

    Now I should discuss a few aspects concerning the organization. You should first realize what should be the character of that steel-strong organization which I am urging you to build up — I mean, in a word, the kind of organization at one whistle-call of which, a bugle call, a beat of drum, or a stroke on a dhol[18] all people in the village will at once rush out with anything handy as weapon. Say, the village party committee gave a call with drum-beat for rallying in a procession — at once all the youth, boys and girls together rose to their feet. They left aside the other jobs to be done later. For, they have understood, the organization is like the apple of the eye. If the eye is lost, man turns blind. Likewise, if the organization becomes weak then the collective strength of people becomes weaker too. Thus, such like shall be the character of the organization that on a single instruction from the party you can rise to your feet all prepared, be it for a meeting, a procession, a battle with the opponent, a contingency to proceed to a place, a rally in the locality or elsewhere. This ability to take a decision collectively on the basis of the party's ideology and base political line, this ability to move collectively is what we call the organization. You should remember that some people merely assembling under the signboard of the party, or gathering around some leaders and together engaging in activity under the direction of the leader — just these do not add up to be called a political organization. As is often found, in different areas each one of the cadres sits out waiting for instructions to come from leaders and when the instruction comes from above they probably try best to put the same into effect. But collectively on their own they cannot take a decision on the basis of the party's ideology and base political line, they cannot take initiative on an issue. Even if a number of people come together into a kind of loose structure, that cannot be called a proper political organization, let alone a revolutionary organization.

    Keep in mind also to resolve whatever bickerings arise among yourselves with the help of the party's local leadership — such should be the nature of the organization. Should it happen that you cannot agree to the decision of the local leadership then you will appeal to the higher committee or to a higher leader. But you must not move the court of law over issues involving yourselves, you must not disrupt the organization having developed bad blood, must not weaken the organization. Why do you need to go to court ? If the owners get you entangled in a court case, then of course you have to approach the court. But as poor people you should never go to the court over feuds among yourselves. You will resolve all your feuds at your own village committee, local party committee, or the local committee of the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation. If any disagreements persist at this level, you will appeal to the higher committee. No expending money here, no hassle, no fear of getting trapped by touts or unscrupulous lawyers. You don't have to be afraid of becoming destitutes, or of any divisions coming in between you. Even when you are going to die you leave behind your unity intact. Remember, to go against the party or the organization over personal antagonism or animosity under any circumstances is against the grain of a revolutionary, an ideologically imbued worker or peasant. Also you should remember, because the allegiance of the members of the organization to the party committee and the party leadership is voluntarily inspired so it remains unquestioning in the interest of revolution. The party shall be at the helm of the mass fronts. To belittle it is to undermine the base line of struggle itself. These are teachings you ought to take to heart and propagate and spread among others.

    Two types of organization — mass and party organization

    You should know, the organization in which you rally to build up your struggles collectively are of two types. Consider, for instance, that together you take out processions, you do gherao, submit your demands, hold meetings, at times you get into direct clashes with the jotedars and the police — all these you do from an organization which we call the own class organization of the agricultural labourers and peasants. As for example, the poor peasants' and agricultural labourers' own class organization of your village is the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation which brings together all the poor peasants and agricultural labourers into its fold for waging struggles. Besides, there are the other various organizations of the peasants — for example, the co-operative, the village defence force, the volunteer corps, etc. You should however realize, simply with these organizations you cannot carry out the big task, you cannot make much headway. What can you achieve at the most only with this type of organizations? You come out together in order to realize those few demands with these organizations which you feel will stall your life unless these are won immediately. When these demands are realized, or when repression comes heavily down upon you in the course of your movement to win these demands, or if repression is brought to bear heavily upon the organization, the organization faces disruption, it starts disintegrating completely. Some people flee the organization out of fear. Maybe some others turn into agents. Some start deserting, some others are afraid to show up. Maybe they will not say as much in words that they are scared, in reality though they flee from fear. In this type of organizations many betray such attitudes. These happen because the activists of these organizations lack revolutionary political consciousness and political organizational strength.

    There is a different type of organization which is built with those political workers who are tempered with revolutionary education and are from the mass organizations. It is the party organization. Within the mass organizations, those who are politically most conscious, who all have knowledge of the sad history of the lives of the workers and peasants, who know how man emerged in a long history after the origin of the earth, how agriculture came thereafter, how society was at that period, how did the lands collectively reclaimed turn into private property, what was the origin of private property in society, how arose the monarchy, the feudal lords, the babus, the usurers in the village community, the birth and development of capitalism, the capitalist state, the development of the industries, the proletariat class, the growth of the unemployment problem — that is, who know and understand the entire history of the woes and sufferings of the common people, and at the same time who know how to tackle all these, how to establish the workers' and peasants' state by overthrowing the present capitalist state, to run that state, to organize the army of the people, organize the police system, conduct the judiciary, and conduct the ideological propaganda as well as the ideological and theoretical struggle, in fact, those who will unitedly wage the battle against the present capitalist state and its police and military, staking their lives in this battle, never to betray its cause, never conducting themselves in debased and mean culture but possessing higher ethical and cultural standard, who are capable of performing the roles of commanders in the revolutionary struggle of the masses — it is comprising them that the party organization develops. So, we, the Marxist-Leninists, the revolutionaries, call them the members of the party organization who carry out the task of revolution having mastered revolutionary politics, who will transform the social order, change the world.

    You should also know that within the party organization, in every locality, the higher party organization takes concrete shape in the party committee, the committee under which you work. Can this party committee be formed picking up anyone and everyone ? No. The party committee has to be formed with those from among the party workers who are capable of politically analysing all local problems whatsoever from the party's angularity and resolving them by maintaining party leadership over the common people. They lead the common people in their movements, at the same time they keep watch on the propaganda of the opponent party and expose the real character of these propaganda so that peasants and labourers are not misled. They also remain alert so that no agents from outside get an opportunity to carry out factional activities among peasants and labourers. They should have the ability to take care of all the problems of the agricultural labourers and peasants of the locality — for instance, the problems of fixing the minimum wage of the agricultural labourers, availability of round-the-year job, wage-increase in keeping with price-rise, the problem of irrigation, getting fertilizers and seeds at cheap rates, problems relating to lands, those arising from day-to-day struggles, keeping peasants and labourers ever alert against all trickeries and misleading propaganda by the opponent parties. They should be capable of taking appropriate steps to maintain the unity and solidarity of peasants and agricultural labourers against any attempts of the hostile agent party to disrupt their unity. They are to be equipped so as to be able to take political classes of the peasants. In plain language, the party committee is the body which is capable of conducting all these tasks, acting in unison. From time to time they will approach the leaders to get an understanding of the plans and programmes, but every day they do not send the common peasants to the leaders. Rather, they themselves meet the necessities of common peasants and labourers.

    I should tell you one more point here. Poor people in the village who become members of the committee, or members of the party, often ask a question. They argue : 'We are poor, at home we have problems of providing food for the family, or problems relating to farming, in fact a thousand problems in the family concerning wife and children. Where is the time to attend to the party work ?' Thus, whatever the party work assigned, it remains unattended. In situations like this the party committee becomes a party committee in name only. Remember, you are members of the party committee, which is to say, you are the most conscious section of party workers, you are the ones who are most eligible to be party volunteers. If you cannot come forward upholding the mentality and mental bent to go ahead disregarding all sorts of personal loss then all those around, those who are weak in mind, who lack revolutionary education and revolutionary political consciousness — they will become further weakened. All the more, this way of rationalization and posing of individual problems obviously will have greater retrograde effect on them. You should therefore understand, for the class conscious revolutionary worker this is entirely a wrong line of thinking. Because, the necessity to accomplish revolution with a view to overthrowing this exploitative capitalist system is greatest for the proletariat and semi-proletariat. If you are to win emancipation, even in the midst of these all too many wants and troubles flowing from your sufferings under capitalist exploitation, it is for you to come out, it is for you to take the initiative. Those in this society who live in ease and comfort, they will not do it for you. In all countries where revolution has been successful, if you will read the histories of these countries, you will gather that it was because the workers and peasants there, thousands in numbers, could rise above their personal needs and sufferings, and singularly they devoted themselves to carrying out the task of revolution — so revolution could succeed there.

    Class correlation in the background of anti-capitalist revolution in India

    Now try to understand clearly who is the main enemy of the revolution you are to accomplish in order to overthrow the Indian capitalist state, and who are your allies. In a word, understand clearly the correlation of classes in this society. Remember, the capitalists, the owners of benam lands, the big jotedars, big businessmen, the usurers, and the political party of theirs — the Congress — also the police-military of this state, and the bureaucrats and officials — these are the enemy of this revolution. Whereas, the life-force of the revolution is the industrial workers of the urban areas and the landless peasants, agricultural labourers and poor peasants of the villages. Besides, you are to draw into the fold of revolution the middle class and the lower middle-class in towns and villages so that they do not become counter-revolutionary and join the enemy's camp. With respect to the middle peasants and lower strata of the middle peasants of the villages you will have to conduct yourselves with such an attitude and ideological approach. Remember, not to speak of the urban lower-middle class, even the rural lower-middle class do not always stand against the class struggle unlike the police, the military, the officials of the judiciary, other reactionary officers, the capitalist class itself, big businessmen, big jotedars in the countryside and the reactionary upper-middle class who are all outright opponents of the communist movement and the emancipation struggle as well as class struggles of the workers and peasants. True, the rural middle-class, even the lower-middle class also, have a common tendency to oppose the class struggle. Since however they are also under attack, they are also victim of exploitation, peace is wanting in their families too, so if you pursue a realistic and effective approach in regard to them you can win them over to your side in the struggle for emancipation — though not as steadfast and unfaltering fighters, but as vacillating allies. If you can strongly organize the poor in the villages, if you can raise a strong storm of mass movements, movements of peasants and labourers against rich peasants, if you can build party committees in all rural areas and under the leadership of the party committee give birth to a steel-strong organization of landless peasants, agricultural labourers and poor peasants so that all the poor people in the village rise to their feet at one call, its impact is sure to fall upon the rural middle-class, and, in that event, it will be easier for you to rally them in your struggle.

    Rally the rural middle-class and lower-middle class in the anti-capitalist revolutionary struggle

    There is another point which too you should explain to the middle class. It is that the poor peasants of today have come from breakdown of the middle-class families. Young members of middle-class families do not get employment. They cannot move up the ladder to become bigwigs, they cannot take to big business and earn fabulous riches. When the crop is harvested, the middle class too has to sell out their produce to the traders at low prices. How many middle class peasants are there in this Birbhum district, who like Baidyanath Banerjee the owner of thousands of bighas of land and owner of coal mines, can store their produce in cold storages in their individual capacity ? And the owners build cold storages for business purpose, not for their own consumption. But a middle class peasant cannot store his produce even for the purpose of his own consumption. They have to sell out all their produce at the time of harvesting. The price at which they sell out to the traders is one, and the price at which they have to buy the same articles from the traders is one-and-a-half times to two times that. So, the condition of the middle class is not good either. It started from them that by the process of economic disintegration the poor peasants, agricultural labourers and landless peasants have arisen. If the middle class who own today, say, forty or fifty bighas of land have to live on land only, then under the impact of price-rise and due to growth of the family they gradually turn into lower-middle class peasants, then poor peasants, finally agricultural labourers. Therefore, unless the capitalist social system of India is demolished, the dominance of the village jotedars and owners of benam lands brought to an end, the absolute control over the rural commodity by businessmen and the stock exchange broken down, that is, the rural economy rid of their control, the problems of the middle class too — problems concerning improvement of cultivation, modernization of agriculture, necessary education and employment for the young members of their families — these will not be solved. Then why should they hang around the babus, the big landlords, the owners and go against the poor peasants and labourers and thus make both sides hostile ? To grow bigger, the high and the mighty do not only exploit the agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants, they also deprive and exploit the middle class. Continually grabbing the lands of the middle class the big rich peasants concentrated vast lands in their hands and thus they became big jotedars. The village usurers cheat the middle class and the poor peasants and thus they run their money lending business. You should explain it to the middle class that they do not belong to the rich and it does not serve them to stay close to the babus. Explain it that in the given situation if they stay close to the rich and oppose the poor, how could the poor protect them from the rich ? Therefore they should not unnecessarily embroil themselves in conflict with the poor. On the contrary, if poor peasants and agricultural labourers have the middle class as allies in the battle against capitalism, the main enemy, against the big jotedars and the oppressive government of the country, then the local minor issues of conflict between the middle class, on the one hand, and the poor peasants and agricultural labourers, on the other hand, could be resolved easily under the leadership of the party committees. The local party committees can see to it that the middle class suffers less and the poor peasants demand less from them. However, in that case, the middle class must come to the help of the struggle of the agricultural labourers, poor and landless peasants. You could thus persuade the middle class and rally them in your movements.

    Isolate the enemy from the broad masses

    On your part you should realize too that winning the middle class over to your side is, to be sure, in the interest of your broadest struggle against the enemy. Because, if the middle class, the intermediary between you and your enemy, join strength with your enemy because of your wrong handling, that will only go to strengthen the hands of your enemy. On the other, if you can draw the middle class to your side by treading the correct line, you can thereby isolate the enemy from the broader masses and it will be easier for you to build your struggle stronger. So, you understand well, it is not wise for you too to conduct yourselves with unnecessary hostility towards the middle class. Unless the middle class themselves invite conflict, you should not turn them into your opponents in your main struggle against the big capitalists and the jotedars. If they, regarding themselves as the high and the mighty, do not treat you in an inimical way you should not get into conflict with them. Because, to win the battle, it is as much a task of yours, on the one hand, to create division in the enemy camp, as is, on the other, isolating the enemy from the broader masses as far as possible also a task of yours. That will make the battle less tough for you. But keep in mind here that if you try to get the middle class on your side by appeasing them, allowing indulgence to their opportunism due to their vacillating character, you will never succeed in your bid. Only if you can build your organization on the firm foundation of revolutionary political consciousness of all the agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants of your village, will it be possible for you to effectively hold the middle class in the fold of the revolutionary movement. You should be vigilant also about another nature of the middle class. In regard to this keep always vigil on them even as you will be trying to draw in the middle class as an ally of your movement. Keep in mind, even as they may join your movement as an ally, they are the vacillating ally. They always move with a babu-like attitude. There is very much a tendency in them to despise the poor, the ploughman, farm workers, the landless peasants and agricultural labourers. Not that everyone has this attitude, but many have it. Because they have this tendency, and they have an inclination to rise to upper levels and be rich, they may inflict harm to the movement from within as and when the opportunity may come their way, even while they are fighting alongside you. So, at the same time as you will try constantly to draw the middle class into your movement and rally them with you, you will also be watchful about them.

    If you are class conscious, you should also realize that to win your battle, and this is a common tactics in a battle, you will try to create division in the enemy camp in your own interest, should that be possible, and you will take advantage of any possible antagonism within the enemy camp. For example, in the antagonism between one jotedar and another, if you can handle one side a bit, that is, if you can tactfully handle one side and can manoeuvre to engineer a clash in the enemy camp itself, you get some advantage to crush the enemy. This is a common tactics in every battle. Often, however, it is seen that if an attempt is made to handle the antagonism between one rich person and another, some among you immediately get agitated over it. Because, they think a close liaison is perhaps being maintained with that rich person. You should give up this sort of foolish attitude. Remember, the more you could widen the rift in the enemy camp, the more you could foment contradiction and conflicts among them, the less severe would be their attack on you and the stronger will be the impact of your counterattack on the enemy. But in this regard you must constantly keep vigil so that no one could ever take recourse to it from personal fascination, personal consideration, keeping the party in the dark about it. It has to be undertaken always under the party committee's directive and party guidance. Else, this in itself will beget opportunism in the active workers of the organization. These are things to be understood very clearly.

    Build workers' and peasants' own powerful volunteer corps

    And, you have to build up your own powerful, disciplined and ideologically tuned volunteer corps. In this regard you should realize, first of all, that wearing a volunteer badge or participating in drills for some days does not make one a volunteer. A volunteer is one who serves a cause on his own will, which means he serves not in lieu of a payment. If you offer money, could there be a dearth of men willing to put in service ? So, one who argues : 'That person is an MLA, so I am serving him in the hope he will do something for me,' he cannot be a volunteer. He who serves for a reward, or does it hankering after something or in lieu of a remuneration is not reckoned a volunteer. Who were volunteers in fact ? Those sannyasis[19] of the past — Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, for example — and those of the freedom struggle — revolutionaries like Netaji Subhas, Kshudiram, Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukdev, for example — who all laid down their lives for the cause of the country. They did their work or courted death not in lieu of money from anyone. These were the men whose names immediately come to mind when one talks of volunteers, men who are revered by all — like the religious preachers of the past, later the social reformers, then the fighters of the national liberation struggles. Volunteers are those whose job is to work for others selflessly like these noble men, forsaking homes, families and kins, enduring scolding from every corner, sparing all consideration for own comforts. This is the same country however where today many of you enquire, if approached for enrolment as a volunteer : 'How much you say is the allowance to be paid to become a volunteer?' To such a low level have people of this country been induced to stoop in their thinking that they ask as to how can they be volunteers if no remuneration were paid even for some snacks and pocket money. You see this is the way they are accustomed to think. The bourgeois parties and the pseudo red flag-waving parties of this country contributed no less in creating this mental attitude among the people. Not to speak of the bourgeois parties, even the socialists and the pseudo red flag-waving parties have introduced the practice of engaging cadres in exchange of money in such a widespread manner that its harmful effect seems to escape notice of all. Because of the role of these parties, this degenerate mentality is gradually taking grip on the people and the party cadres, and also because of this the idea of a noble ideology ingrained in the word volunteer, prevailing at a time, has been obscured and muddled up today. For this, even many among you have no prick of conscience and quite easily you grow accustomed to thinking as to how you can undertake to do anything without being paid. I would put in : 'Why do people who think in these terms need to be volunteers ? They better go and enrol as police constables.' Remember, they are to be volunteers who have the consciousness grown in them that they will transform this society, they will usher in a new world. They will be the volunteers, those youth, who take on willingly this great responsibility, no matter whether they have to go with or without the barest of necessities, those who feel proud that they bear this responsibility.

    Consider, for example, the instance of the peasants and workers of China who fought against the mercenary army of Ziang Ky-shek that received assistance from the different capitalist countries, especially from America. That mercenary army had the privilege of full military dresses, arms, vehicles, etc., together with regular salaries and also various illegitimate means of earning lots. Whereas, those peasants and workers who fought these mercenaries backed by capitalism and imperialism had none of these. Some wore a pajama, some wore lungis, some others half-pants, some had a vest to wear, some others a shirt to put on and even these were often torn — again some wore cloth-shoes, and some without this benefit even, went on fighting barefooted. Such was the look of the People's Liberation Army there. But it is the People's Liberation Army which ultimately inflicted a crushing defeat on the mercenary army paid by America and Ziang Ky-shek and drove them out of the country. What was the source of the strength with which they achieved this ? On the strength of dresses ? Or, was it on the strength of arms ? Look at how people in the jungles of Vietnam are fighting today. Children from peasant families, some twelve or thirteen years old, those whom we call kids, they too carry rifles on their shoulders. Even while they are doing chores at home, farming lands, as soon as they hear the bugle sounding for battle they leave aside the work on hand as it is, they even put down their food, get up from their beds, in whatever state they are they rush out with their rifles. It is for this that so big a power as America which has razed down that country by pouring down bombs, which spends thousands of crores of rupees every day for this war, which is out to slaughter the people of that land with its arms, tanks, napalm bombs and modern weaponry — even this America with all of these perpetrations now stands faced with defeat. It is thinking now, how it can flee Vietnam[20]. Why could not America win the war in Vietnam after all these ? It is because peasants in every village there, everyone from aged mothers even to the children in every family have ranged up in the battlefield there. All stand by a single vow — America has to be driven out. If you have nothing else on hand, take up your kitchen knife to fight the enemy. If that too is unavailable, just bite the enemy down with your teeth — so firm is the resolve, so prepared are all to court death. A scramble goes on there among them to lay down life. You will be astonished to learn, the peasants and workers fighting in Vietnam have a squad, which they call 'suicide squad'. They enlist themselves in that squad to lay down their lives. Such suicide squads of ten or twenty people, equipped with bombs and other firearms, enter the enemy camp all on a sudden. There they kill the enemy as many as they can and themselves die. There goes on a scramble to get enlisted in the suicide squad. Their sense of pride or picquance is over who will go ahead of others. One who fails to have the chance of going first has his sentiments churned up : 'You did not send me first, am I any the less ? Am I not capable of sacrificing my life for the country ? Am I incapable of fighting for revolution ? Am I not a son worthy of a peasant family ? Am I a simpleton, a good for nothing who thinks only of his self and evades his task ? I too am the son of a peasant family who considers it the highest honour to lay down his life for liberation movement.' Such is the attitude every peasant and worker of that country betrays. Could this be ever achieved by mercenaries ? Just realize, this is the character of a true volunteer. In this way, you too will have to raise all the people with revolutionary spirit and realization. So, you realize, those who will become volunteers, they don't do so in return for money. Whatever little they will need while they carry out their task, they will collect the same in bits, collect them from thousands — one paise from everyone, a handful of rice from every man — this will do for you. But carry out your task you must. For that you do require volunteers — such volunteers who are imbued with right spirit and realization.

    Tasks of volunteers

    What will these volunteers do ? They will keep track of the movement of the enemy. Who are the enemy agents entering into the village, which families they are visiting, whom they are trying to confound — the volunteers will gather information about all these. These men of the opponent parties will be trying to undermine the mass movement and the organization — not of course by convincing the masses on politics, but by raking up their base instincts, or by means of muscle power, or by alluring them. The volunteer will keep constant vigil so that these men cannot undermine people's organizations and movements, the volunteers will by all means guard the masses against this evil influence. They will organizedly guard the party meetings. They will seat people at a meeting in a disciplined way. While they will listen to the deliberation of the meeting, they will keep vigil like an eagle on everything around at the same time so that the opponent party or the people of the enemy camp cannot break up the meeting. They will protect the distressed in the villages. They will provide protection to women from those who may try to outrage the women. If wayward youths humiliate the aged or old people, they will sternly take them to task. Again immediately after, they will affectionately, like a friend explain to them where they were wrong. They will explain that this is not proper. Because, these people are aged, they are like fathers. Maybe they did something wrong, or said something unjust. But they are like our fathers. It is our duty to protect their honour, the respect that is due to them. It is a human duty. If we fail in this, we cannot claim ourselves to be humans. Educate them this way. Don't turn them into your enemy. Thus it is a major duty of the volunteers that they will respect women, they will be paying respects to the aged and will protect their honour whenever someone will violate it. First stop them who show disrespect, then try to educate them with an attitude of sympathy. Even after this if they don't pay heed, despise them and take appropriate steps against them.

    And it shall be the task of the volunteers that when the masses will take to the battle against the enemy, like army generals they will lead them forward. The volunteers shall learn how to fight the battle, how to advance the combat, when to retreat, and when to encircle the enemy from all sides and overrun them. For this purpose the volunteers are to be trained up. To train them up thus and guide them in a disciplined way, the volunteer corps is to be divided into small groups with a commander heading each group. The commanders are to perform a twin task at once. Firstly they will have to impart practical training to the volunteers, while at the same time in order to imbue them with revolutionary political consciousness and temper them with revolutionary character they will have to impart political education. In this context, the volunteers, too, should bear in mind a very important teaching. The teaching is, for all the party is the highest commander. It is correct, the volunteers will obey what the commander of the group will ask them to do. But, remember, so long as it is the party's assignment, so long as the party holds him as its assigned commander and he obeys the party leadership, he is your leader. But if he turns against the party, if he violates the party discipline or seeks to disobey the party leadership or treats the party leadership with disrespect, then the commander in question should be apprehended immediately and handed over to the leadership. He has to be removed. Your allegiance to the party and to the party's highest leadership should be unquestioning. Remember, without a firm base of discipline no volunteer corps can carry on its task. In the background of the threat that looms before the mass movement today, raising such type of powerful, highly disciplined volunteer corps dedicated to ideology is an essential requisite in the interest of your movements.

    Identify the genuine party of the poor

    Discussing one more issue I will conclude my discussion today. What should be your guiding outlook to decide which is the genuine party of the poor among the many parties active in our country today — you have to grasp something of it in your own simple way. For, there are many parties who claim themselves as communists, who fly the red banner and talk of Marxism-Leninism. Today in fact there is no scope for going into details of the histories of these pseudo red flag-waving parties, their day-to-day political manoeuvres and practices, their base political lines. About these I have discussed elsewhere in plenty, other leaders of the party have done it too, and our formulated views on these have already come out in print in many organs and booklets. In this discussion today I am going to say a few words concerning only one aspect of the conduct of the leaders and cadres of these parties. I know, not everything will be clear, in fact it cannot be fully clear from what I am going to say in this regard in my discussion here. Still then, a brief discussion on these is necessary.

    Firstly, if you look at this Birbhum district and judge for yourselves you can realize who actually did awaken the poor people here — people who were not regarded as humans, even the other day, rather were despised as subhuman creatures, the babus dealing with them with a whip hand.

    These so-called Marxist parties in our country existed since long before our party started work and they had been trying as they could to expand their organizational base under the banner of Krishak Sabha and Krishak Samity, and so forth. But none of them had so long tried to awaken the agricultural labourers and poor peasants in the villages by organizing them, nor did they at all try to build a separate class organization of their own. They are not trying it even now. Observe closely and you will find that just like the bourgeois parties, just like the Congress, these sham Marxist parties and socialists rely mainly on the rich farmers and the well-off middle class babus in matters of organization in the rural areas. And with the help of these babus they seek to enlist the rural poor in their respective mass organization and party. It is not difficult at all to realize the real character of these parties — notwithstanding their hollow tall talk about class struggle, Marxism-Leninism and socialism — parties which make no attempt to build the agricultural labourers' and poor peasants' own, separate class organization, parties which instead talk of drawing together, irrespective of class character, the rich and well-to-do peasants and the agricultural labourers, poor and lower-middle peasants in the same organization — and this in a country where, even at a conservative estimate, fiftythree to fiftyfive per cent of the rural people are landless peasants and agricultural laboures, and, with the poor peasants added, the figure comes to around sixtyeight to seventy per cent.

    Although, now, some of these parties sometimes talk of building an organization of the agricultural labourers' own — this long after our party, the SUCI built up the Krishak O Khetmajur Federation as a separate class organization of the agricultural labourers' and poor peasants' own — yet in practice these parties continue to organize the rich and well-to-do peasants along with the agricultural labourers and poor peasants in the same organization in the main, that is, in Krishak Sabha, Krishak Samity and so forth. This goes to deny the ever-present class struggle in the rural society between the rich peasants, jotedars and well-off middle peasants, on the one hand, and the agricultural labourers and poor peasants, on the other hand. And, actually, it is recourse to class collaboration in the place of leading the class struggle in the countryside, and this means nothing but sacrificing the interests of the agricultural labourers, poor and lower-middle peasants at the feet of the rich and well-off middle peasants. There are of course reasons for this manoeuvre by these parties. Just study the base political line of these parties and you will realize that this manoeuvre, no matter the rhetorics, is in perfect agreement with their base political line. Because, what they advocate — national democratic revolution or people's democratic revolution — in either case the rich peasants are considered an ally. So, it is easy to understand that the party which considers the rich peasants an ally of revolution in the present situation of our country can never organize genuine class struggles against the rich peasants. On the other hand, ignoring the vast masses of the agricultural labourers, poor and lower-middle peasants in the villages, that is, ignoring the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat, it is not possible for any party to build rural organizations. So, it is the compulsion of reality which forces these parties to talk of the agricultural labourers and poor peasants.

    The poor who so long had been trodden down with whip hand, all these parties did not come forward these years to help these poor people rise on their feet with honour, or build their own, separate class organization on the principle of class struggle. At present too they are not making any such attempts. It is the SUCI which for the first time awoke these poor people in the rural areas, helped them stand on their feet with honour, and built their own class organization in this district and in different other districts of West Bengal. All of you present here, know this. In this country it is the SUCI alone which has built the own, separate organization of the landless peasants, agricultural labourers and poor and lower middle peasants on the principle of class struggle against the rich peasants whom we call, in the Marxist-Leninist vocabulary, the rural bourgeois. This is because, the Indian state is a capitalist state. The national bourgeoisie here are saddled in state power. Therefore, without overthrowing the bourgeoisie from the state power, it is not possible to establish here the workers' and peasants' state, emancipation of the exploited masses is not possible either. In my discussion I have also shown why those who are owners of big lands cannot be called today feudal landlords. They are transformed now into the rural bourgeoisie and they represent the ruling bourgeois in the countryside. Without waging ceaseless class struggles against them, revolution cannot be materialized in any way whatsoever. As you know from your own experience, it is primarily against the rich peasants or jotedars that you have to conduct your day-to-day struggles in the village — whether for land, for wage-rise, for the due share of crops, against eviction or against injustice and oppression of so many kinds. And whenever conflict ensues between you and the rich farmers or the well-to-do middle peasants and you have no other way than to organize your resistance movement against their exploitation and the injustice perpetrated by them, the government and the police force are seen to stand by these rich farmers and the well-to-do middle peasants against you. To crush your legitimate movement repression is brought to bear upon you. This in itself goes to demonstrate that the rich farmers and the well-to-do middle peasants are the strong base of the bourgeois class rule and exploitation in the countryside. For this, the police force of the bourgeois government are ever ready to protect their interests. It is thus the rich farmers or jotedars and the well-to-do middle peasants — who go against the struggle of the agricultural labourers and poor peasants and whom you regard as the babu community — they are the class enemy of yours, that is, of the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat in the countryside.

    If you find a party, although it claims to be Marxist-Leninist or socialist, building up a peasants' organization in which rich farmers, well-off middle peasants together with the agricultural labourers, poor and lower-middle peasants are its members — then whose organization it becomes in reality ? Whose interests are protected by this organization ? Yours ? Or, the rich peasants' ? In reality, no class struggle is waged by it against the rich farmers and well-off middle peasants who are the main pillars of the organization, lest they turn hostile — only crocodile tears are shed for agricultural labourers, landless peasants and poor peasants and some empty fire-spitting revolutionary slogans are mouthed. Observe carefully, you will find that the peasant organization of each of the parties like the CPI, CPI(M), Socialist Party, has this character. Now that the poor masses are awakening because of the impact of the SUCI, these parties are coming to realize that unless they can hold back the poor people in their fold by any means whatsoever they cannot hope to reap large dividends in their election-oriented politics. Thus, it is out of concern for their politics of electoral dividends that they have donned the cloak of the poor man's friend and are out now to create division among the poor. To hold both the agricultural labourers and poor peasants back in their organizations they are howling against the government only, sparing the rich farmers and well-off middle peasants. In too vague terms they are talking big of revolution. Keep these words in mind, don't ever miss them.

    Free the masses from influence of sham red flag-waving parties

    All these parties, who are known in India as communist parties or red flag-waving parties, are much older than our party. But decadence has set in in these parties. They are transformed into privileged parties. Just like everything else of the aristocratic families of our society are melting away, except for vain attempts to maintain outward grandeur, and just like they have turned parasites, so also in the sphere of political movements there are some privileged parties. Under various signboards of the red flag-waving party, namely, Communist Party, Communist Party (Marxist), Socialist Party, they carry on activities among the people. The roles these parties play in the communist movement, in the movements of the workers and peasants in our country, are much the same as of the aristocratic families I mentioned. All the utterings and slogans are there alright but for the living soul of revolution and revolutionary ideology. They are revolutionaries in rhetorics and slogans — and for that the trickery of keeping their cadres constantly incited in false militant posture is the only means on which they rely today. Each of them talks of revolution. But we hardly need to spare many words for them. Watch them closely and you will discover that the intellect of these sham revolutionaries is found to be very sharp in the matter of the security and increase of their personal properties. Of course, as is everywhere, there are a few good workers among them too. But as for their leaders and the high-ups among most of their cadres, they are deeply conscious of their personal properties and family interests. They ensure their interests first and then they come out to do good to the people. This is how they deceive the masses. Actually, in the name of revolution, these parties create division among the people and in practice they are seen to be more enthusiastic about opposing the genuine revolutionary party than the class enemy. Unless you can free the poor masses from the influence of these sham revolutionaries, it will not be possible to make gigantic preparations for leading revolution through to success. So it is your onus to expose the real character of these parties before the common people and free them from all confusion.

    Remember, this struggle is a great battle. It is no battle of a mercenary army. It is a revolution, staking everything to save the country from deep distress, to free industry, agriculture, the rural life, the decadent urban life, the cultural life of the nation, even science and technical education from the shackles of capitalist oppression, from its vicious cycle of looting profits. Today that great onus of revolution devolves upon the workers and the peasants. Remember, the babus will not achieve this revolution for you. A handful of them may come to you, imbued with the revolutionary ideology, abjuring their class interest and at the most try to arouse you to take on the leadership of the revolution. But this revolution will materialize successfully only that day when revolutionary cadres and leaders in large numbers, who are adequately equipped for the party task, will rise from the families of workers and peasants, and workers and peasants in the towns and villages will get organized into a steel-strong army under their leadership. Till then you will stride on with dream in your eyes for the revolution, you will engage in inconceivable toil to make preparation for the revolution. Till then revolution will not come forth, it will remain a distant cry. When you will all arise and in every village you will develop party workers worthy to be leaders equal to the party task and build powerful party committees, under whose guidance the poor masses in the villages will march like one soldier, one soul and one body, inspired by the political revolutionary ideology and together bound in discipline like an army, and treading the correct revolutionary base political line, no power on earth can resist revolution in India that day with arms, army and armoured tanks. Have trust at least in these words of mine.

    I conclude my address here today. To all of you, those who are here as delegates from different districts, who took part in the deliberations, who all listened to me for this long, I extend my greetings. My red salute to you.

    Long Live Krishak O Khetmajur Federation !

    Long Live S U C I !

    Long Live Revolution. !


    Notes

    1. KKMF, Organization later changed its name to All India Krishak O Khetmazur Sangathan (AIKKMS)

    2. A district in West Bengal.

    3. Land in excess of ceiling limits and appropriated by big land holders under fictitious titles to help them circumvent legal provisions.

    4. Rich peasants owning huge land, the rural bourgeoisie

    5. Native landlords required to pay land tax to the former British government.

    6. Bigha is a measure of land that equals to one third of an acre, approximately.

    7. Refers to the year 1350 of Bengali calendar (1943 AD), when a great famine broke out in Bengal.

    8. A crore is ten millions.

    9. popular sweet of Bengal.

    10. Sugarcane juice, dried.

    11. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister.

    12. Student organization of the Congress.

    13. Youth organization of the Congress.

    14. This has reference to the CPI(M)'s Task on the Peasant Front.

    15. An Indian land measure, equalling one-twentieth of a bigha.

    16. Act which allowed ownership of land to rayats, i.e., peasants who cultivated lands of the zemindars on fixed rents and terms.

    17. Block Development Officer, a government official in charge of an administrative block.

    18. A native percussion instrument accompanying village festivities and also played before public announcements.

    19. A sannyasi is a Hindu monk.

    20. This address was given in March, 1970. In January of 1973 US imperialism was compelled to concede the demand for withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam and sign a treaty to the effect.


    Shibdas Ghosh Internet Archive  |   Marxism and Anti-Imperialism in India

    http://www.marxists.org/archive/shibdas-ghosh/1970/03/29.htm

    Main Features of the Peasant Movement

    [From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress, 1997.]

    1) To summarise, we find that the land question still remains the major question in many areas. However, as the degree of implementation of land reforms differs from one state to another, the general slogan of advancing land reforms also takes different forms in different states.

    2) Establishing people's control over common property such as minor irrigation sources (Ahar, Pokhar, Talab etc.), rivers and sandbanks etc. is a major agenda of struggle. Generally, feudals and mafia groups exercise control over them.

    3) The questions of wages, equal wages for equal work for men and women, better working conditions, homestead land and pucca houses etc. are more or less common demands of the rural proletariat throughout the country. In the case of land grants it should be demanded that pattas should be issued in the names of both men and women.

    4) Issues of corruption in panchayats, in block offices where money intended for relief to the rural poor or for the benefit of small and middle peasants is siphoned off by corrupt officials in league with powerful landlords and kulak groups who also control the political power are very important in popular mobilisation.

    5) Tribal questions, whether they are reflected through the Jharkhand movement or in the movements of hill districts and other tribal areas of Assam, or in the girijan movement in Andhra Pradesh etc. are essentially peasant questions, and therefore usurpation of tribal land by usurers/merchants, rights over forest land and forest produce etc., are major questions in these areas.

    6) Wherever the movement assumes intensity, private armies of landlords or the goons of the reactionary political parties resort to killing Party leaders and cadres and organise massacres of people. Police atrocities also invariably follow.

    7) Anarchist organisations which are degenerating into money-collecting machines are indulging in a killing-spree of our cadres and people, and are using ultra-left rhetoric to the hilt to cover up their dubious links and their dirty mission of disrupting organised mass movements.

    The following points merit serious attention:

    A. We think that owing to considerable variations in the agrarian situation, a general peasant movement at national level, and therefore a consolidated all-India peasant body, would not have much of relevance. An all-India coordination body to exchange experiences and occasionally issue policy statements and organise seminars, workshops etc. is enough. Even in the states, district or regional level kisan sabha formations may have to play important autonomous roles, as in big states conditions vastly differ from one region to another. Demand-specific and area-specific peasant organisations may also play an important role in mobilising the broad peasantry.

    Due attention should be paid to strengthening the organisational functioning of the kisan sabha at district and local levels. In many areas, kisan sabha membership falls much short of our influence among the peasantry and is often even less than the number of people mobilised in our programmes. Live functioning of the village committees holds the key to the vibrancy of the kisan sabha organisation, even amidst severe enemy repression. These committees should regularly convene village general body meetings of the peasant association, discuss the problems of the movement, and membership renewal — and even recruitment — should preferably be done in GBs. The village committees should be strengthened with the perspective of developing them as local organs of people's power. Training local militias and building up of village self-defence squads should be undertaken in a planned manner.

    A legal cell to take care of cases and a special team to maintain contact with comrades in jail need to be developed.

    Where feasible, women's cells should be formed within the kisan sabha organisations.

    Contradictions among people may better be handled by local kisan sabha units instead of the Party directly plunging into them in the first instance. Otherwise there remains no authority to which aggrieved sections can turn to and this results in their alienation. Our experience shows that anarchist groups as well as forces like Ranvir Sena are quite adept in using such contradictions against us. Therefore, contradictions among people must be handled prudently and carefully and through the kisan sabha.

    B. The question of agrarian labourers however is increasingly assuming greater importance in the agrarian scene as well as in national politics. The demand for central legislation relating to them is becoming a powerful one. The process of increasing capitalist penetration of whichever variety in agriculture — under the auspices of liberalisation and globalisation — will further push the question of agricultural labourers to the fore.

    Moreover, as sections of intermediate castes are also emerging as important power groups, the agrarian movement can only find itself confronting increasingly wide-ranging sections of capitalist farmers and rich peasants. Movements of agrarian labourers, therefore, shall assume important political connotations. To prepare for the future, we shall have to organise a preparatory committee to study the issue in depth and explore the possibility of launching an agrarian labourers organisation.

    C. When we get trapped in wars of attrition against private armies, the functioning of peasant associations or movements on peasant issues are left behind. Such a situation is of course forced on us and we can do little to avoid it. But how, then, to continue the functioning of peasant association is a paramount question which we have not been able to solve as yet. We repeatedly tried to use any lull period to activate such movements but no proper mechanism could be developed. Initiatives from state-level peasant association leadership at this juncture may be of crucial importance. And demand-specific organisations may come in handy to tackle such situations.

    D. The spate of massacres that we faced in the last few years have raised many questions inside and outside the Party. The most simplistic formulation was provided by anarchists and a section of expert commentators living in the safe world of the media who opined that as CPI(ML) has given up the armed struggle and taken up parliamentary struggle, landlords are taking up the revenge for the 1970s, i.e., for annihilations carried out 25 years ago! This is highly mischievous and subjective thinking at its most absurd.

    As Marxists we must understand that the emergence of a new breed of private army and the present spate of massacres are intimately related with the dynamics of present-day politics. If one probes deeper, one can easily see that the intensity of operations of private armies is concentrated mainly in areas where we have thrown up a serious parliamentary challenge to major ruling parties. Sahar and Sandesh assembly constituencies of Bhojpur and Mairwan and Darauli of Siwan are such areas. Even JMM (Mardi)-sponsored MCC killings in Bishungarh and the RJD-sponsored MCC massacre in that part of Chatra which borders Barachetti were shrewd moves to weaken our electoral prospects. As in both these constituencies we present a strong potential threat to JMM (Mardi) and RJD respectively. This is further confirmed by MCC's march to areas of Barachetti just a few days after the Chatra massacre, and its threatening demands that the people leave Maley. This was immediately followed by RJD's campaign in Barachetti asking people to desert CPI(ML). Targeting Bagodar is part of the same gameplan.

    After private armies with the active connivance of the administrative machinery are allowed to perpetrate massacres, Laloo Yadav reaches those spots with the compensation packages and calls upon the people not to take up arms and instead take to education etc. It is in this way that the butcher and the priest complement each other. Whatever problems the anarchists may pose to the law and order situation they don't pose any challenge to the political hegemony of the ruling classes. If in 1970s the call for election boycott was the expression of extreme revolutionary advance, in '90s it has degenerated into extreme opportunist betrayal. This is how, dialectically, things transform into their opposites with the change in conditions. The election boycott slogan of anarchist groups has come in handy for shrewd bourgeois politicians. There are innumerable evidences of MCC and PU cadres actively mobilising votes for JD candidates in Bihar elections.

    Then again it is totally false to suggest that we have given up the policy of armed resistance. The fact is that the general arming of the masses has today reached a much higher level than at any other time. In hundreds of villages in Bihar the regular exchange of fire has been going on through all these years of parliamentary politics. Thousands of our comrades including entire district committee leaderships have been warranted throughout the state for organising resistance and have to work in almost underground conditions.

    In short, it is not our retreat but our advance as a major force challenging the economic, social and political hegemony of the forces of status quo that has led to these sharp attacks against us. It should never be forgotten that political initiatives, movements on popular issues and developing popular resistance are the key elements in taking up the challenge of the combined onslaught of feudal forces and the state. The point is not just to smash this or that sena by some method or other. More important is to raise the political consciousness of people, effect a change in social and political balance of forces and ensure the broadest mobilisation of the people in the process. Otherwise we will be reduced to being just a militant outfit. Yet, as protracted armed conflicts are an inalienable part of peasant movement in Bihar, Party must intensify its state of preparedness. In particular, decisive blows to the enemy are of crucial importance and armed formations must be organised at a higher level to deliver these blows.


    http://www.cpiml.org/archive/vm_swork/24main_features_of_the_peasant_mov.htm

    The Marxist

    Volume: 4, No. 2

    April – June 1986

     

    Fifty Years of Organised Peasant Movement

    Harkishan Singh Surjeet

    THE ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA, THE PREMIER ORGANISATION of the Indian peasantry is celebrating its Golden Jubilee this year. It already held the Golden Jubilee Session in the third week of May.

    Today, the Kisan Sabha is the biggest organisation of the peasantry with 8.4 million members, and if the membership of the All India Agricultural Workers Union is also included, the figure goes up to 9.5 million. Not a day passes without some struggle or movement being conducted somewhere in India. In many areas of the country the Kisan Sabha symbolises the aspirations and hopes of the multitude of poor and the collective will of the peasantry. The organisation is growing everywhere, and more and more peasants are joining it and taking part in its activities and struggle.

    Fifty years ago, when it was founded in a Conference in Lucknow, the AIKS was a small organisation, and very few people heard about its formation. During these intervening years many heroic battles have been fought and won. The battles which were lost, also left their imprint on the organisation. Thus a great deal of blood has been shed, and many martyrs have given their lives fighting for the democratic rights of the peasants. Many comrades have sacrificed the better part of their youth in the underground or prison.

    The entire history of the past fifty years has been a long history of severe repression against the organisation and its workers. But none of the sacrifices have gone waste. Each ounce of blood, energy and time given has strengthened the body and the soul of the organisation. The Kisan Sabha which we see today, with its large membership and an elaborate network of units reaching down to the village level, is a product of this history. It was founded to play a distinct role in the history of the country. For an assessment of the role played by the organised peasant movement in the last fifty years under the leadership of the Communists, it is essential to understand the actions of the peasantry, first under the feudal leadership and the later under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, and the class limitations imposed on the peasant movements by these leadership.

    PEASANT STRUGGES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY

    Though the AIKS was formally established on April 13, 1936, it had not been built in a day. The peasant movements in different parts of the country had existed for the past century. Many of the peasant struggles fought in those days were spontaneous in character, lacked proper direction and in many cases were badly organised. Still they played a role in raising the consciousness of the peasantry to fight against oppression and in defence of their rights.

    The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed uninterrupted anti-colonial activity on the part of the peasantry, and tribesmen led by feudal lords who had lost their privileges. The feudal lords in the Northern Sarkars had been strongly resisting British domination ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1807 the whole Delhi regime took up arms; in 1814 at Tuppan of Muneer (near Varanasi). Rajput peasants secured the abolition of the sale of land by public auction of a large village community to a stranger. In 1817 the peasants of Orissa led by local feudal lords, rose up in protest against the introduction of taxation of their rent free service lands. Poona district witnessed the uprising of the peasantry from 1826 to 1829 when the authorities were obliged to cede to them holding subject to low revenue charges. In 1830-31 British troops were sent to suppress a peasant uprising in Bedsore district of Mysore State against the tax increase. In 1835-37 there was an uprising in Gumsur in Madras Presidency. In 1842 an uprising flared up in Sagar. In 1846-47 the peasants in Karnal rose up in revolt. In 1848 Rohillas in Nagpur took up arms. In 1844 in the Kolhapur and Santavadi State bordering Bombay Presidency, there was a large-scale revolt in protest against the British decisions increasing the land revenue to pay the princes' tribute. The peasants of Khandeth in Bombay Presidency rose up in protest against the land settlement which resulted in the increase of land tax.

    There were also innumerable uprisings of tribals in this period – of the Bhils in 1818-1831 and Kolis in 1824 in Bombay Presidency, unrest in Kutch in 1815 and 1832 and revolt in Kittur in 1824-1829. In 1820, there was an uprising of the Mers in Rajputana, and of the Hos tribe in Chote Nagpur in 1831-32.

    In 1846 the Khonds rose up in Orissa and 1855 witnessed the Santhal revolt in Bihar.

    There was also unrest in the Indian towns usually resulting from the introduction of new taxes, which generally took the form of hartals.

    These heroic struggles culminated in the First War of Independence of 1857, when the leadership of the movement was taken up by Sepys. Explaining the significance of theis rebellion Karl Marx wrote:

    "Before this there had been mutinies in the Indian Army, but the present revolt is distinguished by characteristic and fatal features. It is the first time that Sepoy regiments have murdered their European Officers: that Mussulmans and Hindus, renouncing their mutual antipathies, have combined against their common master; that disturbances beginnings with the Hindus, have actually ended in placing on the throne of Delhi a Mohammedan Emperor', That the mutiny has not been confined to a few localities and lastly, that the revolt in the Anglo-Indian army has coincided with a general disaffection exhibited against English supremacy on the part of the great Asiatic nations, the revolt of the Bengal army being, beyond doubt, intimately connected with the Persian and Chinese wars."

    The uprisings were confined to northern and central India. The peasants after driving out the local representative of the colonial administration set up armed detachments for their own defence and defended the village communal lands, which had been expropriated by the British conquerors. The population in the town played an active par in the uprising. They not only liberated a number of large cities like Aligarh, Bareilly, Lucknow, Kanpur and Allahabad but set up a government in each of them.

    This popular uprising of 1857-59 was defeated for various reasons the most important being that although the fighting forces had consisted of peasants and artisans, they were led by the feudal nobility, who showed themselves incapable of leading the national liberation struggle. They could not evolve a united strategy and a united command. The centres of uprising which emerged spontaneously, acted independently of each other. Moreover, the feudal lords did not take any measure to alleviate the lot of the peasantry. When the British Government made concessions to the feudal lords, they dissociated themselves from the uprising. The Sepoy commanders were not able to wage a complex war.

    After the British succeeded in suppressing the uprising, they had to learn a lesion and change their tactics. The East India Company was liquidated and India became a colony of the British government. They also made a lot of concessions to the feudal lords thereby winning their sympathy and support. In spite of all this the uprisings left their imprint on the national liberation struggle, which developed in subsequent years.

    Then followed the period of intensified exploitation of the country. This exploitation of India as a source of cheap raw materials as well s a commodity market for British manufactures constituted the main form of colonial loot. It helped to promote the development of commodity-money relations in both the towns and villages, and this growth of simple commodity production in a period of formation helped in the further penetration of trading and usury capital into the spheres of agriculture and handicrafts.

    BOURGEOIS LEADERSHIP TAKES OVER

    Discontentment among the people, especially the peasantry, was rapidly growing; the defeat of Czarism by Japan gave encouragement to the feelings national liberation; and the Russian Revolution of 1905 also made its own impact on the country. The immediate issue which galvanised the atmosphere, was the partition of Bengal which aroused universal indignation throughout the land, leading to the movement for boycott of foreign goods which began on August 7, 1905. Simultaneously, the Punjab was witnessing great unrest among the peasantry on the question of the Colonisation Act. A powerful movement developed against it, led by Lajpat Rai, Ajit Sigh and Banke Dayal.

    These movements in which the peasantry participated in large numbers, were accompanied by trade union struggles in Bombay Calcutta and other places. The revolutionaries who at this time took to the path of armed struggles against imperialism helped radicalise the politics of those days. To meet the situation the British rulers resorted to repressive measures; heavy sentences, deportation banning of meetings, detention without trial, etc. But this did not deter the people from their path. The Government had to announce a review of the partition of Bengal and withdrew the Punjab Colonisation Act. These developments and their outcome signified that a new class had come onto the scene, i.e., the bourgeoisie. It was providing leadership to the movement and was able to get concessions.

    The outbreak of the imperialist world war in 1914 raised hopes among the people for the liberation of all colonial peoples and Indian revolutionaries abroad, who were mostly peasants, took the initiative to organise a revolt in the Indian Army. They formed the Gadhar Party with headquarters in San Francisco. They raised the slogan of complete independence and sent hundreds of revolutionaries to India to organise a revolt against the British. Many of them were caught and hanged, large numbers had to undergo life imprisonment, and face tortures and deprivation. Although they did not succeed in their mission their impact in arousing the peasantry during the war period should not be underestimated. An overwhelming majority of them later on joined the Kisan sabha when it was formed.

    By contrast with the activities and goal of these revolutionaries, the Indian National Congress for its part had expressed its loyalty to the imperialist war in all its sessions held in this period. Even on 1918 at the close of the war at its session in Delhi the Congress Party passed a resolution expressing loyalty to the King and conveying its congratulations at the successful termination of the war.

    POST-WAR UPSURGE AND THE IMPACT

    OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION             

    By December 1917 news of October Revolution in Russia was beginning to filter through to India and the not-too-efficient censorship allowed it to appear in the Press. Many articles appeared and demobilised soldiers returning from the fronts also brought the news. It had a tremendous impact on the Indian people, who welcomed the success of the Russian Revolution with understandable enthusiasm in particular, its slogan of the right to self-determination of a nation. At the Calcutta Session of the Congress in December 1917, Annie Besant spoke of the Russian Revolutions as one of the factors that fundamentally changed the previously existing situation in India.

    As the war neared its end, having cost almost ten million lives, the Indian soldiers began returning home, by sea, on foot, through the endless expanses of the Himalayan passes, covered with blinding white snow. But these were no longer the timid downtrodden peasants and craftsmen who had cowered before the arrogant Englishman, or a conceited zamindar. They had forgotten the smell of freshly turned earth; their hands were no longer accustomed to the plough. Instead they brought with them the smell of fire bayonet, and slash with a sabre. They had acquired a sense of their own worth and dignity and came to believe in their own strength. In their native villages and hamlets they found their holdings ruined or falling into decay, and the land, which had once been fruitful, dried and barren. Clenching their teeth in anger they listened to heart-rending stories, broken by sobs, of the death from hunger of their children, wives and aged parents. They had come to understand that their trouble was caused by the greed and cruelty of the colonialists and landlords. It was no by chance that India was in the throes of an unprecedented upsurge in the post-war period.

                             

    Lenin had taken note of the situation. Addressing the Second Congress of the Communist Organisations of the East on November 22, 1919, he stated:

    "In this respect you are confronted with a task which has not previously confronted Communists of the world; relying upon the general theory and practice of Communism, you must adapt yourself to specific conditions such as do not exist in European countries, you must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism..." (emphasis added)

    On February 17, 1920, the Indian Revolutionary Associations headed by émigrés like Raja Mohinder Pratap, Maulana Mohammed Barkatullah and Maulana Obeidullah Sindhi, in an Assembly held in Kabul, adopted the following resolution addressed to Lenin.

    "Indian revolutionaries express their deep gratitude and their admiration of the great struggle carried on by Soviet Russia for the liberation of all oppressed classes and peoples, and especially for the liberation of India. Great thanks to Soviet Russia for her having heard the cries of agony from the 315,000,000 people suffering under the yoke of imperialism. This mass meeting accepts with joy the hand of friendship and help extended to oppressed India."

    In reply to this message Lenin wrote:

    "I am glad to hear that the principles of self-determination and the liberation of oppressed nations from exploitation by foreign and native capitalists, proclaimed by the workers' and Peasants' Republic, have met with such a ready response among progressive Indians, who are waging a heroic fight for freedom. The working masses of Russia following with unflagging attention the awakening of the Indian workers and peasants. The organisations and discipline of the working people and their perseverance and solidarity with the working people of the world are an earnest of ultimate success. We welcome the close alliance of Muslim and non-Muslim elements. We sincerely want to see this alliance extended to all the toilers of the East. Only when the Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Persian and Turkish workers and peasants join hands and march together in the common cause of liberation – only then will decisive victory over the exploiters be ensured. Long lives a free Asia." (Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 138)

    PEASANTRY IN ACTION FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION

    Lenin's prediction proved to be true. The peasantry in India was drawn into action in a big way. With the starting of the non-cooperation movement the peasantry in various parts of the country became very active. Though not strictly a part of the non-cooperation movement, at the same time, their activities cannot be separated from the movement for national liberation. Peasant struggles became linked up with the struggle for independence since it was the imperialist system of exploitation, which was the main protector of the feudal exploitation in the countryside.

    In northern India the Gurudwara Reforms Movement, which started with the Nankana Massacre, brought the vast Sikh peasant masses into action against British rule, thus making it a part of the liberation movement. In UP had begun the Eka Movement of tenants who were fighting against the extortions and oppression of the landlords. In the south there was the Moplah Rebellion in Malabar (Kerala) an uprising tenants against the oppression of jenmies (landlord).

    The main slogan of the Gurudwara Reforms Movement was the liberation of Gurudwaras from the control of Mahants who had the patronage of the British imperialists. Bringing the Sikh peasantry into the national mainstream, it soon took the form of an anti-imperialist movement. The Eka Movement was also widespread and militant. It raised the demands of fixed rents, receipts for payments, stoppage of beggar for the landlord, free use of water from ponds, and the freedom to graze cattle in the jungles. It was a revolt of the tenants against the unbearable oppression of the landlord.

    The Moplah rebellion, again essentially an uprising of the tenants in Malabar, began on August 20 1921. The tenants were Muslims while the jenmies were Hindus. The main targets of the attack of the rebellion were the police, military, landlords and moneylenders. The police and military suppressed the rebellion with brutal violence in which 3,266 Moplahs were killed.

    The period also witnessed big working class actions- in the textile and jute Mills in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras; in the North Western and Eastern Railway, the coal-fields of Jharia, the P & T Department of Bombay; plantations of Assam; tramways of Calcutta, etc.

    C.I. NOTES DEVELOPMENT

    The Fourth Congress of the communist International took note of the situation and drew attention to mobilising the peasantry in the struggle for independence. The Congress emphasised that "the revolutionary movement in the colonial countries would achieve no success unless it gets the support of the peasant masses. The agrarian programme of the Communist in the counties of the East demands the complete elimination of feudalism and all its survivals and aims at drawing in the peasant masses in the struggle for national liberation."

    The thesis on the Eastern question adopted at the Congress stated that the Communists must see to it that the national revolutionary parties adopt a radical agrarian programme.

    Dealing with the agrarian question and describing the situation of the peasantry in the colonial countries the Congress came to the conclusion that

    "Only the agrarian revolution aiming at the expropriation of large land owners can rouse the vast peasant masses destined to have a decisive influence in the struggle against imperialism. The fear of agrarian watchwords on the part of the bourgeois nationalists (India, Persia and Egypt) is evidence of the close ties existing between the native bourgeoisie and the large feudal and feudal bourgeois landowners and their ideological political dependence on the latter. The hesitation and wavering of this class must be used by the revolutionary elements for systematic criticism and exposure of the lack of resolution of the bourgeois leaders of the national movement. It is precisely this lack of resolutions that hinders the organisations of the toiling masses as is proved by the bankruptcy of the tactics of non-cooperation in India.

    "The revolutionary movement in the backward countries of the East cannot be successful unless it is based on the action of the masses of the peasantry. For the reason the revolutionary parties in all Eastern countries must define their agrarian programme which should demand the complete abolition of feudalism and its survivals, expressed in the forms of large landownership and farming.

    "In order that the peasant masses may be drawn into active participation in the struggle for national liberation, it is necessary to proclaim the radical reform of the bourgeois nationalist parties to the greatest extent, possible to adopt this revolutionary agrarian programme." (Documents of the History of the C.I. vol. Pp. 550).

    CHAURI CHAURA INCIDENT:

    BETRAYAL BY BOURGEOIS LEADERSHIP

    When in 1922 Mahatma Gandhi launched a mass civil disobedience movement in one district of Bardoli, it gave encouragement to the people in the rest of the country. A few days later in a little village. Chauri Chaura in UP angry peasants stoned and burnt the village police station, and the unpopular village constabulary was burnt in the flames. This unrest of the peasantry crucial to the Indian Revolution was not to the liking of Mahatma Gandhi. He lost no time in announcing the withdrawal of the movement, disappointing even congress leaders who were then in prison. The reality of the situation was that the reformist control of the movement was weakening.

    This concern was reflected in the message telegraphed by the Viceroy to London on February 9, only three days before the withdrawal of the movement:

    "The lower classes in the towns have been seriously affected by the non-cooperation movement…. In certain areas the peasantry have been affected, particularly in parts of the Assam Valley, United Provinces, Bihar Orissa and Bengal. As regards the Punjab, the Akali agitation…. has penetrated to the rural Sikhs. A large proportion of the Mohammedan population throughout the country are embittered and sullen… grave possibilities. The government of India are prepared for disorder of more formidable nature than has in the past occurred and do not seek to minimise in any way the fact the great anxiety is caused by the situation."

    The resolution adopted by congress Working Committed on the withdrawal of the movement, on February 12, 1922, makes clear as daylight that Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress leadership were afraid of the agrarian revolution and opposed to it. They were not interested in drawing in the working class and peasantry as classes, into the movement. After deploring the activities of the peasants of Chauri Chuara as inhuman, the working committee resolution instructed the local congress committee "to advise the cultivators to pay land revenue and other taxes due to the government and to suspend every other activity of an offensive character."

    In order that there should be no ambiguity on this question, it further stated.

    "The working committee advices congress workers and organisations to inform the ryots (peasants) that withholding of rent payment to the zamindars (landlords) is contrary to the Congress Resolutions and injurious to the best interests of the country."

    The resolution then ended by coming out in open defence of the landlords as against the peasants:

    "The working committee assures the Zamindars that the Congress movement is in no way intended to attack their legal rights, and that even where the ryots have grievances, the Committee desires that redress be sought by mutual consultation and arbitration."

    It is clear from the above resolution that the question here was not one of violence or non-violence. It was instead a clear question of defence of the class interests of the landlords-the exploiters against the exploited. Gandhi and the dominant leadership of the Congress called off the movement because it was beginning to threaten those propertied class interests with which they themselves were closely linked.

    Thus the class limitations of the bourgeois stood revealed: though it wanted the peasantry to be drawn into the national liberation struggle, did not want the peasantry to come into action as a class. And thus began the struggle between the two approaches, the approaches of the working class, which had by now emerged on the scene, and that of the bourgeoisie.

    WORKING CLASS
    LEADERSHIP
    By contrast March 1923, the Executive Committee of the Communist Internation issued a manifesto on the Chauri Chaura sentences where 172 peasants had been given death sentences, asking for protest meetings and a movement for their release.

    The peasantry had already had the experience of betrayal by the landlords during the struggles of the 19th century. In the Chauri Chaura struggle they were able to se the betrayal by the bourgeoisie. The Communists and the Left in the Congress learnt from the experience of these two betrayals by the two classes, who were considered their natural leaders, and decided to organise the peasantry independently, as a class, though working in cooperation with other anti-imperialist classes and strata including the bourgeoisie.
    In May 1923, the formation of the Labour and Kisan Party was announced and its action programme for the peasants included protection against eviction, 20 per cent reduction on all economic rent in ryotwari settlement areas, eventual abolition of Permanent settlement abolition of beggar, protection against oppression of zamindars, abolition of salami, free irrigation, abolition of dowry, etc. loans in seed or money without interest, etc.

    This was the beginning of the preparations for a platform of action for the peasantry. Subsequently, peasant organisations also came into existence in various places. A Note of Satya Bakta, Secretary, Indian Communist Party dated June 18, 1925, states:

    "In order to organise the Indian peasants, labourers and other working people and with a view to bettering their condition, the Indian Communist Party resolves to adopt the following programme:

    "In these days there are several kisan sabhas (peasants' unions) in UP and other provinces. They are striving after some reforms. But as long as landlordism exists in India, peasants cannot become happy and prosperous. That they should pay something to the Government is after all acceptable. But there is no reason why middlemen or commission agents should be allowed to exist. But until the victory of the proletarian class, landlordism cannot be abolished entirely.

    "Even now the government and leaders of our country, if they really desire the betterment of the peasants can improve the present conditions to a great extent. In our opinion peasants should be entitled to pay their rent direct to the Government who may pay to the landlord their share. They should not be allowed to have any other connection with or control over the peasants. In this way while landlords will loss nothing of their legitimate income, they and especially their servants will no longer be able to rob peasants in the shape of unlawful taxes and gratuities. For this purpose the Indian Communist Party will agitate among the peasants and will urge upon all new and old kisan sabhas to work in the suggested manner."

    It is clear from this that kisan sabhas had already come into existence in many parts of the country. Subsequently the Labour Swaraj Party was formed in Bengal, on November 1, 1925. It was called the Labour Swaraj Party of the Indian National Congress. Its programme for the peasantry stated:

    Land taxes to be reduced to a fixed maximum and fixity of the interest rate of the Imperial Bank on arrears of rents; fixity of tenure, no ejection cessation of illegal and extra taxation, right of transference, right of felling trees, sinking wells, excavating tanks and erecting pucca structure; fixed term of fishery rights in jolkars; fixity of maximum rate of interest to be levied by moneylenders; agricultural cooperative banks to be established to provide credit to the peasants and to free them from the clutches of moneylenders and speculating traders; agricultural machinery to be sold or lent to the cultivators on easy terms through the cooperative banks.

    This organisation was a forerunner of the Workers and Peasants Party. On February 6-7, 1926 the Second Session of the All Bengal Kisan Conference was held in Krishna Nagar (Nadia District). It decided to organise a peasants and Workers Party called the Bengal Peasants and Workers Party. While the basic demand mentioned that the ultimate ownership of land would vest in a self-contained autonomous village community, it put forward the following immediate demands:

    1)                Fixity of rates in relation to the rents payable by the tenants: the interest charged    on arrears of rent to be equal to the rate of interest charged by the Imperial Bank.
    2)                Cultivator's undivided ownership be recognised on the land he tills.
    3)                Permanency of tenure in land (which the cultivator tills), banning of evictions.
    4)                Stopping of all unjust and illegal cesses.
    5)                Right freely to transfer the land to another without payment of salami.
    6)                Right to cut the trees, to dig wells and cut canals and build a house on his land without paying any salami.
    7)                Fixing conditions for catching fish in the ponds on the land.
    8)                The highest rate of interest to be charged by the mahajan to be fixed at a rate not more than 12 per cent.
    9)                Establishing cooperative agricultural banks to give credit to the peasant and thus to release him from the grip of the greedy and professional moneylender.
    10)            Machinery needed for cultivation etc. to be sold outright to the peasant or to be given to him on rent for use, and the price of the same or the rent amount thereof to be recovered from peasant in easy instalments.
    11)            To make arrangement for the wholesale sale of jute or other commercial crops so that a just profits rate is guaranteed to the peasant.

    It was on February 24, 1927 that the Workers And Peasants Party was formed in Bombay. It resolved that "a political party of workers and peasant be established to voice the demands of these classes within the National Congress, to promote the organisation of trade unions to wrest them from their alien control, to advance the organisation of peasants on the basis of their economic and social requirements and to present a determined and pertinent opposition to the government and thus secure the social, economic and political emancipation of these classes."

    In formulating the economic demands it proposed:
    12)            The abolition of indirect taxation and the introduction of graded income tax on all income exceeding Rs 250 per mensem.
    13)            Nationalisation of land wherein all cultivable land will be leased by Government to cultivator.
    14)            Nationalisation of means of production, distribution and exchange.
    15)             Rent of land holding not to be excessive.
    16)            Establishment by the government of State-aided cooperative banks controlled by local organisations for the provision of credit to peasants, at a rate of interest not exceeding seven per cent.

    In a programme formulated for the All India Congress Committee it proposed:

    "70 per cent of the population which is engaged in agriculture is to be organised into peasant societies, by district, taluk, and village, on the lines of the village panchayat, based on universal suffrage aiming to secure control of the economic life of the rural areas. Through the agricultural cooperative banks to be established by the State for the provision of cheap credit to the peasants, whereby they will be enabled to free themselves from the grip of Saukars, and to purchase modern machinery and other equipment; limitation by law of the rate of interest at seven per cent per annum; limitation of rent to 10 per cent of the total produce to be paid direct to the Sate, and brining into cultivation by State aid cultivable land by present unused.

    But the bourgeoisie leadership of the Congress was not prepared to take up the peasant demands.

    When a proposal was mooted before the Subjects committee of the Congress that it should side with peasants and workers when a conflict arose between them and the zamindars and capitalists. Pandit Motilal Nehru, the then President of the Congress, contended in reply, that the Congress was not the Socialist or Communist Party. The reason for making this statement was that the Congress was by no means ready to stand up for those who produce all things by their labour.

    J M Sengupta, leader of the Bengal Swarajists, made this even clearer. He said that the party includes many zamindars and that without their help so many men of their party would certainly never be able to enter the Councils. So they could by no means help the peasants, going against those zamindars. They tried to cover this defence of the interest of the landlords under the pretext that no class struggle existed in the countryside, and the congress represented the whole country.

    It is not accidental that certain juridical measures of reforms in tenancy rights were introduced in India not at the initiative of the bourgeoisie, but by imperialism often in the face of nationalist bourgeois opposition.

    POPULARISATION OF

    THE AGRARIAN PROGRAMME

    The formation of the All India Workers and Peasants Party and the subsequent historic Meerut Trial, helped in popularising the agrarian programme among the Indian masses. The Meerut Trial went on for more than four years. The persons involved in the trial in their statements advocated the programme of the Communists in relation to the working class, peasantry and other toiling sections of the Indian population, along with their unflinching opposition to imperialist rule in the country.

    This was the period when the economic crisis of the 30s had engulfed the world. India was the worst hit during this crisis and in 1931 the Central Banking Enquiry Committee registered the general conviction that

    "Indebtedness leads ultimately to the transfer of land holdings from the agricultural class to the non-agricultural money-lenders leading to the creation of the landless proletariat with a reduced economic status. The result is said to be loss of agricultural efficiency as the moneylenders sub-let at a rate which leaves the cultivators with a reduced incentive." (Enquiry Committee Report. P. 59)

    The 1931 Census report reached the conclusion that

        

    "It is likely that a concentration of the land in the hands of the non-cultivating owners is taking place." (Census of India, 1931, Vol. 1)

    Similarly, the extent of the collapse in prices of agricultural commodities was such, that whereas in 1928-29 the value of agricultural crops, taken at an average harvest price, was about Rs 1034 crore, in 1933-34 it was only Rs 473 crore a fall of 55 per cent.

    In the United Provinces, the number of tenants abandoning their land because they could not pay rent, reached as high as 71 440 in 1931. The burden of debt doubled. Peasants were groaning under their heavy indebtedness, their lands were passing into the hands of moneylenders and they were being forced to live the life of paupers.

    The peasant organisations emerging in various States now had a clear-cut programme not only for immediate relief but also directed against the system of landlordism. The peasants had realised the necessity of organising themselves as a class which was numerically not only strong but also the worst exploited under the triple attack of the imperialists landlords and moneylenders and traders. The Indian National Congress was desirous of mobilising them in the struggle for independence since without them it was not possible to bring pressure to bear on the imperialists but it did not want the peasantry to emerge as a class conscious of its rights and determined to put an end to the rule of the landlords.

    The Congress started the Civil Disobedience movement but its 11-point charter of demar ds did not contain any demands of the working class and peasantry against the capitalists and the landlords.

    The resolution of the Karachi Session of the Congress where fundamental rights were mentioned in relation to the peasant demands it did not stipulate more than a substantial reduction of land revenue and rent, and total exemption only for the necessary period in the case of uneconomic holdings. There was no reference to abolition of landlordism or even the annulment of at least a portion of the rural debt. It was clear that that Indian National congress did not want to rouse the peasantry against feudal oppression.

    Gandhi's hopes for a compromise were shattered at the Round Table Conference and he had again to continue the movement, which lasted up to 1934, drawing into its fold huge masses. Once again the movement was withdrawn without achieving its aim, and Gandhi withdrew from the Congress exercising his influence from outside.

    FORMATION OF
    ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA
    The Communist Party was banned in 1934 but continued to exercise its influence on the working class and on the Left in the Congress. The ideas of Socialism wee becoming very popular, and left dements in the Congress, becoming disillusioned with Gandhi formed the Congress Socialist Party, in order to give the Congress a Left orientation. Coming to realise that the vast masses of the peasantry could be brought into the struggle for independence only by taking up the anti-feudal struggle and their immediate demands they were also realising the necessity of organisation the peasantry as a class. They had already come to the conclusion that the struggle for real political freedom could not be separated from the struggle of the peasantry for an end to landlordism and for radical restructuring of rural society. The Communists were already trying to develop class organisations and had popularised the ideas of independent class organisations of the working class peasants and other sections of the toiling people. Thus it was the Left Congressmen, Congress Socialists and Communists who took the initiative in organising the All India Kisan Sabha.

    The First Session was held in 1936, Lucknow to coincide with the holding of the Session of the Indian National congress. The idea was to project the kisan movement as a part of the national movement though maintaining its separate identity as a class organisation.

    BROAD BASED
    ORGANISATION
    The following list of the names of some of the participants in the first All India Kisan Sabha Session is revealing : EMS Namboodiripad, Dinkar Methta, Kamal Sarkar, Sohan Singh Josh, Lal Bahadur Shastri, K D Malaviya, Mohan Lal Gautam, B Sampooranand, Jayaprakash Narain, Swami Sahajanand, NabaKrishna Choudhury, Harekrishna Mahtab, N G ranga, Indulal Yajnik, R K Khadilkar, Bishnuram Medhi and Sarat Sinha. Many of them became prominent national and state-level personalities in subsequent years. It also suggests how broad-based the Kisan Sabha was from the very beginning and how it tried to attack people of varying political views to join together in defence of the democratic rights of the kisans.

    The formation of the AIKS was preceded by a meeting in Meerut in January 1936, where the necessary preparations were made. A clear decision was taken to launch the organisation with a broad-based programme and membership to link it closely with the national movement for independence and to view the fight against imperialism as an integral part of the fight against the feudal social order since the former patronised and provided state support to the latter.

    Today with the benefit of hindsight one is struck by the simplicity and directness with which the very first session set out its tasks in the main resolution. To quote:

    "The objective of the Kisan movement is to secure compete freedom from economic exploitation and the achievement of full economic and political power for the peasants and workers and all the other exploited classes.

    "The main task of the kisan movement shall-be the organisation of peasants to fight for their immediate political and economic demands in order to prepare them for their emancipation from every from of exploitation.

    "The kisan movement stands for the achievements of ultimate economic and political power for the producing masses through its active participation in the national struggle for winning complete independence."

    It their indicted the zamindari system, "supported by the British government in India", as "iniquitous unjust, burdensome, and oppressive to the kisans", and declared that "all such system of landlordism shall be abolished and all the rights over such lands be vested in the cultivators."
    This was the essence of what the kisan movement stood for at the time of the launching of the AIKS. The other issues covered by resolutions included questions of rent, irrigation rates and prices of inputs, prices of marketed agricultural products, indebtedness, forced labour and illegal exactions from the tenants by the landlords and the distribution of landlords land to the landless poor peasants as also the vesting of waste land and grazing land in the village level panchayats. The AIKS also demanded minimum wages for the regulating their unionisation.

    Any one reading those resolutions will immediately notice that many of the issues raised by the conference of the AIKS in its first session have remained unresolved till today.

    PART OF THE
    NATIONAL MOVEMENT
    The Bombay session of the Central Kisan Sabha Council (CKC) held in August 1936 further elaborated many of the points raised in the founding session. It categorically stated that, since the kisans constituted more than four-fifths of the population, "no political or economic programme which has the audacity to ignore their needs and demands can by any stretch of imagination, be labelled as a national programme", and called upon the Indian National Congress to make "the solution of the problems of the peasantry the chief plank of its political and economic policy." At the same time the CKC felt the need for a political movement, which draws "its main strength and inspiration from the peasantry."

    These two struggles --- the kisan movement and the national movement were seen as "inter-dependent, the strength of the one adding to the other."

    The CKC meeting also strongly emphasised on the need for peasant unity. The AIKS was an "expression of the awakening of the peasantry", and should represent not only the ryots the tenants and the landless labourers but also all sections of cultivating peasantry --- "in other words, it represents, and speaks and fights for those who live by cultivation of the soil. All these different strata among the kisans will have to combine and fight for removal of all the letters imposed by British imperialism and it's allies the landlords."

    FUNDAMENTAL AND
    MINIMUM DEMANDS
    The Bombay Session made a separate listing of "fundamental demands" and "minimum demands". The former included the demands for abolishing intermediary tenures, replacement of existing land revenues by graduated land tax, cancellation of old debts and allocation of land to landless and poor peasants for cooperative farming.

    The minimum demands included the cancellation of the rent and revenue arrears; exemption of uneconomic holdings from land revenue; reduction of rent revenue and water rates by half; immediate grant of right permanent cultivation to tenants cultivating land held by zamindars, talukdars, etc., rent remission for these tenants; graduated taxation of agricultural income abolition and penalisation of all feudal and customary dues, forced labour and illegal exactions; a five year moratorium on debts freedom from arrest and  imprisonment for debtors and also immunity from attachment for small holdings; licensing for money-lenders; arrangement of credit from the state cooperative and land mortgage banks over a long period of 40 years t five per cent interest lowering the freight on agriculture goods introduction of one paise postcards; abolition of indirect taxes on salt kerosene sugar, tobacco molasses, etc., stabilisation of agricultural prices minimum wages legislation to recognise collective action of the peasants insurance for cattle fire and health adult franchise and establishment of village panchayats for managing civic affairs and communal land among others.

    These show the wide range of issues covered by the AIKS in its campaign which catered to the needs and aspirations of various sections of the peasantry.

    From its very beginning the AIKS was alert and reacted to major national and international events. While striving for the country's independence the AIKS had a distinct concept of independence, which was outlined in various resolution where along with political independence, socio economic independence was emphasised. To quote from the resolution of the Bombay CKC meeting in 1936 again it stated:

    "The Kisan must fight for national socio-economic independence Indian a democratic of Britain must be transformed into a free progressive democratic India of the masses."

    There was no room for exploitation and oppression in the concept of the free Indian that the AIKS held. It was never solely concerned with narrow peasant issues and defined the interests of the peasantry in broad terms.
             
    FOR WORKERS
    PEASANT ALLIANCE
    One of the cornerstones of its policies had always been the unity of the peasants with the workers. In its Gaya Session in 1939 the AIKS talked about the objective of building "a democratic State of the Indian people leading ultimately to the realisation of Kisan --- Mazdoor Raj". Even earlier in its second session at Faizpur the Presodential Address stated:

    "It is the sacred duty of every of our kisans to fraternise with the workers in the village and in the town…  There is much to be achieved by both workers and peasants by common effort for their mutual benefit."

    The adoption of the red flag with hammer and sickle, signifying the unity of these two classes, was strongly defended by the General Secretary Swami Sahajananda at the Comilla Session in 1938 on the grounds aspirations of the exploited and the oppressed."

    Its commitment to anti-imperialism was reflected in the resolutions passed in the earlier years condemning the Italian attack on Ethiopia and the Japanese attack on China, and supporting World War began it doggedly opposed the war efforts championed the cause of world peace and later when the fascist forces of Hitler attacked the USSR it firmly came out with the slogan of defeating the fascist hordes to save humanity from fascist enslavement. It mobilised popular opinion against fascism.

    On national issues too, the AIKS conferences not only passed resolutions against the colonial rulers but also fought for a determined struggle against British rule and State organised oppression. In fact, many of the leaders of the AIKS were themselves the stalwarts in the national movement and spent many years in British prisons.

    AGAINST
    HEAVY ODDS
    The formation of the AIKS was greeted with hostility from many sides. Both the Hindu and Muslim vested interests joined hands against the AIKS and tried their best to disrupt the working of the organisation by terrorising the peasants and using communal propaganda. The British government alarmed by its growing hold on the peasantry intensified its repression by arresting key leaders, from time to time and forcing many others to go underground. A report of the intelligence Bureau of the British colonial government in India said in 1937:

    "The Communist leaders are developing a strangle hold upon any future agrarian movement as well as inspiring this with their special methods and outlook of which by no means the least is the belief in mass violence and the violent overthrow of British rule."

    The right wing of the Congress party led by Sardar Ballavbhai Patel and Dr Rajendra Prasad fought against the collective affiliation of the Kisan Sabha to the Indian National Congress and strongly opposed the separate existence of the kisan organisation had produced such an atmosphere of violence in the countryside that an explosion may occur at any moment."

    In many provinces the Congress leaders took an openly pro-landlord view and used their power in governments formed in the late thirties to suppress the agitation of the peasants. In Bihar they made an alliance with the landlord lobby to fight off AIKS activists.

    In its formative years therefore the AIKS had to grow fighting against such heavy odds. But it grew nevertheless. The very formation of the organisations inspired peasants all over the country to take up immediate issues and light. As opposed to the path taken by the Indian National Congress, which compromised with landlords and other vested interests, and spoke of non-violent resistance, the AIKS rallied the peasants to stand up to the attacks by the armed thugs of the landlords and the police. The Gaya Session of the AIKS in 1939 reported that "the past year has witnessed a phenomenal awakening and growth of the organised strength of the kisans in India.

    FORMATION OF
    MINISTRIES
    To keep the mass movement under control, congress decided to implement the Constitution of 1935 and formed the ministries. Congress policy was again put to the test and again it was found that it stood by the side of the landlords against the tenant and the landless. But the organised peasant movement supported by the Congress Left was proving capable of exercising influence, and the Congress Ministries were being forced to give some concessions.

    However, the Congress never defined the meaning and importance of national freedom other than as freedom from British rule. It was the Communists, Socialists and the Congress Left, which were trying to propagate the understanding that freedom from foreign rule could have real meaning only if it was followed by agrarian revolution and completion of the bourgeois democratic tasks.

    The masses were getting disillusioned and impatient, and wanted the Congress leadership to launch a final assault on British rule. The leadership wanted to restrain them and use them for pressure and bargaining. The peasant movement thus came again into conflict with the bourgeois leadership of the Congress, especially on the issue of struggle against feudal and semi-feudal relations. The limitations of the bourgeois leadership were starkly revealed and it could be clearly seen that it did not want to come into conflict with the landlord class.

    The leadership was prepared to accept and support certain demands of the peasantry, which were directed against the Government, but was not prepared to take up the basic issue of abolition of landlordism. In fact it was afraid of agrarian revolution. Therefore, the kisan sabhas, while supporting the struggle for national independence had not only to strengthen the independent class organisations of the peasantry but also to forge unity with the working class, the most revolutionary class for our society for completion of the agrarian revolution.

    KISAN SABHA
    AND THE WAR
    As compared to the Indian National Congress, which lent its support to the war efforts of British imperialism the AIKS came out in firm opposition to the war. Here again there were two different class approaches-one supporting the British imperialist power the other expressing its firm opposition to imperialist war being fought with the sole purpose of redividing the world for the continuation of colonial exploitation.
        
    The AIKS gave a call for struggle against British rule and their Indian lackeys, and launched a no rent, no tax movement. The AIKS was naturally subjected to unprecedented police repression and its open functioning became extremely difficult. Its officers in Bengal and other States were raided and put under lock and key, and its main functionaries were either arrested or forced to go underground.

    However, with the attack on the Soviet Union by the German Fascists in June 1914 the Sabha raised the slogan of defeating fascism to save humanity from fascist enslavement. It took the view that on the victory over fascism depended the survival of the first Socialist State as well as the independence of countries including ours. The AIKS therefore considered it the sacred duty of the organisation to support the cause of defence of Socialist State and defeat of fascism.

    While the task of fighting fascism was given the priority it deserved the AIKS in its Session in 1914 reminded its members that  "the struggle for India's freedom should not be slackened even temporarily." The CKC meeting at Nagpur in 1942 demanded transfer of power to a national Government and a declaration recognising India's right to freedom. It identified the British colonial regime, which was working "in complete isolation from the millions on the land" as the greatest obstacle to the mobilisation of India's millions in the defence of their country and the successful persecution of the war."

    When on August 9, 1942 Gandhi and other leaders of the Congress were arrested leading to violent protests in many parts of the country, the AIKS expressed its full support to the Congress demand for transfer of power, demanded the released of Gandhi and other national leaders, and condemned the "indiscriminate firing and repression that have been let loose by the Government on the people."

    POST-WAR
    UPSURGE                                                          
    The military defeat of the fascist powers headed by Hitlerite Germany and the decisive role played by the Soviet Union altered the alignment of class forces on a world arena in favour of Socialism. This also resulted in the general weakening of imperialism on a world scale. Inspired by this powerful national liberation struggle swept throughout the countries of Asia.

    India the largest country of the British Empire witnessed a mass revolutionary upheaval against British rule-peasant revolts of which the heroic armed struggle of the Telengana peasantry was the most important general strikes of workers, student strikes and the states people mass struggle developed on an unprecedented scale. The demonstrations for the release of INA personnel took the form of a country – wide revolt against British rule. This wave of protest reached a climax with the uprising of the Royal Indian Navy in February 1946 in Bombay, Karachi and Madras. The Union Jack was removed from the ship's masts and the Congress and Muslim League flags hoisted instead. In Bombay the naval ratings carried the Red Flag of the Communist Party along with the other two. The slogans the navy men raised showed the political nature of the action-Jai Hind, Inquilab Zindabad, Hindu-Muslim Unity. Release INA and other political prisoners. Down with British Imperialism, Accept our demands.

    Rajani Palme Dutt, in his outstanding and seminal work, India Today, not only captured the spirit of the time, but gave a keen analytical insight into the significance of the event and the class reactions it engendered:

    "The Naval rising and popular struggle in the February days in Bombay revealed with inescapable clearness the alignment of forces in the explosive situation developing in India in the beginning of 1946. It showed on the one hand the height of the movement the courage and determination of the people and the overwhelming mass support for Hindu-Muslims unity and Congress-League unity. It showed that the movement had reached to the armed forces and that therefore the basis of British rule was no longer secure. But it showed on the other hand the unreadiness and disunity of the existing national leadership and their consequent inability to lead the national struggle.

    "But now when the masses were really in movement when Hindu-Muslim unity was being realised and practised when the armed forces had united with the civilian population in the common national movement and when the real struggle for freedom had opened the gates of British rule, the attitude of the upper leadership of the national movement revealed a marked change. The upper class leadership of the Congress and Muslim league found themselves in opposition to the mass movement and aligned with British imperialism as the representative of law and order against the people. A whole series of statements and denunciations were issued condemning the "violence" not of the imperialist authorities whose firing slaughtered hundreds in three days but of the unarmed people who had been the objects of military firing Vallabhai Patel issued a statement in which he declared that the Naval ratings ought not to have taken to arms and that he endorsed remarks of the Commander-in-Chief that there ought to be discipline in the Navy" (India Today. P. 583)

    The RIN uprising however was followed by militant struggles in the countryside at the head of which, at the many places stood the Communist Party. And by 1946 the AIKS through militant struggles in Punjab, UP, Bihar, Kerala, Maharashtra and Andhra had drawn the attention of all on the question of abolition of landlordism. The slogan of agrarian revolutions was brought onto the agenda in the armed resistance of the peasants of Vayalar and Punnapra in the State of Travancore, the militant Tebhaga struggle of the peasants of Bengal the struggle of the Warli peasants in Maharashtra and the struggle of the Tripura peasants.

    Crowning all these struggles was the epochal struggle of the peasantry of Telengana, which has no parallel in the history of the country where peasants fought with arms in hands from 1946-1951 for three years, 1948-51 against the armies of the Indian State.

    In the course of the movement guerrilla squads were formed from the village to the district level, which met the terror unleashed by theRazakars, and in many instances scared away the landlords in the area. At the peak of the struggle almost 3000 villages, with roughly 30 lakh of the people and an area of 16,000 square miles were liberated and brought under the administration of Gram Raj. In this area guerrilla squads of 2000 and a people's militia of 10,000 guarded the villages and about10 lakh acres of land were distributed among the landless. Among the reforms introduced by the revolutionary leadership was the slashing of usurious interests banning of forced labour and fixation of a minimum wage. This was the real alternative developing to bourgeois landlord rule in the countryside and its significance lay in the fact that if it had been allowed to develop a qualitative change would have come about in the situation combining agrarian revolution with the national liberation movement and the course of history would have been entirely different.

    BOURGEOIS PARTIES SETTLE
    WITH IMPERIALISTS
    Telengana showed the direction the mass movement could have taken if it had not been checked. The completion of the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution had come onto the political agenda with the agrarian revolution as its crux. But though the 'workers and peasants' alliance was being forged and the Communist Party was at the head of some of these struggle it was not in a position to assume the leadership of the national movement, which still remained in the hands of bourgeoisie.

    Afraid of this mass upsurge the bourgeoisie realised that if the struggle against imperialism developed into a general revolt the leadership of the mass movement would slip away from is hands. British imperialism also saw that it would no longer be possible to continue their rule. Under these circumstances the leaders of the National Congress and the Muslim League reached a settlement with the British imperialists.

    With the outmoded agrarian relations not being radically changed and a path of capitalist development in compromise with imperialism and feudalism being pursued by the ruling Congress party, it was but natural that the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution remained incomplete.

    Had the bourgeoisie not compromised at this stage, the situation would have gone out of its control. It would have lost its leadership and the working class would have been in a position to lead the movement and complete the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution. By now our country would have also taken the road to Socialism as has been done by China, Vietnam, North Korea and other Asian countries.

    EXISTENCE OF CASTE AND
    COMMUNAL PROBLEM
    The existence of the communal and caste problems and threat of divisive forces with which we are faced today also originates from the policies pursued by the Congress party in the pre-in-dependent and post-independent period-its policy of alliance with feudalism instead liquidating it and the weakness of the organised peasant movement in leading the agrarian revolution in alliance with the working class the position which it started acquiring during the post-war period but was not able to bring to a decisive turning point.

    Historical experience shows that it is only in countries where feudal and semi feudal relations have been put an end to and the agrarian revolution has been led to successful completion that the problem of caste or communalism can be overcome. It is only in the countries where the national liberation struggle was led by bourgeoisie but was not led to its completion that this problem not only remains but gets aggravated to be used by the ruling classes to divert the discontent of the masses and to disrupt the unity of the democratic movement. Experience has also shown that in the areas where the peasant movement was strong in spite of efforts made by the British imperialists riots could not be organised and the unity forged during the struggle between the Hindu-Muslim peasants stood as the guarantee of communal peace. The Kisan Sabha never allowed any scope for communalism and casteism on its platform. It not only maintained its secular character but exposed the communal ideology and fought against this virus during the riots in Punjab, Bihar and Bengal. In pursuing this policy some of its leaders and cadre laid down their lives fighting against the dark forces of communalism.
                  
    Thus, though the leadership of the national liberation movement was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, alternative political forces represented by the trade unions and kisan and other militant organisations had started emerging as a powerful force at the end of the war to offer a real challenge to the bourgeoisie. This became clear with the results of the first general election in free India. Wherever there had been strong peasant organisations, the combination of Left and other Opposition forces won a magnificent victory, becoming the main opposition in Parliament, the recognised Opposition in four State Assemblies-West Bengal, Hyderabad, Madras and Travancore-Cochin. The struggle for an alternative leadership continues to this day.
    CONGRESS
    AGRARIAN POLICIES
    In the post-independent period the bourgeoisie continued its alliance with the landlords and the balance sheet of bourgeois agrarian policy is explained in the Programme of the CPI(M), in para 34.

    "In no field is the utter failure of the bourgeois-landlord government's policies so nakedly revealed as in the case of the agrarian question. Nearly two decades of Congress rule has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the aim and direction of its agrarian policies is not to smash the feudal and semi-feudal fetters on our land relations, and thus liberate the peasantry from age-old bondage, but to transform the feudal landlords into capitalist landlords and develop a stratum of rich peasants. They want to depend upon the landlord and rich peasant section to produce the surplus of agricultural products to meet the requirements of capitalist development. They also want to make these sections the main political base of the ruling class in the countryside."

    Although these measures did not bring the desired resulted of making the tiller of the soil the owner of the land it made certain changes in the agrarian relations. Under the impact of the agrarian movement intermediary tenures like zaminidaris, jagirs, imams, etc., which prevailed over quite a large area of the country were abolished in the early 50s and more than 20 million tenants were brought into direct relation with the State. It was these occupancy tenants who directly benefited from the land reforms to become owners of the land they tilled. These rich and middle peasants were no longer interested in radical land reforms.        

    This has been shown by the subsequent developments also.

    The overall result has been that even after four decades of independence the pro-landlord, anti-peasant policies of the Government have resulted in the further deepening of the agrarian crisis, which manifests itself in growing landlessness increase in disparities both inter-regional and inter-sectional in the same region, an extremely low level of consumption of food-grains despite increasing production and bourgeoning stocks held by the Government growing poverty and unemployment despite all the poverty alleviation schemes and growing indebtedness which finds partial reflection in the growth of overdues in institutional credit supplied to the agricultural sector and so on.

    In spite of two rounds of Land Ceiling legislations in the 1950s and 1970s only 7.2 million acres have been declared surplus out of which 5.6 million acres have been taken over and 4.4 million acres actually distributed. This is about seven per cent of the surplus estimated i.e., 63 million acres by the Mahalanobis Committee after the first round of ceiling laws were enacted and one fifth of the surplus estimated on the basis of date made available by the NSS 26th Round.

    Even if we take into consideration the 1981 Agricultural Census land concentration continues. As compared to three per cent land holders holding 10 acres and above and operating a total of 26 per cent of the land in 1976-77 in 1981-82, 2.4 per cent of land holders held 22.8 per cent of the land. It is also estimated by the Planning Commission that even now if a 20-acre ceiling is imposed and all loopholes in ceiling laws plugged about 23 million acres of land can be made available for distribution. But the Seventh Plan makes no mention of amending the ceiling laws nor about breaking the land monopoly. And typically the Central Government took more than five years to give Presidential assent to the West Bengal Land Reforms Legislation, which seeks only to plug certain loopholes.

    PEASANT MOVEMENT
    AFTER INDEPENDENCE
    In the first six years of the post independence period the peasant movement again had to face severe repression at the hands of the Government Afraid of the tempo of the growing revolutionary movement, it unleashed repression making the functioning of various units impossible. The All India Kisan Sabha was not able to hold any session till April 1953. But in spite   of this the Kisan Sabha was busy organising the resistance of the peasantry especially on the question of evictions, and militant fights were put up in many States. Subsequently various Congress Government were forced to take measures of land reforms such as ceiling legislations security of tenure and rent reduction, consolidation of holdings, etc., but all failed to fulfil the declared objectives. On the other hand the period witnessed a large-scale eviction offensive throwing millions of tenants into the ranks of agricultural workers.

    In the late fifties the Kisan Sabha fought many struggles on the issues of land fair prices for peasants produce, debt relief, in defence of the rights of tribal people and on the issue of the burden of heavy taxation. The most important of these struggles was the heroic struggle of the Punjab peasantry against the imposition of the betterment levy tax in the beginning of 1959. This was the most important struggle fought under the flag of the Kisan Sabha after the epoch-making Telengana struggle. The peasants defied firings lathi-charges, beating and all types of repression. The all in peasant unity forged during the struggle was unparalleled, when peasant united irrespective of their political affiliations. The movement ultimately forced the Government to withdraw the tax amounting to Rs. 136 crore.

    The agrarian crisis further aggravated in the 60s. By the mid-1960 stagnation in agriculture and the consequent food crisis worsened. The bourgeois-landlord classes began losing their hold over the mass of the peasantry with the result that in the 1967 elections the Congress monopoly of power was broken in eight States with West Bengal and Kerala giving victory to the Left and democratic force among which the CPI(M) played an important role. Powerful peasant struggle took place in different States on different issues. In Kerala and West Bengal these struggles were most widespread and became intimately connected with political issues.

    The United Front Government of West Bengal and Kerala made a big impact on the masses, not only in those States but also in the rest of the country. When the Central Government dismissed these governments hundreds of thousands of peasants actually joined the struggle for democracy in West Bengal combining this with the struggle for defending heir land and crops.

    Mid-term elections gave a bigger victory to the United Front in West Bengal and the peasant movement attained wider sweep. Millions of peasants all over the State unleashed an unprecedented struggle with the backing of the United Front Government, for recovering benami land for possession and distribution of surplus lands, for loans in kind and for checking hoarding and black-marketing. In this period more than three lakh acres of land were located taken over and distributed among the landless through village level committees. Many peasants lost their lives in the battles fought on this issue, but it gave a big impetus to the kisan movement and the AIKS spread to all districts.

    These struggles achieved important gains and helped in raising the political consciousness of the peasantry. It was because of this that the Kisan Sabha was able to face the semi-fascist terror of 1917 to 1977, fight back the repression and defend their interests though working in semi-legal conditions.

    In Kerala, the peasants conducted a statewide movement for agrarian legislation and debt relief legislation for the rights on Government lands against threat of central intervention. As a result of the campaign one lakhs pattas were distributed to erstwhile-unauthorised occupants of the land. The ceiling was revised downwards and made family-based many exemptions were withdrawn and hutment dwellers were given rights on land on which they lived. Tens of thousands of agricultural labourers conducted powerful and successful struggle for better wages and living conditions.

    The discontent found powerful expression in other parts of Indian also. In Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Tripura, etc., widespread struggles took place for occupation of forest or government lands and against eviction from these lands. In Punjab and UP widespread agitations took place on the question of sugarcane prices. Struggle took place against increased taxation on the question of food and relief rent reduction and against unjust levies. Militant struggles of agricultural labourers took place in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

    This period also witnessed two splits in the AIKS one from the Right and other from the Left. While they did a lot of harm to the Kisan Sabha, it not only survived these attacks but advanced further. At the same time it also failed to properly understand the changes in the agrarian structure and work out the appropriate tasks on that basis. By 1978-79 it was able to give a new orientation to its policy, which led to its big advance. Membership of the Kisan Sabha, which had never gone beyond ten lakhs till 1968-69 after 1978-79 jumped by millions and now stands at 84 lakhs.

    PRESENT PHASE
    OF STRUGGLE

    In this connection the question may be asked why has the bourgeoisie not been able to implement radical land reforms when the latter would serve its objective interests? The breaking of the feudal and semi-feudal relations would naturally lead to the expansion of the internal market, which would be helpful for expanding industries. The answer lies in the fact that in spite of the objective interests of the bourgeoisie, the latter dies not want the forces of agrarian revolution to be unleashed which, in unity with the working class would pose a threat to its class rule. It was from this angle that it forged an alliance with the landlords and now tries to solve its contradiction through pressure and bargaining. All conflicts and contradictions, which arise between the landlords and the bourgeoisie whether on the question of remunerative prices for agricultural produce cheep agricultural inputs and machinery or on the question of taxation the push and pull between the two remains but the alliance continues.

    It is in this context that the Kisan pursues its alternative line, the line of completing the agrarian revolution, in unity with the working class, and continues to lead the mass struggle of the peasantry in this direction. Since independence the situation has changed. Although land monopoly remains a lot of changes have taken place in the agrarian structure, which require a changed approach in building peasant unity and in leading the agrarian revolution to success.

    Land to the tiller and total abolition of landlordism have been the basic slogans of the Kisan Sabha since its inception. What bearing do the changes in agrarian sector have on these basic slogans? Before examining these changes, let me state here at the outset that the seizure and distribution of the land of the landlords still remains the central slogan for the kisan sabha to propagate among the peasantry and other democratic classes. Without the victory of this slogan there cannot be any solution to rural poverty unemployment, a fast development of a balanced economy in the country and so on.

    But the correlation of class forces, which existed at the time when the Kisan Sabha inscribed these basic aims in its programme are not the same as exist today. It is necessary for us to understand his change since it has great relevance to the chalking out of our immediate slogans and actions.

    The land reforms which the Congress Government set about to introduce after independence were not directed to end landlordism and give land to the tiller though this was the pledge the Congress had made to the peasantry during the freedom struggle. These land reforms had only very limited objectives, the main one of which was to reform, not abolish the old type of feudal landlordism by converting the absentee feudal landlords into capitalist landlords personally supervising cultivation in large farms with farms servants and hired agricultural workers. This is the new type of landlord who combines in himself elements of both feudalism and capitalism.

    Another objective was to create a stratum of rich peasants. These two sections were to constitute the political base of the ruling party in the rural areas. They were also to produce the surplus food grains necessary for the Government to feed the urban people as well as to produce the raw materials for industry. With thousands of crores of rupees from the public exchequer pumped into agriculture these sections have been helped to adopt modern methods of farming.

    Here, we should warn against one tendency. Earlier there was a tendency to altogether ignore the penetration of capitalism into agriculture. Now a reverse tendency is raising its head, which considers that feudal landlordism, and other semi-feudal relations have almost totally been abolished. This is wrong. The extent of capitalism in agriculture varies from State to State and even from region to region inside a State. Here a concrete study of the situation in each area is necessary.

    We have also the note the phenomenon of the monetisation of the entire agrarian economy. Today, it is not only those who have a surplus who are taking their produce to the market, even the poor peasant immediately after the harvest for various reasons, sells his produce in the market and later buys even his food grains requirement from the market. It is only if this phenomenon is properly understood can we mount a struggle against the big traders and monopolists.

    Even after the abolition of statutory landlordism like zamindari, jagirdari, etc. concentration of land in the hands of big landlords has not been appreciably reduced. Even today 2.5 per cent of top landlords posses 22.8 per cent of the land. The real concentration would be even more if benami transactions are included.   

    Congress land reforms have also resulted in the eviction of millions of tenants who have either joined the ranks of landless agricultural labourers or become tenants-at-will without any rights or protection. Only a section of the earlier tenants could by a portion of the land on which they were working either by paying compensation in instalments or outright purchase at lowers than market rates.

    So, after the Congress land reforms the situation we find in the rural area is that three per cent of big owners have in their possession about one third of the cultivated land.

    Another ten per cent consists of rich peasants owning roughly five to ten acres of wet, or ten to twenty acres of dry land, who contribute manual labour and employ a considerable number of farm servants and agricultural workers.

    Another 15 per cent consists of middle peasants owning two to five acres of wet, or ten to twelve acres of dry land. They and their families work on the land but also hire labour in busy seasons.

    Twenty per cent of the rural households are poor peasants possessing one or two acres of wet, or two to five acres of dry land. Apart from working on their own land, they have to frequently hire themselves out to earn a living.

    The last 50 per cent are those who own no land at all, earns their livelihood mainly by hiring themselves out as wage workers or are engaged in handicrafts, villages' services, etc.

    Of course, it has to be borne in mind that this categorisation will pay from State to State and region to region.

    What has to be noted is that unlike in the pre-Independence days, 25 per cent of peasants, rich and middle peasants are not moved any longer by the slogan of seizure of landlords land and its distribution. At the other end of the scale the 70m per cent of landless and poor peasants are not conscious and organised enough to go into action today for the seizure of landlords lands; even when they are moved into action, it is only for Government waste land, cultivable forest land etc. Regarding even surplus land above the ceiling which the landlords are keeping illegally, the struggle as in Kerala or recently in Andhra Pradesh, could not advance beyond the stage of locating such surplus land and exposing the Government's claims. Only under the United Front Government in West Bengal in 1969, could some of the surplus land be occupied. This we will have to take into consideration when we work out our immediate tasks.

    But what we have to note is that the Congress Party, which ruled the country for thirty-five years, while failing to end landlordism, land concentration and growing landlessness has successfully disrupted the pre-independence peasant unity. It is true that unity cantered around the rich and middle peasants, which today we are striving to build peasant unity cantering around the agricultural workers and poor peasants. The ruling class party, whether congress or Janata, also used its control peasantry and the disruption of their unity. The two-year of the cooperatives rural banks etc., to perpetuate the division in the peasantry and the disruption of their unity. The two years of the Janata Party government showed that its policies in regard to land reforms were no different from those of the Congress. In fact, some of the Janata State Governments were proposing to reverse even the Congress legislation to favour the landlords.

    Taking note of these structural changes and their multifarious consequences we have to come to the conclusions that the slogan of complete abolition of landlordism and distribution of land of the landless and land-poor continues to be the central slogan of the agrarian revolution a slogan which we have to continue to propagate. But it is a slogan on which we cannot go into action today in most parts of the country.

    While continuing to propagate this as the central slogans, while continuing struggles for surplus land, benami lands, waste land etc. the kisan sabha will have to take up for immediate action such issues as the question of wages of agricultural workers, house sites, rent-reduction, 75 per cent of the produce to the sharecroppers evictions, abolition or scaling down of rural indebtedness, remunerative price for agricultural produce, cheap credit, reduction of burdens and heavy levies like water charges, electricity rates, etc., landlord-goonda attacks with the connivance or direct help from the police the social oppression of harijans, corruption in administration etc,. These are issues which affect all sections of the peasantry-poor, middle, rich, and they can all be drawn into the movement on them. All these currents have to be brought together to build the maximum unity of the peasantry cantering around the agricultural workers and poor peasants to isolate the small stratum of landlords.

    All this will, course depend on how successfully we organise the agricultural workers and poor peasants and bring them into action not only on their own specific demands but also on the general demands of the peasantry as a whole, and how far we are able to draw other sections of the peasantry into movements on issues affecting them, and on the general demands of the peasantry. There is no doubt that the middle and rich peasants can be drawn into movement on such issues. It is our task to see that while other sections of the peasantry support the agricultural workers in their struggles, the latter in turn extend support to movements on the demands of the peasantry, thus paving the way for building peasant unity.

    Our earlier analyses of the agrarian policies of the Congress Governments have shown them to be anti-peasants, serving the interests of the landlords and the bourgeoisie. As compared to that the Left Front Government of West Bengal and Tripura, and the Left Democratic government of Kerala (for a brief period) with the limit power they enjoy under the constitution, backed by the organised peasant movement, have tried to alleviate the conditions of the peasantry. In West Bengal, land has been distributed to 12 lakh families 13 lakh sharecroppers have been registered and more than two lakh of them receive credit from banks in a year, more than two lakhs have been given rights over homesteads, minimum wages fro agricultural workers are regularly revised. Small farmers have been exempted from land revenue and debt relief has been given.

    In Tripura more than one-lakh beneficiaries have been given land, debt relief has been given to poor peasants and artisans, while minimum wages have been fixed and sharecroppers recorded. In Kerala under the Left Democratic Front Government holdings under four acres were exempted from plantation tax, rent arrears for holdings up to 2.5 acres cancelled and subsidies given on inputs and exemptions on gifted land taken away.

    This would not have been possible without the strength of the peasant organisation because without the active intervention of the Kisan Sabha, the bureaucracy would never have allowed the implementation of measures, which would have remained on paper as pious declarations. It is because of these alternative policies that the Kisan Sabha has grown so strong in West Bengal with almost 33 per cent of the adult peasant population including agricultural workers joining the organisation.

    In other states also the kisan sabha has grown through struggles. Kisan Sabha units in different States have taken up different issues depending on the concrete situation in each state. In Bihar the question of eviction of sharecroppers has remained very acute and struggle fought over it; in some, states against rise in taxation and on remunerative prices in most of the states. The first half of 80s witnessed a tremendous upsurge among the peasantry where even the Congress base was drawn into struggles. This shows the tremendous possibilities for building the peasants movement.

    GLORIOUS HISTORY

    OF 50 YEARS

    The Kisan sabha has grown into a powerful organisation with 84 lakh members today and if we include agricultural workers the membership surpasses 95 lakh. The 50 years' record of the All India Kisan Sabha is a record of glorious history. It played an important role in arousing the peasantry in the movement for national freedom. The All India Kisan Sabha was able to unite various sections of the toiling peasantry in the struggle against feudalism, big traders and monopolists. In its long history of 50 years it has had to face severe repression. Even after independence the bourgeois-landlord Government launched severe repression against it but the movement not only survived, it grew in influence and strength. It has emerged as a premier organisation of the peasantry.

    But it should not be forgotten that the peasts organised in the AIKS and other peasant organisations under their influence are only a very small percentage of the peasant population in the country. Vast areas in our country especially in the Hindi-speaking region are untouched by the activities of the organised kisan movement. It is imperative that this grave weakness is over come as quickly as possible.

             

    The Golden Jubilee Year of the AIKS should become the starting point of the biggest activity to expand the Kisan Sabha to all the areas, to spread the message of the agrarian revolution in even part of the country. The Kisan Sabha's aim should be to see that there is no revenue circle in the country without an AIKS unit. Seventy per cent of our population lives in the rural areas and is engaged in agriculture handicrafts and other rural trades. Without organising the bulk of them neither their genuine interests can be defended nor can there be any successful agrarian revolution. The guarantee of the success is a powerful Kisan Sabha as the mass organisation of the peasantry championing also the cause of agricultural workers and forging unity with them and building the unity of the peasantry with the working class. Let the Golden Jubilee Year see the beginning of the efforts to fulfil this historic task.

    The Golden Jubilee of the AIKS comes at a time when the national situation is bleak and the international situation is menacing because of the imperialist threat of nuclear war. Only by strengthening the organisation manifold as speedily as possible can the AIKS mobilise the peasantry to intervene in the national situation and strengthen the struggle for peace against the imperialist warmongers.

    http://cpim.org/marxist/198602_marxist_peasantmov_hks.htm

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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