Vol. XLII No. 27 July 08, 2018
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Massive Jail Bharo Struggle on August 9

THE All India Kisan Sabha has given a call for massive jail bharo struggle on August 9, 2018 – Quit India Day.  Lakhs of peasants will participate in this struggle at the district level across India. The CITU has declared solidarity with the genuine demands of the peasantry and lakhs of workers also will join peasantry on August 9 in the jail bharo struggle. The press note issued at a press conference held by the AIKS in New Delhi on June 29, said that 10 crore signature will be collected from the people and submitted to the prime minister through the district collectors. This will be the beginning of a new era of issue based united struggles in the country that will culminate in the end of corporate-driven economic reform to resolve the acute agrarian crisis and rural distress.

The struggle on Quit India Day denotes the importance of fight against imperialist-driven pro-corporate economic policies known as neoliberal reforms that are being intensified by the rabidly communal Narendra Modi government. The BJP led government, for first time in the history of the country, has allowed 100 percent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in agriculture and retail trade, declared introduction of contract farming under the aegis  of multinational-transnational corporate institutions and e-platform to link agriculture markets all over the country to facilitate corporate procurement. The Flipkart deal of global giant Walmart is the latest example of imperialist penetration in domestic e-trade market. Thus the BJP-RSS combine has dropped their tall claim of ‘swadeshi policies’ and has become completely subservient to imperialist powers led by USA. 

The BJP in its election manifesto in 2014 had promised a comprehensive loan waiver, remunerative price at 50 percent above cost of production to all crops, 2 crore employment generation per year to prevent agrarian distress and related migration, crop insurance, electricity and irrigation to all agriculture fields etc but miserably failed to fulfill them. The ban on cattle trade and unbridled organised crime of killing innocent people from minorities and dalit sections in the name of cow through mob lynching by the sangh parivar organisations have badly affected the cattle economy and ruined the subsistence livelihood of the peasantry. Demonetisation and GST have deeply affected the agrarian economy, destabilised the federal character of states and widely destroyed both employment and income of peasants, workers and petty traders. The four years of Modi raj are full of failures and reckless onslaughts on the peasantry.

The Kisan Sabha will submit a charter of demands to the government of India and if the government is not willing to change the reckless anti-peasant policies that aggravate the agrarian crisis, then the peasantry will unleash relentless struggles independently and also unitedly with other sections like workers, petty traders, students, youth, women and other social sections including dalits, adivasis and minorities. 

Five lakh Worker-Peasant Sangharsh Rally

On September 5 in New Delhi

As part of the ongoing struggles against the neoliberal policies and misrule of the Modi government, a huge rally of five lakh people will be organised on September 5, 2018 in New Delhi. This will be the first worker-peasant rally since the independence of India and the largest rally of the Left and democratic forces. The rally will be organised jointly by CITU, AIKS and AIAWU.

The peasants and workers will join the rally with their families. The rally will declare future course of struggles and give a clarion call to build Left and democratic political alternative at all India level based on alternative policies for people’s development.  As part of this struggle, the Kisan Sabha will popularise the slogan ‘To change policies, advance mass struggles to change the government’.

The worker-peasant rally will address the issues of all social sections including students, youth, and women, adivasis, dalits and minorities. Toiling people from all the states will be joining the rally. Dalit, adivasi and minority sections also will be joining the rally in large number.  A widespread campaign will be conducted by the state and lower level units to popularise the demands of the rally and literature materials will be circulated to educate the masses. Artists, intellectuals, social media persons will be participating in the massive campaign. 

Rs 5 Crore Peasant Struggle Fund 

To intensify struggles and to advance the peasant movement across the country especially in North and North-East India, Kisan Sabha is giving call for collecting Rs 5 crore kisan sangharsh nidhi 2018/peasant struggle fund 2018. The fund will be collected by the village and primary units of AIKS through open bucket collection of Rs 10 from peasant households and petty traders in the rural India. The kisan volunteers will organise collection campaign on July 22-23 and July 29-30. All the activists of Kisan Sabha from all India president and general secretary to unit level activists will participate in the collection campaign in the villages.

Many friends and well wishers of AIKS have expressed desire to donate fund for peasant struggle fund 2018. Hence, Kisan Sabha has given call to public to donate to peasant struggle fund 2018 through bank transfer in the account of All India Kisan Sabha A/c No. 20032032844- IFSC ALLA0210163, Allahabad bank, 17 Parliament Street, New Delhi 110 001.

Support to Jharkhand Hartal on July 5

Kisan Sabha has declared full support to the Jharkhand Hartal on July 5 by all the opposition parties against the decision of the president of India to give assent to the notorious amendments in the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act (SPT Act) and Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (CNT Act) by the BJP led state government. These amendments are aimed to take over the mineral rich tribal land and hand over to corporate mining companies.