THOUSANDS of agricultural workers marched from Bangalore City Railway Station to Freedom Park and staged a dharna on February 10 demanding proper implementation of MGNREGA, budgetary allocation for a welfare fund for agricultural workers, allocation of house sites to agricultural workers, and regularisation of unauthorised cultivation of government lands by the landless poor. The agricultural workers came in their thousands from the districts of Bidar, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, Bellary, Koppal, Gadag, Uttara Kannada, Udupi, South Kanara, Kodagu, Mandya, and Chikkaballapura.

The rally was led by All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) General Secretary A Vijayaraghavan and state office-bearers Nityanandaswami, G N Nagaraj, M Puttamadhu, Bhimashetty Yampally, Venkatesh Koni, Kariyappa Acholli, Davalsab Nadaf, H Gangadharayya, M Basavaraj, and Mallamma among others.

This pre-budget rally was preceded by a state-level jatha for 16 days. The main purpose of the jatha was to create awareness among the agricultural workers of the state about the Modi-led BJP government’s intention to dilute the rural job scheme MGNREGA. If that happens, the agricultural workers will get less days of work and their earnings will be reduced. The second message the jatha wanted to convey was that the farmers and agricultural workers should fight against the anti-farmer ordinance of the Modi government amending the land acquisition act. The third demand was for a state-level welfare act and a welfare fund for agricultural workers.

The jatha started on January 25 from a place called ‘Basava Kalyana’ in Bidar district, from where the 12th century social reformer Basaweshwara started his historic social reform movement. The jatha was inaugurated by Akka Annapurna Thayee of Basava Seva Trust. She, in her inaugural speech, contended that we need a society where the toiling people are respected and allowed to lead an honourable life. Prakash Choudhry, AIAWU leader from Maharashtra who had been invited for the inauguration of the jatha, spoke in Marathi language for the benefit of Marathi-speaking people. The call he gave to fight against the pro-corporate and anti-poor policies of the Modi government was well received by the people.

The decorated vehicle of the jatha traversed about 3,500 km covering 18 districts. About 100 meetings were held along the jatha route, besides a number of road-side gatherings. More than 50,000 handbills were distributed. The message of the jatha reached to lakhs of agricultural workers and common people. The jatha was led by Nityananda Swami, AIAWU state president. Activists of Kisan Sabha, CITU, DYFI, SFI and AIDWA cooperated to make the jatha a success. In each and every place, it was welcomed by agricultural workers with flowers and garlands. The jatha was taken in procession from the outskirts of the town or the village to the place of meeting with the beating of drums.

Kranti Kiran Kumar, AIAWU leader from Andhra Pradesh, was the guest at a place called Bapur in Raichur district. He was specially invited to speak to the people in Telugu language. Most of these people are landless agricultural workers. They have been trying to make a living by cultivating government waste lands whenever these get some rains. But they are being continuously harassed by forest officials. AIAWU has taken up the issue of regularisation of such unauthorised cultivation and this was also one of the demands focused in the jatha. Kumar asked the agricultural workers to build a strong movement to get their rights to land. A number of such unauthorised cultivators met the jatha leaders and with tears in their eyes narrated how they have been mercilessly evicted from lands they had been cultivating for decades. In Gangavathi, the jatha leaders met the Marakumbi Dalits who had been victims of series of atrocities. They told the jatha leaders that undeclared social boycott still continued in the village. They were assured that the issue would be taken up with the government. In Pandavapura taluk of Mandya district, the jatha was taken to an adivasi hamlet. As many as 108 adivasi families had been rehabilitated there 30 years ago. But they were not given pattas for their house sites. Not all of them were given BPL ration cards and no bank came forward to give them loans to carry on their traditional occupations, they said.

On February 10 when the jatha reached Bangalore, thousands of agricultural workers from different parts of the state came to the state capital and reached the Freedom Park in a huge rally. The protest meeting was chaired by Nityananda Swami. Inaugurating the dharna, AIAWU general secretary Vijayaraghavan said, “By intending to restrict MGNREGA to 200 districts, the Modi government is trying to dilute the implementation of the Act. By getting the Shanta Kumar Commission recommendations, the government intends to give up food grain procurement… The government wants to curtail all subsidies for education, health and agriculture and privatise banks, insurance, coal and defence sectors. The government has also moved towards acquiring agricultural lands without the consent of the farmers by bringing an ordinance. In the name of ‘love jihad’ and ‘ghar wapsi’, communal riots are being fuelled across the country.”

But the people of Delhi have given Modi a clear message. In Delhi elections, people saw 120 members of Parliament, 20 central ministers, sadhus, sanyasins, people dressed like Ram, Laxman, Hanuman, etc. along with a huge number of RSS activists campaigning for the BJP. But the people of Delhi rejected Modi and demanded policies different from what is being pursued at present. The policies of the Congress government are not an alternative to BJP. In Kerala, five times the LDF came to power. Ninety-five percent of agricultural workers there have their own houses. No Dalit family is without a house of their own. Every agricultural worker who crossed the age of 60 gets monthly pension. Whey can’t the government of Karnataka give similar benefits to agricultural workers? Vijayaraghavan asked and said that the agricultural workers in Karnataka should unite and fight against the policies of the Congress government in the state.

Karnataka rural development minister H K Patil visited the dharna venue. The memorandum was read out. Speaking on the occasion, the minister said all the demands raised in the memorandum were genuine. He said the state government would join the agricultural workers in demanding the strengthening of MGNREGA and in opposing the land acquisition ordinance of the central government. On demands pertaining to the state government, he said he would bring them to the notice of the chief minister and arrange for a meeting of the leaders of the AIAWU with him. At the end, he said that it was unfortunate that the UPA government could not work together with the Left in the second term.

Later on, a delegation of AIAWU office-bearers comprising Nityananda Swami, G N Nagaraj, Chandrappa Hoskera, Bhimashetty Yampalli, M Puttamadhu and K Hanumegowda met the Karnataka Additional Chief Secretary and discussed in detail the demands made in the memorandum.