Aims and Objectives of All India Khet Mazdoor Kisan Saba.
[Adopted by All India Convention of AIKMKS held on December 19,2011 at Srikakulam]
Preamble:
Our country is a predominantly agrarian society with 70%
of its population living in the villages. Out of this, 65% of the population is dependent on agricultural produce and 5% of the population is dependent on handicrafts and other source. Thus, it is the peasantry which happens to be the numerically strongest productive force in India - the important creator of our country's wealth.
India is abundant in natural resources. With ever flowing
rivers, vast fertile agriculture lands, it is land of rich forest,
sea and geological (water, gases, oil and minerals) resources.
It is country of unlimited human resources. In spite of having
all this, our people see no ray of hope in their lives. The problem
of food, cloth and shelter remain unresolved. Illiteracy,
joblessness and fanaticism dominate the country in place of
education, culture and knowledge. In one word the people of
India are groping in darkness without any freedom and safety.
The significance of this peasantry as a political force
cannot be exaggerated either. They had been the pioneers of
our freedom struggle; and indeed the numerous peasant
uprisings against British Imperialism and its feudal allies had
constituted the most important feature of nineteenth and
twentieth century Indian history. Keeping that glorious tradition
alive, the peasant masses in different corners of the country
continue to launch militant struggles for bread and freedom
even today.
Yet it is a matter of great regret that the ruling classes
of our country had never cared to harness this immense
strength and dynamism of the peasant masses to build a modern
and developed India. Rather, the peasants have remained
neglected or constantly oppressed-by the imperialists, the
landlords and the big bourgeoisie who have fleeced all the
wealth produced by them.
It should be remembered that the emancipation of the
proletariat can never be complete unless it emancipates its
peasants allies from the fetters of semi-feudalism. The creation
of modern India demands the unleashing of the creativity of
the peasantry. It is due to these reasons that we characterize
the peasant problem as a national problem, the solution of which
is a must if our country is to move forward.
The Indian people continue to be crushed by the poisonous
fangs of landlords, big bourgeoisie and imperialists even after the 1947 transfer of power. The rural people who constitute an overwhelming majority of Indian population are tied to feudalism. The oppressed masses of rural people have nothing but hunger, poverty, Illiteracy, ill health and unemployment as their ‘property’. They are rewarded with lathies, bullets, chains and jails as their ‘ornaments’.
By virtue of waves of people’s struggles the ruling classes
enacted several laws. They brought Land Reform Laws, Minimum
Wages Act, Ryotwari Act, Operation Barga Act,Forest Rights Act, Various forms of tenancy Rights Act,PESA,Untouchability Act,Prevention of Atrocities on SC, ST act and Women Act, Reservations,and “Progressive” Welfare Schemes. But they were only aimed at sinking the people in illusions and are becoming useless for them.
Right from the time of First Five Year Plan, the plans are drawn for
irrigation projects. But these plans are lopsided, as they are drawn
under the guidance of imperialists, the drought and famines continue to be the order of the day in our country. The problems of environment, submergence, regional disparities, and inter-state controversies continue unresolved.
The rulers are taking measures to form big farms with a view
to serve the interests of imperialists, Comprador bourgeoisie. Land
corporatization and land consolidation are only a part of these
measures.
The green revolution, intensive farming, blue revolution, high
yielding seeds, aquaculture-all these are only aimed at breaking the
backbone of poor peasants and serving the interests of multinational companies. The middle peasantry, poor peasantry and even the rich peasantry are driven into crisis as they do not get remunerative prices, subjected to market exploitation and price spiral of fertilizers and insecticides.
The liberalization, privatization and globalization pursued by
the Indian ruling classes had become potential tools in the hands of
imperialists and Indian corporate houses to penetrate into, loot and
control the agrarian sector and rural areas. In this wake, the peasants are displaced from their lands, adivasis are deprived of their rights over the lands, forests and natural resources and the vast masses of rural people are deprived of their means of livelihood and pushed into ruination in a big way in the name of SEZ, SAZ other schemes and so called development policy.
The peasants are heavily weighed down by the burden of direct
and indirect taxes, heavy costs of inputs and the debt burden of private finance companies, banks, co operative banks, local money lenders and as a result the rate of suicides is increasing day by day.
The ruling classes are implementing not only the retrogressive
policies, but also the policies of brutal repression right from the days of Telangana, Naxalbari and Srikakulam peasant struggles to this day. Private goons, private armies and police forces are tools in their hands for this purpose. They are kicking up hostilities with the neighboring countries and are opposing the movement against imperialism.
AIMS & OBJECTIVES
Objectives:
The Indian economy remains underdeveloped because agriculture - its main stay - suffers from stagnation. On the one hand, land - the principal means of agricultural production - remains alienated from the bulk of the peasantry who toil on land but do not own it in the main. With ownership concentrated in the hands of a handful of landlords and big farmers, non tilling people, the broad majority of tillers face pauperization, which adversely affects their purchasing power. This, in its turn, inhibits the growth of demand for commodities and consequent industrialization of society. So, unless and until the bulk of the peasants are provided with land, a modern and industrially advanced India can not be built. To put it in another way, the alienation of land from its actual tillers and producers is obstructing the development of the productive forces as a whole. The basic task of the proletariat in the agrarian front today is to remove this obstruction. This implies the launching of struggle against feudalism.
“The objective of AIKMKS is, therefore, to rally, organize and unite the landless laborer, poor peasants, middle peasants and other sections of rural poor with landless laborer and poor peasants as its core for the abolition of semi- colonial and semi- feudal system - around the central slogan - 'land to the tiller' - and to resist the feudal authority, exploitation and all forms of its oppression including caste system and gender domination and establish the people’s democratic authority.”
The Aims:
- To build up the class organization of rural poor in the rural areas
by uniting the middle peasantry, artisans and caste based
professionals under the leadership of landless laborer and poor peasants.
- To form a broad platform in the form of rural United Front with
petty traders and rich peasantry who are adopting a friendly
attitude towards the landless laborers and poor peasants.
- To fight for the New Democratic order in alliance with the working class, petty employees and landless laborer and poor peasants.
- To unite the entire rural poor irrespective of their caste, religious,
racial and gender barriers to raise the people’s consciousness
politically, socially and culturally.
- To defy and resist the authority and domination of feudal landlords
on land and other means of rural production.
- To move all the people unitedly free from caste, religious, racial
and male chauvinism a part of feudal arrogance against feudal,
Comprador bourgeoisie and imperialism.’
The following demands and slogans for the propaganda, agitation and struggle will be adopted in the course of efforts to realize the above Objectives and Aims.
1. AIKMKS Works With the Land to the Tiller as the Central Task.
a. To distribute the surplus lands of landlords by implementing the
land reform laws.
b. To distribute the benami lands, lands retained in the name of
factories, plantations, temples and unused lands to the landless and poor peasants.
c. To form Tribal Autonomous Regions. To demand to implement
the Acts that were enacted to protect the rights of adivasis; restore
the lands to Adivasis that are in the illegal occupation of landlords;
to distribute the forest ban-jar lands to landless Adivasis and Adivasi poor.
d. To abolish all forms of usury.
e. To implement Minimum Wages Act.
f. To ensure work for the whole year.
g. To eradicate social inequalities and cast system.
h. To abolish the system of patriarchy.
i. To oppose identity chauvinism.
j. Equal wages to equal work for men and women.
k. To solve the problems of Dalits, Tanners, Kalamkari Workers,
Weavers, Tappers, Blacksmiths, Carpenters, Washer men,
Barbers and Fisher folk etc.
l. To implement the Rural Development Project and Welfare
schemes properly; to curtail cheating by the brokers and
bureaucratic machinery in the course of implementing these
projects and schemes, to implement Minimum Wages Act in Welfare Projects like NRGEA.
m. To stop the deception perpetrated in the course of recovery of
loans; to write off all the burden of debt on the farmers.
n. Proper compensation to the people for the losses incurred at
the time of natural calamities and waiving of loans.
o. To stop privatization of health care and education and ensure free health care and free education to all the poor.
p.To identify the rich and exclude them from the lists of rationing, bring the entire poor into the public distribution system (PDS) and ensure them the supply of agricultural inputs together with essential commodities through the PDS.
q. To stop massive migration from rural areas by ensuring the share croppers and other rural poor the right over the land and proper employment to the rural unemployed.
II. AIKMKS strives to achieve proper water sources for the
resolution of problems of agricultural producers and for
permanent solution to the drought and other calamities.
a. For the formulation of a Comprehensive Irrigation Policy and its
implementation.
b. For development of small projects and tapping and proper
utilization of underground water.
c. Completion of canals and repairs for drainage system and tanks.
d. Remunerative prices for the agricultural products and the forest
produce.
e. Stop cheating resorted to by the FCI, STC and Marketfed at the
time of procuring agricultural products from the farmers.
f. Bring down the prices of electricity, diesel, seeds, fertilizers,
pesticides; prevent adulteration.
g. Expose, the fake schemes of Government (Ex. Water Sheds,
Group Insurance, etc.,)
h. Solve the problems of small producers in the poultry and
aquaculture.
III. AIKMKS will stand by the Democratic Classes in solidarity
with their Movements for the Protection of Democratic
Rights.
a. To protect the Right to form Association and the right of
Organization, Demands to stop the repression on peoples’
movement and the heinous massacre of people’s leaders.
b. To stop the atrocities of landlords and goondas against the
people and scrap the repressive laws (TADA, NSA and ESMA etc.)
c. To whole heartily support the struggles of Dalits, Women,
Minorities, Adivasis and ethnic minorities.
d. To support the struggles of working class as part of
worker - peasant alliance.
e. To support the just struggles of teachers, employees and
intellectuals.
f. To demand the release of political prisoners and the improvement
in jail conditions.
IV. AIKMKS carries on the struggle together with the democratic and patriotic forces against the Imperialist aggression.
a. To oppose contract farming by the MNCs and corporate farming.
b. To oppose entry of MNC in agricultural sector through Agribusiness.
c. To demand an end to the imperialist domination in economic,
military and all other spheres.
d. To oppose bowing down to conditionalities dictated by WTO,
WB, and IMF.
e. To demand moratorium on foreign loans.
f. To demand scrapping of SEZ, SAZ and such schemes and the return of lands acquired from the peasants.
g. To oppose Foreign direct or indirect investment in retail trade and other service sectors.
h. To demand cordial relations with the neighboring countries.
i. To extend solidarity to the struggles of world people against the
super power policies of domination and aggression.
India is avast country with uneven economic, political, social and cultural development in all fields of life. This uneven development
continues not only among the states, but also within the states
and districts. So when we talk of agrarian revolutionary program,
we have to make concrete analysis of the situation prevailing in
every area in order to work out an immediate programme and
slogans of action with the long term perspective of making
success the agrarian revolution. The "aims and objectives of
AIKMKS" provide a general understanding. It should be utilized in formulating the concrete programme to each and every area.
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