12th Conference: Preparations for the Session

Dear Brothers,

The struggle of the land workers, farm labourers and peasants is extending and strengthening in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The struggle which is being carried on against the exploitation and oppression by feudalism, colonialism and imperialism is one of the fundamental aspects of the present fight for national independence, progress, peace and fraternal economic and cultural collaboration between all the peoples of the world.

The Indian agricultural workers and peasants have gained in this world-wide struggle a place of honour.

In all the States of the Indian Union they are strongly fighting for the defence of their vital interests.

The conquest of the agrarian reform and the reform of farm contracts, the improvement of the living and working conditions of the farm labourers, the reduction of the land rent are all problems closely tied one with other and are forming the platform of the alliance between peasants and farm labourers.

The victory of the peasants and farm labourers will ensure the basis of success for further reforms and will create the conditions indispensable for the economic and social development of India.

In this fight against the privileges of the big landlords, supported by the reactionary and conservative forces of world imperialism, unity is the most powerful weapon of the workers’ masses.

Unite around the glorious banner of the AIKS, strengthen its ranks, establish alliance with all other organisations of farm workers and peasants on the basis of common programmes.

You have the sympathy and solidarity of millions of agricultural and forestry workers and peasants who are following with concern the hard fights which you are carrying on for the well-being, liberty and progress of your great country.

Yours Franternally,

For the Secretariat of the International, R. VIDIMARI

CENTRAL COMMITTEE AGRICULTURAL WORKERS UNION, USSR WARMLY GREETS TWELFTH CONFERENCE AND WISHES IT SUCCESSFUL WORK: VEGURAZ DEO PRESIDENT.

DEAR COMRADES, LEARNING THAT TWELFTH SESSION OF ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA WILL SOON INAUGURATE, I, ON BEHALF CHINESE AGRICULTURAL FORESTRY AND WATER CONSERVANCY WORKERS EXTEND WARM GREETINGS AND WISH THE CONGRESS SUCCESS. KANG YUNG DO: CHAIRMAN.

OCCASION YOUR TWELFTH ANNUAL SESSION SEND YOU OUR FRATERNAL SALUTE SOLIDARITY WISHING FULL SUCCESS CONFERENCE WORK FOR STRENGTHENING TRADE UNION UNITY BETTER LIFE DEMOCRACY PEACE ON BEHALF PRESIDUM CENTRAL COMMITTEE AGRICULTURAL WORKERS TRADE UNION RUMANIAN PEOPLES REPUBLIC SECRETARY. VOICU

ON BEHALF OF FOREST AND AGRICULTURAL WORKERS OF PEOPLES POLAND WE SEND YOU FRATERNAL GREETINGS AND WISHES FOR FRUITFUL DEBATES AND SUCCESS IN THE DEFENCE OF VITAL INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE AND ALL WORKING PEASANTS IN THE DEFENCE OF PROGRESS DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS TRADE UNION RIGHTS AND PEACE IN ASIA AND ALL OVER THE WORLD STOP WE THANK YOU HEARTILY FOR YOUR INVITING OUR ORGANISATION TO YOUR SESSION STOP SINCE WE CANNOT ATTEND THIS SESSION WE EXTEND YOU EXPRESSIONS OF SOLIDARITY WITH STRUGGLE WAGED BY YOU AND WITH YOUR PROGRESSIVE ASPIRATIONS STOP.

Thank you for the invitation to 12th Annual Session of All- India Kisan Sabha. Very sorry that for technical reasons we are unable to send our delegation and we express our warm fraternal greetings, wishing you all success in your negotiations and in fight for better life of peasants and peace.

Long live solidarity of the working people! Long live World Peace!

Frantisek Matuska, Chairman.

In the name of Trade Unions of Agricultural and Forestry Workers of People’s Republic of Bulgaria, we wish you fruitful work to achieve even bigger successes in the struggle to assure well-being, unity, peace and independence of your country.

We cordially thank you or your invitation. On behalf of the Agricultural Workers and Cattle Breeders of Albanan Republic we warmly greet the delegates on the occasion of the 12th Conference and through them all the agricultural workers of India.

We hope the work of the session will serve to reinforce the basic unity of action of Indian peasants in their struggles for bread, national independence and in defence of peace in Asia and the whole world.

Long live the unity and international solidarity of the workers of the whole world united in the WFTU!

From agricultural workers organised in the Union of Agricultural and Dairy Workers, we send our fraternal greetings to the delegates of the 12th Session of the AIKS.

It is with interest and admiration that progressive agricultural workers of Holland are following your struggle for the amelioration of economic and social conditions of peasants of Indian for peace and progress.

We wish you a fruitful session in the interest of your members and entire people of India.

Long live the friendship of all the peasants and workers of the world!

Long live Peace! LOng live the WFTU!

We send our fraternal greetings to you on the occasion of your 12th Session and wish your best success. We have known stubborn struggles being waged by Indian peasants and its premier organisation, the All-India Kisan Sabha, since the great World Conferences of Agricultural and Forestry Workers and Working Peasants held in Vienna last year. Guided by the teachings of the Conference, we have adopted at our 8th Congress concrete resolutions for peace, national independence and better living conditions of peasants.

We hope your session to discuss and adopt concrete resolutions which lead Indian peasants to peace and bright future against landlords’ eviction offensive, higher and new taxes, increased water rate, lower prices of agricultural products, famine and floods.

We are convinced that you will take at the Session further steps towards realization of the true land reform, for peace and national independence, uniting actions of all peasants and their organisations and closely allying with the workers, agricutural labourers and city workers.

Long live the solidarity of Indian and Japanese peasants!

Satoji Sato, General Secretary, General Centre of Japan Peasants’ Union.

On the occasion of your next Congress on 13th to 19th September, 1954, at Moga, allow us on behalf of the Central Council of the SARBUKSI, representing the Indonesian Forestry Workers to extend our opinions as follows:-

We are very glad in this opportunity to send our expressions to our brothers from the ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA. Since our last International Conference of 1953 in Vienna, our fraternal ties became stronger and stronger.

Properly our close co-operation began and reached its climax when in our struggle for national independence against the Dutch inperialists on 17th August, 1945 some brothers of INDIA have joined actively in the first front. After that our fraternal ties on organisational basis became more and more solid and at last consolidated.

This is only the result of the correct leading of our International firstly and common struggle of our two nations secondly. And thanks to our united struggle for peace, in the last time we have succeeded to frustrate the efforts of the American imperialists to build up an agression pact via the Colombo Conference.

Your Congress will take place some days after the aggression conference in Manila. In this case we are quite sure that your Congress will take care for it and discuss the problem of our further struggle for peace and progress.

And at last we herewith on behalf of the Indonesian Forestry Workers send our warm and fraternal greetings and wish greater successes of your Congress and in your struggle for improving the peasants’ economic and social conditions, peace and progress.

Long Live the All India Kisan Sabha! Long Live the International Solidarity! Long Live World Peace!

Soetarto, Deputy General Secretary

While we acknowledge receipt of your invitation dated 10th August, which was received here on the 26th August, 1954 I have to inform you that we are grateful of the opportunity offered to us to witness the peasant gathering in India.

Following the resolution of the 3rd World Trade Union Congress, we have whole-heartedly accepted your invitation and hope to contribute towards proletarian internationalism.

We are taking decision upon sending a delegation to the Twelfth Annual Session of the All India Kisan Sabha and as soon as we have decided, you will be communicated with.

Meanwhile, we convey our wishes to the preparatory committee and trust that this meeting will be represented by all peasants’ movements in the world.

Essandoh-Encher. General Secretary.

The Central Committee of the Cyprus Farmers’ Union on behalf of the thousands peasants of Cyprus sends to your 12th session and to the peasants of your country our warm greetings.

The peasants of Cyprus are fighting for better conditions of living, for security prices for our products, for free commerce with all countries, alienation and low rents of land irrigation, for lower cost of production, etc.

The most important problem is the problem of land. From the 3,246,012 acres of fertile land 800,000 acres are belonging to landlords, churches, monasteries, other sufficient land low forests, halitics belongs to government. NOt only this, the government in the last few years have requisitioned 100,000 acres of fertile land for military purposes.

THe peasants of Cyprus are facing very bad economic conditions. MOre than 8 millions sterlings are to day the rural debts.

In three article the news paper “Neos Democrates” of Cyprus published an article of your G. Secretary N. Prasada Rao on the subject: To the 12th session of the All India Kisan Sabha and the Struggles of the peasants of India. We learned too many of your problems and struggles from this article.

The solution of your problems depends on your struggle, on the struggle of all peasants of India.

We wish any success to the purposes of your session on your struggle for peace and a better living conditions of your people.

With the guidance of our International, all peasants in every country will develop their struggle for a lasting peace and better future to all people of the world.

With this opportunity we thank you for a second time for your protest to the British Minister for Colonies on the Matter of requisition of land for military purposes.

Long live peasants of India! Long live the friendship of our peoples! Long live the friendship and peace between all peoples of the world!

Chambis Michaelides, General Secretary.

Upon receipt of information that the 12th Session of the All-India Kisan Sabha is to be held from 13th to 19th September, 1954, at Moga, Ferozpur District, Punjab (I), I was directed by the Executive of the Sugar and Agricultural Workers’ Union of Jamaica, to inform your Congress that the members of this organisation have pledged solidarity with the peasants of India and further wish your conferences every success.

H. St. G. Sinclair, General Secretary

The All-India Trade Union Congress greets the Twelfth Session of the All-India Kisan Sabha and wishes it all success.

The All-India Trade Union Congress is conscious of the fact that the trade unions cannot win the struggles of the workers unless they have the backing of the kisans, who form the mighty foundation of our country’s life, economy and politics. It is equally recognised by you that you too in your struggles must be helped by the working class. The hammer of the working class that shapes, the world must unite with your sickle, if all our people are to reap the benefits of our common labour and man’s science. We must join hands to abolish landlordism and curb the anti-people policies of our capitalists. We must remove them from the seats of power in the State which they use in order to attack our life and liberties. Then alone we shall reap the fruits of our labour and have democracy, peace and complete freedom for our country.

The AITUC once again greets you in the name of organised workers of India.

Accept congratulations. Kisans of India must unite. Hind Kisan Panchayat and Kisan Sabha should give lead. My support as important office-bearer of Punjab Praja Socialist Party and Hind Kisan Panchayat assured. Excuse my absence.

I request you to kindly accept my greetings to the delegates. I wish Conference success.

You probably know, the problem of the landless peasants and plantation labour is most pathetic. I trust, you will give a lead in this direction for the solution of their problems.

Regret inability sending fraternal delegation. Wish 12th Kisan Conference all success.

The Bombay Salt-pan workers have full confidence in the leadership of the All-India Kisan Sabha and expect the guidance in the struggle against the exploiters and the repressecs… wish Conference complete success.

I have been specially asked by my colleagues to attend this Session so that I can carry with me the most valuable experiences rom you about the lives, problems and struggles of our heroic peasantry. This will inspire our Artistes and Writers to come forward with more inspiring songs, dances and dramas.

We believe that IPTA cannot truly become the National Theatre Organisation in the service of the people unless it is deep-rooted among our people, specially peasantry and workers.

I take this opportunity to assure you that we shall struggle hard and tenaciously, to develop IPTA worthy of its name, taking IPTA to the rural areas, mobilising folk-artistes and poets and bringing the rich folk-arts to our fold. And we believe that it is only possible by your concrete help and guidance.

The Twelfth Session of the All-India Kisan Sabha is profoundly grieved at the death of the following Kisan Sabha workers and kisans, pays homage to the memory of the glorious martyrs and pledges to fulfil the noble cause for which they have laid down their lives.

The Sabha at the same time condemns the action of those responsible for the murders and demands due punishment for their nefarious action and that such action must not be repeated.

West Bengal: Annada Dolui (Howarh police firing), Satish Mistri (24 Parganas police firing), Basanta Samanta (Midnapur-killed by landlords’ goondas), and four others.

Uttar Pradesh: Sita Ram (Unnao), Sudarshan Lal (Etawa), Shiva Pujan (Ballia)- (all killed by landlords).

Bihar: Jatta Sah, Roshan Rai, Pahagu Mandal, Haladhar Sahis (all from Muzafarpur- killed by landlords), and Trimukh Narayan Mishra (killed in jail).

Malabar: Anandan and Achuthan (shot dead in male Liberation Struggle).

Rajasthan: Eight kisans killed by landlords.

Tamil Nadu: Natarajan and Chinnappan.

Andhra: Three.

PEPSU: Gajjan Singh and Darbara Singh.

T-C State: Nine peasants killed in the struggle for linguistic province

Telangana: Three (Dharmasagar 2, Karimnagar 1)

The Twelfth Session of the All-India Kisan Sabha deeply mourns the death of the following Kisan Sabha workers, when faithfully served the great cause of the kisans of India and the Kisan Sabha and offers heart-felt sympathies to their below reaved families.

Punjab: 1. Baba Nidhan Singh, M.L.A., a former member of the CKC, and Baba Lal Singh.

Maharashtra: 2. Vinayak Rao Bhuskute

Bihar: 3. K. B. Srivastava

Manipur: 4. Longjam Bijoy Singh, (one of the founders of the Kisan Sabha in Manipur)

Orissa: 5. Mohan Bhuyan (Ganjam)

1. Nishakar Sahu (Cuttack)

Bengal: 7. Hemen Bhattacharya (Midnapur)

1. Adwaita Naskar (24 Parganas)
2. Trailokya Mandal (24 Parganas)
3. Jnan Chakravarty (Howrah)
4. Sudhir Manna (Howrah)
5. Ashu Parui (Howrah)
6. Kangali Dolui (Howrah)
7. Tarapada Das (Hoogly)
8. Bhagirath (West Dinajpur)
9. Jagath (West Dinajpur)
10. Haren (West Dinajpur)
11. Abhiram (West Dinajpur)
12. Mani Karmakar (Burdwan)

CPSU: 20. Jamahan Singh (Sangrur)

1. Mohan Singh (Barnala)

The peasants of Pakistan and their movement for land, not reduction and for improvement of their living standards, for passing through severe repression at the hands of the Muslim League Government of Pakistan. Along with a large number of working-class and middle-class democrats, peasant leaders and militants have been rounded up and detained throughout trial.

This session condemns the new wave of repression launched at the instance of the US Ambassador against the democratic movement in Pakistan and extends its sympathy and support to the valiant peasants and other democrats facing repression and to their just cause. It demands their immediate and unconditional release and restoration of full civil properties.

The foreign and Indian monopolists in their hunt for proposals are intensifying their attacks against the working class in the form of large-scale retrenchment, increased work-load and wage cuts. The Congress Government fully supports the profit-hunting policies of these monopolists and itself as an employer, is pursuing similar policies in relation to its employees.

The anti-working-class policies of the Congress Government have reached their climax in sanctioning rationalisation in mills, which foredoom lakhs of workers to unemployment and starvation, and in its modification of the Bank Appellate Tribunal Award against the interests of bank employees. The anti-labour policy of the Government has reached such a pass that even Mr. Giri, Labour Minister, tendered his resignation from the Cabinet.

This session of the AIKS greets the unity and resistance of the working class and employees of all categories that has been rapidly growing in the recent months to beat back the offensive of capitalists and the Government that defends their interests and extends its full support to the struggles of the working class and against the monopolist offensive and for improvement f their living conditions- for work, full employment, wages, bonus and reduction in hours of work.

The All-India Kisan Sabha greets the people of the French and Portuguese possessions in India for the heroic struggle being waged by them for liberation from foreign rule and merging with the Indian Union. These struggles are an inseparable part of our struggle for full independence and national sovereignty and of the battle of all Asian peoples for the abolition of colonial rule and exploitation and the attainment of complete national independence. They are also a part of the world people’s struggle for defeating Anglo-American intrigues for unleashing a World War and using the colonial peoples as cannon fodder for achieving world domination.

By their magnificent and dogged fight, spread over a number of years, the people of the French-Indian possessions supported by their Indian brethren, have compelled the French rulers to abandon some of their possessions and to agree to negotiate with the Government of India for a peaceful transfer of the remaining areas.

The struggle in French India has enhanced the confidence of the people of Goa and other Portuguese possessions fighting for their liberation, in spite of the brutalities committed and repressive measures adopted by the fascist Salazar Government in Goa.

The process of liberating the Portuguese enclaves within the Indian Union has already started. The All-India Kisan Sabha greets the Warli peasantry of Nagar Haveli for rising in thousands to liberate their enclaves from Portuguese rule and for minimum agrarian reform in their territories, such as abolition of forced labour, reducing rents to 1/6 of the produce and achieving a minimum wage to agricultural labourers, as in the neighbouring State of Bombay. The Warli peasantry have also elected their own Panchayats for local administration.

At the same time, the fortress of Portuguese rule in India, viz. Goa, is still held by the Portuguese under a regime of fascist military terror, backed by the support of the Anglo American powers.

The All-India Kisan Sabha strongly condemns the intervention of British imperialists in the Goa affair, by cautioning the Indian Government against helping the Goan people’s struggle. It disapproves the Government of India’s policies of preventing Indian volunteers from entering Portuguese territory for giving fraternal support to the local population struggling for freedom and for accepting the proposal for ’neutral observers’. This step not only negates the basic position that Indians and Goans are fellow countrymen and goa is part of the Indian territory, but actually strengthens the Portuguese in their efforts to suppress the popular movement in Goa and continue their rule over their Indian possessions.

The All-India Kisan Sabha gives its fullest support to all political parties inside and outside the Portuguese and French possessions who are fighting for their liberation and calls upon the Indian Government to do the same. It further demands that the Government of India must intervene directly in Goa and Pondicherry in aid of the local population and for liquidating Franco-Portuguese rule over their Indian pockets, if negotiations fail.

The 12th Session of the All-India Kisan Sabha expresses its sense of solidarity with the All-India and State Peace Councils which are popularising the cause of relaxation f international tension and demanding: ban on Hydrogen Bomb, the peaceful settlement of the Korean and Indo-Chinese questions, the restoration of the United Nations to its original role of helping peaceful settlement disputes, etc.

The session appeals to all units of the Kisan Sabha to popularise the peace movement and to run an incessant campaign in favour of the measures demanded by the peace movement.

This session of the All-India Kisan Sabha sends its warm fraternal greetings to the people of Viet Nam on the successful conclusion of the Agreement on Indo-China at the Geneva Conference. The Agreement has led to a cease-fire in the seven-year-old war which the French imperialists had been carrying on, aided by the US imperialists, in order to continue their colonial rule over the people of Indo-China. The Agreement has opened up the perspective of peacefully building a United Democratic State of Viet Nam, opening up the path of progress and prosperity to the people of Indo-China.

The determined and heroic struggle that the people of Viet Nam had been carrying on for 7 long years, the successive defeats that the People’s Liberation Army had been inflicting on the French imperislists culminating in the fiasco of their plans in the historic battle of Dien Bien-Phu, the persistent efforts made by the Soviet Union and People’s China, the gallant support that the Vietnamese people received from the French people and the ever growing peace forces throughout the world in which India played an important role, have all contributed to this signal defeat of the war-mongers, who were conspiring to internationalise the war in Indo-China and from there spread the conflagration.

The AIKS particularly rejoice at the great victories of the People’s Liberation Army of Viet Nam, which is drawn mainly from the peasantry and enjoyed the support of the peasant masses, who had carried out fundamental land reforms.

They have demonstrated that no force on earth can stand before an awakened people who are determined to be free.

Their great victory is not only a victory for the forces of peace, but is also a source of tremendous inspiration for the colonial peoples in their struggle for freedom imperialist yoke.

The AIKS is aware of the conspiracies which are still being hatched by the imperialists especially the Americans, to deprive the people of Indo-China to the fruits of this agreement and pledges its full upport to the peoples of Indo-China their struggle against these conspiracies. It also demands from the Government of Indian, whose representatives are the Chairmen of the Commissions on Indo-China, that it must take every step to frustrate the nefarious game of the imperialists.

This session of the AIKS condemns the Manila Conferences which culmunated in the signature of the SEATO Pact.

Through this Pact, the US, British and French imperialists seek to sabotage the Geneva Agreement, divide Viet Nam Permanently, and keep South Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia to their grip and use them as bases for aggression.

They propose to use this Pact to keep their colonial rule under the SE Asian peoples and threaten the peoples of these countries that they will have to face the combined might of these Powers if they dare to fight for their liberation.

The US, which imposed the US-Pak Pact over the peoples of Pakistan, has dragged the Pak Government also into the SEATO.

The SEATO thus constitutes a threat to the peoples of the SE Asian countries, including India.

The session is gratified to note that the Government of India, together with several other Asian Governments, has named the ranks of those who are opposed to the SEATO. The session is of the opinion that this opposition of the Governments of Asian Powers, including India, has proved to be a valuable contribution to the struggle for peace in Asia.

The session, however, desires to warn all lovers of peace that the war-mongers are still trying their utmost to drag India and other Asian Powers into their war plans and that these plans can be defeated only if the voice of the Governments buttressed with the united voice of the peoples.

It, therefore, calls upon Kisan Sabha units to join with to the progressive forces in India to develop a board movement against the SEATO for a closer alliance between peoples in India, China and other Asian peoples, which will force the imperialists to quit Asia.

A conserted and pernicious offensive is being carried on the over India by landlords, supported by the Government, who are driving our peasants from lands they have been tilling. It involves not only tenants or share-croppers on a very extensive scale but also large numbers of under-ryots of various categories and even occupancy ryots. The foreign plantation owners in Assam and other places are also evicting peasants from paddy lands. Even the various State Governments have started evicting peasants from governments lands. There has been a consistant offensive by the Government evicting thousads of tribal and other tenants from plots of forest land which had been given to them for cultivation in the past, with the result that thousands of tribal families have been deprived of their only source of sustenance. Many peasants and particularly the agricultural labourers have been evicted even from their homesteads. Anti-eviction struggle has thus become a major task of the peasantry at present.

The present eviction drive is part of the tactics resorted to by the landlords in order to deprive the peasants of even the limited rights won by them through the land legislations of the various States. They are enabled and encouraged to resort to these tactics by a number of provisions in the legislations such as refusal to grant absolute right of cultivation in land to the vast majority of tenants and share-croppers, provision for landlords of the right of resumption for ’self-cultivation’ upto the so-called permissible limit, of keeping any amount of Sir land, of getting more compensation for Khas lands than tenanted lands, of keeping any amount of land under the so-called ’self-cultivation’, while putting a limit on other land, as well as of transferring land without restriction, of collecting arrears of rent and of eviction under the pretext of non-payment of rent within a certain period. These provisions are fully taken advantage of by the landlords whole grab as much land as possible through large-scale eviction.

The Government itself is utilising the outmoded Land revenue Regulations and Rules framed in the last century, as well as the Forest Regulations, to throw out peasants from land. All these evictions are sought to be justified in the name of ’Planned distribution of land’, ’planned development and co-operative farming’ and ’Refugee rehabilitation’.

This permissible limit below which there is generally no security of tenure for the tenents and upto which the owners of land are entitled to resume their land for self-cultivation is fixed at a high level, for instance, 30 standard acres or 60 ordinary acres in the Punjab and PEPSU (50 standard acres in the case of refugee landlords). Besides, for the purpose of eviction, landlords often resort to benami (fake) transfer, give false records of tenancies in the revenue papers prepared with the help of corrupt officials, institute cases on a charge of no payment of rents and arrears and enter into false agreement which tenants or share-croppers have to sign under duress. Moreover, the landlords and Government forcibly grab communal lands and forest lands, thus depriving the peasants of their benefit.

And in all these nefarious activities, the landlords, instead or being checked by it, get full support from the government machinery against the interest of the peasants, which shows that both in regard to legislation and administration the policy of the Congress Governments is designed to serve the interests of landlords, against those of the peasants.

The landlords employed goondas to beat up kisans and watch away their crops and even murdered some of them in various provinces. Thousands of petitions to correct the wrong entries in the settlement records were arbitrarily reacted as in the UP; Section 144 was promulgated in various States and particularly in Punjab, where it is applied to the whole State. Arrears of rent were forcibly collected as in PEPSU, Even women were tortured and molested in Punjab and PEPSU where punitive levy was also imposed on number of villages which were living peacefully, and forcibly collected. Besides, thousands of kisans and Kisan Sabha Workers participating in these movements were arrested or around down under various Sections such as 107 and 151 in number of States.

This nation-wide drive has contributed in a large measure to the widespread impoverishment of peasants, increasing landlessness and pauperisation, increasing rural unemployment and loss of purchasing power, and growing depression in the market, which hits industrial production leading to unemployment of more workers and office employees of the urban areas. All these factors ultimately intensify the agrarian-crisis and the general economic crisis.

Against this terrific eviction offensive of landlords, backed of the policy of the Government, the kisans have been carrying on a powerful movement in defence of their just and legislate right, mainly under the leadership of the All-India Kisan Sabha and its units in the various States and localities. The masses of the peasantry were mobilised in their millions, renumerable rallies, demonstrations and local conferences add, mass petitions signed by lakhs of kisans and mass representations made to the Governments, large numbers of implanatory pamphlets and leaflets issued and even unlawfty evicted peasants organised themselves to collectively till their lands and keep them in possession. It was a rightly struggle of the Indian kisans fought under the banner of the Kisan Sabha with varying degrees of success in dfferent States, into which were drawn the various strata of peasants and agricultural labourers.

In spite of the legal disadvantages and the terrific oppression by landlords and the police, this united movement of peasants has achieved important victories. For instance, in Bihar the struggle succeeded in temporarily checking eviction in many areas and kisans were able to save thousands of acres of their lands. In UP, the Government issued an order for a revision of records which the kisans demanded; and in Orissa an announcement has been made by a big zamindar of Cuttack district reducing arrears of rents by 50% and another by the Government stopping realisation of purcha fees. In Madhya Bharat, more than 4,000 eviction notices have been withdrawn. Notable victories were achieved in West Bengal and Andhra, where the Governments were forced by prolonged and widespread anti-eviction struggles to issue ordinances, which, though they are partial and contain serious defects, have been taken advantage of by the kisans, wherever they are organised, in checking the eviction offensive to a large extent, and restoring thousands of evicted kisans to their lands.

The anti-eviction struggle of the Kisan Sabha is going on and gathering momentum. It must be further strengthened to stop evictions completely and to get the recent agrarian legislations amended in such a manner as to bring maximum relief to all categories of peasants by restoring them to their lands. It must also keep in view the essential need for defeating all landlord and police oppression.

The All-India Kisan Sabha, therefore, demands that:-

1. All evictions by landlords and Government must be immediately stopped by legislative measures and evicted peasants restored to their lands, with proper compensation where the evicted peasants sustained loss of crops and households.
2. All transfers of lands by landlords which are tilled by tenants, share-croppers, etc., should be banned with retrospective effect.
3. The evictions except those decreed by a Court of Law should be declared cognizable offences. Actual cultivators should be considered as possessors of the land the till and the onus of proof to the contrary should lie or the landlords.
4. All agreements between landlords and tenants, sharecroppers, etc., which facilitate the eviction, or curtaiment of normal legal rights of the latter, if they are denounced by them, should be forthwith declared voice.
5. All tenants should be given permanent and heritable right in the lands they till.
6. Agricultural labourers should be granted full ownership rights over their homestead lands free of cost.
7. No tenant of any category should be evicted for arrears of rent. Arrears should be cancelled and rents substantially reduced.
8. Names of all actual cultivators should be duly entered in the revenue records, falsification of records penalised, and correction of records made whenever demanded.
9. In order to implement the above demands the State Governments should immediately pass ordinances, followed by legislations.

The AIKS considers that the relief aimed at by the above demands of the anti-eviction campaign, can be achieved by building all-out fighting unity of kisans and agricultural labourers backed by the strong democratic support of the rural and urban people. The All-India Kisan Sabha calls upon all kisans to stick to the lands they cultivate and fight for restoration of the lands from which they were evicted.

The deepening agrarian crisis, the faliure of the various Government reforms to break the land monopoly of landlords, the glorious struggle of the peasants for land and the rising struggles of the peasants against landlord eviction offensive, have once again brought the question of abolition of landlordism without compensation and the distribution of the land to the peasants and agricultural labourers free of cost, on the agenda of the day. The demand of the peasants and agricultural labourers has thus become an irresistible national demand.

Forced by these circumtances, the Government is coming but with its scheme of ceiling to land holdings. It claims that this scheme is the final solution of the land problem as it will and landlordism. Actually, however its scheme not only fails that abolishing landlordism without compensation and distributing the land to the peasants and agricultural labourers free of cost as is demanded by the Kisan Sabha, but is used as a means of launching further attacks on the peasantry. For,

Firstly, the concept of ceiling is used by the Government to allow landlords to resort to large-scale eviction of cultivating peasants in the name of resuming land for self-cultivation the landlord: landlords are allowed to evict their tenants up to the ceiling fixed;

Secondly, there is no effective ban on transfers of land to their relations or friends, by the landlords and thus the landlords are enabled to resort to benami transfers and show their holdings as falling below the ceiling;

Thirdly, the ceiling is so fixed that it will allow landlords to keep vast areas in their possessions, so that if and when the ceiling is applied in order to take over excess land, very little land will be left for distribution among peasants and agricultural labourers. In the one State in which ceiling has so far been fixed, i.e. Hyderabad, landlords owning land which will yield Rs. 7,200 gross per year or less, can keep all their land;

Fourthly, the Planning Commission itself recommends that the concept of ceiling should be applied only to “future acquisition” and that too with payment of compensation and not to present possession, so that vast areas of land will still remain in the possession of landlords.

Fifthly, even under these conditions, very few States have so far made their proposals for the implementation of the principle of ceiling by way of incorporating it in specific bills. Resistance to its implementation is offered by various State Governments. Furthermore, in some cases, where the State Government was prepared to incorporate it in the form of bills, the Central authorities intervened and stopped them from doing so.

The AIKS, therefore, rejects the claim made by the Congress Government that its scheme of ceiling to land holdings will meet with the universal demand for the abolition of landlordism without compensation and distribution of land to the peasants and agricultural labourers free of cost.

The Sabha, however, is of the opinion, that the ceilings would help in breaking the land monopoly of the landlords and in relieving the land-hunger of the peasantry if the following provisions are incorporated in it:—

a. The idea of ceiling should never be applied to enable landlords to resume the land which have been leased out to peasants; these lands should be given over, free of any charge, to the peasants who are in cultivating possession of them, provided that the small landowners, who lease out their lands, and take to other professions, such as school teachers, petty traders, shop employees, etc., should be given the option, either to resume land for self-cultivation or to continue to lease out land, subject to the compliance of the tenancy laws.

b. The ceiling should be so fixed for each area and for each class of land, that when applied,

i. the land of working land holders (peasants) will not be touched; and

ii. at the same time, the major part of the land held by the non-working land holders (landlords), taken as a class, comes for distribution, so that landless agricultural labourers and land hungry peasants will get enough land.

c. The excess land of landlords above the ceiling should be taken over by the State without compensation and given to the agricultural labourers and poor peasants free of cost; all transfers to escape the ceiling to be banned and previous transfers nullified.

d. The determination of ceilings in different areas and the actual taking over and distribution of excess land should be made through the elected Peasants’ and Agricultural Labourers’ Committees.

The All-India Kisan Sabha calls upon all its units to popularise these demands and mobilise the masses of peasants and agricultural labourers as well as other democratic forces behind these demands. It also directs every Kisan Sabha unit to study the question of land in concrete terms in their areas and to determine ceilings to land holdings from area to area, in accordance with the principles laid down above.

The acute land hunger of the peasantry and rural labour arising from feudal exploitation and the strangulation of national industries, together with the growing food shortage in the country, has brought the issue of cultivable waste lands owned by the State Governments or landlords very sharply to the forefront.

Huge tracts of such land covering lakhs and lakhs of acres are to be found in all the Indian States.

However, the Central and State Governments with all their claims to abolish landlordism and distribute land, are even refusing the distribution of such waste lands to needy peasants and agricultural labourers, free of cost. On the other hand, in several States, the Governments themselves are forcibly evicting or coming to the aid of the landlords who are evicting the poor peasants and rural labourers from the lands which they have brought under cultivation and are in continuous possession of them for several years. This policy is proving a great obstacle in bringing all the cultivable waste lands in the country under cultivation in order to increase the food production and help in solving the food problem and rural unemployment.

Despite such opposition, powerful movements of the rural poor are growing in a number of States for the distribution, occupation and cultivation of such lands. Quite often, these elements are dominantly composed of members of the scheduled castes and tribal people, as being the poorest and most oppressed sections in the countryside. In Andhra, these powerful struggles have forced the unwilling Government to agree to and implement a resolution, unanimously passed by the legislature, demanding immediate and free distribution of all government cultivable waste lands.

The Government has met these struggles with intense repression, arresting and imprisoning thousands of peasants and agricultural labourers, banning their meetings and assaulting men, women, old folk and even children. Thousands have been summarily evicted from lands occupied and cultivated by them for a few years. Standing crops and huts built on these lands have been destroyed, resulting in much loss and untold sufferings to the cultivating peasants.

In several States, the Governments often auction such lands, instead of making them available to the needy peasants and labourers, simply on the excuse that waste lands could be brought under cultivation only by those persons who have got capital, farm implements, etc. Leases, when given, are always for short periods and at high rents. In several cases, high penal rates are imposed on the plea that the cultivation of these waste lands is unauthorised. The Governments also set up their own favourites for leasing the lands either in the name of giving them to ‘political sufferers’ or to landlords, who will organise ‘land improvement societies,’ etc.

In effect this policy is opposed to distribution of such lands to those who really need them, and in addition, provokes conflicts and friction between various rural elements.

The All-India Kisan Sabha, therefore, demands that the distribution of such lands of the Government and the landlords must be taken up in all States on the largest scale, that priority in their distribution must be given to poor peasants and labourers including the tribal people and the scheduled castes, and the recipients must not be charged any amount as price or levies in any form for the land offered to them. Besides, the following measures must also be adopted for a just solution of the problem:

i. Immediately stop all ejectments of cultivators of waste lands and forest lands and these cultivators should be given ownership rights over such lands.

ii. The land under occupation of agricultural labourers and poor peasants should not be assigned to ‘political sufferers’ and all such assignments should be cancelled. Also, assignments of lands to landlords, non-agriculturists, non-cultivators and such others, should be cancelled.

iii. Land revenue should be charged only after 5 years of cultivation, which period is necessary for such lands to yield a reasonable amount of produce.

iv. Cancel all penalties imposed for so-called wrongful occupation.

v. Popular Committees should be set up to carry out the work of the distribution of these waste lands.

vi. Allot lands for house-sites also, besides what is given for cultivation free of cost.

vii. Give the occupants taccavi loans and free grants in adequate amounts for long periods and at nominal rates ot interest, for meeting the cost of new cultivation.

viii. Give adequate help for providing irrigation facilities.

ix. Stop utilising the forest laws for harassing such occupants or evicting them. All lands unfit to grow forests but declared to be reserve forests, should be allotted for cultivation.

The All-India Kisan Sabha calls upon the State Kisan Sabhas to take up the question of waste lands very vigorously as an important part of the struggle for securing land to the tillers of the soil.

The problem of agricultural labour is one of the most important questions on the Agrarian Front which is engaging the attention of the country today. A huge section of the rural population lives mainly by wage labour. This huge mass constitutes the worst exploited and socially oppressed section of the entire nation.

They suffer from all forms of exploitation such as miserably low wages, inhuman conditions of labour, long hours of work, as well as innumerable forms of feudal oppression. Added to this economic exploitation, there is social inequity and humiliating social oppression, since a big section of these agricultural labourers belong to the “untouchable castes”. In the recent past, this economic exploitation and oppression is increasing and agricultural labourers are the first to fall prey to hunger and starvation stalking the country today. Rural unemployment is a constant phenomenon in the countryside. The vast mass of agricultural labourers are either without employment or underemployed for the major part of the year. The existence of this huge army of unemployed rural labour depresses their already low wages and conditions of life.

The All-India Kisan Sabha feels that it is time that agricultural labourers are brought in large numbers into the organised agrarian movement. It calls upon all its units to actively support and strengthen the struggles of the agricultural labourers whenever they break out and to organise them. It is by this championing of the cause of the agricultural labourers by the kisans, that the kisan movement can be united and strengthened immeasurably.

The All-India Kisan Sabha also calls upon all its workers to help in organising agricultural and other rural labourers. This can best be done by organising them in their separate Agricultural Labour Unions. In view of their division into a separate class of wage workers and of their separate class demands as distinct from the demands of the peasantry, they require their own organisation to fight better for their own demands besides their common demand for land. The All-India Kisan Sabha also directs that, wherever such separate agricultural labour unions are formed, Co-ordinating Committees between the Agricultural Labour Unions and respective Kisan Sabhas be formed, wherever possible, to discuss and settle all issues of conflict between the two sections and to chalk out a common programme and line of action in their struggle against landlordism and for other demands.

The All-India Kisan Sabha is strongly critical of the negligence of several State Governments in not fixing minimum wages to agricultural labourers and where fixed, of not implementing them, and of the minimum wage rates published by the Governments of Madras and other States, as unprincipled, unscientific and unsatisfactory. The wage rates fixed fall far short of the cost of living and in many cases are even below the existing wage rates. Hence the All-India Kisan Sabha calls upon its workers to mobilise and fight for increased wages for agricultural labourers and, to start with, against false measures which are quite prevalent in the villages.

The All-India Kisan Sabha calls upon the Government to accept the following demands of the agricultural labourers, besides their fundamental demand for land:

a. Minimum wage for day labourers and minimum salary for the farm servants should be immediately fixed. The minimum wage for an agricultural labourer should be such as to enable him and his dependants to get at least the minimum necessities of life on the day of his working. This minimum wage should apply to normal work only, and for harder work and work in busy seasons with longer hours of work, the wages should appropriately be increased. The salary of a farm servant should be 365 times the minimum daily wage. Appropriate machinery with representation to agricultural labourers should be set up for implementation of the minimum wages fixed.

b. Equal wage for equal work for men and women alike for the same kind of work.

c. Hours of work should be fixed for annual farm servants according to the conditions prevailing in the different parts. Holidays with pay to be given to the farm servants.

d. Wages should be fixed in cash or in kind or partly in cash and partly in kind, as per the option of the agricultural labourers.

e. All old debts of the agricultural labourers due to landlords and usurers should be wiped out. Cheap credit facilities should be provided to them. Legislations penalising debt slavery in any form to be enacted, wherever they do not exist.

f. House-sites have to be provided free of cost and financial aid to be given to build houses. The house-sites under their occupation should be given to them free of any charge. Adequate facilities like roads, drinking water webs and other social amenities be provided to agricultural labour colonies. Enough land should be set apart for the common use, such as manure pits, playgrounds, etc. of the agricultural labourers.

g. Waste lands and lands lying uncultivated should be given to agricultural labourers, free of cost. Work should be provided for agricultural labourers in seasons of unemployment. In the absence of providing work, unemployment relief in the form of money or food, should be provided by the Government. Cheap grain shops should be opened and grain banks for giving loans in needy times should be established.

i. Habitual Offenders Act and such other oppressive legislations should be immediately repealed.

ii. Government should, for providing employment, protect the existing cottage industries and help start new ones.

The All-India Kisan Sabha has developed as the real leader of Indian peasants and rural poor. The influence and popularity of the Kisan Sabha is widespread and rapidly growing and extending to all parts of the country. But the present membership, which is highest in its history, is small, when compared with the influence it commands over the peasantry.

This session is of the opinion that there is a big gap between the growing influence of the Sabha and its organisation. This organisational weakness of the Sabha is partly reflected in reduction of membership in several provinces, when compared to last year’s enrolment, even though these provinces have fought big struggles during this period. This weakness is mainly due to the long-standing neglect of the task of building the organisation, based on active, well-functioning primary units.

Unless we take up the task of building a broad-based united, strong kisan organisation, and activise the existing units and fill up the gap, we will be trailing behind the events without playing the leading role and discharging the historical task. Therefore, this session directs all its units, from CKC to the village, to take up the key task of building and activising kisan units here and now, by implementing the following directives.

Contrary to previous promises and under the spurious argument that more finances are needed for taking up development schemes and projects, the Central and State Governments have been foisting newer and newer taxes all over the country. This is having a very grave effect on national economy and is leading to acute discontent and unrest both in rural and urban areas.

No amount of propaganda by the Congress rulers that the new taxes are meant for financing various development projects, irrigation schemes, etc., can alter their real nature or convince the people that they are just and necessary. On the contrary, active resistance to new taxation is becoming one of the major planks of popular mobilisation.

While hundreds of crores of rupees from the State Exchequer are spent on compensation for landlords, privy purses for the princes, salaries of high-placed officials and the expansion of the bureaucratic machine and police forces; while huge concessions are given to the monopolists to preserve and increase their profits and no action is taken against them for evasion of payment of income-tax, while taxes like corporation tax, and excess profit tax are abolished; while British and other foreign monopolists are allowed to make huge profits and export them from our country; there is no end to the new taxes that are invented and levied on the common citizen.

The sales tax, which was non-existent before the war, is now netting hundreds of crores of rupees for the various State Governments.

A number of State Governments have arbitrarily imposed betterment levies. Moreover, not satisfied with the existing legislations, several State Governments, under the insistent lirection of the Central Government, are enacting comprehensive legislations in order to impose simultaneously heavy annual betterment levies and lump capital levies on all lands that are said to be benefited or are likely to be benefited by any kind of development works executed many years before or are under the process of execution. Levies will be imposed for any major or minor work that the Government may term as development work, ranging from irrigation project down to roads, primary schools, etc.

Irrigation rates have been rapidly raised even as much as 50 to 300 per cent in the name of financing new irrigation projects, while crores of rupees are being wasted and foreign and Indian monopolists are allowed to make huge profits.

Some of the most vicious taxes are being imposed through District and Local Boards and Village Panchayats for financing the needs of water supply, sanitation, road construction, etc., the State Governments being increasingly divested of their responsibility to provide these amenities.

In this category fall increments in the local board cess on land revenue, house tax, forced labour in the name of compulsory tax, registration fees for marriages, religious festivals and fairs, toll and octroi duties, forest tax and grazing fees, excise duties on tobacco, etc., and the so-called professional tax in rural areas under which all the traditional village craftsmen like smiths, carpenters potters, barbers, chamars, oil-crushers, dhobis, etc., have to pay the so-called professional tax.

Constant increment in school fees which now include increment in primary school fees is also, in reality, nothing but a new tax burden on the community.

The All-India Kisan Sabha strongly protests against all these levies and welcomes the innumerable mass protests and struggles launched by the peasantry, the urban population, the students, etc., against these new and unbearable burdens. Thousands have been jailed in struggles against the new irrigation charges, etc. Mass demonstrations, morchas, protests, etc. have been organised against the land revenue surcharge. Many Municipal and Local Boards have refused to carry out Government orders for increasing taxes or imposing new taxes, for which they have superceded. Resistance to new taxation has become one of the most powerful rallying slogans in the countryside and a key weapon for forging the unity of all popular of all popular elements in the rural areas.

Hence the All-India Kisan Sabha demands:

a. Cancellation of surcharge on land revenue, betterment levy and such other taxes on the peasants;

b. Cancellation of increment in water rates;

c. Cancellation of all taxes that are oppressive on the common people like the excise duty on tobacco, etc., sales tax on essential commodities, professional tax, marriage tax, toll and octroi duties;

d. Replacement of the existing unscientific and lopsided land revenue system by a graded tax on agriculture with exemption to poor peasants.

The All-India Kisan Sabha calls upon all the kisans and Kisan Sabha units to organise all their forces to expose and fight against this oppressive taxation policy of the Government and forge unity with all sections of the people, both in the villages and in the towns, who are similarly fighting against tax burdens.

The enhancement of irrigation rates by 50 per cent to 300 per cent in various provinces has imposed new unbearable burdens on the millions of peasants, is hampering agricultural production and serving to aggravate the agrarian crisis still further.

This session of the All-India Kisan Sabha rejects the argument advanced by the Government in justification of this enhancement.

The high prices of agricultural produce that have ruled during the war and the post-war years have not led to increased prosperity of the mass of peasants, as is claimed by the Government. On the contrary, due to even higher prices of industrial goods and deficit of foodgrains, which has continually increased, and due to enormous increase in the burden of taxation, the mass of peasants have become still more impoverished, only a small section benefiting from high prices of agricultural produce. The steep fall during the last two years in the prices of agricultural produce has knocked the bottom completely out of this argument and compelled even sections of Congressmen and some Congress Committees to plead for the reconsideration of the enhanced water rates.

Similarly, the argument that the old rates were too low and had become uneconomic is without any foundation. For, in almost all the States the older irrigation works have been running at a profit even after making allowance for extravagant expenses and interest charges.

Finally, the argument that enhancement of water rates is necessary for raising the funds needed for new irrigation and development projects, serves only to screen the Government’s refusal to touch the wealth of the princes, the landlords, the British and other foreign monopolists. Moreover, such a method of raising finance defeats the very purpose of the development projects by ruining the peasants who are supposed to derive benefits from these projects.

Not only have water rates been increased but at the same time, the amount of water supply to the cultivators has been reduced by unreasonably extending the irrigated area served with the same water supply. This has meant more money for Government and greater burdens on the peasantry.

The AIKS greets the peasants of UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab, Orissa and West Bengal who have refused to be hoodwinked by these arguments of the Government and have carried on vigorous struggles for the cancellation of the enhanced irrigation rates. The AIKS greets the thousands of peasants of these provinces who have courted arrests, faced lathi charges and suffered harassment and persecution at the hands of the police in the course of this movement. The AIKS pays homage to the martyrdom of Comrade Trimukh Narain Misra (Bihar) who laid down his life in the course of this struggle.

The AIKS condemns the callous and repressive policy of the Government which has refused to respect the unanimous demand not only of the peasants but of the entire democratic movement for the cancellation of the enhanced rates; and has Sought to suppress this movement by taking recourse to the notorious Special Powers Act (in UP) and to various other methods of repression.

The AIKS calls upon the peasants of the canal and tubewell areas to intensify their struggle for the cancellation of the enhanced rates and resist efforts at forcible realisation. It calls upon the Kisan Sabha units to mobilise all sections of peasants and other sections of the people behind their struggle.

The AIKS is confident that a powerful united mass movement of the peasants will compel the Government to concede their demand for the cancellation of the enhanced rates, as it has already compelled it to make partial concessions in this respect in several States.

The All-India Kisan Sabha views with concern the downward trend of prices of agricultural produce in the recent months and especially of commercial crops.

This fall in prices, which are far lower at harvest times, as well as the accumulation of stocks are having disastrous effects on our peasant economy and vast numbers of peasants are utterly ruined. This has forced the peasants to reduce the area of cultivation for commercial crops as is seen from the reduction of jute and cane acreage, which in its turn, affects the production of industrial products manufactured out of these commodities.

This session is of the opinion that the main reasons for the present crisis are the monopoly grip of the British imperialists on our economy, low purchasing capacity of the people, the deepening crisis in the world capitalist economy, government manoeuvres to enable the Indian and foreign exploiters to loot the people and the Government’s export, import and tariff policies.

The import and export policy of the Indian Government is shaped in such a way that our trade is mainly confined to Sterling and Dollar areas. In framing their policy, the needs of our industry are neglected. The urgent need of creating new markets for our exports on favourable terms with countries like China and Eastern Europe are deliberately avoided. In framing the policy, the authorities are influenced by British monopoly interests.

This dependence of India on the imperialist economy subjects our prices to violent fluctuations and making us the victims of alternating inflation and price falls.

Taking all the aspects of the situation into consideration, this session demands the Government to take the following steps immediately:

1. Floor prices of commercial crops should be so fixed as to cover the cost of production and the cost of living of the growers. Where the prices fall below this level, the Government should step in the market as purchaser.
2. The prices of all the manufactured goods that are essential for the peasants, as well as the general consumers, should be fixed at a reasonable level by controlling profits and should be made available for the peasants and the mass of consumers. Fix prices of essential commodities and make them available to the consumer, by controlling the profits of the middlemen.
3. With regard to foodgrains, similarly, floor prices should be fixed so that the peasants’ interests are protected while at the same time prices should be such that the consumer gets his food at reasonable prices and this should be done by controlling the profits of the profiteers as well as by provision of food subsidies where and when necessary.
4. The Government must develop industries to utilise our raw materials and take steps to increase the purchasing power of the people.
5. The Government should change its tariff, import and export policies so as to enable the surplus agrarian produce of the country to get the necessary markets in foreign countries and enable us to import the necessary goods at favourable terms.
6. The Government should conclude long-term quantitative trade agreements with the Soviet Union, China and other People’s Democracies so as to free our trade and economy from the monopolist clutches of British and American imperialists.
7. The Government must take every measure to help the grower to get better prices by various means of price-support and by provision of credit facilities and by improving marketing and other facilities.

Millions of peasants, artisans and agricultural workers, who were uprooted both from East and West Pakistan as a result of communal disturbances following the Partition of the country in 1947, have not been adequately rehabilitated and a large proportion of them have been rendered destitute and the Government has failed to provide them with jobs and houses. As a result of the policy of the Congress Government to rehabilitate big landlords, the quasi-permanent allotment policy of the Government resulted in local eviction of tenants and agricultural workers who had been temporarily allotted lands in the single province of Punjab alone, and in application of big cuts in land allotted to poor and middle peasants. Thus landlessness and unemployment further increased among displaced population.

The grants and loans which the Government was forced to allocate for refugee rehabilitation have smoothly gone into the hands of big landlords and other vested interests and a small upper section of peasants.

The problem of refugee rehabilitation is a part of the economic reconstruction and development of the country which requires introduction of agrarian reforms, abolition of landlordism and distribution of land to the kisans and industrialisation of the country on the basis of liquidation of imperialist grip and development of heavy industry. It is exactly this course which the Government avoided and gave protection to the interests of landlords and monopolists.

Moreover, the Government is reserving large areas of evacuee land in its own hands, is refusing to distribute waste lands to the landless, is forcibly collecting loans from the displaced persons.

This session of the AIKS demands that,

1. The quasi-permanent land allotment be made permanent, and cases of glaring injustice in the matter of allotment be rectified.
2. The reserve evacuee lands be allotted to the landless and those who have been allotted should not be evicted.
3. Taccavi loans be written off in the case of those unable to pay them back, and further monetary help be granted to the needy.
4. The poor people without houses be provided free housesites and help to build houses.
5. Cottage industry should be protected and developed and new cottage industries be started to provide employment to the artisans and agricultural workers.

A staggering situation has been created by unprecedented and repeated floods which have devastated large areas of Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh and other States this year. The horror of its ravages is evident even from the incomplete official reports upto 3rd September 1954: 1,045 persons lost their lives in the floods, the total area submerged was 25,650 sq. miles population affected 95 lakhs, crop area damaged 137 lakh acres, damage done to crops worth Rs. 40 crores, the number of houses destroyed in UP and Bihar alone 50,000 and the total loss to property Rs. 135.66 crores. And this is apart from the heavy damage suffered by railways and other public properties.

The people in the flood stricken areas, especially poor peasants, artisans and rural labourers are facing a period of food scarcity, hunger, unemployment and epidemics on a large scale.

A new menace, namely, erosion of river sides has appeared with this year’s floods, which have been generally more furious than before and very serious damage has been caused, as in Assam, to towns and localities, where thousands have lost their hearths and homes.

The All-India Kisan Sahba deeply regrets this loss of life and property and offers its sincere sympathies to the flood- stricken people.

The situation calls for large-scale and long-term relief operations. But while the main responsibility for relief rests on them, the Governments concerned have made very inadequate allocations which, in the absence of a plan for proper distribution have been left at the mercy of the bureaucracy which is traditionally corrupt and incapable of organising relief work in co-operation with people’s representatives. The All-India Kisan Sabha urges the Government to make larger provisions for their relief measures as the situation demands and accept popular co-operation for an effective check on corruption and for proper distribution of relief.

The Sabha urges upon the Government to make larger and adequate provisions for relief measures, specially for the interior areas, which must include, with usual relief measures, the following:—

a. Gratuitous relief which is not to be withdrawn so long as its necessity exists.

b. Test relief work of a productive nature, adequate to absorb the unemployed people of the area at a wage rate which should be sufficient to meet the minimum needs of a working man’s family for the period of work.

c. Remission of rent and moratorium on debts and government agricultural loans;

d. Long-term loans at a cheap rate;

e. Cheap grain shops to sell grain at half the standard price;

f. Land and rehabilitation grants for those who had lost their land and homesteads, etc.

All possible efforts must also be made to pool together popular resources for relief purposes. The units of the All- India Kisan Sabha in the provinces and districts concerned are called upon to bear a great part of the responsibility for the relief work. Most of them are already actually engaged in it with whatever resources they have. Those units that have not yet undertaken it should do so now. They should all try to develop united or co-ordinated work with all popular organisations so that they can be of maximum benefit to the distressed people, and a united mass movement for relief on the basis of the above demands. The Sabha appeal to the , public to help the Kisan Sabha and other popular organisations engaged in relief work by making generous contributions to their funds.

The All-India Kisan Sabha, while insisting on the urgency of immediate relief for all the stricken people, wishes to draw the attention of the Government and the people to the great need for tackling the problem of floods and checking its repetition. Spokesmen of the Government often try to explain the problem in such a manner as to impress the people that floods in our country are normal and inevitable natural phenomena which should be accepted as such. It is a pity and a matter of shame that even after seven years of its rule, the Congress Government has not studied the problem, not to speak of solving it.

The All-India Kisan Sabha cannot accept the view of the inevitability of floods which, it believes, can be minimised and prevented to a very great extent, as has been done in People’s China this very year with remarkab1e success. But it all depends on how the problem is tackled by the Government of India, how efficiently and correctly it studies the problem, and how far it can rouse the people for their voluntary co-operation in the matter of controlling floods.

The Sabha welcomes the setting up by the Government of India of a Central Flood Control Board. It is to be seen that all necessary steps are taken for the purpose without delay and that this urgent work is not left for a future Five-Year Plan. The Sabha calls upon its units, specially those in the flood-stricken areas, to rouse the kisans and all other sections of the people in support of the demand for early and effective measures for controlling and preventing floods.

This session of the AIKS draws attention to the grim irony of the situation that while floods have devastated large areas of several States, drought has played havoc with agriculture and peasant economy this year itself in several States—even large areas of the same States which have been stricken with floods. Drought has affected this year a number of districts of West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and Rajasthan, and, it has severely affected the entire Orissa State. In Orissa the Government itself has estimated that more than 50% of the autumn crops (nearly three lakh tons) have been lost, not to speak of the loss apprehended in the winter crops.

This grim reality proves the failure of the Government schemes.

This session, therefore, calls upon the Government to so modify its schemes that our country does not remain quite helpless in the face of the vagaries of weather and rainfall. While adopting effective flood control measures and utilisation of excess water, the schemes and projects should also provide for raising water from underground and supplying them to fields on a wide scale.

As a result of this year’s drought, millions of peasants have not only lost their crops partly or wholly, but large number of agricultural labourers did not get any employment and peasants did not get credit. All this has put the rural masses in such difficult economic situation that many families are simply starving and news of suicides had also appeared in the press. Therefore, the AIKS demands of the Central and State Governments that immediate and adequate relief must be given to the drought-affected people.

This session also demands of the Government that they keep in view the danger of considerable failure of winter crops in several States and prepare for facing all the consequences if this happens.

This session calls upon the peasants and the public to unite and make the Government to fulfil the above demands.

The gravity of the deepening agrarian and economic crisis involving the pauperisation and unemployment of millions in rural and urban areas, is now being acknowledged by the Government and Congress leaders, as well as other parties and groups in the country. While attempts are being made to explain it away, by specious arguments, and to lessen its full impact, by publicising grandiose plans and lavish spending on various projects, all honest men are now compelled, on careful consideration, to attribute the crisis to the fact that India has yet to achieve economic freedom, even after the transfer of power seven years ago.

The All-India Kisan Sabha, representing the vast majority of the peasants and people in the land, categorically affirms its opinion that the root cause of the present crisis is to be found in the economic loot and slavery which were imposed by the British imperialists during centuries of their rule and which have been zealously perpetuated and deliberately extended during the Congress regime.

The Britishers grabbed some of our best lands, to convert them into tea and coffee plantations. They seized our priceless natural resources of coal, iron and oil. The oil resources of vast areas in Assam and W. Bengal have been mortgaged to foreign imperialists.

Millions of acres of our best lands were arbitrarily granted to Indian parasites to serve as the puppets and props of foreign rule in rural areas, resulting in the utter degradation and ruination of the sons of the soil.

They further established their monopolist control over all the foreign trade of India, by organising their trading, shipping and banking concerns, to facilitate their exploitation of all imports and exports.

They manipulated their customs policies so as to open the flood gates of foreign textiles and other goods which destroyed our ancient handicrafts.

They invested millions in huge jute factories which have secured over-all control over the jute industry and agriculture.

Colossal British and other foreign monopolists producing matches, cigarettes, vanaspati soaps, chemicals, boots, shoes, etc., have established themselves as “India Limiteds” and opened up big factories to produce goods “made in India”, to the serious detriment of similar industries of India.

During the last few years, big American oil monopolists have joined hands with their British counterparts for establishing huge oil refineries and secured a strangle-hold on our industries and communication.

Lastly, our import policies are being erratically manipulated so as to facilitate the import of foreign cheap and shoddy goods, which flood our bazaars and further ruin our struggling handicrafts.

The AIKS asserts the inalienable and indefeasible right of the kisans and people of India to own and control all lands and natural wealth of the country and all industries and concerns based on them.

The Sabha, therefore, proclaims that all grants of lands and resources are void as they are not made or confirmed by them. The Sabha, further, denounces the imperialist monopolist grip on industries and trade, on shipping and banking operating in India. The Sabha expresses its emphatic opinion that the complete liberation of India can only be secured by the complete destruction of all foreign monopolies in our land and our mines, in our trade and industry.

To this end, the Sabha urges the following demands:—

1. Confiscation of all foreign interests in plantations, mines and in other natural resources like oil, etc.
2. Nationalisation of the jute, oil, chemical, cigarette, electrical and other industries owned and controlled by foreigners.
3. Cancellation of all contracts with foreign monopolists, granting them oil prospecting and refining concessions.
4. Diversification of our trade in our raw produce like tobacco, iron ore, jute, manganese ore, etc., to break the power of the monopolists.
5. Nationalisation of all foreign trading, banking, insurance and shipping corporations.
6. Complete ban on all imports that would adversely affect the growth of Indian concerns and other luxuries and superfluous goods, that destroy our handicrafts.

The Sabha calls upon all its units to carry on a ceaseless campaign in order to popularise these demands and to draw all the patriotic elements into this campaign, so that a mighty movement for the protection of Indian economy against foreign onslaught can be created.

The All-India Kisan Sabha strongly resents that the Congress Government, which claims not to lag behind any other Government in the world in conceding civil rights to the people, systematically pursues a policy of repression against the kisans and the Kisan Sabha workers all over the country. Its repressive measures are particularly in evidence wherever a kisan struggle, however peaceful, grows strong and its demands against the exploiting classes and the Government become irresistible. To check such a struggle, the Government resorts to the hated sections 144, 107, 151 and so on, thus giving arbitrary and unmerited protection to vested interests against the interests of the toiling kisans, thus depriving the peasants of their elementary civil rights. It is a legacy of the British imperialist rulers which the Congress rulers have been carrying forward with cynical enthusiasm.

It is a common feature of the police administration in different States that the kisan movement, like other democratic movements has often to face police firing, lathi charge, arrests and imprisonment for which there is not the slightest justification, as in the cases of the anti-water rate enhancement struggles in Bihar, Rajasthan and the UP where, specially in UP, thousands of arrests were made, and of the Tebhaga and anti-eviction struggles in West Bengal where at least 2,000 persons are being proceeded against under Sec. 107 and other sections. Hundreds of arrests have been made in Travancore-Cochin State, now under Praja Socialist rule supported by Congress. Many of them are reported to have been beaten also. There are hundreds of such cases in other States as well. In the Punjab, a punitive tax has been imposed and forcibly collected from villages which have been living peacefully. Section 144 was arbitrarily promulgated in the whole of the Punjab State and hundreds of people were involved in cases under Sec. 107, 151 and even under false cases of murder, loot and dacoities. Even in some places, women were molested and properties looted. In Bihar, in a number of areas, punitive police force was stationed and the villages are being systematically terrorised. In some places, even shooting of peasants has taken place, resulting in the deaths of kisans as in Bengal, where 2 kisans were shot dead by the police.

Measures like the Preventive Detention Act are also freely applied. Among their victims at the present moment is Dharam Singh Fakkar, a member of the Central Kisan Council, who has been kept in detention for a long time.

The wanton manner in which these various measures of repression are being applied by Government against the kisans’ struggles for saving themselves from the terrible economic crisis which is giving them a devastating blow, and from the brutal oppression and exploitation to which the landlords and moneylenders subject them, makes it clear that the Government has resorted to a policy of strangling the Kisan Sabha and its movement by harassing the kisans and the Kisan Sabha workers. It is this policy which induces the Government to arm the police with more powers through enacting lawless laws like the UP Special Powers Act which is judged ultra vires of the Indian Constitution and allowing them to go scot-free even when their unlawful actions are subjected to strictures by a law court.

The All-India Kisan Sabha condemns this repressive policy of the Government and demands that all kisans and Kisan Sabha workers in jail should be forthwith and unconditionally released and all cases against them withdrawn.

The Sabha moreover exhorts all its units to rally their forces and unite them for a firm stand against the repressive policy of the Government. They must secure the support of all other sections of the people for their anti-repression movement. The support of the Civil Liberties’ Union, the Democratic Lawyers’ Association and such other public bodies as well as the Press should also be enlisted as far as possible. They must understand that the success of the kisan struggles now largely depends on a strong anti-repression movement all over the country.