The 38th state conference of the CPM peasant wing All-India Kisan Sabha concluded in Burdwan on Sunday with a call to the farming community to resist the RSS-BJP combine’s attack on the Constitution and attempts to corporatise the farm sector by the state and central governments.

The AIKS resolution adopted at the three-day state conference stated that “the attack on the Constitution, secularism, federal structure and constitutional institutions would be resisted”.

The AIKS decided to ensure a joint struggle of workers, farmers and farm labourers to bring about a change in the “Narendra Modi government’s anti-peasant policies”.

Setting the tone of future movement in the state and the country, the AIKS also resolved to “fight for the implementation of the 2013 land acquisition act, while intensifying its struggle to save land, forests, lives and livelihood from the claws of corporatisation”.

Speaking on the CPM’s social media platform on the sidelines of the conference, national general secretary of the AIKS and CPM politburo member, Vijoo Krishnan, said: “The farmers of the country were facing a major crisis perpetuated by the Centre’s neo-liberal economic policies. We are witnessing that while on the one hand the (Narendra Modi) government has given a free run to the corporates, on the other it has reduced funds that helped provide subsidies to farmers. This has increased the cost of production for farmers, while the government is not giving them the right price of
the produce.”

Krishnan said this forced farmers to be trapped in the vicious cycle of loans.

According to government data, Krishnan said, “at least 10 lakh farmers and farm workers have been compelled to commit suicide” in the past 35 years.

Krishnan claimed that the actual number of deaths was far higher because “states like Bengal that has a Trinamool Congress-led government continues to deny farmer’s deaths while we have visited homes where there have been incidents of suicide because of loss suffered by peasants”.

The conference expressed concern about the economic plight of peasant and
farm workers.

An AIKS leader said several farmers found agriculture non-profitable and had been forced to quit their source of livelihood.

“What has added to the flight of farmers is the uncontrolled import of crops and under its impact the price of Indian produce has dropped, causing loss to the growers,” the leader added.

To address the concern of farmers and farm labourers, the AIKS has demanded empowering the rural economy by upgrading the 100 days of guaranteed work to 200 days and fixing minimum wage at ₹600 daily.

“Apart from this, the farmers’ cooperative movement needs to be strengthened so that the tillers of the land do not become a victim of loan trap,” a veteran AIKS leader from South 24-Parganas district said.

While leaders who spoke at the open session of the meet on Friday were unsparing in their attack on the anti-farmer policies of the Modi government, they did not mince words about the Mamata Banerjee government for “following the Centre’s path of corporatisation”.

The conference, which saw the presence of farmers’ movement veterans like Hannan Mollah, Amal Haldar and Tushar Ghosh, ended with the election of Meghnad Bhuniya as the AIKS state president, Paresh Pal as secretary and Alok Bhattacharya as the Bengal unit’s treasurer.