Massive Left-Led Peasant Rally At Nagpur

State Govt Backs Down on Issues of Cotton and Power

Ashok Dhawale

A MASSIVE state level procession of over 25,000 peasants and agricultural workers marched to the state assembly last month, on the opening day of its winter session at Nagpur. The rally was organised by the Maharashtra Rajya Shetkari-Shetmajur Sangharsh Samiti, which comprises six Left organisations of peasants and agricultural workers, led by the CPI(M), CPI and PWP. December 12, the day of the rally, marked the martyrdom anniversary of a renowned freedom fighter of Maharashtra, Babu Genu, who laid down his life in Mumbai that day in 1930 while opposing the import of British cloth.

The Nagpur rally was organised around burning rural issues afflicting Maharashtra, like cotton, power, sugarcane, drought, rural employment, wages, land, irrigation and public distribution system. The background and main demands of the rally were highlighted in the December 1, 2002 issue of People’s Democracy and need no repetition. It was after over a decade that such a massive and united Left demonstration was held at Nagpur, and the second capital of Maharashtra was awash with thousands of red flags, red banners, red placards and red badges.

SIGNIFICANT GAINS OF STRUGGLE

As a result of mounting mass pressure from all sides and the increasing incidence of peasant suicides (nearly 100 indebted peasants and agricultural workers in the cotton belt of Vidarbha and Marathwada have been driven to distress suicides during 2002), the INC-NCP state government was put on defensive and had to back down on the two major issues of cotton and power --- issues on which the World Bank was exerting maximum pressure on it.

Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh thus not only assured a delegation of the Left-led Sangharsh Samiti, but also announced on the floor of the state assembly, that the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme would be continued; that the procurement price, including advance bonus, for cotton under the scheme would be maintained at the last year’s level of Rs 2300 per quintal and would not be whittled down to around Rs 1800 per quintal as had been previously announced; and that the trifurcation and privatisation of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) would not be proceeded with, despite a government White Paper having made precisely those proposals last August. These were significant gains in an era of liberalisation --- gains achieved through sustained struggle.

The chief minister also promised the Sangharsh Samiti delegation that increased government assistance would be given to drought-hit peasants and agricultural workers. He also agreed to speed up implementation of the government resolution dated October 10, 2002, which lays down a process for facilitating the regularisation of occupations of forest lands upto 1978, i e before the enactment of the draconian central Forest Conservation Act of 1980. On the other demands outlined in the memorandum submitted by the Sangharsh Samiti, the chief minister will hold a full-fledged discussion with it this month.

CULMINATION OF SUSTAINED AGITATIONS

The success of the Nagpur rally was the culmination of sustained campaigns and agitations conducted over the last three months on all the above issues. Correctly analysing that these issues would assume a grim character in the coming months, the Maharashtra Rajya Shetkari-Shetmajur Sangharsh Samiti gave a call for large demonstrations at district and tehsil levels on August 9, 2002. Over 30,000 peasants and agricultural workers, braving incessant rains at the time, came out on the streets that day in spirited protest against the government.

The struggle resumed in various forms from the month of October. It included the following major actions: (1) a massive statewide land satyagraha led by the CPI(M), AIKS and AIAWU independently, in which over 1,30,000 participated and 1,00,000 courted arrest in 20 districts from October 2 to 15; (2) a large Vidarbha-level cotton growers convention organised by the CPI-led Kisan Sabha in Amravati district on October 27; (3) a successful Vidarbha-wide jeep jatha on the cotton issue organised by the CPI(M)-led AIKS and AIAWU from November 12 to 19; (4) another large Marathwada-level cotton growers convention at Parbhani, organised by the PWP and CPI(M)-led peasant organisations on November 20; (5) a massive 20,000-strong rally of peasants from South Maharashtra on the issue of power, organised at Kolhapur on November 25; (6) a statewide rasta roko stir involving several thousands, again on the issue of power, led by the Anti-Globalisation Action Committee comprising all Left and secular political parties, on November 28; (7) two more Vidarbha-level jathas organised by the CPI-led Kisan Sabha from November 29 to December 11; (8) the notice of an indefinite strike by all unions of workers and employees in the MSEB against its proposed privatisation, slated to begin from December 15; and, (9) an extensive and intensive campaign for the December 12 Nagpur rally in several districts led by the various constituents of the Sangharsh Samiti for nearly a month. This campaign was based on 20,000 printed posters, lakhs of handbills, meetings in innumerable villages and press conferences in several districts. The print and electronic media gave generally good coverage to most of the above actions.  

SHARP DEMARCATION FROM SHIV SENA & BJP

The above Left campaign for the Nagpur rally, while attacking the INC-NCP regime for its acts of commission and omission (for details see earlier report in People’s Democracy, December 1, 2002), also lambasted the hypocritical campaign launched by the Shiv Sena and BJP during the same period on issues like cotton, sugarcane and load-shedding of power. The SS organised a jatha on the cotton issue through Vidarbha in November and held demonstrations at divisional headquarters in the state. The BJP, after a so-called Sangharsh Yatra through several districts, held its statewide rally at Nagpur on December 12 itself, the day of the Left-led rally.

The Left campaign stressed that one of the main reasons for the current crisis affecting both cotton and sugarcane was the indiscriminate imports of cotton and sugar permitted by the BJP-led central government. These imports were a direct result of the lifting of quantitative restrictions and the consistent refusal of the Vajpayee regime for the last five years to raise import duties on agricultural produce. This servile policy of the central government had devastated the peasantry and agricultural workers throughout the country. It was precisely in 1998-99, with the BJP-led regime at the centre and the SS-BJP regime in the state, that the unprecedented phenomenon of distress suicides of indebted peasants and agricultural workers first began in Maharashtra, with over 200 suicide cases reported that year.

The Left campaign also reiterated that it was during the SS-BJP regime from 1995-99 that the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme first began to run up huge losses, partly due to gross mismanagement and corruption. No annual budgetary provision was ever made to cover these losses, which thus accumulated over the years to a staggering figure, putting the whole Scheme itself in jeopardy. The BJP, which traditionally represents the big trader lobby, had in fact in earlier years led demonstrations demanding the complete abolition of the Scheme! The same was the case with the Shetkari Sanghatana led by Sharad Joshi.

On the question of power, the Left underlined the fact that at no point has the SS-BJP combine ever opposed the proposed trifurcation and privatisation of the MSEB. The BJP-led central government has, in fact, been bowing to the same World Bank dictates and has been pressurising state governments to privatise their state electricity boards. The disastrous results of the privatisation of power are there for all to see in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. The current scarcity of power in Maharashtra leading to massive load-shedding is also a direct result of the fact that both the INC-NCP and the SS-BJP state governments, in their decade-long corrupt cohabitation with Enron, refused to sanction even a single power generation plant of the MSEB, which would have generated sufficient power at much less cost. The Enron fiasco clearly revealed the common class character of both these combinations.

And finally, the Left campaign strongly denounced the Sangh Parivar for its divisive drive towards communal fascism, the most horrific instance of which was the state-sponsored communal carnage in Gujarat. It was by raising these and related issues that the Left campaign against the INC-NCP regime sharply demarcated itself from the SS-BJP campaign.

ENTHUSIASTIC  PUBLIC MEETING

The Nagpur rally culminated in an enthusiastic public meeting, which was presided over by PWP general secretary N D Patil, and the main speakers included CPI general secretary A B Bardhan, CPI(M) state secretary Prabhakar Sanzgiri and Cotton Growers Association president Vijay Jawandhia. All the four main speakers castigated the INC-NCP-led state government and the BJP-led central government for their disastrous LPG policies that are ruining agriculture and are driving the peasantry to indebtedness and distress suicides. They also attacked the communal fascist forces of the Sangh Parivar who are seeking to splinter the unity of the working people on the one hand and are serving as servile lackeys of American imperialism on the other. The speakers called for the forging of a credible and effective Left and secular alternative in Maharashtra on the basis of intensive mass struggles and extensive political-ideological campaigns against both imperialist globalisation and communal fascism. The rally also declared its active support to, and participation in, the January 8 countrywide Jail Bharo stir called by the National Assembly of Workers.

Among the other speakers at the rally were former state minister Ganpatrao Deshmukh and Laxmanrao Golegaonkar of the PWP-led Shetkari Sabha; Ashok Dhawale and Dada Raipure of the AIKS; Udayan Sharma and Rajan Kshirsagar of the AIAWU; Madhavrao Gaikwad and Sudam Jadhav of the CPI-led Kisan Sabha; Manohar Taksal and Shivkumar Ganvir of the CPI-led agricultural workers union; and Netaji Rajgadkar of the Cotton Growers Association. Manohar Deshkar welcomed the rallyists and Pandurang Rathod thanked all those who had made the rally a success. Among those in the Sangharsh Samiti delegation that met the chief minister were J P Gavit, MLA, Krishna Khopkar and Ramji Vartha, MLA, of the CPI(M) and others from the PWP and CPI.

BROAD REPRESENTATION

While all the three Left political formations had mobilised well for the success of the Nagpur rally, the representation of the CPI(M)-led AIKS and AIAWU was especially broad-based, coming as it did from as many as 21 districts of all five regions, viz Vidarbha, Marathwada, Khandesh, Western Maharashtra and Konkan. These 21 districts were Nasik, Yavatmal, Wardha, Amravati, Buldana, Gondia, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded, Beed, Usmanabad, Latur, Jalna, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Raigad and Jalgaon. The Nagpur district committees of the CPI(M) and CPI had made excellent local arrangements for the success of the rally.

Enthused by the success of the Nagpur rally and by the gains wrested from the government, thousands of peasants and agricultural workers went back with the determination to launch even more militant and powerful struggles all over Maharashtra in the days to come, led by the Red Flag.