AIKS to hold 36th national conference in Telangana, join Oct 23 anti-SIR protests

New Delhi:  The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) will hold its 36th all-India conference in Telangana’s Nalgonda from November 15 to 18, marking 90 years of its formation, the organisation declared Friday, also announcing its participation in nationwide protests against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise on October 23.

The AIKS, which has demanded scrapping of SIR and removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, said the October 23 protests called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and other groups would be held across the country, with large demonstrations planned at district and local levels.

Addressing a press conference, AIKS president Ashok Dhawale said the defence of democracy, the Constitution and a free and fair electoral process has become an urgent issue, also demanding a change in the process of selecting election commissioners.

“The most urgent question today is the question of defence of democracy, the Constitution, and a free, fair and transparent electoral process,” he said, alleging that the process had been vitiated by the Modi government.

Dhawale said farmers, trade unions, student, youth and women’s organisations and civil society groups would participate in the October 23 protests.

The organisation’s national conference will be held in Nalgonda, the centre of the historic Telangana armed peasants’ struggle, and will coincide with the 80th anniversary of the movement.

Besides, it will also mark the 90th year of AIKS, which, founded on April 11, 1936, in Lucknow, now has more than 1.58 crore members, Dhawale said.

The conference will begin with a rally and public meeting of one lakh farmers on November 15 — the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Birsa Munda. The AIKS has also called for its flag to be hoisted in villages across the country on the same day.

More than 800 delegates and observers from across the country, along with leaders of class and mass organisations and the SKM, are expected to attend the conference.

The theme of the conference is “Resist Corporate Attacks on Farmers and Agriculture; Unite to Build a People’s Alternative”. Its logo depicts marching peasants against the backdrop of the Nagarjuna Sagar dam, which irrigates parts of Nalgonda, symbolising the continuity of peasant struggles since the organisation’s formation.

Dhawale said farmers still face severe agrarian distress.

AIKS general secretary Vijoo Krishnan said the agrarian crisis has deepened during the 12 years of the Modi government, despite promises to double farmers’ incomes and implement the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations on minimum support prices.

The AIKS attributed the distress to rising cultivation and input costs, mounting debt, crop losses linked to climate change, land acquisition and the scrapping of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

The organisation also opposed free trade agreements, particularly the proposed India-US trade deal, arguing that Indian farmers would be forced to compete with heavily-subsidised American agricultural producers.

Krishnan said US farmers received substantial subsidies and warned that opening the Indian market to agricultural imports could put domestic farmers, dairy producers, horticulturists and fishers at a disadvantage.

The AIKS said the conference would discuss strategies to intensify independent and united struggles against what it described as corporate attacks on Indian agriculture, including through stronger peasant-worker collectives.

It also accused the BJP and the RSS of attempting to give a communal colour to the Telangana armed peasants’ struggle, which it described as a class struggle that united Hindu and Muslim peasants against landlords and the Nizam’s rule.

The organisation said the conference would also focus on building unity among working people to counter communal forces and strengthen resistance to policies it considers detrimental to farmers and agricultural workers.