The All India Kisan Mahasabha organized a dharna at the Raj Bhawan, Ranchi on 15 May 2017 in preparation for the 3rd AIKMS National Conference to be held on 9 and 10 June 2017 in Hazaribagh, for the rights of farmers, adivasis, dalits and Muslims over the ‘jal-jangal-jameen’ of Ranchi, and for mobilization of people against the pro-corporate and anti-people policies of the Modi and Raghuvar governments. The dharna-cum-farmers’ congregation was organized on the following issues: ending large-scale corporate loot of land in Jharkhand; revoking amendments to the CNT-SPT Act; stop putting government, Gair-majrua and benami lands into land banks and stop evicting the poor, dalits and adivasis and farmers from such lands; compensation and relief for farmers in view of the large-scale scams in paddy purchase.
The speakers said that the Modi and Raghuvar governments are making Jharkhand into a laboratory for corporate land loot and communal polarization. Under these anti-people policies, lakhs of acres of land are being looted through ‘land banks’ and the poor are being evicted from these raiyyat, benami, gair-majrua and other lands which is theirs by right. Within the last 45 days 7 people have been killed in firings at Badkagaon, Gola and Khunti. These fascist governments are trying to spread communal poison and divide worker-farmer unity and are lynching Muslims through their ‘gau-rakshak’ goons. They condemned the government’s decision to permit commercial use of GM mustard seeds and said such anti-farmer policies are the cause of huge losses in agriculture and the resultant farmer suicides. They demanded roll back of the government decision to allow land acquisition by Adani in Godda and also revoking of the amendments to the CNT-SPT Act. They appealed to the farmers and adivasis of Jharkhand to unite in a huge movement to save the land, forests and water of Jharkhand. They said that the 3rd AIKMS National Conference on 9 and 10 June (Birsa Munda martyrdom anniversary) would formulate a plan for a countrywide farmers’ movement on all these issues.
