On March 6, 2018, a farmers’ protest march under the banner of the All Indian Kisan Sabha (AIKS) began from CBS Chowk in Nashik.  The swelling sea of marching peasants and workers, wearing red caps and carrying red flags and banners, ended their 200 km march at the historic Azad Maidan in Mumbai in the early hours of March 12, 2018. The six-day march or the Long March, as the march came to be called, was watched on television screens across the country with growing admiration and support.

The Kisan Long March in Maharashtra published by Leftword Books is an account of this unprecedented event. The Long March is a major addition to the recent wave of organized farmers’ protests that have occurred in different parts of the country. The monograph under review is an important and timely documentation of a protest that framed the problems and issues facing a majority of the peasantry into a set of clear demands backed by the power of organised collective action.

The central essay of this short booklet, written by Ashok Dhawale, National President of the AIKS, is titled “A Remarkable Struggle.” Ashok Dhawale’s essay documents two years of grassroot-level struggles that culminated in the Long March. The AIKS organised the peasants, hit by recurrent agrarian crises in the state, on demands such as the waiver of agricultural loans, remunerative prices for agricultural crops, the provision by the government of drought relief measures, and the implementation of land rights, such as the Forest Rights’ Act. Starting with a sit-in protest in Nashik on March 29, 2016, where one lakh peasants occupied the city centre, several other independent struggles continued over the next two years at different taluks to pressurise the state administration to act on concerns of the peasantry. In these struggles, the AIKS emerged as the uniting force that brought together other peasant organisations on a common platform. It organised an 11-day strike between June 1 and 17, 2017 across Maharashtra.

The State Government reneged on promises made to farmers in each of these protests. For instance, the government was forced to announce a complete loan waiver as a result of the 11-day strike. However, the implementation agreement included several conditions and restrictive clauses that effectively denied loan waivers to a majority of farmers.

In its State Council meeting held on February 16, 2018, the AIKS decided to organise the Kisan Long March. Over the next few days they registered participants and meticulously planned the logistical details of the march. The peasants who joined the march were predominantly adivasis (persons of Scheduled Tribes) from Nasik, Thane, and Palghar districts of Maharashtra.

Ashok Dhawale reports that while the march started with 25,000 members, it culminated with a gathering of around 50,000 people.  The determination of the marchers and their leaders had a powerful impact. The gathering support the march attracted from opposition parties and the general public forced even the mainstream media – known for its lukewarm support to issues of the peasantry – to give the march lead coverage. These factors forced the state government to concede to all the campaign’s demands with the assurance that they would be implemented in a time-bound manner. Having learnt its lessons from earlier experiences of negotiations with the government, the AIKS delegation this time formalised the agreement by getting it signed by the Maharashtra Chief Secretary to be presented on the floor of the State Assembly for approval.

The demands made by the farmers and accepted by the government include the following.

• The setting up of administrative mechanisms to expedite the process of reviewing and resolving the long pending individual and community rights claims over forest land, made under the  Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, also known as Forest Rights Act, 2006.[1]
• To issue title deeds or pattas to tribal families for forest land that they have already been occupying and cultivating.  In case the land awarded to the family is less than the amount already under its occupation, then on further review the household will be provided up to a maximum of four hectares of forest land according to the Forest Rights Act.
• To formalise claims upon grazing land (gairan), already under possession of homeless families. In Maharashtra, the movement for rights over gairan land by Dalits has been of historical significance.
• To transfer Devasthan or temple lands to actual cultivators.
• Time-bound implementation of dam projects over the Nar-Par, Damanganga, Vagh and Pinjal rivers, and utilising the water by diverting it into the Girana and Godavari valley. Construction of 31 minor irrigation projects in the Kalwan-Surgana region after evaluating their viability. The projects should not lead to displacement of tribal villages.
• Ensure remunerative prices for farm produce at a rate 50 per cent greater than the cost of production (C2), as suggested by the Commission on Farmers headed by M. S. Swaminathan in 2006. (Cost C2 includes all paid out costs and imputed cost of family labour.)
• Implementation of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana, to provide relief to farmers who defaulted on loans between 2001 and 2009. Also, to review cases of farmers unable to repay loans for the year 2016-17 and to devise a proper loan waiver plan for them. Up to Rs 1.5 lakh loan waiver to be provided if the loan is taken by the husband, or wife or both.
• Strong action to be taken against ration shop dealers for non-disbursal of food grains under the Public Distribution System.  The Chief Secretary shall himself investigate cases of negligence.
• Compensation to cotton farmers facing loss due to pink bollworm attacks and hail storms to be provided at the rate of Rs 40,000 per acre.
• Implementation of financial assistance to eligible beneficiaries through state and central government schemes such as Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana, Shravan Bal and Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Yojana. The pension amount to be raised to Rs 2000 per month under these schemes. Presently, it is as low as Rs 600 (Rs 200 by central government and Rs 400 by state government) under the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme.
• No agricultural land to be acquired for development projects such as the Samruddhi Mahamarg and the Bullet Train project, without consent of the affected rural population. (The Samrudhhi Mahamarg project plans to create a 700 km freight corridor between Mumbai and Nagpur. The expressway will run through 10 districts, 26 talukas and 392 villages. The Bullet Train project proposes a 508 km long high speed rail corridor connecting Mumbai and Ahmedabad, acquiring around 1,400 hectares of land.)[2]

In the Editor’s note, Vijay Prashad situates the Long March within the crisis in global capitalism that is making the lives and work of small farmers around the world increasingly difficult. The apathy of the ruling dispensation in India towards agriculture and those who sustain it is to be seen in this global context. In his preface to the book, journalist P. Sainath argues that it is no coincidence that such a protest march should take place in Maharashtra, India’s wealthiest State, where inequality is glaring and growing, and where the highest number of starvation deaths and farmers suicides have occurred.

A victory march and meeting was held on the scenic beach at Dahanu, attended by 30,000 peasants from the districts of Thane and Palghar. The books’ Afterword, by Sudhanva Deshpande, describes the victory rally at Kalwan, near Nashik. Written in an engaging and anecdotal style, it profiles some of the leaders of the march, like Ashok Dhawale, Jiva Pandu Gavit, Kisan Gujar and Ajit Nawale. At the meeting, AIKS leaders sent out a clear message to participants to remain vigilant till the accepted demands were actually implemented, especially in the light of the vacillations of the State government in the past.

Will the state government protect the interests of the small farmers, particularly tribal farmers, as promised or will it succumb to the powerful interests of corporate and financial capital? Despite the many battles ahead, the historical significance of the Kisan Long March will remain. By fusing the demands for extended state support to the working peasantry with the fundamental structural issues of land rights and ownership, the organised peasants movement has struck a powerful blow against the policies of a pro-corporate government.

The e-book of The Kisan Long March in Maharashtra is available for free download.

[1] As a result of the Kisan Long March, the Maharashtra government has announced its ‘Van Mitra’ programme to digitalise and review lakhs of pending and erroneously rejected claims made under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

[2] For more details on accepted demands, read this article.