 India's largest farmers organization, the All India Kisan Sabha, AIKS, held its 35th national conference in Trishur Kerala from December 13 to 16. The conference was held after a delay of two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the historic farmer's struggle. Newsweek covered the conference to understand the proceedings and the role of the organization since it played a key role led by the Samyukta Kisan Mocha which forced the union government to kneel down before the farmers. In this 35th national conference of the All India Kisan Sabha, more than 800 delegates have come from 26 states in the country and they are representing a total membership of 1 crore and 37 lakhs. This is a very big membership as we know. In fact, in the last one year there has been an increase of 19 lakhs in the membership in only one year. Last year it was 1 crore 17 lakhs. Now this time it is 1 crore and 37 lakhs that means nearly 19 to 20 lakhs increase in this one year. This increase is naturally because of the impact of the nationwide farmer's struggle in Delhi which of course spread to all the other states in India. So therefore that enthusiasm was very much there and as a result of it this membership increase has happened. Now regarding the deliberations of the conference Comrade Hanan Mulla as you know placed the general secretary's report which had basically three major parts. One was the whole agrarian crisis what is the reason for it etc. going into the analytical part of the situation that farmers are in today. Second was the part about the movement in the last five years. You know the last conference was held in Hisar in Haryana in October 2017 that is about five years ago. So in these last five years the kind of movements that took place those were there in the second part of the report and in the third and the last part of the report was a review of the Kisan Sabha organization. So these were the three major points that we were placing before the delegates. The general secretary of AIKS Hanan Mulla presented the report on the organization's strength, weakness, challenges ahead and possible alternatives. The delegates discussed in detail about the report presented and aired their views. Bookstalls, medical care centers and other facilities were arranged in the conference venue. Young volunteers from the Student Federation of India and other progressive organizations were actively involved in supporting the proceedings. We are helping the reception committee to prepare the resolutions. During that work we can understand also the problems of the farmers and it was a good experience to work with them. A national level seminar on agrarian crisis was addressed by CPIM leader Prakash Karad, economist Prabhat Patnayek and professor Jack Mohan Singh. Today the bedrock of this neoliberal regime is the Hindutva corporate alliance and if you want to fight against the neoliberal policies, if you want to fight for the rights of the peasants, the poor peasants in particular and the agricultural workers and the working class, it cannot be done without combating the pernicious Hindutva ideology which has already penetrated large sections of the people including the peasantry. If you go to North India and Western India today in the rural areas you will find that the Hindutva forces have been able to imbue this Hindutva consciousness among large sections of people. So while the unity of the peasantry, the unity of the workers, the unity of agricultural workers etc are being built through our struggles on their class issues on their demands, that unity will not translate into any political alternative, left and democratic alternative unless we are able to combat the Hindutva communal forces because that whatever unity we build in our daily struggles, economic struggles, that unity will not endure or remain if communal consciousness is not combated and that is why it is very necessary that in the coming days the Kisan movement, the trade union movement and the agricultural workers movement also take up this task. It cannot be left to people outside, it cannot be left to only political parties because this has gone down deeply among the masses and in our work while combining our fight for livelihood issues, for rights, democratic rights etc, the fight against communal forces must also be carried forward, carried forward simultaneously. When we talk about agrarian crisis, to my mind the agrarian crisis is synonymous with the ascendancy of imperialism, that basically the ascendancy of metropolitan capital, its other side is an agrarian crisis. This is something which we saw in the colonial period, the colonial period which actually meant domination of metropolitan capital, domination by imperialism in its colonial form was a period of permanent agrarian crisis. As a matter of fact, colonialism began in our country in Bengal with the battle of Plasi and you find that in the 1770s there was a famine in Bengal in which 10 million people died out of a total population in Bengal, United Bengal at that time of 30 million. One third of the population, most of them obviously rural population, most of them peasants agricultural laborers, they just died because of the very heavy revenue demand of the colonial state. With the onset of neoliberalism which is once more an assertion of imperialism in a new guise to which our own big bourgeoisie, our own corporate financial oligarchy is integrated. In other words, it is not only metropolitan capital but our own big capital, the Ambani's, the Adani's, they also do exactly what metropolitan capital is doing. They are integrated in the global operations of metropolitan capital. This new form of imperialism is once more has created an agrarian crisis, the like of which we have not seen since independence. 18 local level seminars were organized across Thrissur district ahead of the conference. Three commissions on land policy in rural India, minimum support price for farmers and corporate penetration of Indian agriculture were held during the conference with the active participation of the delegates. The conference also passed 15 resolutions on various issues faced by the farmers. An exhibition was arranged in Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala on the struggles and sacrifices of farmers across the country and in Kerala. The exhibition venue was named after freedom fighter Malluso Rajya. The conference unanimously elected a new team of office bearers including relatively young leaders from several states. Viju Krishnan, the newly elected general secretary and also the youngest in the last 60 years of the AIK's history addressed the concluding session of the delegates conference. It is a historic oligarch conference that we have had at the 35th oligarch conference which is happening in the context of a historic united Kisan movement which forced an agrarian communal Narendra Podil and BJP government to bow down to the struggle, apologize to the nation and withdraw the three anti-farmers pro corporate acts. So it is after that that we have had this conference and the conference has taken very important decisions to carry forward this struggle, to intensify the struggle by building and strengthening the worker present unity in a much bigger way, expanding the struggle until great day, move towards struggle consolidate and move towards alternative policies. As per this slogan, we will take forward our struggle in coming days. It is our duty. The conference called for a massive parliament march on April 5 against the failure of the BJP-led union government to fulfill its promises made during the withdrawal of the historic farmers protest. More emphasis was made on the unity of farmers and workers to defeat the anti-farmers, anti-worker policies of the union government. Dr. Ashok Dhavlain re-elected as the president of the AIKS, explained about the issues faced by the farmers and the object failure of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government. When these three farm laws were brought, that was like the proverbial last straw on the camel's back and there the farmers decided that enough is enough. Now, we will not tolerate any more attacks from the Modi government and that is how this whole big agitation started in 26th November 2020. Went on for one year and 15 days, lakhs of farmers blocking the borders of Delhi and spread all over the country and eventually the Modi government had to surrender and it had to agree to repeal all the three farm laws which the parliament had passed in September 2020. Such a thing has never happened before in India. Laws passed by parliament being taken back is something unheard of and that the farmers forced the government to do. That was because of the unity of the farmers. All 500 organizations came together in the Sayukta Kisan Morcha. So, all these things, therefore they braved repression, they braved deformation, they braved corona, all these things and in spite of that, they won this very, very magnificent battle. So, in this conference, we are seeing that confidence that we can make a authoritarian government surrender. If we have the unity, if we have the strength, that is being reflected in the deliberations of this conference. That is one very important point that we want to see. The second last point is that two more things I will say and I will end. For the future, that is also one thing that we have got in mind. Although the three farm laws are cancelled, repealed, that does not mean the end of the problems of farmers or agricultural workers in India. Many other issues are remaining. For example, the demand for a legal guarantee for MSP at one and a half times the comprehensive cost of production, which had been recommended by the Dr. M. S. Swaminathan commission, National Commission on Farmers. This was done in 2006. Last 16 years, it has never been implemented. So, that is the major issue in front of farmers for which all of us are fighting. Second is complete loan waiver for poor and middle farmers and agricultural workers all over the country by the central government. That is the second very important point, which we are stressing. Third very important point is a complete revamping of the prime minister Fasal Bhima Yojana crop insurance scheme. Up to now, this scheme has turned out to be bogus the Modi government scheme because it is actually helping all the insurance companies corporate and not helping the farmers because they are not getting compensation for the damage to the crops as a result of natural calamities. So, we want that whole scheme to be recast, revamped that is the important thing. We want increased pension from the central government to all the small and poor farmers, agricultural workers that is a very important demand from the central government. And another thing which was part of our old demand, we want the withdrawal of the electricity amendment bill. If that bill gets passed, it is there under the select committee now a parliament. If it gets passed, not only farmers, crores of people all over householders, etcetera, domestic electricity rates in the rural and urban areas, they are going to be increased by 5 times what they are now. So, therefore, that has to be withdrawn. That is another very major demand of the Kisan movement today. So, now in 2023, the AIKS, the SKM, we are trying to see that this movement is brought to full steam in the coming one year because that is the time when the Modi government must be put on the defensive maximum before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. So, that is one strategy that we are working on. Second, we have always believed in worker-present unity in action. I talked about the 5th September 2018 joint rally in Delhi. Now on the 5th of April 2023, the CITU, Kisan Sabha Agricultural Workers Union, they have decided on another very huge rally before parliament in Delhi on the 5th of April 2023. We are hoping to make this even a double the rally that was there in 2018 which was about 2 lakh strong. So, we are aiming at making this a 5 lakh strong rally, these 3 organizations all with red flags and they will be taking up all the question of the repeal of the labour codes, expansion of Manarega which is a very important demand of the agricultural workers and more than all that one very important thing that we are going to do in all these actions that is a political demand of protecting the constitution of India, protecting democracy, protecting secularism, federalism, sovereignty and socio-economic justice. These are the 5 major components of the constitution of India and that is exactly under attack by the BJP RSS Modi government. So, we are going to through all these actions, we are going to try and make maximum efforts to try and make it a political campaign also against this whole communal casteist thing because unless that is done only fighting on economic issues and neglecting political issues is not going to help the working class movement, it is not going to help the peasant movement also that we have come to a very firm conclusion and therefore in this conference we are making that also as a very important call that along with the economic demands the political issues must also be focused on in a very large way. The conference concluded in the massive rally and public meeting addressed by Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief Minister of Kerala.