1 Kisani Manifesto

Kisani Manifesto
{Revised}
2 Kisani Manifesto
2014
Contact:
Kisani Pratishtha Manch
383/6 Fatehpuri Colony
Rohtak-124001
+919416358044
3 Kisani Manifesto
A group of social activists in India felt concerned A group of social activists in India felt concerned A group of social activists in India felt concerned A group of social activists in India felt concerned A group of social activists in India felt concerned
over important issues that had emerged after the over important issues that had emerged after the over important issues that had emerged after the over important issues that had emerged after the over important issues that had emerged after the
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society and later drifting back to naked capitalism society and later drifting back to naked capitalism society and later drifting back to naked capitalism society and later drifting back to naked capitalism society and later drifting back to naked capitalism
in almost all the rest countries of world socialist in almost all the rest countries of world socialist in almost all the rest countries of world socialist in almost all the rest countries of world socialist in almost all the rest countries of world socialist
camp. In its wake the rapid disintegration of so- camp. In its wake the rapid disintegration of so- camp. In its wake the rapid disintegration of so- camp. In its wake the rapid disintegration of so- camp. In its wake the rapid disintegration of so-
called communist/socialist parties world over called communist/socialist parties world over called communist/socialist parties world over called communist/socialist parties world over called communist/socialist parties world over, ,, ,,
including in India, like pack of cards was at first including in India, like pack of cards was at first including in India, like pack of cards was at first including in India, like pack of cards was at first including in India, like pack of cards was at first
glance shocking. They however were not down, glance shocking. They however were not down, glance shocking. They however were not down, glance shocking. They however were not down, glance shocking. They however were not down,
continued their games to befool. Efforts to continued their games to befool. Efforts to continued their games to befool. Efforts to continued their games to befool. Efforts to continued their games to befool. Efforts to
analyse the international and national situation analyse the international and national situation analyse the international and national situation analyse the international and national situation analyse the international and national situation
with latest developments threw up challenges of with latest developments threw up challenges of with latest developments threw up challenges of with latest developments threw up challenges of with latest developments threw up challenges of
theory and practice. theory and practice. theory and practice. theory and practice. theory and practice. Jan Adhikar Jan Adhikar Jan Adhikar Jan Adhikar Jan Adhikar Sangthan Sangthan Sangthan Sangthan Sangthan gave gave gave gave gave
shape to few of them in 1992-3. Later shape to few of them in 1992-3. Later shape to few of them in 1992-3. Later shape to few of them in 1992-3. Later shape to few of them in 1992-3. Later, a br , a br , a br , a br , a broader oader oader oader oader
platform, platform, platform, platform, platform, Kisani Pratishtha Kisani Pratishtha Kisani Pratishtha Kisani Pratishtha Kisani Pratishtha Manch Manch Manch Manch Manch in 1994 came in 1994 came in 1994 came in 1994 came in 1994 came
out with some important answers and a out with some important answers and a out with some important answers and a out with some important answers and a out with some important answers and a Kisani Kisani Kisani Kisani Kisani
Ghoshnapatra Ghoshnapatra Ghoshnapatra Ghoshnapatra Ghoshnapatra in Hindi was issued. Lately, in Hindi was issued. Lately, in Hindi was issued. Lately, in Hindi was issued. Lately, in Hindi was issued. Lately,
however however however however however, a necessity was felt to summarise these , a necessity was felt to summarise these , a necessity was felt to summarise these , a necessity was felt to summarise these , a necessity was felt to summarise these
issues in English as also take into account the issues in English as also take into account the issues in English as also take into account the issues in English as also take into account the issues in English as also take into account the
latest development in globalised economy led by latest development in globalised economy led by latest development in globalised economy led by latest development in globalised economy led by latest development in globalised economy led by
corporate capital. Kisani Manifesto however is not corporate capital. Kisani Manifesto however is not corporate capital. Kisani Manifesto however is not corporate capital. Kisani Manifesto however is not corporate capital. Kisani Manifesto however is not
a document of the peasantry alone; it reflects a document of the peasantry alone; it reflects a document of the peasantry alone; it reflects a document of the peasantry alone; it reflects a document of the peasantry alone; it reflects
the whole of society in its purview. Farming is the whole of society in its purview. Farming is the whole of society in its purview. Farming is the whole of society in its purview. Farming is the whole of society in its purview. Farming is
viewed as integral for whole of the society. This viewed as integral for whole of the society. This viewed as integral for whole of the society. This viewed as integral for whole of the society. This viewed as integral for whole of the society. This
Draft is put up for dialogue and discussion that is put up for dialogue and discussion that is put up for dialogue and discussion that is put up for dialogue and discussion that is put up for dialogue and discussion that
may hel p i n bui l di ng an al t ernat i ve may hel p i n bui l di ng an al t ernat i ve may hel p i n bui l di ng an al t ernat i ve may hel p i n bui l di ng an al t ernat i ve may hel p i n bui l di ng an al t ernat i ve.
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5 Kisani Manifesto
Kisani Manifesto
Preamble
A sub-continent of superb mix of natural resources with varied
climate and a sturdy peasantry on its own natural course of progress,
India suffered a fatal blow at the hands of a cunning group of traders
from outside, led by British, who bled it with malice to finance
industrial spree in Europe. For once, India lost momentum to
advance on its own course and suffered untold humiliation, misery
and social-cultural slide. At the dawn of freedom from colonial
slavery India was a rootless giant ready to awake when another
tragedy of sorts occurred having to bite the rotten course at the
hands of its leadership: a discredited path of development with
industry and trade in lead was forced on it to adopt. And this was
not wholly unexpected; British rulers had diligently prepared a pliant
section of its people themselves to repose faith in a fake dream
with a mix of its own pliant socio-cultural ethos!
Once, Family Farming had a first place of honour as avocation that
man adopted, while Services as despised lowest and trade
something degrading: Uttam Kheti, Madhyam Viyapar, Nikrishta
Chakri. Now, the order is reversed: Chakri is Uttam while Kheti is
Nikrishta, but by a design of the elites who rule: first, British
colonialists propounded a Principle of Eminent Domain to make it
an easy grab of land, mineral and forest resources here to finance
capital-based industrial interests of England and made Hindustan
succumb to their dictation. Unfortunately, the new rulers after 1947
found the same principle fine to their advantage and are keen to
use it for grabbing national resources in their favour. It has worked
to the ruin of rural India, while converted agriculture into a highly
paying agro-business for rich-men club.
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India has started reaping what its elites deliberately had sown for
it. For last three hundred years Industry and trade has put the world
virtually on fire. False gods are made to rule. And vast majority of
miserable people is asked to smile in the midst of squalor they
have created all around. Industry and trade as a rule cannot but
create a world of internal strife, tension, jealousy and war
perpetually and countrymen are led to believe its virtues. These
evils are its conditions for survival! The Jinn told innumerable lies
about its virtues and consistently labelled Family Farming to be
sterile on insipid logic and patent falsehood.
India on its part unnecessarily stepped into the mess when it got a
chance to move ahead. A few of the elites propounded a circuitous
way to reach their dream: they wished to have a babe but despised
facing an unruly young man out of it, evading a universal truth that
capitalism is bound to grow into a rogue by manhood. It never has a
human face to please its victims. To have faith in state ownership of
capital and seeking a regime of plenty through sponsored
industrialisation at the cost of family farming proved as barren a
ground as another false god but at much higher cost to the social
deficit! Beware!
The fatal pitfall was at hand from unexpected quarters too: Karl
Marx and F. Engels were forthright in denouncing the dehumanising
nature of capitalist path of development and put forth an alternative
instead in scientific socialism. But, wittingly or unwittingly, they
relied upon some economic formulations from the high priest of
capitalism like Adam Smith and Ricardo that found place in the
system of thought which helped derail the movement for socialism
itself in consequence.
For one, Marx-Engels had marked the sequence of stages in human
relations for development history on the basis of mainly western
studies. It duly provided a fertile ground for revisionists of Marxism
to take history mechanically, especially by those who choose easy
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way to learn theorems, leading to a determinist attitude towards
delineating future projections of history. Growth on capitalist path
was taken as a necessary course before socialism could be ushered
in! It proved ridiculous; such fatal experiments, more so in Peoples
Republic of China and USSR are there to learn. To work for
dehumanising man or woman as crash individual which capitalist
relations do create hourly, before one could be transformed into a
community man/woman in socialism is a crazy formulation for
society to travel. But organised communists in every country did it
at the fatal cost of society, in India no less. They are still working for
capitalist growth on this fallacious theory branding India as a
developing country.
Let us not mistake: India is an aspirant imperialist country by now.
Its corporate capital expressing the will through different corporate
houses have adopted the agenda to seek foreign markets for its
finance capital and using the fully obedient state apparatus to
protect its interests in world markets which is as rapacious, rather
more criminal in expropriation outside as inside, leading to protests
from victims everywhere. This situation amounts to defying
aspirations of the freedom struggle to remain free. It is the direct
result of a course political leadership deliberately adopted at the
dawn of freedom from colonial rule and simultaneously focussing
on industrial-commercial nexus for growth at the cost of agriculture
and allied functions. For almost past seven decades this nexus
worked feverishly to consolidate its grip for a jump-start and ruin
the future of its working population in consequence, more so its
vibrant family farming that had the capacity to sustain billions for a
dignified life.
To say India is a developing country hides this bitter truth of
rapacious Jinn and is a misnomer. After passing over the first stage
of capitalist development as a liberal democratic economy through
public finance, in 1991 the ruling leadership took a quantum jump
for providing commanding heights to its corporate houses at heavy
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public cost by crafting such mechanism as public-private-
partnership (PPP), SEZ etc and to integrate it with global economy
at the back of people. The treachery was committed in the name of
development for public good. They could do it, despite Indian
Constitution, by manipulating state power and succeed through
crafting of public opinion with active help of elaborate machinery
at their hand, including a docile academia and embedded media.
During these past two decades or so of a changed course, the
manmohan-economics of trickle-down theory, in a fully liberal and
globalised market with a law that sanctifies survival of the strongest
duly sponsored and protected by state, has been working over-
time for the corporate capital to flourish by ploughing in billions
and billions of rupees from state funds every year, while cutting
expenditure on social sector drastically, releasing a dynamics of its
own. While people suffer for want of proper development of social
sectors, including education and public health, this skewed
economics has put the country to an imperialist circuit, demanding
a high place for its native capital in the globalised economy, no
matter how it may be so painful for its citizens in general and deadly
to its ethos. Indian case of governance since 1947 is a classical one
where rulers take the people granted and decide on policy matters
at the back of its constituents with impunity that has put their life
in jeopardy and affect their future deeply. If one likes, it may be
called a dance of democracy in reverse where minority rules over
majority to the advantage of the rich-men club with no sense of
guilt ever.
As a result, in the first two decades of its second phase of growth
since 1991 alone a new era of a different hue has dawned for this
club, thanks to Manmohan Singh and his team in government, for
utter enrichment of corporate houses that now dictate political-
economic-legal script for the country to the ruin of rural/ peasant
economy. When people got angry, its B-team took over to fulfil the
given task; as Narender Modi is now made to come in front for the
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same agenda, no matter of his past credentials. Let us not forget, a
new high in sinister attack on family farming had come from Atal
Bihari Vajpayee government of BJP through its New Agriculture
Policy-2000 laying out a blue print for takeover of agriculture by
corporate houses. Every government since, in centre or states
(including the leftists), has been in competition with each other for
translating this takeover easy through step by step route to obviate
any violent opposition.
While during the first phase of its growth the internal expropriation
of an unprecedented scale had put the native capitalist class on the
expressway to gain muscles, the second phase starting in 1991 has
made it Mahabali, out to take a plunge for imperialist ventures
with gusto. This trajectory as per rule has produced a bunch of super-
rich where convergence of corporate capital and the state is almost
complete to decide everything to the advantage of industrial-
commercial ventures while, on the other hand, a vast number of
citizens are scrambling for odd jobs on menial rates to keep hunger
at bay where uncertainty rules after a day of hard labour. If
scrutinised closely, this convergence of interests of corporate capital
and governance found bold reflection when occasion came to the
periodic renewal of political class in recently held elections to 16
th
Lok Sabha in April-May, 2014.
Let it be firmly noted: Election-2014 to Lok Sabha symbolised where
Mahabali corporate houses choose to decide who will rule the
country for next five years and how. Previously it was the state
establishment that used to lead benevolence to them, balancing
requirements of its electoral democracy. This time a whole state
structure worked as if in tandem over time to fructify the outcome.
The way this crafted economics unfolds now is best related by a
report in Bloomberg Washington: Mukesh Ambani and Gautam
Adani, the two most prominent of the corporate houses that
heralded change of guards after exhausting Manmohan Singh as
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PM, gained 1.3 billion dollars in a single day of share market upsurge
after Narender Modi established lead in counting of votes for Lok
Sabha election on 16
th
May, 2014, much-much more than they have
invested in their Campaign Modi as PM for over a year. How this
economy did justice that day to peasants on brink of a disaster that
visit them hourly and nearly 77% of the population that is made to
survive on less than rupees 20 per day has not attracted any one to
work out so far, barring perhaps a few of them who could catch a
ladoo free, in celebration of electoral victory by BJP cadres to the
glee of media barons on their kill.
There is a figure to ponder and to feel the effect on national health,
including man who labours hard on land: on average around 2000
peasants are forced to leave family farming every day in search of
another job for food security! And it is not because that they are
lazy lizards: it is the result of manmohan-economics with a designed
trajectory that has already another achievement to its credit where
the number of peasantry has gone down through suicides. Lest one
forgets: nearly three lakhs peasants have already perished due to
induced suicides, more than 16000 in Gujarat alone since 2001,
leaving others to distribute poverty among themselves for the sake
of comfortable data sheet!
And all this is being done under a cultivated myth based on a string
of flawed premises starting from Adam Smith-Ricardo to Manmohan
Singh in India that growth through industry and commerce alone
will pave the path to paradise with a secondary prescription that
someone has to pay price for it; that someone has always to be a
peasant to carry out this fiction does not worry the rulers and their
lackeys in academia or the servile media! More than three lakh
peasants in India since 1995 have paid this price with their lives
already, still demand is for more! Mind it, price always has to be
paid by rural India, especially its family farmers with their life for
sacrifice, as the rule under it prescribes!
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The game of deceit is going on under another cultivated myth being
maintained through an elaborate system of half-truths that the
government of the day has a legitimacy to tread this path through
electoral mandate every five years, boiling down to another
mischief that blames the people themselves about their current
miseries. Taking lesson from past, the peddlers of such democracy
do not mind the periodic cost they have to incur for maintaining
this fiction to work in treachery.
The present situation has come as a result of a definite course the
country was made to travel. Let it be recapitulated in brief for some
important lessons in order to move ahead:
Background
1. Humanity is suffering for the sins of capital domination for
almost three hundred years. Industry and trade has
introduced features to human behaviour that led them to
constant strife and turmoil. The fake dream of plenty
produced rather acute poverty and deprivation for majority
despite honest labour - situation of constant tension
informs all walks of life. There is an urge for alternative to
what they are grappling with.
2. Historical reasons so unfolded that India was not allowed to
proceed on its natural course of development. Family
Farming with Indian characteristics having resonance with
nature had given rise to its own indigenous science and
rationality in thought and culture which helped it tide over
vagaries of time. It was first Adi Shankar who led counter-
revolution that had put the wheel back affecting its
dominating ethos, its culture and resonance. Mingling
spiritualism with rationality of farming played havoc to its
strength and dynamics of social fragmentation based on
brahmanical disorder that put the social order at fatal
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disadvantage. Later, another disaster at hand awaited:
colonial powers intervened here for loot, enslaved and
suppressed its growth for long. It was a man-made
intervention which natives had to contend and contest hard
to regain its right of self-management and governance of
its own affairs according to their own capabilities and social-
cultural ethos.
3. India had the opportunity to move forward on a fresh course
in 1947 and save itself from pitfalls others have experienced
earlier by following a failed system that had led the
countries to two World Wars in twentieth century alone
with vast destruction and miseries; constant strife within
its womb was enough to remain scared of its captivating
but fatal embrace. But it did not happen. The leadership of
its freedom struggle betrayed the trust while the people
faulted in simplicity by reposing faith in them due to a
contrived Concept of Authority drilled into its head
consistently by protagonists of present representative
democracy leaving the people a passive force to live by; an
alien force masquerading as messiah of the masses.
4. The commoners were not victims of deceit from political
establishment alone after independence; in general the
section of academic class and the media that were part of
its freedom movement too betrayed the trust of Indian
people. In real terms, being its intellectual product, they
became fully subservient to the interests of corporate
capital and refused to be creative and innovative alive to
the requirements of the native land. By now, the corporate
capital-state nexus has completed this taken over of these
elements as essential part to its establishment, while
people stand fully disarmed through an elaborate strategy
of sorts.
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5. What was presented to be a golden path of peace and plenty
by the new masters to the people actually turned out to be
a beaten path of constant strife and expropriation of the
working population with dubious formulations and theories
that people could not understand; they experienced later
that it is as fatal as it had been during its colonial past. There
was nothing unexpected about it; the law worked as per
known script, rhetoric apart.
6. Unfortunately, state power was captured by the
representatives of aspirant native bourgeoisie through
manipulation with active collaboration of departing British
colonialists and in the given circumstances they undertook
the project of capitalist development seriously. As a first
step, the worst form of extraction insidiously by depressing
the entitlements manifold in family farming and the policy
of adopting highly discriminatory trade terms were used by
Indian state since day one after independence to augment
resources for financing the industrialisation spree and in
the process robbed agriculture of its capacity to develop
for meeting the requirements of a growing population and
its aspirations for a better life. Depressing the entitlements
of family farming is the main invisible conduit of extraction
for the transfer of resources from rural-unorganised to the
urban-organised, providing family farming a false look of
natural inferiority to the false look of flourish industries,
but with the help of state. As a result rural economy by
now is gasping for breath to the glee of ruling nexus on its
kill, who had crafted this design for complete hold over the
country in perpetuity.
7. It is well recognised that all wealth in a nation is actualised
through the labour of its people, working singly or in group,
with their bare hands or with tools on the means of
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production. The only rational explanation where a worker
at the tail end does not have sufficient even to eat, while
the man at the top wallows in wealth is through an elaborate
system of sheer deprivation.
8. The economic system is concerned with the production of
goods and services as well as their distribution, whereas
distribution is a reflection of built-in entitlements of
different partners in production. The legitimate entitlement
of an individual is relatable only to the additive due to
his/her labour input and to ones social needs. Natures
contribution and other additives due to the non-labour
inputs are the common heritage. Every citizen irrespective
of his/her place in the system has an equal claim on them
with no discrimination in distribution.
9. The distortion in distribution arise when the valuation of
additives due to the labour-inputs is biased, while exclusive
claims are made by individuals or groups on natures
contribution and additives due to non-labour input by virtue
of their position in the system.
10. Who was made to pay the price and how for industrial-
commercial growth? Since almost 68 years it is rural India,
more so family farmers, who have been made to pay the
price for the growth of industry and trade when they had
the least to spare. It is a harrowing story, perhaps
exceptional in reach too, how family farmers, agriculture
workers, artisans, handicraftsmen etc of organised sector
were literally robbed to pay the rich. The most obnoxious
methods of all in this hunting game is the extraction,
insidious in nature, that is being used through an elaborate
system of manipulation in entitlements for the labour put
in by family farmers and agriculture workers engaged in
farming operations.
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11. See how the game plan is working against Rural India:
The Right to Life with Dignity under Article 21 of the
Constitution is directly related to the Right to Work. But the
concept of Right to Work has been kept vague and even
confused, that too with purpose. The Right to Work has to
be relatable to a minimum wage which should be sufficient
for the upkeep of a family comprising of 6 to 7 members,
including the living elders at a reasonable level of dignified
existence. With the concept of parity in entitlements, it
cannot be lower for peasants and workers in agriculture as
also for those in allied functions like artisans than what a
skilled worker in organised sector is accorded today, along
with all other fringe benefits accruing thereto. But it is not.
India lives in its villages and it will continue to live so but
not as a prisoner of circumstances, local or global, in utter
helplessness.
Prohibiting discrimination, equality between citizens is the
principle built in Indian Constitution. Articles 38, 39 of the
Constitution of India define obligations for governance,
which mandate as under:
38. (i) The state shall strive to promote the welfare
of the people by securing and protecting as
effectively as it may a social order in which justice,
social, economic and political, shall inform all the
institutions of the national life,
(ii) The state shall, in particular, strive to minimise
the inequalities in income, and endeavour to
eliminate inequalities in status, facilities, and
opportunities, not only amongst individuals but also
among groups of people residing in different areas
or engaged in different vocations.
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39. The state shall, in particular, direct its policy
towards securing-
(a) that citizens, men and women equally have the
right to an adequate means of livelihood;
(b) that the ownership and control of the material
resources of the community are so distributed as
best to subserve the common good;
(c) that the operation of the economic system does
not result in the concentration of wealth and means
of production to the common detriment;
(d) that there is equal pay for equal work for both
men and women;
(e) that the health and strength of workers, men
and women, and tender age of children are not
abused and that citizens are not forced by economic
necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age
or strength;
In case of unorganised sectors, more so in family farming
this constitutional mandate for care of the disadvantaged
stands flagrantly violated with no question asked, despite
a hyper-active judiciary when matters favouring the system
arise. This is the truth rural India is victim of.
The Government of India is signatory to ILO Convention that
lays down principles for wage determination and Supreme
Court of India has ruled for equal pay, for similar work. 16
th
Labour Conference mandated that for 8 hour physical work
a worker must be compensated with 2400 calories of energy
daily to recover the spent strength and maintain a family of
five. Government of India has accepted that a worker must
get enough to lead a family of five with honour and comfort
so that he regains the lost energy in 8 hours work for output
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next day and fulfil his obligations to the family by meeting
its social, educational, entertainment and health concerns.
However, problem arises when adopted principles are
operationalised by political and executive bureaucracies
who have mastered the art of deceptions and treachery to
rob the disarmed and unorganised more. Both of these have
worked ruthlessly in case of rural sector with no sense of
regret. Articles 38 and 38 stand starkly violated by every
ruling party in the country despite the Judiciary that remains
vested with extra-ordinary powers of supervision and
interpretation: government policies are crafted so as to
accentuate inequality daily and hourly since 1947, more so
since 19991. There is hardly any voice for the disinherited
during this period for them!
To illustrate how the system was tailored to work and rob
farming through a maze of contrived policies the following
points may suffice:
1. The first mischief was to categorise workmen
into organised and unorganised sectors for
purposes of wage determination. The organised
sector comprises merely 8.5% of the total work
force and the rest is placed unorganised.
2. The organised were further categorised into
trade wise workers for differential wage
fixation. Trade wise workers were further
categorised as highly skilled, skilled, semi-
skilled and unskilled for this purpose.
3. Unorganised work force was categorised as
agricultural and non-agricultural
4. Agricultural workmen were categorised as
ploughmen, head-loaders, herdsmen, etc
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5. Non-agricultural workforce was then categorised
trade wise workers for wage determination.
Likewise, list goes on to keep workforce divided
and rob them by section wise handling of issues
arising of the discrimination so built around.
So, different criteria were framed for organised and
unorganised sectors in matters of wage determination and
a highly discriminatory wage structure was formalised. The
worst sufferer was the farming sector. The idea behind,
perhaps, was to keep the majority of workmen deprived of
decent wage and create a middle class comprising of
organised sector as a shock absorber to the system of
expropriation for safe sailing. In bonus, it keeps workmen/
women and farmers divided as also peasant movements
fragmented.
Farming was clubbed with unorganised sector, where
working unit comprises labour-unit of two adults instead
of one as in the organised sector against a family. Farming
was declared an unskilled job with the result that for fixation
of minimum wage rate under the relevant Act agricultural
labour got the last category of least paid, while fixing
minimum support price of agricultural products family
labour was accounted on the scale the family is supposed
to give to agricultural labour! In the bargain, both stood
robbed of a due wage for the labour put in production. In
addition, family unit in farming sector was declared
arbitrarily consisting of three consumption units instead of
five as in the organised sector. Further, the family labour
was counted for the work-hours bureaucracy determines it
spent in farming operations. It is for 156 days in a year
through this mechanism instead of 365 days. For rest of the
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days farming family was deprived of even the starvation
wage. Putting together all these subterfuges, farming was
made the worst looser. By such a crafty mechanism rural
sector was deprived of even a living wage and drained it off
the additives it created by their labour to finance the
industrial-commercial sectors. As a result, cities thrived and
village economy collapsed with hunger and wants lurking
around. Agriculture thus was made to subserve the interest
of industry and trade by a cunning ruling elite to subserve
their sectarian interests.
12. As the organised sector holds complete control on the money
system in India and all centres of political and administrative
power belong to it, this elite club has the last word on
distribution of the total national product and takes
advantage of its position in a variety of ways.
13. The most sinister subterfuge is resorted while fixing the
relative value of labour input made by different categories
of workmen/women in production by devising highly
discriminatory criteria for workers in arbitrarily categorised
sectors as organised and unorganised. The level of
discrimination is unexceptional:
The minimum wages being prescribed by governments in
different states and the centre through legislation reflect
the deep-rooted bias of the decision-making power elites
exercise against workers in unorganised sectors. The wage
so fixed for a worker in unorganised sector ranged between
5 to 10 rupees per day in 1986 for the upkeep of worker
family of three units i.e. 2 adults and 2 minor children, when
the class iv employee in the organised sector was getting at
least four times; the perks and service security for lifelong
was an extra bonus in his case. The central labour
commissioner on 1.4.2004 notified a minimum wage of
20 Kisani Manifesto
rupees 97.80 per day for unskilled workers in central
undertakings and class iv regulars were getting 4,721 per
month as ordained by Fifth Pay Commission and not less
than rupees 10,000/ per month under vi pay commission,
while 77% of population was living on rupees less than 20/
per day in 2004-05 according to report of Commission on
Unorganised workers headed by Arjun Sen Gupta. This
disparity has taken alarming proportions in wages between
organised and unorganised sector.
The situation in agriculture is worse. Firstly, farming is
categorised as unskilled work in unorganised sector where
two adults, instead of one in other avocations working for
maintaining a family of 3 labour-units accounted for 156
days labour in a year, while calculating input costs for
working out Minimum Support Price (MSP) for agriculture
products, thus heavily depressing arbitrarily the actual
income for a farming family. It was subterfuge to extract
heavily the labour-value out of farming that was ploughed
in for financing free industry and trade sector. It spelt
disaster for family farming and released land for sale to the
rich. See an example:
In 1990, the average wage for a farmer worked out at the
rate of rupees 10/- per family per day for 147 (now 156)
days in a year. Later, the rate was rupees 15/- in 1995, rupees
35/- in 2007 and is around rupees 45/- at present, while class
iv employee gets 400/-, teacher 1000/-, district collector no
less than 2500 per day, while there is no limit for the
corporate honchos, despite the compelling difference in
use-value of agriculture products for food security of the
nation. It works out that nearly 7 lakh crores of rupees are
extracted on this account alone from rural sector to finance
the urban sector i.e one crore per village per year!
21 Kisani Manifesto
14. The discriminatory valuation of work done and value-
addition by workmen between organised and unorganised
sectors is thoroughly arbitrary, unjust and unconstitutional
to the core. Still it is ruling the scene with impunity.
15. The second most important mechanism after arbitrarily
depressing entitlement used by the ruling elite for
extracting surplus value from rural economy for the benefit
of urban economy is through genocidal interest on
agricultural credit by applying compound rates meant for
sectors which grow on geometrical scale, while agriculture
by its nature has an organic growth on mathematical scale.
The British colonialists, having no sympathy with Indian
masses in matters of loot, respected this law of economics
and did not resort to such insidious methods. At a time when
Indian peasantry had perished in scale due to induced
calamities like famine for over extraction, British rulers,
under pressure of public opinion back at home though,
enacted Land Improvement Act 1883 and Agriculturists Loans
Act, 1883 where terms of credit had to be in harmony with
the nature of the purpose supporting agricultural activity.
Compound interest was prohibited and made usurious
under an Act in 1918. The Act of 1883 clearly stipulated that
period of repayment shall ordinarily not exceed 35 years
and simple interest was prescribed at 4% per annum. The
situation in independent India has gone worst than a native
Sahukar was despised for: compound interest is the rule
and repayment in few years was made a concession. When
peasantry in independent India is thus abetted to commit
suicides in lakhs the system does not care! The more credit
is advanced to peasantry the number of suicides sore higher.
16. The third agonising method used for fleecing peasantry is
through manipulating the sale prices of agricultural
22 Kisani Manifesto
products. The system is highly discriminatory, arbitrary and
oppressive. If peasantry is surviving in ranking poverty it is
due to misuse of state power against them. The terms of
trade are designed to be adverse and perilous.
17. Fourthly, principle of eminent domain is being used to rob
community resources like land, forest, water, mineral
wealth by transferring their ownership rights to
multinationals. Currently, transnational companies are
targeting India in a massive land-grab. Indias central belt is
crawling with mining companies like Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton,
South Koreas POSCO, the British multinational Vedanta and
the Indian-owned Essar and Tata, eager for the coal, iron,
aluminum and other minerals under the ground.
18. The state has crafted various ways to beat rural India white.
For purpose of illustration alone four main items are
recounted above to draw broad contours of the ground
reality. In fact, there is nothing to counter on record if we
say that the whole system is crafted to operate against
family farming and if peasants, a class optimist by nature of
its profession, are pushed to unprecedented suicide trail,
it testifies to the criminality of the official policies in
operation.
19. Have a look: about 70% of our people were engaged in
agriculture and allied activities in 1950. About the same
proportion was reportedly engaged in 1990. The share of
these 70% rural-unorganised in GDP of whatever worth in
1947 as 65%, in 1950 was 63% but their share in 1990 came
down to 27%, in 2005 to 21% and slated to go down to 6% by
the year 2020 for a reduced population of 60% through sheer
manipulation in policies to make family farming completely
unviable and unattractive a policy to free population from
agriculture so that land is available for sale to non-farming
23 Kisani Manifesto
minority that possess capital with the help of state, as
British colonialists did here in their times. Since 1991 of
liberal-globalised economy the share of agriculture in GDP
is reduced by about 1% every year as a matter of deliberate
policy wrecking disaster to rural economy while corporate
capital is flourishing to the level where it is out to seek
foreign markets for its money, products and services with a
corresponding rise in defence expenditure to provide a
security cover free to this predatory capital.
20. The preceding para above illustrates how the crisis was
scripted out in agriculture from day one with a definite
purpose to serve; as a result the land was available for sale
to the rich while pushing a large number of population on
the verge of hunger with a begging bowl in hand so that this
vast reserve army is available cheap for industrial-
commercial ventures and service sector, flocking to towns
which have increasingly been made as centres of economic
activities where capital dominates with master-servant
relations to regulate the life and a corresponding decline
of a vibrant rural economy with its community life style.
21. The design has worked to script: Family Farming is on the
verge of untimely death to the glee of corporate world. It
had its concomitant result: the Family and its supportive
Neighbourhood Community, as corresponding social
institutions for family farming to survive, are under severe
attack to give way to the crash individualistic way of life
instead so that industrial-commercial venture may find
convenient conditions to flourish. Now for this reason
almost every rural family and its community in villages are
paying the price of ignoring the danger for almost seven
decades; these are passing through a severe condition of
internal war like situation between two set of cultures,
where its young both boys and girls - especially those
24 Kisani Manifesto
educated by institutions of industrial-commercial vintage
are, knowingly or unknowingly, the foot-soldiers for an
entirely alien cultural mode to expedite an early death of
these institutions.
22. Despite concerted moves to turn rural India barren of its
vitality through this long period, it still has the potentiality
to move ahead and take up challenges of the future. It still
survives with little of its collective way of thinking and
collective way of action in a community setting to manage
its affairs that provides a silver lining amidst a gloomy
present.
23. Yes, village life is now deeply infected with alien features
of industrial-commercial mode like degenerated culture of
selfish kind that make it sick highly. With the myth of seeking
solutions of its problems through state power taking over
consciousness, the electoral politics of almost seven
decades designed to serve this mode has ravaged the
cohesiveness of rural life to fearful proportions making life
a virtual hell of strife with itself. If one seeks rational answer
to the present conditions, there is no other way except
reclaiming family farming to its pristine best and Family in a
community setting regenerated with its social-cultural
mode as its base.
24. Another concomitant result of this corporate capital led
economy has served the ruling class very well in election
exercise for easy manipulations on cheap terms and low
promises.
25. All governments, led by BJP, Congress or others, did it with
glee, having least sense of guilt towards this vast number
of population. It establishes the fact that rulers are out to
smash village economy in the interest of industrial-
commercial-service sectors.
25 Kisani Manifesto
26. Situation in India has reached a boiling point. Present system
is surviving on periodic renewal of hope through elections.
Over half a century has passed dabbling in such a game of
chance. But, enough is enough. There is a need for
sustainable alternative.
Now:
Remembering that Government of India was happy to accept
the GATT proposal to include agriculture in the trade regime
of WTO as also the suggestion from an American delegate
at Davos conclave in 1994 gathered there to ratify Dunkel
proposals on GATT to work for DIG (disposal income group)
which constitutes 20% of countrys population. Indian
government since then has tailored its policies to fulfil this
wish-list. As a result 80% of the population stands now
disinherited and written off the official register for care at
government hands, despite occasional commitments to the
contrary by political leaders at the time of elections.
Realising that state power stands by now converted fully as
a tool in the hands of minority to tame the majority for its
rule and political parties, through their leadership, are part
of its mechanism to control democracy in the interest of
expropriation by this minority rule;
Recognising that it is the political establishment in India
that has not only failed the people but betrayed their trust
in negating the legacy of freedom struggle;
Knowing that India after independence is a land of rich
resources in the midst of harrowing misery and wants galore
for its billions due to a treacherous path of development,
its workmen /women are facing a degrading present and
bleak future despite honest and hard labour;
26 Kisani Manifesto
Knowing further that agricultural crisis at present in India is
not the outcome of any natural reason or due to any
deficiency in its capacity to grow but the result of a
deliberate policy so far to subserve interests of the capitalist
growth; that there is no poverty in India it is an induced
misery for the common workingmen/women. People in
India are disinherited, not poor; unemployment is the
result of uneven development inherent in the system opted
deliberately and that corruption is like mobile-oil for it to
keep running a deliberate satrap, an illegality to run
legality for the rich;
Subscribing to a system of production and distribution that
is in consonance with the cherished goal of social, rather
than individualist, way of life with a legacy of self-
management, peace, harmony and sufficient to fulfil needs,
rather than constant strife, misery and oppression and that
the real democracy subscribes to the tenet that Power rests
with the People with a natural right to self-management;
Believing that it is peoples power that is central to any
meaningful change in relations and that the innovation and
creativity of the people are fundamental to the growth in
society;
Disbelieving that the state power is an instrument of
development/growth or a fundamental change in society
i.e. its social-economic-political relations;
Decrying the concepts like representative democracy,
leadership/authority as seriously injurious to the health of
society that impede its growth, seriously injuring the
initiative and creativity of the people making them
completely docile as also dependent on formal structures
of state instead of the community and which most of the
time do not work for the disinherited;
27 Kisani Manifesto
Underlining the ground reality that society today basically
suffers from the octopus like growth of state structure,
including its education system, as an instrument of minority
to subdue the majority for working in the interest of
corporate capital that one day was born out of necessity to
govern affairs of society, coming out independently of
farming and that the second most important truth of social
relations is the contradiction between capital and labour
which finds manifestation here in the form of urban-
organised (the inheritors) versus rural-unorganised (the
disinherited) broadly, having a slight twilight zone in
between, though the pace of polarisation has increased
manifold lately during its liberal-globalisation process.
Taking that the task of an organisation is to release the
creativity and initiative of people and not to act on their
behalf while taking measures where organisation is not
above people nor to over shadow them; and that the first
crucial battle in this war against injustice, expropriation,
indignity, inequality and oppression of neo-colonial- neo-
imperialist like slavery has to be in the realm of ideas and
concepts;
Noting that in this battle the youth both boys and girls,
belonging to the disinherited section of society is the first
category which is being induced to work as its foot-soldiers
by the corporate capital for demolishing rural India and its
way of life for complete take over through other means,
especially its land, water, forest and mineral wealth as also
to plough in boys and girls for its sex-based ventures by
making farming non-viable and unattractive through specific
policy initiatives on the one hand as also by making its
ventures alluring to the gullible on the other.
28 Kisani Manifesto
Realising that community way of life with family as its basic
unit must remain the fulcrum of socio-economic planning.
It is important that its familiar cultural-social mode is
protected where collective way of thinking and collective
style of working remains the norm.
Address ourselves to further the interests of the presently
ruled ones, including the farming community, so that coming
generations could redeem their future safe with no one to
dictate, where people can live a life in dignity and pleasure
with no discrimination, while respecting a similar right of
others as also save its youth from a degraded life made
charming to a life of honest labour with values and ethics in
consonance with flourishing family farming at its core.
We, who subscribe to the above, resolve that:
We reject the premise that the mode of production
with industry and trade as its pivot is a path of bliss
and plenty. It is a false god created to cheat the
people!
Kisani has to be made the fulcrum of growth and
development in the country with family farming as
its mode with a corresponding cultural milieu. Kisani
in family farming mode is the future for India.
Family Farming is a way of life in India and has to
remain so. It cannot be converted into a commodity
of a market driven economy unless 65% of
population is made disposable
We decry the legacy of Adi-Shankar counter-
revolution and its brahmanical social order. Imbibing
rationality of family farming having resonance with
nature must remain free from alien characteristics
so as to provide humanity a blooming future
29 Kisani Manifesto
Human labour, instead of capital, will form the b
basis of life in operation
Family in a community setting, being the natural
and informal growth with farming, shall have to
remain the basic unit of labour, social identity and
the strength of the economy.
Trade terms have to be redrafted that will not
discriminate against family farming
Agriculture has to be taken out of GATT agreement
and WTO
Family Farming must ensure food security to all; no
one should go hungry
Use of chemical fertiliser and pesticide in agriculture
need be banned
Seed autonomy of farmers has to be ensured and
protected
Forest, Water and mineral wealth constitute a
common legacy with the community. These must
not be turned into commodities for private or
corporate gain. Land right rests with those who
reclaimed it for family farming. Land need be
brought out of market as a commodity. Principle of
Eminent Domain is colonialist in nature and
repugnant to social ethos of the country; must be
repealed forthwith. The use of land for non-farming
purposes have the concurrence of village
community.
Village community has the natural right to autonomy
in conducting its affairs as per need and follow its
traditions and customs to resolve internal affairs
30 Kisani Manifesto
The use of GM foods and use of genetic engineering
for food products need be banned
In consonance with family farming its social-cultural
frame has to be strengthened
Education has to cater the needs of crafting a suitable
milieu that will help develop human values and a
rational human being.
Unity of rural working forces has to be maintained
and guarded to face the onslaught fairly and with
determination; disruptive politics defeated.
No organisation is above the people, not even the
peasant organisation; commitment is towards rural
India and its ethos. No effort will be made to divide
village cohesiveness on account of separate identity
of or loyalty to organisation.
Organisation will act only as a catalytic agent of social
chan ge. It cannot be the master of social-political-
economic and cultural affairs.
We decry the Concept of Authority as divisive,
oppressive and repugnant to the ideal of equality
and .
We do not accept the concept of state as a vehicle
of social change and development, community is.
Neither political parties are instruments of such a
change for the better of humanity; parties do not
belong to different classes but only to one class i.e
ruling class and work to advance its cause.
Every mass movement is not fertile to deliver; only
that is worth which has a clear agenda and style that
always resonates the basic object.
31 Kisani Manifesto
As a last word, it is instructive to keep note of what the
industrial-commercial culture does to a society and what
state establishment in fact performs to shape a nation.
For the first, as a typical example one can recollect the
remarks from that Great British Scholar, George Bernard
Shaw when he sums up his own nation that trumpets its
achievements in trade and industry. He comments:
There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not
find Englishman doing it; but you will never find
Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on
principles: he fights you on patriotic principles, he robs
you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial
principles, but he bullies you on manly principles; he
supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his
kings head on republican principles.
For the second, the eminent Scottish empiricist
philosopher of eighteenth century, David Hume
summed up First Principl of government thus:
The rulers must ultimately rely on controlling
thoughtthis maxim extends to the most despotic and
most military governments as well as to the most free
and most popular,
while another prominent representative of ruling elite,
Winston Churchill subscribed that Truth is so precious it
must be protected by a body of lies.
Peoples today are under chains both, visible and
invisible, abhorrent and alluring. They are faced today
truly with a monster in state and its establishment with
a wholly rapacious economic system weaved around
their necks.
32 Kisani Manifesto
Now for seeking liberation from such a present dark
alley, let us build mass pressure to checkmate the
advance of these marauding forces and give death blows
to its anti-people policies.
Relying on the peoples power after regaining their
creativity and initiative that age long lethargy had built
in thought and action by sanatani/brahmanical concepts
of life, we can do it. We need to innovate and create
another course better for our benefit to follow than
what hitherto have informed the stale mass movements
in the name of social change and delivery of peasantry
from expropriation.