Review of the Work on the Kisan Front

Review of the Work on the Kisan Front

(Adopted by the Central Committee at its Meeting

Held at New Delhi on September 13-15, 2025)

0. Political Background: It is now clear beyond doubt that the RSS-BJP-led union government led by Narendra Modi in the last 11 years since 2014 has been by far the most anti-people, pro-corporate, pro-imperialist, communal, casteist, authoritarian, corrupt, and unscrupulous government in the history of India since independence. Moreover, this government displays grave neo-fascist characteristics. In the last 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the unity of the INDIA bloc succeeded in preventing the BJP from getting the clear majority that it had enjoyed for the previous 10 years. The BJP won 240 seats and the INDIA bloc was close to it at 234 seats. The BJP somehow stuck to power with the help of some of its NDA allies. However, the free and fair nature of the 2024 Lok Sabha election and of the subsequent Vidhan Sabha elections, the independence and impartiality of the Election Commission, and indeed of all Constitutional bodies, is now very much open to question. Another serious source of worry is that the independent strength of the CPI(M) and of the Left has shown a substantial decline in the last one and a half decade.

1. Political Tasks of the 24^th Party Congress: It is in this background that the three key political tasks laid down by the 24^th Party Congress at Madurai in April 2025 assume cardinal importance. These tasks are: making a substantial and sustained increase in the independent strength and political influence of the Party; ensuring the resounding defeat of the RSS-BJP-led regime by forging a broad unity of all left, democratic and secular forces; and making all efforts to build and strengthen a left and democratic alternative to the policies of the ruling classes. This Review of the Work on the Kisan Front must be taken keeping in mind these three cardinal political tasks.

1. Introduction – Crucial Issues of Land and Class Differentiation in Peasantry

1. 1. The last Review of the Work of the Kisan Front by the CPI(M) Central Committee was conducted in January 2017 in its meeting held at Thiruvananthapuram. That Review was in two parts: “Certain Tasks in the Kisan and Agricultural Workers’ Fronts based on the Directions of the Kolkata Plenum” and “Review of the Work on the Kisan Front”.

   2. The present Review of the Work of the Kisan Front is for the subsequent period, from 2017 to 2025. This period is selected for two valid reasons. First, it has seen the unfolding of the thoroughly reactionary and neoliberal agrarian and other policies of the BJP-RSS-controlled union government which has been in power since 2014. Second, it also coincides with the massive independent and united peasant struggles by the Kisan Front against these policies. The Central Committee needs to take a proper review of both these aspects.

   3. We shall later recount the main tasks set out for the Kisan Front at the Kannur Party Congress three years ago and then review their implementation. Before that, it is necessary to take brief stock of the current agrarian challenges before the Kisan Front. We shall begin with two fundamental issues in Indian agriculture – (a) The land question, and (b) Class differentiation in the peasantry due to the penetration of capitalism.

   4. Land as the Fundamental Slogan: We have always held that India’s land question is a primary component of its larger agrarian question. At the time of our freedom, the country was riddled with big landlordism, oppressive tenancy relations, exploitative usury, and high levels of landlessness. These features were inimical to any modernisation of agriculture and rural society. They were a fetter on the growth of industry, employment and a larger domestic market. Within such a society, caste and gender oppression grew relentlessly and violently. It also created fertile ground for the growth of the terrible scourge of communalism.

   5. The iconic peasant struggles led by the Kisan Front in the 1940s against landlordism and feudal social relations had land as their root slogan. These struggles like Telangana, Tebhaga in West Bengal, Punnapra Vayalar and North Malabar in Kerala, Gana Mukti Parishad in Tripura, Surma Valley in Assam, and Warli Adivasi Revolt in Maharashtra are written in letters of gold in the annals of India’s peasant movement. Thousands of peasants were martyred in these struggles, and many more were jailed and tortured. They included a large number of women. That saga of struggle and sacrifice continues even today.

   6. The Indian State after independence was bourgeois-landlord in class character. That is why it never implemented radical land reforms. Substantial land reforms and land redistribution were successful only in States like Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura where Communists were in power. For historical reasons, land reforms were carried out in Jammu & Kashmir also.

   7. After independence, Congress governments pursued an agenda of limited agrarian reforms. This agenda reinforced the political foundations of the bourgeois-landlord state. They neither released agrarian relations from their pre-capitalist fetters nor unleashed productive forces. The historic opportunity offered by the freedom movement to mobilise peasants and agricultural labourers and address the land question was thus lost. Data from the Union Ministry of Rural Development show that only 54 lakh households received any land in rural India after independence. Only 48.9 lakh acres of land was redistributed, which was less than 2 per cent of India’s total operated area. Except in Kerala, West Bengal, and Tripura, the area redistributed in every other state was less than 1 per cent of the operated area. The total land on which tenants were conferred ownership was less than 4 per cent of the operated area.

   8. Even today, 78 years after independence, there is continuing agrarian exploitation led by the big, landed sections and the persistence of landlessness. On the one hand, concentration of land in a few hands remains a reality. National Sample Survey (NSS) data for 2018-19 showed that the top 20 per cent of rural households owned 76 per cent of all land. National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data for 2015-16 showed that the top 20 per cent of rural households owned 83 per cent of all land. No more recent official data is available, but all indications point to an even greater rise in land concentration in rural India in the last one decade.

   9. On the other hand, landlessness continues to be high. The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) showed that 56 per cent of rural households were landless in 2011. The share of rural landless households was recorded as 47 per cent by the NFHS in 2015-16 and 41 per cent by the NSS in 2018-19. This share was highest in Andhra Pradesh (54.4 per cent), Bihar (49.3 per cent), Punjab (46.3 per cent) and Telangana (42.5 per cent). Recent data are likely to show an even higher level of rural landlessness.

   10. Across social groups, landlessness is disproportionately high among Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims. According to the NSSO data, 57.3 per cent of Dalit households, 53.1 per cent of Muslim households and 32.8 per cent of Adivasi households were landless in 2018-19. NFHS data show even higher levels of landlessness among these sections: 61.7 per cent among Dalits, 61.3 per cent among Muslims and 40.8 per cent among Adivasis in 2015-16. Among Adivasi households, dispossession and alienation increased the extent of landlessness by over 10 per cent in the last three decades. The implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in most parts of the country is deplorable. The rejection of nearly 60 per cent of the claims, i.e., more than 50 lakh claims, is unacceptable. Adivasis are essentially cultivators and are being threatened with dispossession and displacement. Eviction of oppressed sections from forest land, assigned land, as well as from lands of religious institutions is going on unabated, with the State machinery often being in collusion.

   11. Land is also predominantly owned by men, not women. This has been the lasting legacy of old feudalism and persistent patriarchy. NFHS data show that the share of landowning households that reported land titles in the name of women (singly or jointly) was only 10.3 per cent in 2015-16. But in a State like Kerala with a rich history of struggles for gender equality, this share was significantly higher at 32 per cent.

   12. Class Differentiation in the Peasantry: From the 1960s, the development of capitalist relations in agriculture was hastened with the onset of the green revolution and various public support measures in the spheres of inputs, prices, subsidies, irrigation, electricity, banking and marketing. The green revolution helped India to produce a surplus in food grain production. But it also widened the gap between the rural rich and the rural poor in the green revolution states, and also between the irrigated and dryland areas. There was great heterogeneity in the degree of penetration of agrarian capitalism across and within states. The uneven development of agrarian capitalism intensified class differentiation among the peasantry.

   13. At the top of rural society, a small class of pre-capitalist landlords and new capitalist landlords dominated, with another small class of rich peasants emerging below them. Below them were a moderately sized class of middle peasants. Further below them was the large-sized class of poor and marginal peasants. At the bottom was another large-sized class of landless agricultural labourers. Eviction of tenants led them to join the class of the poor peasantry or the landless agricultural labourers. It is the agricultural workers, poor peasants and tenant farmers who bore the brunt of landlord- and rich peasant-exploitation, and along with rural workers and artisans, they became an overwhelming majority of the rural population.

   14. Landlords and rich peasants consolidated their socio-economic and political positions in the rural hierarchy primarily, but not only through land ownership. They also dominated in the investment of agrarian surplus in the non-agricultural sectors i.e., ownership or control of agri-businesses, co-operatives, educational institutions, shopping complexes, petrol pumps, trade in farm inputs, and real estate. Through all this, they captured political power in rural India.

   15. After 1991, for a variety of reasons, the Indian State, then led by the Congress government, began implementing the neoliberal policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG). These policies generated even more serious contradictions in the agrarian economy. Agrarian capitalism continued to develop, but agrarian distress spread across states in an unprecedented manner. All subsequent union governments, but especially the BJP government that came to power in 2014, pursued these LPG or neoliberal policies with even greater vigour. Most state governments, except the Left-led ones, carried forward the same policies. This further accentuated the class differentiation in rural India.

   16. Our Party Programme puts this entire situation succinctly in Para 3.15: “The agrarian question continues to be the foremost national question before the people of India. Its resolution requires revolutionary change, including radical and thoroughgoing agrarian reforms that target abolition of landlordism, moneylender-merchant exploitation and caste and gender oppression in the countryside. The bankruptcy of the bourgeois-landlord rule in India is nowhere more evident than in its failure to address, much less solve, the agrarian question in a progressive, democratic way.” The Party Programme then states in Para 7.3 that the completion of the agrarian revolution is, in fact, the axis of the people’s democratic revolution.

2. Neoliberalism and Agrarian Society

1. 1. The last 35 years of LPG policies, initiated by the Congress-led union government in 1991 and greatly speeded up by the BJP-led union government after 2014, introduced new changes in the agrarian social structure, and produced new conflicts in agrarian society.

   2. Deepening Agrarian Distress: Agrarian distress became a characteristic feature of Indian agriculture in the last 35 years of neoliberal economic policies. The growth of the agrarian economy slowed down; public investment in agriculture declined; agricultural prices crashed and became volatile due to free trade; input prices skyrocketed; profitability in cultivation fell; and corporate penetration in many sectors of agriculture grew. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures showed that about 4 lakh farmers and agricultural workers committed suicide, mainly driven by crushing debt, between 1995 and 2022. No later figures were released.

   3. The material conditions of poor peasants and agricultural labourers worsened. Today, more than 50 per cent of the agricultural households in India survive below the already low official poverty line. The share is even higher for agricultural labour households. In the World Hunger Index for 2024, India was ranked a shameful 105^th out of 127 countries. Malnutrition-related deaths of Adivasi and Dalit children escalated in many states.

   4. In 2016, the Modi government announced that it would double the real incomes of farmers between 2015 and 2022. But data from the Situation Assessment Surveys (SAS) show that real incomes of agricultural households from “cultivation” actually fell by – 1.4 per cent between 2012-13 and 2018-19. The total monthly income of agricultural households rose by 59 per cent in nominal terms, but only by 26 per cent in real terms. Even this rise in total real income was largely due to a rise in income from “wages”, which pointed to rural proletarianisation.

   5. One key means available to the Modi government to increase farmers’ incomes was to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP). However, the fact is that MSPs grew at a slower rate in the decade of the BJP-NDA government (2014-24) than in the earlier decade of the Congress-UPA government (2004-14). But on the other hand, due to growing corporate domination over agriculture and the withdrawal of the State, the cost of agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, and also diesel, irrigation, electricity, etc grew massively, leading inevitably to an equally massive rise in the cost of production in agriculture.

   6. From the 1990s, public banks withdrew from providing cheap, assured and timely credit to farmers. They increasingly catered to the needs of landlords, rich farmers and corporate agri-business. The growing privatisation of banks further aggravated this trend. Consequently, private moneylenders and private microfinance institutions (MFIs) re-entered rural India and began to dominate the credit sphere, with their usurious rates of interest and their harsh ways of recovery from peasants, and especially from women. The burden of farm indebtedness rose unbearably. Escalating farm suicides and land alienation were the inevitable results.

   7. Under neoliberalism, the Indian State began to view regulated markets and APMC mandis as obstacles to “efficient” marketing. They were sought to be deregulated and opened for private players through new legislations like the three failed Farm Laws in 2020. In Bihar, APMC mandis were actually completely dismantled in 2006. New rules and guidelines related to bans on cattle slaughter and beef eating after 2014 dealt new blows to rural livelihoods.

   8. Growth of Corporates in Agriculture: The long-term aim of neoliberal policies is to replace India’s agrarian system dominated by small and marginal farmers with one dominated by corporates, both domestic and foreign.

   9. Under neoliberalism, there was a growth of corporate presence in production and marketing of agricultural inputs, such as seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, tractors, combine harvesters, and micro-irrigation equipment. Corporates also expanded their foothold in agricultural marketing, micro-irrigation, agri-logistics, warehousing, food processing, value addition, futures trading, and agricultural research and extension. As a result, over this period, there was an exponential increase in the cost of inputs and cost of production.

   10. Here it must be stressed that, with the onset of neoliberalism in India in the early 1990s, public investment in key areas like science and technology, research and development, and extension services was slashed savagely. The clear aim of the ruling classes was to open all these key sectors to corporate players to enable them to increase their super-profits.

   11. The Modi regime also opened the doors of agricultural insurance to corporate insurance companies. Private insurance companies made windfall profits. Under the Prime Minister’s Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), between 2016-17 and 2020-21, when 2 of the 5 public insurance companies suffered a loss of Rs 3,344 crore, 10 out of the 13 private insurance companies made a profit of Rs 24,350 crore. The PMFBY is a total failure. States like Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and even BJP-ruled Gujarat have withdrawn from it.

   12. Policy changes related to foreign direct investment, ease of doing business, land acquisition, the failed Farm Laws and digitalisation of agriculture through Agristack are all new efforts to promote the growth of corporate houses in agriculture. Each of these efforts were met with resistance from peasant organisations, including our Kisan Front. That is why corporate penetration in agriculture has not been extended beyond a certain limit so far.

   13. For example, direct farming by corporate houses – that could be called “corporate farming” – is not yet a widespread reality in rural India. But the ruling classes are committed to amending the land reform laws in many States to allow agribusinesses to purchase agricultural land by treating them at par with actual cultivators. Actually, given the predominance of small and marginal landholdings, mobilising large plots of land to organise corporate farming involves high costs, acting as a disincentive for corporates. However, there are efforts to pool the land of small holders and draw them into an unequal contract, which we should be vigilant about.

   14. Huge oligarchies are controlling the seed, pesticide and fertiliser industry. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) is entering into MoUs with several predatory agribusiness companies like Syngenta and Bayer. This will seriously compromise the autonomous character of our public agricultural research institutions and also decide the direction of research in their favour. This needs to be countered with all our might. The National Palm Oil Mission of the Modi regime, apart from encouraging the corporate sector, also has other disastrous features.

   15. The excessive use of fertilisers and pesticides under the pressure
       of both the corporate lobby and the unscrupulous traders of agricultural
       inputs is creating its own hazardous problems. Pesticide poisoning is a
       major public health concern, in terms of both the number of cases and  the number of deaths. The situation in Punjab is particularly alarming, where excessive use of agrochemicals has led to contamination of groundwater and a disturbing rise in cancer cases. We must take a clear, informed, and scientific position on this issue and advocate safer, more sustainable agricultural practices.

   16. The other cause for worry is the increasing number of accidents in agriculture mainly due to mechanisation. There are reports of thousands of such accidents in India every year. While mechanisation has undoubtedly improved agricultural productivity, it has also led to a rise in accidents, fatalities and disabilities. Proper technical training, immediate medical intervention and proper rehabilitation must be done to reduce this problem.

   17. Capital Accumulation with Proletarianisation: While all the above are undeniable immiserising features of neoliberalism, on the other hand, there is a continuation of traditional landlord-led monopoly over land, penetration of capitalist relations in the countryside, advance of productive forces, and growth of peasant differentiation. Contrary to some views, there has been no halt in the growth of productive forces or any collapse of the peasantry into a homogeneous and undifferentiated group.

   18. Even after 1991, there were short periods of growth of the agricultural economy. In these periods of growth, the production and productivity of many crops increased. Even in the last decade, there was growth of production and productivity in specific crops like pulses, maize, cotton, fruits, and vegetables.

   19. Private investment in agriculture has grown in the period of liberalisation, mostly in the extraction of groundwater, the purchase of tractors and tillers, and the construction of farmhouses. The sale of tractors and combine harvesters, and the use of fertilisers and herbicides by farmers, also increased. The continuing growth of bank credit to the richer rural sections aided the growth of private investment in agriculture.

   20. Livestock and fisheries also grew in this period. Value added in livestock grew annually at 3.6 per cent in the 1990s, 4.4 per cent in the 2000s, and 6 per cent in the 2010s. Value added in fisheries grew annually at 4.1 per cent in the 1990s and 2000s, but at 9.7 per cent in the 2010s.

   21. Thus, even under neoliberalism, there was continuing capital accumulation in rural India. But this was uneven across crops and regions. Across classes, the immiserisation was particularly and disproportionately greater among small and marginal farmers and rural workers.

   22. Tenancy contracts continued to be marked by great diversity and complexity. New forms of tenancy emerged with the changes in cropping pattern and technology. Some extremely exploitative forms of tenancy survived, and in other cases intensified with the emergence of unfree contracts that connect land contracts and labour contracts. Rents are rising in areas of agrarian prosperity, where productive forces have expanded more rapidly.

   23. As capital accumulation and peasant differentiation advanced, proletarianization intensified in two ways. First, the squeeze on the incomes of the small and middle peasantry led to increased sales of their land. This led many among these classes to join the hired labour market in and out of agriculture. Secondly, large-scale land acquisition contributed to a rise in landlessness in rural areas and pushed people to offer themselves for hired wage labour. Thus, class differentiation of the peasantry remained a feature of agrarian capitalism after 1991.

   24. The share of agricultural labourers in India’s work force was around 20 per cent in the census of 1951. But this share rose to 24 per cent in 1991, 27 per cent in 2001 and 30 per cent in 2011. Over this period, as will be seen below, the share of cultivators in the workforce fell sharply. With the rise in the share of agricultural labourers in the workforce, the number of days of employment available to them has shrunk. The number of days of employment has declined from 180-220 days during the 1970s and 1980s to 140-160 days during the 2010s. The real wages obtained by agricultural labourers has also been declining after around 2016.

   25. Exactly the opposite picture emerges about the number of farmers, called ‘Main Cultivators’, if we look at the data emerging from the 2011 Census. The number of ‘Main Cultivators’ in India steadily grew in the decades after independence, from 1951 to 1991. However, in the last two decades, the number of ‘Main Cultivators’ showed a serious decline. The number of ‘Main Cultivators’ in the last four Censuses was as follows: 1981 – 9.25 crore; 1991 – 11.07 crore; 2001 – 10.36 crore, and 2011 – 9.58 crore. These stark figures mean that as many as 2,035 farmers have lost the ‘Main Cultivator’ status every single day for the last 20 years of neoliberal policies, that too in a time of jobless growth – a steep drop of 1.49 crore in two decades! There has been no Census for the last 15 years after 2011. But experts estimate that the decline of ‘Main Cultivators’ has in fact accelerated due to the deepening agrarian crisis.

   26. Class Support for Neoliberalism Among Rural Rich: In the neoliberal era, rural landed sections continued to accumulate land and other forms of capital, but invested their agrarian capital in, and generated new surpluses from, a diversity of sectors and sources in agriculture and outside; in the villages and in the towns and cities; in production, asset purchases, speculation, and human capital. Alongside traditional upper caste landed sections, a new class of the rural rich from some of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) groups emerged. Whatever little employment there was for the rural proletarian classes diversified from agriculture to non-agriculture; from time-rated contracts to piece-rated contracts; and from the villages to the cities through distress-led migration, which has shown tremendous increase since 2000.

   27. With continuing capital accumulation, there is an emerging group within the rural elite that benefits from, and hence supports, neoliberal policies. To begin with, sections of the rural rich see benefits in the neoliberal amendments of land reform laws that dilute land ceiling provisions. Such provisions allow them to retain and accumulate larger areas of land. Some sections among them are supportive of the acquisition of rural land for industrial uses because they can sell larger areas of land and obtain the higher land prices stipulated in the LARR Act of 2013. In many regions, landed sections actively aid land acquisition as brokers for the acquirers. However, it must be stressed here that there is a growing tendency of governments in many states to ignore or even flout the LARR Act of 2013.

   28. Sections of the rural rich see enormous potential in the growth of high-value, capital-intensive, export-oriented, and horticultural crop-based agriculture promoted by neoliberalism. These sections possess the capital required to invest in high-value seeds and other inputs, micro-irrigation and other elements of digital and precision farming techniques required to reap the benefits of horticultural growth. They welcome the growth of private-led extension services related to the more sophisticated techniques needed in high-end horticulture. These sections also benefit from subsidized credit schemes that finance farm mechanisation. The number of tractors owned by these sections of farmers has significantly grown in the last three decades.

   29. The neoliberal period also saw rapid growth of agrarian sectors like dairy, poultry, horticulture and inland aquaculture. The sections of the rural rich who own these enterprises depend less on state subsidies. Their enterprises are dependent on private markets and are guided by market-led incentives. These sections see benefits from neoliberalism, such as the dismantling of government regulations on larger farm size, the expansion of high-end urban markets and the possibilities of increasing exports.

   30. Opposition has survived, and is growing, among the richer landed classes to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Public Distribution System (PDS). These sections see these schemes as contributing to a shortage of labourers and rise in rural wages, which is inimical to their prospects of capital accumulation.

   31. In short, neoliberalism has new constituencies of rural rich support, even if these very constituencies desire and demand more government subsidies in their own sectors.

   32. We shall now briefly review ten serious aspects of the fallout of the neoliberal policies in agriculture over the last three and a half decades. These are burning issues on which struggles are already taking place and need to be further intensified.

2. Ten Serious Impacts of Neoliberal Policies in Agriculture

1. 1. Government-Corporate Nexus Land Grab: Corporate groups in India are building large land banks or land pooling in rural India. State governments are amending laws to facilitate corporate land purchases under the guise of “ease of doing business” policies. Wherever there is resistance, muscle power is actively employed to force farmers to sell their land at low prices. Many farmers are falsely promised jobs in the projects that would come up in the land. Dalit and Adivasi households, agricultural workers and women, who generally do not have rights of land ownership, are doubly excluded in this phenomenon – from both land prices and loss of future employment. In many tribal-dominated states, the government-corporate nexus is forcibly acquiring land of tribals for mining, industrial projects, and even for real estate. There are numerous serious cases of forced eviction and displacement of tribals from their land. Similar is the case of the government-corporate land grab in other states. The Kisan Front strongly opposes this, has led, and is leading movements on the ground against these land grab attempts. The Kisan Front also demands that the LARR Act 2013, which is often ignored or flagrantly violated by the union government and many state governments, must be stringently implemented in all states. Lands illegally taken from rural households must be returned to them. Land reform laws must be protected from pro-corporate amendments.

   2. Unbearable Rise in Cost of Inputs, yet Refusal to give MSP and Loan Waiver: There has been an unprecedented rise in the price of major inputs in agriculture, which is nothing but a policy-manufactured disaster. Prices have significantly increased for seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, diesel, electricity and irrigation. This relentless rise in input costs, which are largely dictated by the profit margins of corporate industrial houses, has pushed farmers into a state of perpetual indebtedness. One of the major reasons for the rise in the cost of inputs is the refusal of the Modi government to increase input subsidies beyond a nominal limit. The regime of fiscal austerity – a cornerstone of neoliberalism – has ensured that all forms of subsidies, particularly to farmers, are demonised and are sought to be reduced or even eliminated. For the rich, they are hailed as incentives; for the poor, they are derided as subsidies. It is in this overall context that two key demands of the peasantry have arisen: one, to raise all Minimum Support Prices (MSP) based on the C2+50% (one and a half times the comprehensive cost of production) formula recommended in 2006 by the National Commission of Farmers (Swaminathan Commission); and two, a nationwide scheme by the union government to waive the loans of agricultural workers and small and middle peasants to break the cycle of debt and prepare the ground for a fresh start. An important model to follow in the latter is the Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission of the LDF Government of Kerala instituted in 2006, which effectively eliminated all farmers’ suicides in the state.

Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) for Horticulture and other Cash Crops: While the issue of MSP for food grains and pulses continues, the plight of growers of fruits, vegetables, and other perishable cash crops (like spices, flowers) is even more precarious. These farmers, often smallholders in ecologically fragile hill states or intensive farming belts, face volatile prices, absence of price assurance, and exploitation by a cartel of traders. Today’s agrarian distress is marked by the tragic spectacle of farmers dumping tomatoes, onions or apples on the roads when prices crash. This is a direct result of the anarchic, predatory market system. While an MIS exists on paper for some crops, it is deeply flawed. The institution of a non-corporate alternative to the present MIS has become urgent. This alternative is best rooted in either farmers’ cooperatives or similar democratic and decentralised farmers’ groups at the block or panchayat level. Such a system must also include a stable and diversified end use of the product as well as the institution of a price stabilisation fund. The alternative MIS must, thus, act as a bulwark against the corporate takeover of the food system.

1. 3. Exploitation by Microfinance Institutions: The financial loot by private microfinance institutions (MFIs) has increased enormously in rural India. Most MFIs are financially backed by private equity ventures, which provides them with tremendous policy leverage. The union government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have deregulated the entire field of microfinance. Such deregulation has enabled MFIs to charge usurious interest rates from 24 to 36 per cent per year. This leads to women getting entangled in debt traps. Where there is default, normal banking practices are ignored and poor women are publicly humiliated, threatened, bullied and even attacked by agents of MFIs. Hundreds of women have committed suicide in various states. Hence, the free policy given to MFIs must stop forthwith. Coercive recovery practices must be legally crushed. Public sector banks must replace these MFIs with new, innovative loan packages. Kerala’s world-famous alternative to private MFIs is the publicly-run Kudumbashree scheme; this must become the new model for rural India.

   4. Migration from Rural Areas: Migration of workers and small peasants from rural to urban areas has increased sharply. This is not just an inter-state but also an intra-state phenomenon. It is estimated that the extent of migration from Bihar alone is of over three crore workers. Agrarian distress, landlessness, unemployment, lack of social security and the growth of caste-and tribe-exploitation are pushing people out of the rural areas. In the urban areas, these migrants face a brutal and discriminatory environment. Employment is not easily forthcoming; social housing is absent; scapegoating by right-wing forces is rampant; attacks based on religion, caste, language and cultural identity are widespread; there are no social relations to fall back upon; and the psychological stress of being away from home and family for long periods drives them into trauma. Suicides among migrant workers have shown an alarming rise. The Kisan Front demands that rural workers in urban areas must receive universal labour protections, minimum wages, housing rights, and rights to unionise. The government must invest in affordable housing, healthcare, education, and dignified living conditions for migrants. Communal, caste and regional chauvinism must be combated.

   5. Human-Animal Conflict: Loss of human lives, loss of crops and destruction of infrastructure due to wild animal attacks are rampant in villages near forests. State governments are unable to act to help farmers, as the Union government holds extraordinary powers in declaring animals as vermin. Even when wild animals are found to be harmful to human beings, there are numerous bizarre and impractical requirements to be met before culling them. The Kisan Front demands amendments in the Wildlife Protection Act and other legal reforms that would give more powers to the States to declare animals as vermin and cull them. The Modi regime must design a national scheme to fund various inter-disciplinary and multi-departmental interventions required to keep human lives and property safe from the attacks of wild animals.

   6. Privatisation of Irrigation: Like all natural resources, neoliberalism has been commodifying a public good like water. Across the country, water resources are being leased out to private agencies, public investment in irrigation is being cut, subsidies on water are being reduced, and farmers are being forced to invest heavily in the exploitation of groundwater. This situation not only makes water inaccessible to the poor, but also leads to a decline of water tables, and an increase in the debt burden of farmers. The lack of scientific management and equitable distribution of water is also leading to numerous disputes between states on the sharing of river waters. The Kisan Front rejects the privatisation of water and demands that governments invest heavily in surface water irrigation and watershed programmes to retain water as a public good and ensure its democratic, equitable and scientific distribution and use.

   7. Privatisation of Electricity: Like water, electricity is another essential public good that is being privatised under neoliberalism. Universal and free rural electrification must be the goal of public policy in India. However, reforms in the power sector after 1991, and particularly those reforms mooted by the Modi government, have handed over the sector to private corporations. These private players prioritise their profits over social goals and are burdening farmers and all consumers with unaffordable tariffs. Subsidies on electricity for irrigation are being cut. To further the agenda of privatisation, pre-paid smart meters are being forcefully installed and a “pay-first, use-later” model is being implemented. Such irrational reforms would raise the cost of cultivation and render agriculture even more unprofitable. The intense opposition to electricity privatisation and pre-paid smart meters among electricity workers and both rural and urban consumers provides scope for building broad united struggle committees of peasants, electricity workers and consumers.

   8. Natural Calamities and Crop Insurance: High carbon emissions from the developed countries are contributing to more frequent extreme climate events, such as floods, unseasonal rains, droughts, hailstorms, and landslides. This year itself, there are disastrous floods in several states spread across India. But the Modi regime and most state governments are passive bystanders, leaving the farmers to fend for themselves. We have already mentioned how the Modi government’s PMFBY is a total failure and has only helped to divert premiums to private insurance companies as super profits. The Kisan Front demands that the Modi government disband the PMFBY and introduce a comprehensive and universal insurance scheme to protect farmers from natural disasters and related weather shocks. The Modi government must also make critical public investments in disaster preparedness, including flood control and drought-proofing. Farmers must be provided with full and timely disaster relief.

   9. Attack on MGNREGS: The MGNREGS is being starved of finances by the Modi government. Real allocations for MGNREGS in the budget are sharply declining year after year. Statutory minimum wages are denied to workers employed in MGNREGS, which is nothing but a government-sponsored human rights violation. Even these wages are not paid to the workers on time and are regularly delayed by more than a year. The insistence on Aadhaar-based payment systems have also led to large-scale denial of employment and wages across the country. The Kisan Front demands that the budget allocation for MGNREGS must be raised to Rs 3 lakh crore a year, and all workers in rural households must be provided with 200 days of work annually. Statutory minimum wages must be provided to all workers, and Rs 600 per day should be a start. Aadhaar must not be made compulsory to access work and receive wages.

   10. Attack on PDS: For the last three decades, neoliberalism has been trying to strangle and dismantle the Public Distribution System (PDS). Instead of effectively universalising the PDS, neoliberal policies introduced targeting and severely limited the coverage of the PDS. Given India’s pathetic rank in the World Hunger Index, this was nothing but reactionary policy. Like in the case of the MGNREGS, Aadhaar was thrust on the implementation of the PDS also. But mismatches across databases, mistakes in seeding, transaction rejections, and biometric authentication failures are excluding large numbers of households from accessing the PDS. The refusal of the Modi government to conduct a new Census till date has meant that more than two crore households stand deprived of the benefits of “priority households”. The Kisan Front stands for total rejection of targeting, and for universalisation of the PDS. It demands that the allocation of free food grains per person must be doubled, and more commodities like pulses, sugar and cooking oil must be added to the PDS basket. We also reject the imposed compulsion of Aadhaar as a pre-condition to access the PDS.

3. Communal Polarisation and Caste and Gender Oppression

4. 1. The poisonous ideology of Hindutva and hate has percolated among different classes of the peasantry through different routes. The Sangh Parivar achieved one of its biggest successes when it successfully engineered the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh in 2013, which was one of the first major rural communal riots in India. This significantly contributed to communal polarisation in North India, and was one of the important reasons for the ascension of the Modi-led BJP to power in 2014. Lynchings in India of minorities began in a systematic manner only after the Modi regime came to power. The Ayodhya Ram Mandir campaign, which began in the late 1980s, and resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the subsequent construction of the Ram Mandir in 2024, went on for over 35 years, greatly intensifying communal polarisation and hatred. In its typical forked tongue style, after first avowing that similar Mandir-Masjid controversies of Kashi and Mathura were not on its agenda, the RSS recently declared that both those issues would now be taken up aggressively by the Sangh Parivar. Significantly, this is in the background of the dwindling popularity and prestige of the Prime Minister and the BJP on a host of recent issues, one of the major ones being the Vote Chori scandal and the exposition of the shocking BJP-ECI corrupt nexus.

   2. Apart from these political campaigns, the Sangh Parivar has undertaken decades of systematic organisational work in the rural areas. They have initiated and activised thousands of RSS shakhas, opened Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams, promoted temple priests and local leaders, and intervened in controversial and divisive disputes involving land, personal relationships and food habits. They have also used caste-based mobilisation for their larger Hindutva project, helping them to co-opt sections of both the poor and middle peasantry. They have systematically used so-called ‘social engineering’ to pit one caste or sub-caste against another. Some notable examples are its clear targeting of Jats in Haryana, Marathas in Maharashtra, Yadavs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and mobilising several other caste groups against them.

   3. The Sangh Parivar has also undertaken sustained ideological and cultural propaganda among peasants. They have actively used religious symbols, festivals and local traditions to embed a Hindu identity among the peasantry, which is disruptive of peasant unity. They have unleashed anti-Muslim cow protection campaigns and mythologized history to present a false narrative of Hindu victimhood through RSS shakhas, WhatsApp groups, and innumerable religious gatherings. They have systematically distorted history to suit their divisive narratives.

   4. The Sangh Parivar has carefully used different socio-economic factors in its favour. It has used the union government’s welfare schemes like the dole paid under the Kisan Samman Nidhi to create a pro-farmer image of Modi. It has used the newly formed Ministry of Cooperation to infiltrate the dairy sector and the primary agricultural credit societies (PACS) sector to build political patronage. Various Ladli Behana schemes have been launched to influence women.

   5. Our Party and our Kisan and other rural fronts must politically address all these issues among the peasantry in an aggressive manner. We must intensify our class politics and unite peasants across caste and religion based on their basic issues; take up issues of land distribution, forcible land acquisition, loan waiver and remunerative prices more effectively; increase our ideological struggle manifold among the peasantry; augment our intensive participation in the activities of APMC mandis, cooperatives, credit societies, and panchayats; and carefully build alliances with social movements of all the oppressed classes/castes including women.

   6. Our Kisan Front must also counter the propaganda of Hindutva groups through door-to-door campaigns, local media, WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms. We must have regular campaigns, including videos and reels, to demolish the claims of the Modi government in the agrarian sector and expose their crony relationship with big capitalists. We must also actively promote secular, syncretic, and inclusive traditions, such as those of Kabir, Phule, Periyar, Narayana Guru, Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh. We must concentrate much more on the cultural struggle and consciously use elements of folk culture in our campaigns that directly challenge the Manuwadi Hindutva ideology.

   7. Under neo-liberalism, land has continued to be the material basis of caste atrocities and gender oppression in the rural areas. Dalits, Adivasis and poorer sections of the OBCs are regularly targeted by upper caste landholding sections. Upper caste landholders do not just oppose the redistribution of ceiling-surplus land. They also oppose the distribution of government land or waste land or house sites to Dalits and the distribution of land in or near the forests to Adivasis. They discriminate against SCs, STs, NTs, MBCs, BCs and poor OBCs on several issues, such as access to roads, entry into temples, use of wells, and freedom to dine and marry across caste groups. The annihilation of caste cannot be achieved without an intensification of the class struggle in rural India and without a solution of the land question.

   8. Women in rural India, regardless of religion or caste or creed, have been victims of oppression and discrimination for over two millennia, ever since Manusmriti times. Women contribute more than 70 per cent of all agricultural work, apart from running the home, raising children, and caring for the aged. But they are kept scrupulously away from ownership of the means of production, primarily land. This is a legacy of feudalism and patriarchy and must be resolutely combated. The demand for joint pattas in struggles for land rights should be a political decision of the Kisan and Agricultural Workers’ Fronts. Poor Dalit and Adivasi women are the targets of sexual violence and heinous atrocities. All these evils must be strongly fought.

   9. Communalism, casteism and patriarchy are the three indivisible social ingredients of Hindutva. Hence oppression in the name of religion, caste and gender have all intensified under BJP-RSS rule. Crimes against Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis and Women rose exponentially after 2014; on the other hand, conviction rates plummeted. In numerous instances, RSS-BJP leaders and Sangh Parivar hoodlums were directly involved in the attacks. Manuwadi Corporate Hindutva is, without doubt, the single biggest danger in contemporary India to the advance of worker-peasant unity. Through communal riots, brutal lynchings, attacks by gau rakshaks, and a constant campaign of hate and violence, the RSS and its Parivar are systematically sharpening communal and caste polarisation. They are actively helped by the State power of the RSS-BJP-led union government and many state governments, plus the Godi media. The rabidly reactionary and neo-fascist characteristics of the RSS-BJP-led union government are now openly visible. No task is more important for the Kisan Front and the country today than consistently combating and decisively defeating the RSS-BJP-Sangh Parivar.

4. Rural Contradictions and Worker-Peasant Unity

1. 1. The Political Review Report of the 24^th Party Congress at Madurai in April 2025 places the contradictions and conflicts amongst the agrarian classes and ruling classes as follows: “The basic contradiction operating in the rural areas is the one between the rural rich nexus who are part of the ruling classes and the rural poor comprising poor peasants, middle peasants, agricultural and manual labour. An expression of this contradiction in neo-liberal times is the conflict between the corporates and State policies on the one side, and the peasantry as a whole on the other. There is also the conflict between sections of the capitalist farmers and landlords against some of the State policies and pro-corporate measures, which is a reflection of the push and pull within sections of the ruling classes. These conflicts provide opportunities for the peasant movement to carry forward the struggle against forcible land acquisition and land grab involving State support. The historic farmers struggle against the three Farm Laws also falls in this category as also the ongoing struggle for a legal basis for MSP, debt relief, revamp of crop insurance, lower input costs and so on.”

   2. Here our basic analysis of the class character of the Indian State in the Party Programme in Para 5.1 must be reiterated: “The present Indian State is the organ of the class rule of the bourgeoisie and landlords led by the big bourgeoisie, who are increasingly collaborating with foreign finance capital in pursuit of the capitalist path of development. This class character essentially determines the role and function of the State in the life of the country.”

   3. It must be stressed that peasant unity should be built centred around agricultural labourers and poor peasants. This emphasis and continuous scrutiny of our demands is required to ensure that it remains a radical front of the mass of the landless, poor, and marginal peasants, the agricultural workers, tenants and middle peasants, rather than a reformist front led by the rich peasantry and raising their predominant demands. While efforts must be made to draw in sections of the rich peasantry who are willing to join the struggle against imperialist globalisation, we must not fall prey to any illusions about their role vis-a-vis the basic demands of the rural poor. The rural rich are part of the ruling class and include semi-feudal landlords, capitalist landlords, money lenders etc. Certain sections even among them may have a conflict with the State policies and pro-monopoly measures being implemented at the behest of the big bourgeoisie and international finance capital. At certain junctures in history, this conflict comes more to the fore; on those occasions, we must strive to build the broadest possible issue-based unity to build resistance as well as to exploit the conflict within the ruling classes. This intra-ruling class conflict can at times be exploited for the benefit of the working people.

   4. Crucial Importance of Worker-Peasant Unity: To confront the grave and complex political, ideological, economic, social and cultural challenges facing the Indian people today, the importance of forging worker-peasant unity must be underlined. Lenin had enunciated and elucidated this concept to achieve a radical social transformation and had taken steps to implement them before and after the victorious Russian Revolution of October 1917. This has been replicated elsewhere in the world too. It remains particularly relevant to India.

   5. Our Party Programme stresses its importance in Para 7.6 as follows: “The core and basis of the people’s democratic front is the firm alliance of the working class and the peasantry. This alliance is the most important force in defending national independence, accomplishing far-reaching democratic transformations and ensuring all-round social progress. The role of the other classes in carrying out the revolution crucially depends on the strength and stability of the worker-peasant alliance.”

5. New Challenges before the Kisan Movement

1. Trump’s Tariff Terrorism, Imperialist-Dictated ‘Free Trade’ Policies

1. 1. The recent imposition of reciprocal tariffs of 50 per cent on India (of this, 25 per cent is a vindictive penalty for India buying Russian oil!) by the Donald Trump-led United States administration is nothing short of “Trump’s Tariff Terrorism”, which is arbitrary, unjust, unprecedented and unheard of in recent decades. It is condemnable in every sense. It must be seen as part of a larger strategy by powerful Western nations to maintain their economic dominance, capture new markets and usurp higher profits. The US is also pressurising India to sign a Free Trade Agreement which will make India lower its tariffs and open up its market to American agricultural and industrial goods, to the detriment of millions of its peasants, workers, and also small entrepreneurs in the MSME sector.

   2. If the Modi government succumbs to Trump’s threats and signs the India-US free trade agreement, there would be a surge of cheap American imports—not just in dairy products, but also in processed food, wheat, oilseeds like soybeans, canola and many other agricultural products. Already, the Modi regime has removed the 11 per cent import duty on cotton, which will further enable cheap foreign cotton to invade the Indian market. This decision is a result of the joint pressure of both US imperialism and also the domestic big corporate lobby, who are hand in glove in this matter. For various reasons, cotton farmers already form a significant section of farmers who are forced to commit suicide due to the debt crisis. Slashing the import duty on cotton will further intensify this grave human tragedy.

   3. Modi’s earlier unprecedented support for Trump’s election campaign, with the slogan “Ab Ki Baar Trump Sarkar,” has already constrained India’s negotiating latitude vis-à-vis American geopolitical and economic interests. The Modi regime’s servility to the US was seen during and after the Pahalgam massacre, and also in its refusal to condemn Israel for the Gaza genocide. This same stance of weakness in trade and tariff matters will further endanger the interests of millions of rural and even urban households.

   4. The many free trade agreements signed from the 1990s, beginning from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement of 1994, have undermined the interests of Indian farmers and jeopardized the nation’s food security and rural livelihoods. While countries like India were compelled to reduce or eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers, developed countries maintained their high tariff and non-tariff barriers. Consequently, there was a flood of cheap, subsidised agricultural imports into Indian markets, leading to a crash of agricultural prices.

   5. The WTO was facing irreconcilable internal conflicts between imperialist countries and the emerging developing countries. The failure of the Doha Development Round exposed the inability of monopoly capital to impose a uniform trade regime on the Global South. That is why the imperialist West has now bypassed the WTO and moved away from purportedly rule-based multilateral trade agreements like the WTO agreement and is pushing bilateral and regional free trade agreements to wrest more concessions from the developing world. Recent examples are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreement of 2010, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the various US/UK/EU-led bilateral deals. These deals seek to favour multinational corporations, and expand their access to Indian markets in dairy, seeds, and processed food. Notably, the Kisan movement was able to successfully thwart the Government of India’s effort to sign the RCEP agreement.

   6. The union government has increasingly integrated Indian agriculture into exploitative, imperialist trade structures. They have finalised a bilateral agreement with the UK and are close to finalising bilateral agreements with the US and the EU. Our Kisan Front has persistently highlighted the damaging consequences of these policies.

   7. The Kisan Front has opposed, and will oppose, moves that further open up Indian markets to imports. Such policies represent a betrayal of the peasantry and a capitulation to foreign and domestic corporate interests.

1. Return of the Farm Laws in a New Guise

1. 8. The sudden decision of the BJP-led union government to adopt and implement the three Farm Laws in 2020 marked a new reactionary phase of neoliberal policies. The BJP-led regime unilaterally enacted the three Farm Laws through ordinances in June 2020 and then rammed them through Parliament in September 2020, at a time when the Covid pandemic was ravaging the country. The government thought that there could be no mass resistance due to Covid. In the very same Parliament session, the same government rammed through the four Labour Codes. Both the Farm Laws and the Labour Codes were unashamedly pro-corporate and anti-people. The Farm Laws were aimed at handing over the agricultural sector to the corporate lobby on a platter and trampling on the states’ responsibility for marketing. Finally, because of the historic one-year-long united farmers’ struggle, whose epicentre was Delhi, the Modi regime was forced to bend and repeal the three Farm Laws in November 2021.

   9. Despite this comprehensive defeat, the Modi government is now attempting to bring back the same Farm Laws through the backdoor. In November 2024, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare circulated a draft “National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing” (NPFAM). Given the strong opposition from the states that the Farm Laws were an assault on federalism, the NPFAM stays away from the ill-advised move to create a pan-Indian legal framework on agricultural marketing.

   10. Yet, the NPFAM tries to force the states to fall in line with the neoliberal agenda. It asks the states to withdraw “state-specific stringent regulations” and frame and notify a “State Policy Framework” in alignment with the “National Policy Framework”. It calls for a committee of state ministers of agriculture “to push the states to adopt the reform provisions in the state APMC Acts”. Thus, the Modi government is trying to use the NPFAM to implement the Farm Laws in the states at gunpoint.

   11. There are only 6,630 mandis (market yards) in India with an average area served of 463 km². But India needs at least 10,130 mandis, according to the Doubling Farmer’s Income (DFI) committee of the Modi government. So, India needs to urgently invest in more mandis, which will provide an easily accessible marketing outlet to the farmers.

   12. But the NPFAM is premised on the bankrupt ideology that the mandi system must be dismantled. What it fails to see is the experience of Bihar and other states, which shows that private investment will not flow into agricultural markets even if NPFAM-like reforms are implemented. Private players incur considerable costs in opening collection centres, paying salaries, grading, storage and transport. The more the number of small and marginal farmers, the higher these costs will be. So, private players desist from investing directly in agricultural markets. If mandis are dismantled and private investment is not forthcoming, there will be a vacuum in the agricultural markets. This vacuum will be quickly filled by unscrupulous and unregulated traders, and there will be much more intensive exploitation of farmers.

2. Climate Change and Agriculture

1. 13. It is now beyond dispute that climate change has a disastrous impact on agriculture. Crop production is affected by global warming through rising temperatures, changes in the variability of temperature, changes in rainfall and rainfall patterns, and changes in the behaviour of pests and weeds. The impact of global warming on different crops varies. Livestock and fisheries are also affected, especially due to higher temperatures. The major impacts of global warming are felt the most by small and marginal producers.

   14. There are two important aspects of dealing with climate change that are politically, economically and socially significant: (a) the need for continued development of productive forces, (b) the need to focus on adaptation and not mitigation in addressing climate change. Space does not permit a detailed analysis of these aspects, which are of key importance.

   15. Global warming of today is an outcome of the historically high cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases by the developed nations after the industrial revolution. The contribution of countries like India to global warming is minimal. Despite being home to 17 per cent of the global population, India contributed only 3 per cent of the global cumulative emissions between 1850 and 2019. India’s current annual emissions too are one-third lower than the world average in per capita terms. So, it is the developed countries that must take the primary responsibility of reducing carbon emissions. Developing countries like India must have the freedom and space to use the carbon space to close their developmental deficits. However, developed countries are trying to evade their responsibility and place as much of the burden of limiting emissions on the developing countries like India as possible. This “carbon imperialism” must be resisted.

   16. To make matters worse, the Modi government is presenting the Indian farmers as agents of conservation of natural resources rather than producers. This reactionary narrative receives ample ideological and financial backing from the developed countries. In developing countries like India, they are put into action by a complex of large international NGOs and their domestic partners. The Modi government is also trying to appropriate the agricultural scientific community in India to redirect research funds into unproven and unvalidated “nature-based solutions”. Large amounts of budgetary support are made available for prakritik krishi yojanas and obscurantist alternatives like “Zero Budget Natural Farming” (ZBNF), even while budgetary support for input subsidies and food subsidies is being slashed. The ZBNF, which marries the reverence of Hindutva politics for the cow with imperialism’s demand for mitigation and the ample availability of western aid, is aimed at eliminating all subsidies for external chemical inputs in agriculture. Not surprisingly, a major foreign funder of ZBNF is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

   17. The Kisan Front is of the view that the new era of “carbon imperialism” must be fought by forming a broad alliance of the peasantry and the scientific community. This struggle encompasses not just global issues of sharing the carbon space but also domestic issues of ensuring that agriculture remains profitable and viable for the large section of small and marginal farmers and fighting for inculcating scientific temper in agriculture.

3. Major Peasant Demands Today

1. 1. In view of the above analysis, we can pinpoint some of the major demands that are being and need to be taken up with greater intensity by the Kisan Front at this juncture for launching struggles. It will be seen that most of these demands are those of poor and middle peasants and agricultural workers. The intensity and sweep of these demands will, of course, vary from state to state. Other local issues will also have to be taken up as and when they arise.

1. Staunchly oppose Trump’s Tariff Terrorism, and all attempts by imperialism and the foreign and domestic corporate lobby to attack agriculture, and also the peasantry, the working class, and the people through the tariff war, free trade agreements, unequal treaties, and so on.

2. Initiate substantive land reforms. Distribute all ceiling surplus land, bhoodan land, and waste land to the landless poor. Ensure house sites and adequate houses to all the homeless.

3. Make special provisions for giving ownership of land, house sites and houses to the socially oppressed sections like SCs, STs, NTs, MBCs, BCs and poor OBCs.

4. Ensure equal ownership rights over land pattas and other property to women and, in view of their large share in agricultural work, recognise them as farmers.

5. Strictly implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA). Withdraw the anti-tribal changes in the rules of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA). Vest forest land, temple trust/inami/pasture land, etc in the names of the tillers.

6. Strictly implement all provisions of the LARR Act of 2013. Stop indiscriminate land acquisition for the benefit of the corporate-government nexus from the peasantry, including tribals.

7. Ensure legal guarantee to Minimum Support Price (MSP) @ C2+50 per cent as recommended by the National Commission of Farmers, along with mechanisms for procurement. Sharply reduce the input costs of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, diesel, water and power.

8. Implement a complete loan waiver by the union government to poor and middle peasants, tenant farmers, agricultural workers and rural artisans. Ensure adequate bank credit to them at zero rate of interest. Reverse privatisation of banks, insurance and the financial sector.

9. Withdraw the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 and the pre-paid electricity smart meter scheme. Stop the privatisation of, increase public investment in, and expand the reach of the electricity and irrigation sectors, and reduce the high tariffs of both.

10. Immediately sanction and implement adequate funds from the union government to actively help the peasantry in distress due to severe natural calamities like floods, droughts, excessive rains, etc. Make radical changes in the anti-farmer and pro-corporate Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) to make it beneficial for farmers and not the insurance companies.

11. Substantially increase the days of work to at least 200 per year and wages to at least Rs 600 per day under MGNREGA and greatly expand the scheme and its outlay. Begin a new urban employment guarantee scheme. Increase wages of all agricultural and rural workers.

12. Radically expand and universalise the public distribution system (PDS) to include 14 essential items including pulses, sugar, cooking oil etc. throughout the country.

13. Give pension of Rs 10,000 per month from the union government to agricultural and rural workers, and poor and middle farmers above the age of 58 years.

14. Take firm steps to curb the wild animal menace. Make suitable amendments to the Wildlife Protection Act. Oppose evictions due to Elephant Corridors, Tiger Reserves, and Wild Life Sanctuaries, which threaten the lands of tribals and traditional forest dwellers.

15. Ensure basic amenities to the rural population – clean drinking water, toilets, sanitation, quality schools, free education till Class 12, free health services, gainful employment etc.

4. Tasks Set by the Kannur Party Congress for the Kisan Front

1. 1. The CPI(M)’s 23^rd Congress at Kannur in April 2022 adopted these Tasks for the Kisan Front: “After the victory of the recent farmers’ struggle, a conscious attempt must be made to bring about a major reorientation in the style of functioning of the Kisan Front leaders and activists at all levels in identifying and launching powerful and sustained movements on the burning issues of the peasantry. A certain degree of routinism and stereotyped functioning has crept into the organisation at many levels. Due to this there is loss of live links with the peasantry.

   2. “Learning from the peasantry and then leading the peasantry should be the approach of the Kisan Front. Kisan Front leaders and activists at all levels should take part in door-to-door campaigns, membership enrolment, local meetings of the peasantry, hear their views and then evolve slogans and movements. Agit-prop work can be organised among farmers regularly at the gathering points of farmers. Educated cadres associated with the Kisan Front should be used for this purpose.

   3. “Leaders at all levels should directly participate in mass campaigns and struggles. They should go to the villages, live among the peasantry, learn from them and build movements. It is only by changing the style of functioning that we can initiate powerful local struggles on burning issues. All India campaigns will highlight policy issues. Only politically conscious people will normally participate in such campaigns.

   4. “If we take up immediate and local realisable issues, we will reach wider sections outside our traditional influence. The Kisan Front cadres and leaders should study the concrete situation, the contradictions and evolve slogans and struggles. Other Party-related tasks are:

1. “Select, allot and make financial provision for adequate number of cadres for building agitations, struggles and activities of the Kisan Front. Main functionaries of the Kisan Front at all levels should give priority to Kisan Front work. Party Committees should ensure this.

2. “Ensure independent and democratic functioning of the Kisan Front at all levels.

3. “Increase coordination and joint actions among the three class fronts to strengthen worker-peasant unity.

4. “Strengthen the functioning of the Party Sub-committees at all levels. Organise periodical review of the Kisan Front work. Sub-committees should study the changes occurring in the agrarian situation.

5. “Make special and conscious efforts to build the Party in the Kisan Front and increase its political influence through independent activities.”

1. 5. We shall now review the implementation of these tasks in the following sections: 1. Review of Struggles and Campaigns – A. Independent Struggles and Campaigns; B. United Peasant Struggles; C. Worker-Peasant United Actions of our Three Class Fronts; D. United Actions of Central Trade Unions and Samyukta Kisan Morcha; E. Experience of United Platforms and Joint Actions; 2. Review of Organisation, 3. Review of Party Building.

5. Review of Implementation: Struggles and Campaigns

9. 1. While implementing the above tasks, the period under review from 2017 to 2025 saw a series of major initiatives by the Kisan Front in both independent as well as united struggles of the peasantry. Some of these struggles resulted in major victories. There were also joint campaigns and mass actions with organisations of agricultural workers and the working class in the direction of worker-peasant unity. All these independent and united struggles and campaigns led to some advance in the organisational position of the Kisan Front. It must be underlined that our independent strength and increased striking force alone will ensure a decisive role for the Kisan Front even in the united movement. This is also important for ensuring that demands of the landless and poor are addressed. Of course, several serious weaknesses also remain as regards both movement and organisation. We shall here take stock of both positive and negative aspects.

A. Independent Struggles and Campaigns of the Kisan Front

9. 2. Struggle for Loan Waiver and Pension Hike in Rajasthan – 2017: In Rajasthan there was a 13-day independent struggle by the Kisan Front in September 2017 involving Kisan Curfew, 10-day Mahapadavs outside the district collectorates and a 3-day statewide Road Blockade in which thousands of peasants participated. The BJP state government conceded many demands, but did not implement them. Hence a huge Mahapadav was planned at Jaipur in February 2018. Just before that over 200 Kisan Front leaders were arrested. The struggle was further intensified against this repression. Finally, the government agreed to implement the 2017 agreement, expanded the loan waiver scheme, agreed to give pensions and partially removed toll taxes. Peasants in Rajasthan benefited by the loan waiver scheme of around Rs 10,000 crore.

   3. Massive Kisan Long March in Maharashtra – 2018: In Maharashtra under the Kisan Front’s independent leadership, a Kisan Long March on foot for nearly 200 Km in March 2018 from Nashik to Mumbai, saw the participation of 50,000 peasants from over 20 districts. They were led by thousands of Adivasi peasants, including a large number of peasant women. The BJP-led state government was forced to back down, give written assurances on all the demands, and place the written agreement with the Kisan Front in both Houses of the State Legislature. The Kisan Long March won demands related to forest rights, loan waiver, food security, and increased pensions. This mass action caught the imagination of the peasantry and the people across the country, was excellently covered by all sections of the national and state mainstream media and social media, and is still widely remembered.

   4. The Kisan Long March was preceded by a one lakh strong two-day state-wide peasant Mahapadav at Nashik in March 2016 and a 50,000-strong two-day Adivasi peasant Mahagherao of the Tribal Development Minister’s house at Wada in Palghar district in October 2016. This was followed by the united action of the 11-day statewide farmers’ strike in June 2017, which forced the state government to declare a huge loan waiver (see later). These and other struggles brought the Kisan Front to the centre stage of the peasant movement in Maharashtra.

   5. Struggle for Crop Insurance in Rajasthan: Large, sustained and successful struggles on the issue of crop insurance were held independently by our Kisan Front in Churu and Hanumangarh. They won crop insurance claims of hundreds of crores of rupees every year for farmers. In 2021, a 137-day dharna in Churu followed by a 58-hour road blockade was able to ensure that Rs 258 crore of insurance claims were paid to farmers. Again, for the 2023 insurance claims, a 127-day dharna was followed by Kisan Long Marches from each tehsil to culminate in a huge rally in Churu. A sum of Rs 800 crore is due to the farmers, and the struggle is still on. However, a major weakness was that these successes could not result in the advance of the organisation.

   6. Struggle In Karnataka for Bagair Hukum Lands: The Kisan Front’s tenacious struggle in 2018 could force the Karnataka government to ensure land rights to the Bagair Hukum cultivators who were cultivating government land. Lakhs of farmers benefited from this decision. About 50,000 people were mobilised and seven Padayatras covering 800 Km were organised. The gains of this struggle were significant, though it did not receive adequate national attention.

   7. Struggles Against Union Government Policies in Kerala: The Kerala unit of the Kisan Front led massive struggles against the Rubber Tyre Cartel and the union government’s failure to support rubber farmers. Jathas in rubber growing areas, and protests in front of Apollo Tyres and MRF Tyres were held. A statewide Jatha on the wild animal menace, and separate Parliament Marches by rubber farmers and on the wild animal menace were held. Protests against the centre’s financial strangling of Kerala, and the attacks on Newsclick, were held. Large state conventions of women farmers and young farmers were held. Kerala’s strong organisational structure, its 27,881 primary units and women’s participation in the leadership is a model.

   8. Struggles on Land and other Issues in West Bengal: The Bengal unit organised various struggles on land, crop prices and numerous local issues. After the TMC came to power, its goons who were in league with Jotdars and the police, forcibly evicted poor peasants and occupied the land. In several districts, movements to re-capture the land were organised. Farmers’ movements were organized demanding proper compensation for land which was acquired for construction of national highways. Roads were blocked by spreading potatoes and paddy on the road for a better crop price. Panchayats and BDOs were forced to receive 4A forms in the state demanding MNREGA work jointly with the agricultural workers front in 12 districts.

   9. Facing Repression in Tripura: In the last seven years, we have been facing severe attacks on farmers and their livelihoods by the BJP and its tribal allies. Both the Kisan and the Tribal Fronts worked together and faced the challenges jointly. SKM-CTU calls were effectively implemented by all three class fronts. Several local struggles were undertaken.

   10. Struggle on Land Issues and for House Sites in Telangana: There was a prolonged agitation to secure title deeds under the FRA. As a result, the government had to issue title deeds for 4.02 lakh acres. Compensation was increased under the LARR Act 2013 for acquisition of land for the Regional Ring Road, Greenfield Highway, SEZs, industries and projects. In another agitation, Rs 200 crore was released as crop loss compensation due to natural disasters. In the sustained struggle for house sites in Telangana in 69 centres covering 20 districts, 23,570 families occupied vacant government land and built huts. The previous BRS state government unleashed severe repression. The struggle intensified and 1,155 families were able to secure allotment of double bedroom houses. The Congress state government reneged on its earlier promises, unleashed repression and demolished hutments in five big centres. But 6,940 families are still in occupation of their hutments in 37 centres. The struggle is continuing.

   11. Various Struggles in Andhra Pradesh: Struggles were conducted against the previous YSRCP government’s attempt to install smart meters on agricultural motors in 2022. Meters were uprooted in Anantapur and dumped in front of the electricity office. The state government abandoned the move. An agitation for remunerative price for cashew in Srikakulam since 2023 successfully ensured increase in price from Rs 7,000 to Rs 13,500. Militant agitations for irrigation projects and against forced land acquisition took place in many districts. An indefinite agitation was held for more than three months in five districts against the reduction in milk procurement price by the Visakha Dairy management and against the irregularities of its Chairman. In 2025, agitations were organized demanding support price for cocoa, chilli, rice, tobacco, and mango. The government provided Rs 800 crore under the Market Intervention Scheme. Struggles were organized to provide compensation to farmers whose crops were damaged in floods in September 2024. About 7,000 quintals of turmeric stored by farmers were burnt in a fire at a cold storage godown in Guntur district. As a result of our struggle, the government gave compensation of Rs 7,000 per quintal to the farmers.

   12. Tenant Farmers’ Struggles in Andhra Pradesh: The Government of Andhra Pradesh took up issues of tenant farmers only due to the activity of our Union. Our political campaign forced other political parties to take a position against the new Tenant Farmers’ Act. Protests for crop loans to tenant farmers in front of local banks and at the state level bankers’ meetings forced the Chief Minister and the bankers to support the sanction of crop loan to tenant farmers. Targets were given to local branches to give them crop loans. Due to struggle, the Endowment Department had to sanction cards to the eligible temple land cultivating tenant farmers.

   13. Other Local Struggles for Land Rights and against Land Grab: The Kisan Front led sustained struggles across various states on burning land issues. In Tamil Nadu, successful protests against land acquisition for high-tension wires, the GAIL Pipeline, and the Salem-Chennai 8-lane highway have forced realignment and higher compensation. In Bihar, ongoing land struggles focus on securing housing for the homeless and protecting the agricultural land already occupied, resisting landlord violence which has led to several martyrs. In Greater NOIDA, the Kisan Front independently intervened in the 130-day militant struggle by farmers for fair land compensation. The recent victorious joint Karnataka land struggle is dealt with later.

   14. Land Rights State Conventions: The Kisan Front has decided to hold state-level Land Rights Conventions in each state to concretely study the various land-related issues, both old and new. This will be followed by an All India Convention. These conventions will give calls for consistent struggles on land-related issues, which are getting more acute and complex. The Kisan Front in Maharashtra and Tamilnadu recently held successful Land Rights State Conventions.

   15. Crop-Based Mobilization: Efforts to mobilize farmers based on specific crops helped the Kisan Front to expand its influence beyond its traditional base. However, certain states remain hesitant about crop-specific mobilization. Rubber Farmers: A political and legal struggle was launched against the monopoly of the tyre cartel which adversely affects rubber farmers. The Kisan Front also centrally intervened legally and conducted a ground-level study on cartel formation, and the Kerala government launched an inquiry. Sugarcane Farmers: Successful struggles on sugarcane have been held in some states. On 6 March 2023, sugarcane farmers from various states staged a protest in front of Parliament. The remarkable Tamilnadu experience is given below. Similar mobilizations and conventions were held in Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra. Apple Farmers: A one-day protest of apple farmers from Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh was held at Parliament on 4 April 2023 to press for their demands. The first Apple Farmers Federation Conference was held in January 2024. Dairy Farmers: A preliminary convention was held to form a dairy sub-committee, and consistent struggles were held in Maharashtra and some other states on increased milk price for farmers. The Coffee and Jute Farmers sub-committees will be activated. Preliminary efforts have begun in Maharashtra with regard to Cotton Farmers, with the aim to expand them to other states. The importance of crop wise work in the peasantry needs to be stressed, because it has the potential for our expansion to new sections and areas.

   16. Remarkable Crop-based Work in Tamil Nadu: The crop-based experience of our Kisan Front in Tamil Nadu has been remarkable. Our Sugarcane Farmers Association there has units in all the 42 sugar mills in Tamil Nadu. In the last seven years, there have been 26 protests at the sugar mill level and in the state capital to protect the cooperative sugar mills. Our main demands of struggle were: the union and state governments must raise the price of sugarcane as per the cost of production, give the farmers a share in the profits of the sugar mills, and sugar mills must pay timely arrears to sugarcane farmers. Because of this, there are no sugarcane arrears in Tamil Nadu, and we successfully secured Rs 408 crore in arrears through struggles and legal battles. 90 per cent of its 24,000 members are beyond the fold of our Party. Similarly, the Milk Producers Association is also active in Tamil Nadu, with 40,000 dairy producers as its members. The coffee and poultry farmers’ associations are also functioning, though on a smaller scale.

   17. Help in Natural Calamities: The Kisan Front contributed Rs 5 lakh each towards relief efforts in Tripura, Assam, Tamil Nadu and towards the Waynad Relief Fund. The Kerala unit did excellent work and collected and contributed Rs 1 crore to the Wayanad Relief Fund. A 10 lakh Punjab Flood Relief Fund is being given. Central office bearers visited the flood-hit and landslide-hit states.

   18. Solidarity with Tripura and Kerala: A Tripura Solidarity campaign was held across India from 10 to 20 May 2023 against widespread post-poll violence. A Kerala Solidarity campaign was also held in the country between 11 to 21 December 2024.

   19. Areas for Self-Criticism and Radical Improvement: Given below are four key areas in which the Kisan Front has been chronically weak and it must resolve to make radical improvements.

   20. Campaign against Communalism: The most consistent campaign against communalism in this period was that conducted during the one-year-long farmers’ struggle. Along with the pro-corporate policies of the RSS-BJP government, its communal and authoritarian designs were attacked. The unprecedented Muzaffarnagar rally (where communal riots took place in 2013) of SKM on 5 September 2021 focused on this aspect. All over the country, various interventions were made by the Kisan Front against the communal danger. The Kisan Front Centre intervened in the lynching of dairy farmers Pehlu Khan and Umar Khan from Haryana who were brutally lynched in Rajasthan, and of three Muslim boys from UP in Chhattisgarh. Demonstrations were held, a fund campaign was launched, and financial help was given to the victims’ families.

   21. However, we cannot at all be complacent on this score. A much more consistent and effective political, ideological and cultural campaign against communalism must be one of the top priorities of the Kisan Front in future. As stressed earlier, the communal hate campaign of the Sangh Parivar is percolating down to all villages in the country. The Kisan Front must strengthen anti-communal campaigns manifold. Mere propaganda campaigns are insufficient to combat communal ideology. The Kisan Front must intervene at the village level and the house-to-house level in the social and cultural life of farmers with imaginative activities to counter the RSS.

   22. Social Issues: The Kisan Front in states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tripura and Maharashtra made some efforts to address social issues of religious, caste, tribal and gender oppression and discrimination. In different incidents of caste atrocities, atrocities on women, killing of minorities in the name of Gauraksha, and the Manipur crisis, the response has been timely, and protests have been widely observed. A Vachathi Victory Day was organised across the country with materials explaining this bitter but successful struggle that took place in Tamil Nadu, as well as the importance of the High Court judgement. In Karnataka a continuous struggle by the Kisan and Agricultural Workers’ Fronts in Marakumbi led to a historic judgement where nearly 100 upper-caste perpetrators of atrocities on Dalits were given a life sentence. But it must be underlined that much more needs to be done on social issues to gain the lasting confidence of the oppressed sections of society.

   23. Work among Women: Peasant women participate in large numbers in demonstrations and rallies of the Kisan Front in most parts of the country. But our biggest weakness in this regard is that their numbers in Kisan Front committees at various levels is negligible. To put it bluntly, this shows the impact of feudalism and patriarchy. The Kisan Front has participated in several activities in solidarity with women. In the shocking Manipur case of abuse and killing of women, protests were widely observed. Large independent conventions of women farmers were recently held in in Kerala and Maharashtra. It has been decided to hold Women’s State Conventions in every state, followed by an All India Peasant Women’s Convention. The Women’s Subcommittees must be activised and the issues of peasant women taken up seriously for consistent struggle. Women must be consciously promoted to leadership positions in the Kisan Front at all levels. Gender sensitive training must be regularly imparted to all Kisan activists.

   24. Work among Youth: Similarly, there must be much greater concentration on, and efforts for, attracting youth to the Kisan Front. This is especially important because there are several reports of youth turning away from agriculture for a variety of reasons. The issues of peasant youth must be identified. Without peasant youth coming to the Kisan Front in large numbers, the Front does not have a bright future. Senior leaders should encourage and promote youth activists. In the representation of youth in leading committees at all levels, there has not been much progress. As an exception Kerala has done quite well. It has also held a Statewide Youth Peasant convention. All states must also follow suit. This must be followed by an All India Peasant Youth Convention. Peasant youth subcommittees must be kept active. Like women, youth must also be consciously promoted to leadership positions in the Kisan Front at all levels.

B. United Peasant Struggles

9. 25. The Historic United Farmers’ Struggle of 2020-21: The historic farmers’ struggle that began at the borders of Delhi on 26 November 2020 and concluded one year fifteen days later on 11 December 2021, has been by far the largest, the longest and the most powerful farmers’ struggle in the history of India. It won the remarkable victory of forcing the Modi-Shah-led BJP-RSS union government to repeal the three hated pro-corporate, anti-farmer and anti-people Farm Laws. The movement triumphed over tremendous State repression, Goebbelsian defamation, the unprecedented Covid pandemic, and extreme weather conditions in Delhi. Nearly 750 farmers were martyred in this struggle. It was entirely democratic, peaceful, and secular. It was jointly led by several farmers’ organisations, under the platform of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). Our Kisan Front was one of the leading constituents of the SKM. It also took steps to involve the central trade unions and agricultural workers’ organisations for worker-peasant unity. It also reached out to women, youth, and student organisations.

   26. Political Impact of the Farmers’ Struggle of 2020-21: The Review of the 18^th Lok Sabha Elections taken by the CPI(M) Central Committee at its New Delhi meeting in June 2024 summed up the political impact of this struggle as follows: “The growing popular discontent reflected in various people’s struggles, especially in the historic Kisan struggle, had its impact in these elections. The BJP lost 38 of its sitting seats in the agricultural districts in five states of Western UP, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra. The continued rural distress with lack of a remunerative MSP and rural real wages stagnating during the Modi decade ensured that in 159 predominantly rural constituencies in the country people voted for a change.”

   27. Role of the Kisan Front in the Farmers’ Struggle: Our Kisan Front has been an important constituent of the All India Kisan Struggle Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) and later the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) which led this struggle, ever since their inception in 2017 and 2020 respectively. In this capacity, it played a major role in the collective decision making and implementation of the farmers’ struggle.

   28. The Kisan Front was represented in the 9-member SKM Coordination Committee, and in the 40-member group that had 11 rounds of talks with the union government till 22 January 2021, when the government arbitrarily broke off talks. The Kisan Front was also represented in the 5-member committee of the SKM that was elected to negotiate the final agreement with the union government in December 2021.

   29. While resolutely taking active part in all SKM’s joint nationwide calls, some independent actions were also organised. The most effective was our three class fronts’ call for a nationwide struggle on the anniversary of ‘Quit India Day’, 9 August 2021. This ‘Save India Day’ mobilised over 8 lakh people all over the country. This far exceeded even the record mobilisation of over 5 lakh achieved on 9 August 2018. Another was the week-long padayatras by the Kisan Front and its fraternal organisations in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, culminating at the Delhi borders.

   30. Our Kisan Front was the only peasant organisation in the country with a fair presence at all the six borders around Delhi. This mobilisation came from the frontline states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The Kisan Front from other states across the country also sent contingents to Delhi for several days each. Large joint Mahapanchayats, with good mobilisation by us, were held in Kolkata, Mumbai, Agartala, Patna, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Bengaluru, Belgavi, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Ongole, Chennai, Thanjavur, Kanyakumari, Thiruvarur, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Thiruvananthapuram, all district centres of Kerala, and several places in the frontline states. Taking the country as a whole, the largest single mobilization of farmers in this struggle was undoubtedly that of our Kisan Front.

   31. Worker-Peasant Unity in the Farmers’ Struggle: The farmers’ struggle itself began on the salutary note of worker-peasant unity. On the same day that the SKM gave its call for ‘Chalo Delhi’, i.e. 26 November 2020, the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) also gave a call for an All India General Strike. Within the SKM, our Kisan Front consistently took the initiative to strengthen worker-peasant unity, and the unity of farmers with other sections. With consistent efforts from our side, the SKM supported the demand of the CTUs for the repeal of the four Labour Codes and for a halt to the privatisation drive of the public sector. The SKM’s national convention in August 2021 at the Singhu border invited leaders of the trade unions, agricultural workers, Dalit, Adivasi, women, youth and student organisations and adopted resolutions in support of their demands. This inclusive approach helped to make the Bharat Bandh of 27 September 2021 a massive success. Special mention must be made of the large contributions to the Kisan Front Struggle Fund made by the working class, several unions affiliated to our Trade Union Front, many unions in the public sector, and others supporters and sympathisers.

   32. Self-Critical Assessment: Despite the creditable overall performance of the Kisan Front in this struggle, we must also make a self-critical assessment of our work in this struggle.

   33. In the beginning of this struggle in June 2020, when the three Farm Ordinances were promulgated by the Modi regime, several Kisan organisations in Punjab, irrespective of their divergent ideologies, came together and began an issue-based struggle for the withdrawal of these Ordinances, and later for the repeal of the three Farm Laws. Most of them eventually formed a group of 32 organisations. But due to a sectarian deviation in Punjab, our Kisan Front joined the united struggle more than three months after it began, that too after central Party intervention. The entire strength of the Kisan Front in Punjab was also never mobilised at the Singhu border. These were serious mistakes which must be avoided by all states in the future.

   34. Similarly, the full strength of the Kisan Front in many states could also not be mobilised while implementing the numerous SKM action calls. Some state units very far from Delhi sent large contingents for a few days each to the Delhi borders. But there were some state units that sent only nominal contingents. In such a huge struggle, this serious lapse cannot be justified.

   35. The actions in most of the states were only in the nature of solidarity actions. The main reason for this is that, in contrast to the farmers in many of the frontline states, who actually get the benefit of MSP and procurement of paddy and wheat by the union government, and were afraid that they would lose these benefits due to the Farm Laws, the farmers from other states do not get these benefits at all. Hence, to increase the pressure on the government, it was very necessary to raise these solidarity actions to the level of a truly pan-India farmers’ struggle. This could only be done if the burning state, district and local level issues of the peasantry were taken up for a sustained struggle in each state, linking them to the crucial national issues on which the Delhi struggle was being fought. But this could not be done to the required extent.

   36. Finally, our experience of earlier struggles in several states has shown us that we have often not been successful in consolidating the gains of those struggles into the rapid growth of our organization, in terms of increasing membership, functioning our village units, streamlining our committee functioning, increasing the number of peasant cadres, especially among youth and women, imparting to them regular political education, and mobilizing funds from peasants. We must make concerted efforts in all states to remove these serious weaknesses.

   37. Class Implications of the Farmers’ Struggle: The Political Report of the Central Committee held on 30-31 January 2021, when the Delhi farmers’ struggle was in progress, devoted a full section to this struggle, also recounting the political initiatives of the Party Centre and the PB to this struggle. It perceptively analysed the class implications of this struggle as follows:

   38. “This Kisan struggle has sharply brought out the efforts by the leadership of the ruling classes – the big bourgeoisie – to acquire corporate control over Indian agriculture, its produce, its markets for profit maximisation in the background of the sustained global capitalist crisis and severe recession of the Indian economy exacerbated by the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns.

   39. “This has created a conflict between the big bourgeoisie, in collaboration with international finance capital on the one hand, and the entire peasantry, including by and large the rich peasants, on the other. This conflict creates possibilities that can be utilised by the working class, poor peasantry and agricultural labour to intensify the class struggles against the bourgeois-landlord class order… The growing contradiction among the BJP and the regional ruling parties has the potential for building a wider unity against the BJP, particularly in the absence of any effective intervention by the Congress party.

   40. “The possibility of advancing the struggles has grown with the emerging convergence of struggles between the working class and the peasantry. This was evident from the beginnings that were made towards joint activities of the trade union, kisan and agricultural workers movements during the last couple of years. This has reached a higher level during the course of the November 26-27, 2020 action calls. This must be further strengthened in order to move towards achieving the class unity of the workers and peasants, i.e. the worker-peasant alliance. The struggles against the Farm Laws and the Labour Codes abrogating the rights of the working class must be jointly strengthened in the coming period.”

   41. AIKSCC Kisan Mukti Yatra, Kisan Mukti Sansad and Kisan Mukti March: The Kisan Front was actively involved in the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) formed after the Mandsaur police firing in which six farmers were killed by the BJP state government in Madhya Pradesh in June 2017. The Kisan Front participated in the Kisan Mukti Yatra in different parts of India. It culminated in the Kisan Sansad at Delhi in November 2017 in which nearly 30,000 farmers participated, of which over 8,000 were of the Kisan Front. A novel Mahila Kisan Sansad was also held. Drafts of two Bills were placed in the Kisan Sansad, one for Liberation from Debt and the other for Assured Remunerative Prices. These Bills were presented in Parliament, in the Rajya Sabha by our then National Joint Secretary of the Kisan Front.

   42. The AIKSCC organized a one lakh strong Kisan Mukti March to Parliament in Delhi on 29-30 November 2018. The Kisan Front had the largest participation in it, of over 20,000 peasants from several states. This rally adopted a 19-point Manifesto of Indian Farmers, which included several demands of agricultural workers, tenant farmers, fisherfolk, and poor peasants. The Kisan Front played a major role in the AIKSCC discussions while preparing this Manifesto.

   43. Bhumi Adhikar Andolan and Joint Struggles for Land Rights: The Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA) is a platform which was formed in 2015 to demand the withdrawal of the pro-corporate and anti-farmer Land Acquisition Ordinance promulgated by the Modi regime. Over 100 different organisations became part of the BAA, and they included Left-led kisan and agricultural workers organizations, Dalit and Adivasi organisations, and different civil society groups. A concerted joint peasant struggle, including burning the Ordinance in over 300 districts, two Delhi rallies, coupled with strong opposition in Parliament, and the pressure of the impending Bihar state assembly elections, forced the Modi regime to let the Ordinance lapse. However, many BJP-led state governments later passed legislation facilitating land grab by corporates. Many land-related issues were later taken up by the BAA. State chapters of the BAA were formed in many states. However, due to the preoccupation with the huge struggle led by the SKM against the Farm Laws, there was some weakness in joint activities of the BAA, which must be overcome.

   44. United Farmers’ Strike for Loan Waiver in Maharashtra – 2017: On 1 June 2017, a novel and unprecedented united farmers’ strike began in Maharashtra for loan waiver and remunerative prices. Farmers stopped getting their milk, vegetables, and fruits for sale in the cities. A massive Maharashtra Bandh to support the farmers’ strike was held on 5 June. A state convention on 8 June called for a statewide Rail Roko agitation on 13 June. Under this mounting pressure from the peasantry, on 11 June, the BJP state government had to bend. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was forced to declare a Rs 34,000 crore loan waiver package of Rs 1.5 lakh each to 89.87 lakh peasants out of 1.36 crore peasants in the state. However, due to the onerous conditions imposed, by December 2019, the loan waiver had benefited only 44.23 lakh farmers who got a total loan waiver of only Rs 19,843 crore. But even this was a significant achievement. The struggle continued even later, and the MVA state government led by Uddhav Thackeray increased the loan waiver amount to Rs 2 lakh each, and expanded the ambit of the scheme. Till December 2021, 31.71 lakh farmers received a benefit of loan waiver amounting to Rs 20,243 crore. The above are the official figures placed by both successive state governments on the floor of the Assembly. Thus, in the five years from 2017 to 2021, farmers in Maharashtra succeeded in wresting a total loan waiver of more than Rs 40,000 crore through their struggle.

   45. United Struggles against Land Acquisition in Karnataka: These struggles include a victorious 1198-day struggle in Channarayapatna (Bangalore) and a 1000-day agitation in Bellary against land acquisition. In Channarayapatna the erstwhile BJP state government was facilitating corporate take-over of fertile multi-cropped land in the vicinity of the Bangalore International Airport at the behest of the real estate mafia. Farmers of 13 villages started a struggle more than three years ago by forming a Struggle Committee, defying threats and repression. The leadership of the Kisan Front and other fraternal organisations played a big role in it. The unity of all class and mass organisations and Dalit organisations was achieved under the banner of the Samyukta Horata Karnataka. The unity was met with repression by the Congress regime. On 26 June 2025 police launched a brutal assault on peaceful protestors and many were arrested. There was an immediate reaction across the state against police brutality with widespread protests by writers, artistes, and civil society groups who also came out in solidarity with the farmers. Thousands of people under the banner of Samyukta Horata protested at Freedom Park. As a result of this protracted struggle, on 15 July 2025, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had to announce a halt to the acquisition proceedings and denotify 1,777 acres of land, freeing it from the threat of acquisition. However, the Gazette notification has yet to come. This victory is important for the peasant movement which has been fighting against forcible land acquisition.

C. Worker-Peasant United Actions of our Three Class Fronts

9. 46. It is a welcome development that the period under review saw increasing coordination and united actions towards worker-peasant unity. The objective reason for this unity was the savage attack on all producing classes by the Modi-led BJP-RSS-controlled central government. The subjective reason was the conscious initiative taken by the central leadership of all our three class fronts. These united actions were of two types: 1. United actions between our three class fronts, viz. Trade Union, Kisan and Agricultural Worker Fronts; 2. United actions of the larger platforms like the Central Trade unions (CTUs) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM).

   47. 9 August 2018 Nationwide Jail Bharo and 5 September 2018 Delhi Rally: The unprecedented success of the 9 August nationwide Jail Bharo struggle which mobilised over 5 lakh people, and the 5 September Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally in Delhi which mobilised over 2 lakh people, were two striking examples. Both these struggles were led under the Red Flag jointly by our three class fronts. There was massive participation of women. The 2018 actions were surpassed only on 9 August 2021, on ‘Save India Day’, when our three class fronts mobilised over 8 lakh people in a similar nationwide action. The Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally in Delhi on 5 September was a great success. By far the largest participation in it was of the Trade Union Front and industrial federations, followed by the Kisan Front and Agricultural Workers Front.

   48. National Convention of Class Fronts and Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally in 2022-23: At the call of the first-ever Joint National Convention of Workers and Peasants, organised by our three class fronts at the Talkatora Stadium, New Delhi on 5 September 2022, a joint campaign was carried out in most states and on 5 April 2023 the Mazdoor-Kisan Sangharsh Rally was held at the Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi with impressive participation. However, due to the scorching summer heat and other factors, the mobilisation was less than our earlier joint rally in 2018.

   49. Massive Joint Brigade Parade Rally in West Bengal: On 20 April 2025, the three class fronts together with our urban slum-dwellers organization held a massive rally of lakhs of toilers at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata. All the fronts made intensive and extensive preparations for several weeks to make this rally a great success.

   50. United Actions Planned for the Immediate Future: On 16 September 2025, a large joint nationwide convention of the main activists of all the three fronts will be held in Delhi. It is expected to give big united action calls for the immediate future till January 2026.

   51. Need to take Unity down to the Grassroots: While all these are welcome steps, it must be self-critically noted that the unity and coordination among the three class fronts achieved at the centre has not yet percolated down sufficiently to the state, district and lower levels. This weakness must be corrected at the earliest, if the next stage of unity is to be attempted.

D. United Actions of Central Trade Unions and Samyukta Kisan Morcha

9. 52. The farmers’ struggle of 2020–21 against the Modi government paved the way for welcome coordination between the SKM and the CTUs. Various campaigns and protest actions have subsequently reinforced this unity. They have mobilised lakhs of working people. These are:

   53. 1) 7-14 August 2022: Campaign by SKM-CTUs with Ex-Servicemen and Youth organisations exposed the BJP regime’s anti-farmer and anti-youth policies, including the Agniveer scheme.

2. 26 November 2022: Massive state rallies on the Raj Bhawans (Governors’ Mansions).

3. 24 August 2023: All India Kisan-Mazdoor Convention at the Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi, which called for a nationwide campaign against the BJP before the 18th Lok Sabha elections.

4. 20 March 2023: Kisan Mahapanchayat at Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi, with 20,000 participants. Solidarity with the women wrestlers’ struggle.

5. 26-28 November 2023: Massive three-day Mahapadavs in state capitals, mobilising lakhs.

6. 16 February 2024: Nationwide Industrial Strike and Rural Bandh.

7. 23 February 2024: Black Day to protest the killing of young farmer Shubhkaran Singh at the Punjab-Haryana border.

8. 26 February 2024: Tractor parades on highways to “Keep Agriculture out of WTO.”

9. 14 March 2024: Large Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat at Ramlila Maidan, Delhi.

10. 4 and 9 January 2025: Kisan Mahapanchayats at Tohana, Haryana, and Moga, Punjab, countering the BJP-led union government’s attempts to prop up fake alternatives to the SKM.

11. 9 July 2025: Successful All India General Strike.

E. Experience of United Platforms and Joint Actions

9. 54. Rich Experience of United Actions: In recent years, the Kisan Front has gained rich experience of working in united farmers’ platforms like the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), All India Kisan Struggle Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) and Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) from 2015 onwards. The constituents of SKM are ideologically spread across a wide spectrum – left, centre and right. It was formed in 2020 to fight against the three Farm Laws, for a remunerative MSP, and against the Electricity Bill. After the conclusion of that victorious farmers’ struggle, other demands like loan waiver, crop insurance, pensions etc were added. The richest experience of united struggle during this period has been that of the historic year-long farmers’ struggle.

   55. United issue-based struggles have helped to rally wider masses against the anti-peasant policies of the government and enabled us to reach newer sections. They have certainly helped to increase the striking power in struggles. It is necessary to educate Kisan Front cadres about the importance of united platforms and joint actions and to avoid sectarianism. Our cadres should take the initiative and be proactive in joint actions.

   56. Independent Struggles Crucial: But while doing all this, the key importance of independent struggles led by the Kisan Front must on no account be underplayed or neglected. In the last analysis, it is only through the increase in our independent struggles and our independent strength that the Kisan Front can emerge as a key constituent in united struggles. The importance of united struggles is being understood, but independent struggles in some states are taking a back seat. If this is not addressed, we cannot advance as a credible leader even of the united struggle. We must admit that incessant calls of the different joint platforms have to a certain extent pushed our independent activities to the background. This must be corrected.

6. Review of Implementation: Organisation

1. 1. Kisan Front Centre: Strengthening the functioning of the All India Centre, State Centres and District Centres was set as a vital task. The All India Kisan Centre, which was collectively handled well by four comrades at the time of the farmers’ struggle of 2020-21, has been strengthened later with the inclusion of four new comrades, all from the Hindi-speaking states. However, of these, only one is working regularly at the Centre. In the last seven years of this review, the Kisan Front Centre has taken many successful independent and united initiatives for struggles, campaigns and organisation. The main office-bearers working from the Centre and other in-charges have been mobile and have visited the states several times to directly intervene in struggles and other programmes, and to help strengthen the organisation. The Kisan Front is providing a liveable wage to cadres working from the Centre.

   2. However, strengthening the State and District Centres and identifying the main functionaries of the Kisan Front at these levels who will give priority to Kisan Front work has not progressed to the desired extent in most of the states. The lack of funds and lack of sufficient attention by the Party committees who should plan for ensuring this is partly responsible. In many states there is scope for big improvement at the lower levels.

   3. Marked Increase in Membership: Since 2020-21, Kisan Front membership has increased consistently. It has succeeded in reversing the decline in membership during the earlier one decade. That decline was mainly due to two reasons: Severe repression in West Bengal and Tripura, and the formation of the Agricultural Workers Front in West Bengal, dividing the membership there. The All India membership was 1,17,41,313 in 2020-21, 1,36,78,785 in 2021-22, 1,43,69,371 in 2022-23, 1,46,88,994 in 2023-24 and 1,53,48,979 in 2024-25 (see attached chart for state-wise data.) There is a 36-lakh increase in five years, which is significant. However, we are well aware that tens of crores of peasants still remain outside our orbit and influence. 

   4. The unevenness in membership continues to be a reason for worry. In 2024-25, Kerala has a membership of nearly 70 lakh, West Bengal has over 45 lakh, Tamil Nadu has over 10 lakh, and Telangana has over 4 lakh. In 2024, Kerala alone has 45.5 per cent of our membership. Kerala and West Bengal together have 75.3 per cent of our membership. The three strongest units of Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have 82.2 per cent of our membership. The remaining 24 units have only 17.8 per cent of our membership. There are 30 districts which have over 1 lakh members each; 11 districts between 50 thousand and 1 lakh members each; 28 districts between 25 and 50 thousand members each; 82 districts between 10 and 25 thousand members each; and 151 districts with over 10 thousand members each.

   5. The biggest source of concern is that in the last five years, the membership of Hindi-speaking states has been stagnant. Before the Covid pandemic, in 2017-18 in the 11 states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the total membership was 12,81,463. It declined to 11,26,225 in 2021-22, but in 2024-25 it rose a little to 11,52,204. This decline/stagnation is especially worrying, since parts of the Hindi belt were the main centres of the historic farmers’ struggle of 2020-21. This stagnation must be reversed at all costs by devising a series of inter-connected measures. However, it must also be noted that Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh have shown a steady though moderate increase during this period.

   6. Overall Organisational Picture: Although it is true that our Kisan Front is by far the largest Kisan organization in the country as a whole, there are several vital weaknesses which must be overcome at the earliest. As per the latest organizational picture of the Kisan Front in 2024-25 which has been collected in September 2025 from all the 27 states where we have a presence, we have membership in 434 out of 780 districts in the country, which comes to nearly 56 per cent. Across the country’s 7,245 tehsils/talukas/mandals, we have membership in 2,594 (only UP has not sent the data), which comes to nearly 36 per cent. We currently have membership in 50,203 villages and a total of 75,799 primary units. As per this information, the Kisan Front is today present in only 7.7 per cent villages of India, which is a very low figure.

   7. Weakness of Primary Village Units: The biggest organizational weakness of the Kisan Front is the absence or inactivity of primary village units in many of the states, except in Kerala. We must self-critically admit that in many states independent functioning of the Kisan Front is very poor below the district level. Party Subcommittees and Fraction Committees must seriously examine and rectify this situation. Kerala provides an excellent example of the regular and effective functioning of the state committee, 14 district committees, 210 area committees, 2,310 village committees, and 27,881 primary units. This needs to be seriously emulated in other states. The strong organisation in Kerala is reflected in struggles, mobilisation, membership, activists, and fund collection from the mass of the people by the primary units.

   8. Work among Women and Youth: Along with the serious weakness in village committees and their functioning, the other most serious organisational weakness of the Kisan Front, which needs to be again reiterated, is in recruiting sufficient activists among peasant women and peasant youth. We have stressed this earlier too in the report. This key organisational weakness must be removed at the earliest. It has been decided to hold separate State Conventions of Peasant Women and Peasant Youth, and then All India Conventions of these sections.

   9. Independent and Democratic Functioning: Efforts are being made to ensure independent and democratic functioning of the Kisan Front, but much more still remains to be done at the district and lower levels. Different states have taken the decision to have their own office space. However, only Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka have independent offices. The construction of the new office of the All India Centre in Delhi has just begun, after having surmounted several political and bureaucratic hurdles patiently over the last few years. In most states leaders of the Kisan Front hold multiple responsibilities and are also leaders of the Party. It is being insisted that Party Secretaries should not hold key leadership positions in the Kisan Front.

   10. Finance, Funds and Accounts: The accounts of the Kisan Front at the Centre are maintained regularly and they are audited by a CA every year. A three-member internal audit committee carefully checks the accounts before submitting them to the auditor. The audited accounts are placed before central meetings of the Kisan Front, and before All India Conferences. All states have been told to follow the same method. While the stronger states do so, the same cannot be said about many of the weaker states. There is need for the Centre to keep a strict check on this, and for the states to keep a check on the districts. At present two big fund calls have been given – one for the new Central Office building in Delhi, and the other for a whole-timer fund. We must ensure that all state units collect annual funds to support their own whole-timers, for independent office maintenance, for developing mass movements, for bringing out regular publications, and for travel of their state office-bearers. They should maintain regular accounts, conduct a monthly review with auditing, and have a system to file annual IT Returns.

   11. P S Memorial Trust: The Kisan Front activised the P Sundarayya Memorial Trust by recruiting two equipped cadre who have been helping in research and organisational work. In the last four years it has made three important Surveys on input cartels in natural rubber, wild animal menace, coffee farmers’ problems and helped to organise crop-based conventions in the coffee, apple, dairy and rubber sector. Young interns were recruited and a Survey on the land acquisition in Greater NOIDA was also conducted. Publications on coffee, apple, cooperatives and on the historic Kisan Struggle were brought out. A case against the Rubber Tyre Cartel in the Supreme Court has benefited from their studies. Two P S Memorial Lectures on agrarian issues and a discussion on a book on the farmers’ struggle were conducted.

7. Review of Implementation: Party Building

1. 1. Subcommittees and Fraction Committees: There is an Agrarian Subcommittee of the Central Committee, which has leading functionaries from both the Kisan and the Agricultural Workers Fronts. From 2022 to 2025, the Agrarian Subcommittee met 7 times. It reviewed the All India Conferences of both the Fronts, planned Party education camps, decided on the tasks after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, formed fraction committees for both the Fronts, finalised reports of both the Fronts for the 24^th Party Congress, and intensively discussed the Review Reports for both the Fronts, including this Report. The Agrarian Subcommittee also discussed about Party building, whole-timers and joint actions of the three class fronts. Agrarian/Kisan Subcommittees or Fraction Committees exist in most of the states, their functioning is regular in the stronger states, but not regular in most of the weaker states.

   2. Party Building: As per information collected in 2024, there are 1,96,442 Party Members working in 25 states in the Kisan Front (Agricultural Workers Front not included except for Karnataka. The data from Andaman & Nicobar and Chhattisgarh is not available. A major lacuna is that the number from Tamil Nadu only reflects the number of Party members in the Kisan Front leadership, and not all the Party members in the Kisan Front. Thus, overall, the total number of Party Members in the Kisan Front is now well over 2 lakh. However, we must self-critically admit that there is a lack of conscious effort in many states in paying attention to the recruitment, training and retention of Party members. Many Party members are not always active, and do not fulfil even their minimum responsibilities. Some figures will be stark eye-openers. The current membership of the Kisan Front is 1,53,48,979. The number of Party Members currently is 1,96,442. Thus, merely 1.28 per cent of the Kisan Front’s All India membership is in the Party. The same proportion can be worked out for each state. No clearer indication can be there of our chronic neglect of Party-building. There is thus tremendous scope for increasing the quantity and quality of Party Members in the Kisan Front.

   3. Whole-Timers: In 2024, the number of whole-timers in 25 States was 1,093. The wages range from Rs 1,000 to Rs 23,300 per month in different states, which is a huge difference. The absence of regular wage is a worrisome feature in some states. Wages are mostly paid by the Party. There are many whole-timers who work without any wages. The Kisan Front at the Centre has prepared plans for a Whole-Timer Fund so that at least a minimum number of whole-timers in the weaker states can be given regular and reasonable financial assistance. But this can only be supplementary. The Party and Kisan Front in each state must take up this matter seriously, plan and implement large fund campaigns to ensure regular and reasonable wages to their whole timers. Concerted efforts must be made to recruit Kisan youth as whole-timers.

   4. Party Education: The Kisan Front organised a five-day All India Camp in Hindi for its leading Party activists at the Surjeet Bhawan in New Delhi from 27-31 August 2024. During the last few years, the Kisan Front has been organising several state level camps at the mass front level. But this was perhaps the first time that a Party camp for Kisan cadres was held in Hindi at the All India level. This camp was attended by 109 activists from 15 states. It has been decided that a similar All India Party camp in English will be held after the Madurai Party Congress. Uttarakhand organised a Party class for Kisan Front cadre for the first time. In most other states, while Kisan mass front classes take place often, Party classes for the Kisan Front are not held. This is a major weakness which must be overcome at the earliest.

12. New Directions for Developing the Kisan Front

12. 1. Highlighting Issues of the Rural Poor: The Political Review Report of the Central Committee adopted in November 2024, says in Para 16, “We must seriously examine why we are not able to develop class struggles in the countryside based on poor peasants, agricultural workers and the rural poor. The updated Programme talks about the rise of a powerful nexus of landlords-rich farmers-contractors-big traders, who constitute the rural rich. We have not been able to mobilise the rural poor and sections of the peasantry to fight against the various forms of exploitation practiced by this rural rich nexus.” Again, the same Political Review Report says in Para 19, “But what is to be noted is the lack of struggles of the rural poor against the rural rich nexus, which is the crux of the class struggle in the countryside. Given the changed conditions, sustaining long term struggles to seize and occupy land belonging to the landlords is a difficult prospect. Recent experience shows that it is not easy to conduct prolonged struggle for higher agricultural wages against landlords and big farmers. In such circumstances, there are few and sporadic struggles against the exploitation by the rural rich nexus. It is, therefore, imperative that we further study the changes in the countryside and evolve new slogans and tactics based on uniting poor peasants-agricultural workers-rural poor to fight against the rural rice nexus on issues such as low wages, house sites, tenancy terms, exorbitant interest on loans, high charges for tractors, harvesters, etc.” Hence, we must pinpoint here some of the issues of struggle of the rural poor.

    2. Continuing inequalities in land ownership in rural India point to the need to intensify class-based struggles for land. We must demand that state governments take possession of all remaining ceiling surplus lands and distribute all land that has already been taken possession of. Quick resolution of court cases related to ceiling surplus land must be done. All existing land reform laws, including on ceiling surplus land, pasture land, bhoodan land, benami land, temple land, and tenancy laws must be implemented in their true spirit. The government must identify and redistribute all such lands to the landless and marginalized communities.  

    3. We must also struggle forcefully for stringent review of illegally and arbitrarily rejected claims under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and fast-track pending claims for distributing forest lands. We must demand that a national status paper be released on the extent and location of wasteland and bhoodan land in different states, and that all encroachments into these must be removed. The use of such land for industrial purposes must be severely restricted. We must demand that the government must withdraw from measures that aim to deregulate land use and create a free land market in the country. Consent and Social Impact Assessment must be the touchstones if agricultural land can be acquired for non-agricultural purposes or not.

    4. In the phase of neo-liberal economic policies, the struggle against land grab has come to occupy great importance and the victory in any struggle for land rights is intrinsically linked with the success of struggles against indiscriminate land acquisition. Hence, apart from traditional land rights issues, the land grab issues must be taken up. The Kisan Front should also make specific demands arising from land acquisition not only for farmers who may lose land only for necessary public purposes, but also for the landless, agricultural workers, tenant cultivators, women and the marginalised sections. At the same time, in cases of unnecessary land acquisition for private purposes, there has to be a relentless struggle by all sections of the peasantry. The experience of successful struggles of this type in various states must be emulated.

    5. The organisation of landless and poor tenants on their demands has been attempted in Andhra Pradesh where there is a separate organisation, and in Telangana. Tenant farmers have several serious issues, and raising their demands is antithetical to the interests of the rural rich.

    6. The emergence of new agricultural money lenders drawn predominantly from the rural rich but also from certain sections of the rich peasantry is a notable feature. Such elements from the rural rich are often absentee landlords who rack-rent/lease out their land to tenant cultivators, corner all benefits like PM-Kisan, Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bharosa, etc, claim crop loans at low interest rates and lend to the peasantry at usurious rates. Even sections of the rich peasantry engage in such activity especially when they are leasing out part of their land. In the event of natural calamities and crop losses this section of new agricultural money lenders has no liability. The entire burden falls on the tenant cultivators. Demand for Licensed Cultivator Cards, protection from evictions, regulation of rent, institutional crop loans, partial refund of rent in case of crop losses etc., should be raised.

    7. Decent living and working conditions for the poor peasantry and agricultural labourers, particularly their wages, must receive renewed priority in our struggles. New classes of labourers who work in agriculture are very different in their occupational characteristics and class consciousness. They are more of miscellaneous rural workers than a pure class of agricultural labourers. They are employed increasingly in piece-rated contracts than in individual time-rated contracts. There is increasing feminisation of labour in agriculture and a large class which is employed in MGNREGS. We need to urgently mobilise them into unions in every state.

    8. Resolving the agrarian question today involves a wide range of new issues and demands. We must organise struggles and movements to end the extreme forms of rural misery that exist in our rural areas. We must organise to provide the rural working people with house-sites, and basic, clean, sanitary homes and habitations; to create the conditions for the liberation of the people of the SCs and STs, of women, and other victims of sectional deprivation; to vastly expand the functioning of the MGNREGS to provide at least 200 days of guaranteed employment to all adult members (not just one per family) of all rural households at minimum Rs 600 daily wage; to ensure universal formal school education and free primary health care to all; for universalisation of the public distribution system in the rural areas with an expanded set of food items; for the provision of a universal pension of at least Rs 10,000 per month; and to achieve the general democratisation of life and progressive cultural development in rural India.

    9. The central leadership of the Kisan and Agricultural Workers Fronts, along with that of other leading peasant organisations, together with leading academics, journalists, etc, were part of the Kisan Mazdoor Commission (KMC) which prepared and declared its agenda and demands for the peasantry, especially the rural poor, before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. We must plan steps to popularise and implement this agenda among the peasantry.

    10. The BJP-RSS has been promoting Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) in a big way. The BJP-led NDA regime’s real agenda is to use FPOs for creating a conducive atmosphere for agribusinesses and to help corporate aggregation. Already, most of the FPOs are being registered as Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs), and they are actually companies in partnership with some large business houses or corporates that will swallow them pretty fast. In Kerala and other states, FPOs with considerable funding to BJP activists are being set up.

    11. With the setting up of the new Union Ministry of Cooperation in 2021, the BJP-RSS intervention in the cooperative sector throughout the country through the Sahakar Bharati and Multi-State Cooperatives must be specially noted by the Party and the Kisan Front. The BJP-RSS is also targeting cooperatives especially in Kerala, which has a vibrant and generally Left-led cooperative sector, and also in other states ruled by the opposition. This needs to be addressed by strengthening existing cooperatives and diversifying them from credit to also include production, processing, value addition and marketing.

    12. In the face of corporate-led contract farming, corporate takeover of agriculture and denial of remunerative MSP and minimum wage to agrarian classes, alternative policies to promote cooperative and collective farming must be encouraged by the State. This will help to resist corporate takeover of agriculture and also enable modernisation of agriculture on democratic and sustainable lines, help cost reduction, enhance production and productivity based on scientific and technological advances, and ensure the overall growth of productive forces.

    13. Land pooling for large scale modern agricultural production under cooperatives and collectives needs to be supported for developing input industries, large-scale modern agro-processing industries and marketing. The capital investment required for this must be assured by the State, actively supported by financial institutions in the public and cooperative sectors. The surplus created through modernising agriculture through producer and consumer cooperatives as well as in the non-monopoly private sector needs to be shared with primary producers with an appropriate statutory revenue sharing model so as to realise the long-pending demands of minimum wage and remunerative MSP. The union and state governments should enact laws for minimum wage and remunerative MSP with guaranteed procurement of all crops with the help of producer and consumer cooperatives. Building democratic alternatives to facilitate these cooperatives can stop exploitative and backdoor land appropriation schemes.

    14. The UN has declared 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives. During this year we should carry forward this dialogue. Cooperatives need to be seen as a key political task in the wake of the attempt by the BJP-led union government to hand over literally the keys of Indian agriculture into the hands of foreign and domestic corporate entities. We should look at the cooperative agenda not only in respect of processing of produce but also input production, namely production of seeds, biological inputs, implements and tools for drudgery removal, dairy, kitchen gardens, poultry, agro-advisory services and so on.

    15. About struggles, the Political Review Report states, “Three vital points must be kept in mind while building up class and mass struggles. One is our conscious adherence to the mass line at all levels, of constantly going to and learning from the people, and of consistently trying to lead the struggle to a successful conclusion. The second is to radically change our style of functioning and make it more democratic, inclusive, and participatory at all levels. The third is to break away from the usual routine and symbolic actions, and plan imaginative and effective forms of struggle, which will create a big impact. The peasant struggles like the Kisan Long March from Nashik to Mumbai and the Mahapadavs in Rajasthan are examples of such innovative forms of struggle.”

    16. Finally, we must take special note of the remarkable work put in for agriculture and the peasantry by the various Left-led state governments in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura from 1957 up to date. The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government in Kerala has been carrying forward the legacy of the first Communist government led by E M S Namboodiripad. Building on land reforms that have benefited about 36 lakh families, the present LDF state government has given land rights to more than 2 lakh landless, houses to over 5 lakh homeless, and social welfare pensions to over 65 lakh people. It provides the highest MSP for paddy at about Rs 600 per quintal higher than the centrally fixed MSP. Minimum wage for agricultural and rural workers in Kerala is the highest in the country. Public health and education have been given priority, drawing global praise. Infrastructure development and employment generation has also made rapid strides. We have mentioned earlier the Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission of the LDF government of Kerala instituted in 2006, which effectively eliminated all farmers’ suicides in the state. We have also mentioned earlier Kerala’s path-breaking, publicly-run Kudumbashree scheme.

    17. The Left Front government in West Bengal carried out substantial land reforms. Over 13 lakh acres of land was distributed gratis to 29 lakh 72 thousand landless and land-poor families. Of these land beneficiaries, 55 per cent were Dalit and Adivasi families. There were also thousands of Muslim beneficiaries. Over 7.5 lakh land pattas were given jointly in the names of the husband and wife, or independently in the name of the woman. Under Operation Barga, the names of 15 lakh 30 thousand bataidars or unprotected tenants were registered and security of tenure was guaranteed to more than 11 lakh acres of land that they used to till. Among these bataidars also, over 50 per cent were Dalit, Adivasi and Muslim families. The Left Front regime in West Bengal also played a pioneering role in overhauling and streamlining the Panchayat Raj system. The proportion of irrigated land in West Bengal shot up from 32 per cent to 71 per cent during Left Front rule. Along with land reforms, this significantly boosted agricultural production and Bengal then led all other states in the country in the production of paddy, potatoes, vegetables and fisheries. In Tripura the Left Front Government also distributed land to the landless. It had the best record in India of implementing the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and vesting forest land in the names of an overwhelming majority of Adivasis. Under LF rule, the MGNREGA saw the highest of over 92 days of work in the state and an urban employment guarantee scheme was also started.

13. Future Tasks

13. 1. In view of the above Review Report and its main conclusions, we must now identify and pinpoint the future tasks before the Kisan Front in the years ahead.

13. 2. Tasks Related to the Kisan Front

1. Strongly oppose Trump’s Tariff Terrorism, free trade agreements and imperialist pressures.

2. Constant and effective political-ideological campaigns against communal and casteist forces.

3. Struggle against all forms of caste and gender oppression and discrimination.

4. Strengthen independent struggles on local issues on burning demands of the peasantry.

5. Organise the landless, tenants, and poor and middle peasants against the rural rich nexus.

6. Increase issue-based united struggles on burning anti-corporate peasant issues.

7. Fight corporate land-grab, identify and occupy ceiling surplus, unutilised acquired land.

8. Pay special attention to advance in tribal areas, and implementation of FRA and PESA.

9. Strengthen cooperatives, resist attacks on them, and intervene in them effectively.

10. Increase crop-based mobilisation and organisation that will help to draw in newer sections.

11. Consciously enlist women and youth in large numbers in struggles and in the leadership.

12. Strengthen the Kisan Front in weaker states, especially in Hindi-speaking states and NCR.

13. Vastly strengthen the entire organizational network, with maximum stress on village units.

14. Greatly increase membership of the Kisan Front in all states, with stringent scrutiny.

13. 3. Tasks Related to the Party

1. Consciously implement the three key political tasks laid down by the 24^th Party Congress, viz. substantial increase in the independent strength of the Party; resounding defeat of the RSS-BJP-led regime through forging a unity of all left, democratic and secular forces; and all efforts to build and strengthen a left and democratic alternative.

2. Effective political-ideological-agitational-cultural-organisational battle at all levels against neo-fascism, neo-liberalism, communalism, casteism, and authoritarianism represented by the RSS-BJP. Systematic efforts to greatly increase politicisation of the Kisan Front at all levels.

3. Concentrate on the crucial task of Party-building in the Kisan Front. Make efforts to greatly increase the quantity, quality and activeness of Party members. Under Party guidance, ensure regular branch functioning. Expand the Party’s political-ideological education manifold.

4. Identify, allot and financially assist adequate number of whole-timers for struggles, organisation, and expanding the Kisan Front. Party committees should ensure that the main functionaries of the Kisan Front at all levels should give priority to Kisan Front work.

5. Ensure independent and democratic functioning of the Kisan Front at all levels. Make conscious attempts to implement the mass line concretely and effectively.

6. Strengthen Worker-Peasant Unity with better coordination, joint campaigns as well as united struggles by the three class fronts and by the SKM and the CTUs.

7. Strengthen the functioning of the Party Subcommittees and Fractions. Organise periodic reviews of Kisan Front work. Sub-committees at the central and state levels should ensure in-depth study of the changes occurring in the agrarian scenario and make appropriate changes.

* * * * * * *

Kisan Front Review – Chart 1

Membership from 2020-21 to 2024-25

No	Name of State	2020-21 Membership	2021-22 Membership	2022-23 Membership		2023-24 Membership	2024-25 Membership
1	Andaman & Nicobar	455	500	900	2,300		5,200
2	Andhra KS Andhra Tenants	1,32,140	1,54,659 18,500	1,24,005 42,115	1,11,058 46,460		1,51,009 57,310
3	Assam	66,506	1,07,915	1,30,246	1,10,062		1,21,025
4	Bihar	1,25,194	2,64,910	2,82,583	2,81,572		3,19,307
5	Chhattisgarh	4,012	12,075	13,169	9,110		16,048
6	Delhi NCR			2,219	2,238		2,087
7	Goa			167	138		166
8	Gujarat	41,239	50,198	47,697	50,600		56,095
9	Haryana	28,540	48,851	54,311	56,400		59,184
10	Himachal Pradesh	27,093	30,000	23,810	31,008		30,796
11	Jammu & Kashmir	30,000	25,000	40,000	39,276		42,722
12	Jharkhand	48,630	57,392	79,028	1,08,280		1,18,347
13	Kerala	52,60,505	5,77,6682	63,05,781	67,70,940		69,82,904
14	Karnataka	89,301	1,66,935	1,40,184	1,32,938		1,54,679
15	Maharashtra	1,85,656	3,09,544	2,93,243	3,00,476		2,75,339
16	Madhya Pradesh	21,374	31,536	44,552	49,333		60,984
17	Manipur	785	1,441	1,966	2,221		—-
18	Odisha	41,615	54,966	69,650	53,015		71,500
19	Pondicherry			5,350	5,750		5,875
20	Punjab	78,249	85,250	90,705	1,18,080		1,32,635
21	Rajasthan	1,76,046	3,28,505	2,51,843	1,12,101		1,75,581
22	Telangana	2,75,015	4,02,115	4,23,286	4,24,398		4,47,986
23	Tamilnadu	5,76,391	8,00,146	8,16,466	9,82,394		10,65,444
24	Tripura KS Tripura GMP	2,56,626	1,72,272 73,450	1,86,047 50,933	1,15,138 54,870		1,29,645 53,457
25	Uttar Pradesh	1,95,220	2,51,586	2,16,066	2,22,500		2,24,415
26	Uttarakhand	11,986	16,120	10,352	10,582		12,619
27	West Bengal	40,68,922	44,38,175	46,22,685	44,85,584		45,74,344
28	AIKS Centre	13	12	12	12		11
	Total	1,17,41,513	1,36,78,785	1,43,69,371	1,46,88,994		1,53,48,979