Formation | 11 April 1936 , Lucknow, United Province, British Raj |
---|---|
Type | Peasant Organisation |
Headquarters | Ajoy Bhavan, 15, Indrajit Gupta Marg, New Delhi, India-110002 |
Location |
|
National President | Rajan Kshirsagar |
General Secretary | R. Venkaiah |
Affiliations | Communist Party of India |
All India Kisan Sabha (abbr.AIKS; lit. All India Farmers Union, also known as the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha), is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 1936. [1] [2]
The Kisan Sabha movement started in Bihar under the leadership of Sahajanand Saraswati who had formed in 1929 the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in order to mobilise peasant grievances against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights, and thus sparking the farmers' movements in India. [3] [4]
Gradually the peasant movement intensified and spread across the rest of India. All these radical developments on the peasant front culminated in the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress in April 1936, with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati elected as its first president. [5] The other prominent members of this Sabha were N.G. Ranga, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Bankim Mukerji, and it involved prominent leaders like E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Indulal Yagnik, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Z.A. Ahmed, Pandit Karyanand Sharma, Pandit Yamuna Karjee, Pandit Yadunandan (Jadunandan) Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan, P. Sundarayya, Yogendra Sharma and Bankim Mukherjee. The Kisan Manifesto, released in August 1936, demanded abolition of the zamindari system and cancellation of rural debts; in October 1937 it adopted the red flag as its banner. [6] Soon, its leaders became increasingly distant with Congress and repeatedly came in confrontation with Congress governments, in Bihar and United Province.
In the subsequent years, the movement was increasingly dominated by Socialists and Communists as it moved away from the Congress. By the 1938 Haripura session of the Congress, under the presidency of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the rift became evident [6] and by May 1942, the Communist Party of India, which was finally legalised by the government in July 1942, [7] had taken over All India Kisan Sabha all across India, including Bengal where its membership grew considerably. [8] It took on the Communist Party's line of People's War and stayed away from the Quit India Movement which started in August 1942, though this also meant losing its popular base. Many of its members defied party orders and joined the movement. Prominent members like N.G. Ranga, Indulal Yagnik and Swami Sahajananda soon left the organisation, which increasingly found it difficult to approach the peasants without the watered-down approach of pro-British and pro-war, and increasing its pro-nationalist agenda, much to the dismay of the British Raj. [9]
National Conference | Year | Place | President | General Secretary |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 (founder conference) | 11 April 1936 | Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh | Sahajanand Saraswati | N. G. Ranga |
2 | 25–26 December 1936 | Faijpur | N. G. Ranga | Sahajanand Saraswati |
3 | 11–14 May 1938 | Comilla (now in Bangladesh) | Sahajanand Saraswati | N. G. Ranga |
4 | 9–10 April 1939 | Gaya, Bihar | Narendra Deo | Sahajanand Saraswati |
5 | 26–27 March 1940 | Palasa, Andhra Pradesh | Rahul Sankrityayan | Indulal Yagnik |
6 | 29–31 May 1942 | Patna | Indulal Yagnik | Sahajanand Saraswati |
7 | 1–4 April 1943 | Bhakhna, Punjab | Bankim Mukherjee | |
8 | 14–15 March 1944 | Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh | Sahajanand Saraswati | Bankim Mukherjee |
9 | 5–9 April 1945 | Netrakona (now in Bangladesh) | Muzaffar Ahmad | |
10 | 22–26 May 1947 | Secunderabad, Aligarh | Karyanand Sharma | M.A. Rasul |
11 | 22–23 April 1953 | Kannur, Kerala | Indulal Yagnik | N. Prasad Rao |
12 | 13–19 September 1954 | Moga, Punjab | ||
13 | 17–22 May 1955 | Talasari, Dahanu, Maharashtra | Nana Patil | |
14 | 28–30 September 1956 | Amritsar | A. K. Gopalan | |
15 | 28 October – 3 November 1957 | Bangaon, West Bengal | ||
16 | 29 April – 3 May 1959 | Mayuram, Tanjaur, Tamil Nadu | Bhabani Sen | |
17 | 17–19 May 1960 | Gazipur, Uttar Pradesh | ||
18 | 30 March – 2 April 1961 | Thrissur, Kerala | Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri | |
19 | 10–12 January 1968 | Amravati | Teja Singh Sutantar | Z.A. Ahmed |
20 | 1–5 April 1970 | Barasat, West Bengal | ||
21 | 19–23 September 1973 | Bhatinda | Z.A. Ahmed | Indradeep Sinha |
22 | 7–10 June 1979 | Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh | ||
23 | 28–31 December 1986 | Barabanki Uttar Pradesh | Indradeep Sinha | Y. V. Krishna Rao |
24 | 16–19 June 1993 | Madhubani, Bihar | Y. V. Krishna Rao | Bhogendra Jha |
25 | Bihar | Bhogendra Jha | Y. V. Krishna Rao | |
26 | 1997 | Thrissur | Atul Kumar Anjan | |
27 | 2001 | Kauntai, West Bengal | C. K. Chandrappan | |
28 | 9–12 December 2010 | Aurangabad, Maharashtra | Prabodh Panda | |
29 | 27–29 March 2015 | Hyderabad, Telangana | ||
16 November 2021 | In CC meeting | R. Venkaiah |
AIKS led nationwide protests against Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
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The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), or Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha, is the peasants front of Communist Party of India (Marxist), and works for farmers rights, peasants rights and anti-feudal movement in India.
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