All India Kisan Sabha

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All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)
Formation11 April 1936(88 years ago) (1936-04-11), Lucknow, United Province, British Raj
TypePeasant Organisation
HeadquartersAjoy Bhavan, 15, Indrajit Gupta Marg, New Delhi, India-110002
Location
  • India
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]

Contents

History

Kisan Sabha in Delhi (1970) Borsul A.I.K.S. Conferance (15).jpg
Kisan Sabha in Delhi (1970)

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]

Conferences and office bearers

National ConferenceYearPlacePresidentGeneral Secretary
1
(founder conference)
11 April 1936Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Sahajanand Saraswati N. G. Ranga
225–26 December 1936Faijpur N. G. Ranga Sahajanand Saraswati
311–14 May 1938Comilla
(now in Bangladesh)
Sahajanand Saraswati N. G. Ranga
49–10 April 1939Gaya, Bihar Narendra Deo Sahajanand Saraswati
526–27 March 1940Palasa, Andhra Pradesh Rahul Sankrityayan Indulal Yagnik
629–31 May 1942Patna Indulal Yagnik Sahajanand Saraswati
71–4 April 1943Bhakhna, Punjab Bankim Mukherjee
814–15 March 1944Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh Sahajanand Saraswati Bankim Mukherjee
95–9 April 1945Netrakona
(now in Bangladesh)
Muzaffar Ahmad
1022–26 May 1947Secunderabad, Aligarh Karyanand Sharma M.A. Rasul
1122–23 April 1953Kannur, Kerala Indulal Yagnik N. Prasad Rao
1213–19 September 1954Moga, Punjab
1317–22 May 1955Talasari, Dahanu, Maharashtra Nana Patil
1428–30 September 1956Amritsar A. K. Gopalan
1528 October – 3 November 1957Bangaon, West Bengal
1629 April – 3 May 1959Mayuram, Tanjaur, Tamil NaduBhabani Sen
1717–19 May 1960Gazipur, Uttar Pradesh
1830 March – 2 April 1961Thrissur, Kerala Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri
1910–12 January 1968Amravati Teja Singh Sutantar Z.A. Ahmed
201–5 April 1970Barasat, West Bengal
2119–23 September 1973Bhatinda Z.A. Ahmed Indradeep Sinha
227–10 June 1979Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh
2328–31 December 1986Barabanki Uttar Pradesh Indradeep Sinha Y. V. Krishna Rao
2416–19 June 1993Madhubani, Bihar Y. V. Krishna Rao Bhogendra Jha
25Bihar Bhogendra Jha Y. V. Krishna Rao
261997Thrissur Atul Kumar Anjan
272001Kauntai, West Bengal C. K. Chandrappan
289–12 December 2010Aurangabad, Maharashtra Prabodh Panda
2927–29 March 2015Hyderabad, Telangana
16 November 2021In CC meetingR. Venkaiah

Activities

Protest against three Agri-bills

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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References

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Further reading