Obra-Daudnagar-Haspura

Land movement : The first incident of land seizure in this district under our leadership took place in village Alpa in Haspura block. The Bhumihar landlords of Itwan village had grabbed 52 bighas of land from Koiri middle peasants of Alpa village. But the landlords were divided into two groups and taking advantage of this rift among the land­lords, our Party led the Alpa peasants in a successful seizure of those 52 bighas of land in December 1976.

Again in July 1977, 60 bighas of vested land were cap­tured by landless poor peasants and lower-middle peasants of Alpa and Itwan villages. This land was distributed among 65 families, each family getting nearly 18 kathas of land. The landlords could not tolerate this loss. Twice (January and March 1979 ), they launched attacks with the help of armed goons, but in face of the united resistance of the armed peasantry, they could not do anything. Rather one landlord, Krishna Singh, and two hired goons lost their lives. October 1980 witnessed another incident of land-seizure, when peasants captured and cultivated a stretch of 20 bighas of riverside vested land.

All these captured plots are still under the possession of the peasants. These successful land-seizure struggles acted as a model for the whole of the area, inspiring land­less and poor peasants of several other villages.

In 1979, braving severe police repression, agrarian labourers and poor peasants of Sansa village (Daudnagar PS) captured 2 bighas of land belonging to a very cruel landlord, Hiralal Singh. The same year, they also captured a pond under the possession of the same landlord.

In February 1983, 40 bighas of vested land were captured by peasants in Nauner village of Obra block. Here, too, the police and goondas launched an intense repression campaign, but the peasants put up a militant resistance, injuring several policemen and officials. Peasants of nearby villages extended active cooperation.

In Hichchhanbigha area of Daudnagar block, the people captured an orchard covering nearly 200 bighas of land.

All these instances of land-seizure movement were found to generate tremendous enthusiasm, and also to forge imme­diate unity, among agrarian labourers, poor peasants and even middle peasants.

The Kaithi Incident

The village Kaithibigha under Obra block is one of the most advanced centres of the peasant movement in the district. The village is virtually ruled by Bhumihar land­lords. Earlier, the CPI had a considerable following in this village, but with the Kisan Sabba mobilising the agrarian labourers and poor peasants in struggles on questions of wages and land, and the CPI always siding with the land­lords, the latter gradually lost its old base. A veritable polarisation took place — agrarian labourers, poor peasants and a sizeable section of middle peasants led by the Kisan Sabha and supported by the peasants’ armed squad on one pole, and the landlord-CPI-administration combine on the other. Contradictions sharpened during the parliamentary elections of December 1984 when the IPF decided to extend support to the Janata Party candidate as opposed to his CPI counterpart and declared that it would resist any move to capture booths.

It was in this background that the Kaithi incident took place. An armed unit of ours had taken shelter in the harijan tola of the village. Tipped off about the presence of the unit by one CPI man, Sita Ram, the police launched a massive attack, murdering 12 persons including 2 boys and 2 women. Fighting a losing yet brave battle against this massive police encirclement, two members of our armed unit finally embraced martyrdom, but not before they had killed four policemen and injured several others. This massacre was by no means an isolated incident. A few days before the incident, the then Bihar Minister of State for Home, Bhola Singh, had visited Kaithi, and while distributing more gun-licenses to the landlords he had told them that guns were not meant to be kept in the almirah (PUDR report, March, 1985). One need not comment further on the government-landlord nexus.

Exactly one year after this incident, on 1 January, 1986, the people of Bihar observed Kaithi Day in response to the call of the Kisan Sabha. And in Kaithi, a martyrs’ column was erected in the presence of more than 10,000 peasants. They vowed to carry the peasant struggle through to the end, come what may.