PEASANTS are fighting not only against the feudal forces, the bureaucracy and the police, but also against the anti-people repressive acts and laws of the state.

They are partners of a revolutionary-democratic front, the IPF. They stand for the rights of the weaker and oppressed nationalities or national minorities and oppose state repression on them (as in Assam, Jharkhand etc.). They oppose persecution of and discrimination against various religious minorities (as in the case with the Sikhs and Muslims). They actively participate in all democratic movements (be it against the Bihar Press Bill or against price-rise). In turn, they enjoy the support of other revolutionary and democratic forces all over the country, with the revolutionary workers of Bihar standing in the forefront.

Upholding the great banner of worker-peasant alliance, the revolutionary workers of Bihar have extended their sincere support and solidarity to the struggle of the peasantry. Many industrial workers, while on leave, have done a good job in organising peasant associations in their villages, workers’ teams have visited the countryside to conduct revolutionary-democratic propaganda, and in industrial centres of Bihar peasant struggles have become the main agenda of discussion among the workers, the majority of whom are still organically linked with the countryside.

The 1985 Assembly elections proved to be a great test for the peasants’ commitment to the banner of revolutionary-democracy, and they came out of this test with flying colours. Defying severe police repression and attacks by the land­lords’ armed gangs, the peasants in the areas of struggle cast the first ever vote in their life in favour of the IPF candidates. To take the example of Hilsa, the Front candidate there remained behind the bars throughout the period of electioneering, election meeting in his favour were all disrupted by the police (Mr. Raja Ram, a general secretary of the IPF was arrested from one such meeting after being severely beaten up), and to top it all, there was constant combing operation — but defying the shoot-at-sight order against the Naxalites, the peasants turned out in their thousands on the polling day to vote for the Front candidate. Throughout the counting the IPF candidate was leading over his Congress(I) rival, but through manipulations at the last moment he was placed second, with 21,000 votes, and the Congress candidate was declared elected, with 23,000 votes. (The upper-caste SDO who was in charge of the counting later confessed that he could not have possibly allowed the victory to the IPF candidate, and SP of Nalanda, Ramchhabila Singh, has been picked up for the President’s Medal this year !) In Sahar block of Bhojpur, where booth capturing could not take place, the IPF candidate led over his Congress rival by over 5,000 votes. But in the other part of the constituency, in Tarari block, all booths were captured to see the Congress candidate home. In the village of the notorious landlord Jwala Singh, the Congress candidate got 3,800 votes and only a single token vote was awarded to the IPF candidate.

In many other constituencies the IPF candidates were either jailed or warranted, and all possible means were employed to block their election propaganda. Still, in many constituencies of Central Bihar, the IPF candidates could poll votes in the range of 9,000 to 21,000. While all the champions of parliamentary democracy — Congress(I), Lok Dal and CPI alike — were busy capturing booths‘King’ Mahendra, a notorious smuggler and now a Rajya Sabba MP, simply entered one polling booth after another in Gaya with jeepload of armed goons and government officials, asked the voters to disperse and stamped all ballot papers in favour of the Congress(I). Later on, at the Masaurhi by-election when the District Magistrate dared to detain him alongwith a State minister, the DM was transferred within 24 hours. The CPI MP, Ramashraya Singh and his gang were detained with arms while capturing a booth, while Karpoori Thakur of Lok Dal openly instructed his men to take up guns ‘to protect their voting right’, an instruction which, translated into the language of Bihar politics, simply meant ‘capture as many booths as possible’., the fighting peasants of Bihar, through their conduct in the elections, proved that they are the real representatives of revolutionary-democracy, and also that this democracy cannot be won by ballots, but by bullets only.