THE Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha (BPKS) came into existence on 23 February 1981. Its formation was declared in Patna in a mammoth rally of 15,000 peasants coming from different districts of Bihar, where it resolved to carry on struggles on the basis of its 24-point charter of demands. Its core of leadership was composed of (a) peasant leaders and cadres already active in the ongoing peasant movement, (b) some freedom fighter-turned-communists, (c) a section of the forces that had spearheaded the 1974 Bihar movement, (d) dissidents from organisations and parties like the Marxist Coordination Committee, the CPI, the CPI(M), the Lok Dal, the Socialists and the Janata Party, and (e) certain leaders and cadres from various harijan organisations and the Shoshit Samaj Dal (an organisation of backward castes, mainly Koiris). These leaders hail from all classes of peasant families, and include rural intellectuals and youths from all castes.

In its initial years, the BPKS had to face great obstacles from within, too. Some opportunist elements managed to make their way into the organisation, even occupying some leading posts. They advocated the concept of ‘independent and self-sufficient village community’, preached the Utopian idea of avoiding the use of modern machinery and chemical fertilisers in agriculture and laid the greatest emphasis on the rural-urban contradiction. Instead of advancing the struggle of the peasantry towards revolutionary land reforms and towards building a modern, new-democratic society on the basis of worker-peasant alliance, this simply amounted to dragging the peasants along the path of retrogression. In the name of peasant unity, they refused to recognise class differentiation within the peasantry and rejected all wage struggles. They were opposed to resistance struggles — even going so far as to put the Lal Sena at par with the Bhoomi Sena — and to peasants becoming partners in a democratic political front. They even undermined the significance of anti-feudal mass economic struggles, and instead emphasised 'constructive work'. Even local-level struggles were ruled out on the plea that it would hamper the development of the organisation.

Fighting against these wrong tendencies throughout the organisation, the Kisan Sabha gained further political maturity, and was able to retain its leadership over the peasant movement. On March 10, 11 and 12, 1984, it held its first State Conference in Patna in which 130 delegates from 16 districts of Bihar participated and the BPKS adopted a comprehensive programme (see Appendix). After the Conference, reorganisation followed at various levels.

Below the State Council and executive body, the BPKS has district councils and district committees, area committees, panchayat or local committees, and lastly village committees. The lower-level bodies enjoy a fair amount of autonomy in taking diverse initiatives in keeping with their conditions. In areas where the contradiction with the enemy is quite sharp, the leaders and ranks all have to learn the art of quickly switching their mode of functioning from legal to illegal and from open to secret or semi-secret, and of changing the form of mass movement in conformity with its natural development. There should be no place for rigidity, for whenever rigidity creeps in, these peasant bodies either lose initiative or just get liquidated.

By now, the influence of the Kisan Sabha and its sister peasant organisations has spread over 26 districts of Bihar out of 38, with varying degrees of organisation and work. It has its district committees in 13 districts. And in terms of men, it exercises its influence over nearly 25 lakhs of rural population, the majority being agrarian labourers, and poor and lower-middle peasants. Presently, it is trying to bring a larger number of middle peasants and also upper-caste people under its fold, and is attaining some successes, too.