MASS economic struggles of the peasants have mainly centred on questions like seizure of crops and land, control over irrigation and fishing facilities, and wages. There are also stray cases of movements for sharecropping rights and against usury and mortgage. Besides these, peasants have also raised demands for remunerative prices for their crops as well as for giving priority to middle and small holding peasants in matters of various agricultural facilities, though movements on such demands have not yet gained much of a momentum.

Mass economic struggles have been found to erupt generally at area level, whereupon the Kisan Sabha, acting from above, raises them to district/State level.

Land movement : Till date, such movements have been generally concentrated on the question of vested land, government land, ahars, tanks etc., all normally under the occupation of landlords and rich peasants.

To begin with, peasants petition concerned officials and stage demonstrations before their offices. But more often than not, such steps simply go unheeded, and then peasants, in their hundreds and thousands, gather on the concerned Plot of land and proclaim their possession by posting a red flag on it. Things, however, do not stop here, for, peasants have to face repeated attacks by landlords and their goons, and of course, intervention by the ‘custodians’ of the law. Such attacks are naturally met with active resistance by the peasants. Meanwhile, the land continues to change hands : often, if one side cultivates the land, crops are harvested by the other and vice versa. And this goes on till the land is finally brought under the peasants’ control. But even this does not mark the end, as government officials make a last ditch attempt to take away the gains — to divide the people they issue parchas (ownership documents) for such captured plots in the name of persons other than those who have already come to occupy them. Peasants resist such cons­piracies and demand that parchas be issued in accordance with the list prepared by their committee. And thus the struggle never really ceases — acquired through struggle, the land has also to be constantly defended through struggle.

For distributing such captured plots of land, land distribution committees are formed and land is distributed according to certain pre-determined policies (see Appendix). In the absence of such land distribution committees, govern­ment officials often succeed in dividing the people over the issue of land distribution.

When ahars and tanks under the occupation of landlords are captured, they are made open to all concerned for their daily use and also for irrigation purposes. So far as fishing is concerned, peasants are allowed to fish for purposes of consumption only. In the event of fishing on a large scale, every family gets a share irrespective of its participation in the process of fishing. A part of the income derived from such fishing is reserved as struggle-fund, and the rest is deposited as levy to higher organisations.

There are also certain other types of cases involving land. For example, some landlords and rich peasants often forcibly occupy certain plots of land, originally belonging to others, under some pretext or another (mortgage etc.)—peasants are forced to cultivate their own land as sharecroppers. Through land movement, many such plots have been successfully restored to their original owners.

Crop-seizure movement : Movement for seizure of crops and confiscation of grains is waged against tyrant landlords and, in some cases, also against certain reactionary rich peasants (see Appendix). Such movements are definite expressions of the economic offensive against the status quo in the countryside, and apart from providing sustenance to the starving rural poor they also help in accumulating a reserve fund for future struggles.

Wage movement : In wage movements, generally the demand is that of enforcing minimum wages as fixed by the government. But in actual practice, a compromise is struck somewhere between the statutory minimum rate and the existing rate. But even this turns out to be a very complex process. Not only do the landlords and their musclemen try to suppress the movement with their guns, but they also try to wriggle themselves out through such tactical tricks as hiring labourers from outside and leasing out land to certain rich and middle peasants. Corrupt government officials also generally take the side of the landlords.

It has been found that wage movements tend to succeed in such places where

    (a) the landlords and rich peasants are unorganised and labour is relatively scarce;

    (b) wage labourers are well organised and enjoy a close contact with middle peasants/strata forged through various types of movement, and where there has already emerged a force capable of leading the movement and resisting the enemy’s onslaughts ;

    (c) the people of neighbouring areas are ready to extend their active support and cooperation, or where the movement has begun simultaneously in a number of villages, and a proper leadership is there to co­ordinate this movement;

    (d) alongside taking all legal steps, including exerting pressure on the administration from above, there has also emerged a fighting force from below;

    (e) the struggle is concentrated against a few landlords who are, moreover, totally boycotted by all other sections of rural toilers like the blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, washermen, barbers, cobblers and so on, and the middle peasants/strata are dealt with through negotiations and compromises; and

    (f) the landowners are not so organised and after the strike the peasant organisation itself seeks some kind of negotiation to be held in the presence of, say, the mukhiya or some government officials.

Ruling out all negotiations and compromises or trying to clinch the issue simply through guns proves harmful to the movement.

Due to widespread wage-movements, some increases in wages have been effected throughout the region. In place of the earlier wage rate of 1 seer (nearly 950 grams) of food-grains or Rs. 3 per day, the rate presently prevailing is 1'5 kgs to 4 kgs of foodgrains or Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 per day (varying from place to place).