SO far as the middle peasants / strata are concerned, the landlords and rich peasants of their castes influence them not only on caste lines, but on economic, political and cultural lines as well. And this makes the problem of forging unity with them all the more complex. The failure of the leaders of the movement to ease this complex-turned-tense situation by taking timely steps has, on many occasions, brought great losses to the movement. At times the movement has even got deviated from its original object, tending to degenerate into a veritable war of attrition.

The experience of Lahsuna is a case in point. One lower-caste rich peasant of this village had some dispute over land with a Kurmi rich peasant, which gradually took an anta­gonistic turn. The former then joined the peasant organisa­tion and was soon found occupying, for all practical purposes, the leading position in the village, thanks to his display of great initiative and zeal. As the struggle got intensified, many Kurmi peasants expressed their desire to follow the organisa­tion, if only to safeguard themselves. But that opportunist man would not allow the organisation to initiate any dialogue with the Kurmi peasants, displaying, as he did, always an extra zeal in fighting the Kurmis. During the crop-seizure movement, there took place several cases of indiscriminate crop-seizure in clear violation of the decision of the area organisation. Here the Bhoomi Sena had earlier indulged in indiscriminate killings, and the harijan masses were naturally dying for revenge. Some local squad members, too, got influenced by this sentiment of revenge and consequently, there took place certain unnecessary killings from our end too — the Dularpur incident being the worst instance.

However, since then the organisation has taken earnest measures to set things to rights, and the situation is getting normalised. Still the problem of forging firm unity with the middle peasants/strata, particularly of upper and certain backward castes, and mobilising them in agrarian struggles remains a major problem in the movement.