ON June 7, leaders of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) made a scathing attack on the ruinous policies being pursued by both the Central and the Haryana state governments while holding these responsible for indebtedness of the peasantry. The occasion was a mass rally of the peasant masses in Hissar when the Central Kisan Council of AIKS held its meeting here. A member of the Central Kisan Council, Hannan Mollah, a former MP, revealed that one farmer was compelled to commit suicide every half an hour in India owing to the fact that farming was no longer a viable and sustainable profession. Addressing a large rally of the farmers on the occasion of three day state conference of Haryana Kisan Sabha, he asked the farmers and agriculture workers to unite and launch struggles in order to get the retrograde policies reversed. AIKS national vice president Amra Ram (an MLA in Rajasthan) accused the Congress governments of Haryana and Rajasthan of fraudulently taking away farmers’ prime lands and handing these lands over to Robert Vadra for the appeasement of Smt Sonia Gandhi. He held that both the Congress and the BJP were in fact following similar economic policies. Jatinder Chaudhary, a minister in the Left Front government of Tripura, highlighted the achievements of the CPI(M) led Left Front government by stating that land was distributed to all the landless, power was given free for tube wells, education was imparted free to all up to the college level, and total literacy has been achieved by the state. He said that the Left Front government never resorted to making false propaganda of achievements unlike the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government of Haryana that has been claiming to have made the state of Haryana number one state in the country, even while the farmers were deprived of subsidies in fertilisers, seeds, pesticides etc here. Jagmati Sangwan, all-India vice president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, urged upon the women to stand up and launch vigorous social movements, in unity with the struggling farmers, against female foeticide, alcoholism, violence against women, casteism and other social evils. CPI(M) state secretary Inderjit Singh asked the gathering to grasp the challenge posed to the livelihood and dignity of the toiling masses and strive to alter the policies of neo-liberalism which have benefited only the selected vested interests and multinationals. Others who addressed the kisan rally were Harpal Singh, Phool Singh Sheokand and Pradeep Singh, general secretary, president and treasurer of the AIKS Haryana respectively. They asked where were the jobs promised as a result of setting up of special economic zones (SEZs) in lieu of huge amounts of lands acquired by the companies who were now being allowed to change the landuse through corrupt practices at the official level.