11 April 2026 marks 90 years of the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS). The AIKC meeting held on 30-31 January 2026 at Guntur, Andhra Pradesh has decided to organise programmes commemorating the occasion with year-long celebrations from 11 April 2026 involving all our members to build a strong organisation with steadfast commitment towards realising the agrarian revolution.

Crucial Importance of Organisation

An All India Convention on Organisation – the first in the last 90 years – was held on 31 January and 1 February 2026 at Guntur. It adopted a comprehensive resolution on organisation. This was as per the decision of the 33^rd Conference of the AIKS at Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu in 2013. When all the hard-won rights of the working people are being attacked and a neo-fascist divisive attack on the people is being unleashed to maximise corporate loot of resources, the peasantry across the country needs an organisation that can effectively counter these attacks and put forward an alternative. This article dwells on the main features of the resolution.

The resolution has effectively placed the importance of the organisation as follows- “The best of theories and concrete analyses of concrete situations alone cannot bring about any change unless they are accompanied by a strong organisation with lively contact with the masses that can put into practice such theory and implement correct decisions on the basis of concrete analysis.” This was further stressed by saying that in the “struggle against the ruling class policies, feudal values and exploitation, organisation is the main weapon” of the peasantry.   

The document has highlighted the class approach in dealing with the agrarian crisis and attacks on the peasantry. “The core of our organization – the rural poor – are the landless agricultural labourers, poor and middle peasants, while at the same time not losing sight of the necessity of building the broadest issue-based unity including sections of the rich peasants against the neo-liberal, neo-fascist, pro-imperialist policies of the ruling classes”.

The document narrates numerous struggles of the peasantry against British Imperialism as well as feudalism led by the Kisan Sabha in the 1940s that had “land to the tiller” as the fundamental slogan. Thousands of peasants were martyred and many were jailed and tortured. They included a large number of women. The early formative years also saw the Kisan Sabha leading big struggles against caste oppression and untouchability. As a result of the struggles by the AIKS, land could be liberated from the oppressive feudal hold in Telangana, land reforms could be successfully implemented in Kerala, and later in West Bengal and Tripura.

Building Worker-Peasant Unity

After Independence, the first ever All India General Strike called collectively by the trade unions and peasants and agricultural workers’ organisations was on 19 January 1982. Drawing inspiration from the martyrdom of five comrades from Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, this day is being observed every year as Worker-Peasant Unity Day.

In the recent period, the AIKS has played a significant role in meticulously building issue-based unity of different organisations, especially in the last 11 years of the Narendra Modi-led corporate-communal BJP-RSS regime. In 2015 the formation of the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA) and united struggles under its banner forced the BJP regime to withdraw the Ordinance aimed at facilitating corporate land grab. In 2017, in the context of the killing of six farmers in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh in police firing, yet another issue-based unity platform called the All India Kisan Struggle Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) was formed and emphasized on the crucial twin issues of MSP@C2+50% and freedom from indebtedness.

Parallel to this, attempts to build a strong unity between the three class organisations AIKS, CITU and AIAWU enabled us to hold two massive nationwide worker-peasant rallies on 5 September 2018 and 5 April 2023 in New Delhi. However, a crucial weakness still remains that the coordination and resultant unity developed at the All India level is yet to reach down to all the states, districts and below to the grassroots; and thereby organically build worker-peasant unity at the mass level across India. If such an organic unity is achieved, only then can an effective pan-India struggle against the ruling classes be built and achieve success. 

In 2020 it was the AIKSCC that gave the call for the Chalo Delhi movement from states neighbouring Delhi and the Grameen Bharat Bandh in other parts of the country coinciding with the General Strike called by the CTUs. This struggle was directed against the three black Farm Laws imposed by the Modi regime. The AIKSCC transformed into the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) which was the prime mover of the historic farmers’ movement of 2020-21.

But along with these united struggles, necessary as they are to counter and defeat government policies, the crucial importance of independent struggles by the Kisan Sabha must never be undermined or neglected. It is our sustained independent struggles at the state, district and especially local levels that help to strengthen the organisation. It is only when we have independent activities and strength, that we can be effective leaders in united struggles.   

Diversity and Uneven Development

The uneven development of the organisation and in certain States continue to linger on. The situation of stagnation or decline affects building a pan-India movement. Given the diversity of our country and of agriculture, crops, cropping patterns, policies etc., more equipped cadres are required at the state and district Centres. Hence, strengthening the functioning of the All-India Centre, State Centres and District Centres has been set as a vital task. Regional centres for different zones need to be devised with special attention to the East and North East, the Hindi Belt states and the NCR (National Capital Region).

Strengthening the state units to independently address such an important task necessitates evolving adequate measures to reorient the interaction with them and enable them to take up research and development activities to devise concrete slogans based on the contradictions, and on the prevailing social and economic relations of the respective states. The state leadership can take help of the P Sundarayya Memorial Trust – the research wing of the AIKS.

With the increasing capitalist penetration in agriculture and the specific pattern of crop-based large-scale production, the AIKS rightly identified the need to initiate crop-based federations as a strategic counter-offensive. This would increase the collective bargaining power of the peasantry and help to create broad alliances. The 35^th Conference at Trichur, Kerala in 2022 had amended the Constitution to emphasise the importance of crop-based mobilisation and organisations. States should understand the importance of such bodies for expansion of our organisation to newer areas.

Augmenting Strengths, Overcoming Weaknesses

Currently, the AIKS has emerged as the largest organisation of the peasantry in the world with nearly 16 million members. Since the 33^rd Conference at Cuddalore, in 2013 the consistent efforts to collect Village Data yielded results. In 2024-25, all states have provided district-wise membership and data of village units and primary units for the first time in recent history and this helped to bring a scientific and professional approach in the organisation.

Currently, the AIKS has units in 27 states, 444 districts out of 787 (56.41%), 2,594 tehsils/talukas/mandals out of 7,245 (36% – except Uttar Pradesh) and in 50,203 villages out of 6,49,481 (7.7%), in which there are 75,799 primary units. In 2024-25, Kannur in Kerala with 9,12,147 members is thestrongest district and the second rank is with Purba Bardhaman of West Bengal with 7,83,896 members.  80 districts have membership in more than 100 villages. 149 districts have more than 50 villages, and 258 districts have more than 20 villages. Kerala provides an excellent example of the regular and effective functioning of the state committee, 14 district committees, 210 area committees, 2,310 village committees, and 27,881 primary units. This needs to be seriously emulated in other states.

The slogan “Kisan Sabha in Every Village; Every Kisan in Kisan Sabha” was raised in the early years of the inception of the Kisan Sabha. It was a slogan during the historic Kayyur struggle and the 34^th AIKS Conference at Hisar in 2017 had reiterated the slogan. However, during the last 90 years of its existence, the organisation has not been able to rise to the true spirit of the slogan. Hence all the units must take up this task with determination and sensitivity.

The biggest organizational weakness of the Kisan Sabha is the absence of or inactive primary village units except in Kerala. Independent functioning of the Kisan Sabha is very poor below the district level across India. Village units have to be strengthened and activated as they are the veins of the organisation. Village units are the source of strength of our membership, cadre, movements, cultural activities, political struggle, social change, and financial resources.

Another key weakness of the Kisan Sabha which must be overcome at the earliest is that among peasant women and peasant youth. Many more conscious initiatives need to be taken to attract these vital sections to our organization at all levels, and integrate them into our committees and leadership. The AIKC had decided to hold state level conventions of women and youth in every state as a beginning to overcome this weakness. This decision must be implemented seriously at all levels, and constant efforts must be made to ensure that peasant women and peasant youth become a key strength of our organization.   

Leaders and cadres should study the concrete situation and contradictions and devise concrete slogans for struggles. Leading cadres should understand the pulse of the peasantry, earn their confidence and be a part of local struggles from initiation till conclusion. Kisan Sabha leaders and activists should go to the villages, live among the peasantry, learn from them and build movements.  They must participate in door-to-door campaigns, membership enrolment, local meetings of the peasantry, hear their views first and then evolve slogans and movements.

The resolution reiterates that, “a revolutionary class organisation should emerge as an antidote to inertia, routinism, conservatism, stagnation and submission to ruling class ideologies. It should have a long-term vision of liberation of the masses from all forms of exploitation. It should have the confidence and courage to come up with alternatives, strive for lasting success in our agitations, undismayed by temporary failures. In the struggle for alternatives organisation is our best weapon. Reinforced by the material unity of an organisation, welding millions of peasants into a disciplined army representing their class interests alone can a radical change be possible”.

The resolution further stresses that, “lasting success is impossible unless our decisions are rooted in the concrete analysis of the concrete situation and our programme of action is complemented by a strong organisation. The cadres of the Kisan Sabha, especially the leaders at different levels must emerge as mass activisers and opinion builders, who will transform into the political leadership of the peasantry”.