Sept 5 Rally: Demands of Workers and Peasants

The stage is set for lakhs of workers, employees, farmers and agricultural workers to reach Delhi on September 5 and challenge the indifferent Modi government. Reports from across the country show that an energetic campaign in almost all districts of the country – meetings, processions, jail bharo on August 9, samuhik jagran on August 14 – has inspired them to start moving towards the country’s capital city. They want to be part of history being made as, for the first time in history, the three main classes of working people in India, non-agricultural workers/employees, farmers and agricultural labourers, are unitedly holding a mammoth show of strength. The over-arching spirit of the rally, organised by CITU, AIKS and AIAWU, is to challenge the Modi government for its callous indifference towards working people and its servility to the big industrialists’ interests.

Workers queue up to board a train in Palghar, Maharashtra, to take part in the massive Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Rally in Delhi on September 5.

The rally also is meant to reject the poisonous communal and pseudo-national ideology that has been propagated vigorously by the Sangh Parivar in the past four and a half years with the connivance of the Modi government. The unity of working people is a direct challenge to the incendiary politics of division in the name of religion, caste, language and region. 

The main demands of the workers and peasants are:

1. Curb price rise; universalise Public Distribution System; ban forward trading in essential commodities
2. Implement concrete measures for generation of decent employment
3. Declare minimum wage of not less than Rs 18000 per month for all workers
4. Retract anti worker labour law amendments
5. Ensure remunerative prices for the peasants as per Swaminathan Committee recommendations; and timely public procurement
6. Implement debt waiver for poor peasants and agricultural workers
7. Pass Comprehensive Central legislation for agricultural workers
8. Implement MGNREGA in all rural areas and amend the Act to cover urban areas as well
9. Ensure Food security, health, education, housing for all
10. Provide Universal social security
11. No contractorisation of employment and equal wages for equal work for men and women.
12. Implement Redistributive land reforms
13. Stop forcible land acquisition
14. Provide Relief and rehabilitation for the victims of natural calamities
15. Reverse neoliberal policies

Rally will take over the Capital

From reports put out by the organisers, it is likely that the massive congregation will spread across the entire city because the plan is for one main procession and several supplementary ones from different directions, all converging near Parliament Street, near Parliament House. The main procession will start from Ramlila Maidan (near New Delhi Railway Station) where a massive camp has been set up where those coming from distant places can rest. Another camp has been put up in Ghaziabad, a city adjacent to Delhi. It is reported that employees of some federations (like telecom and insurance sectors) will gather at different points in the city and march towards the venue. Workers from different industrial areas in Delhi will either march or cycle down in processions. 

Women Participants

Besides women workers, especially the scheme workers, who will be joining the September 5 rally, thousands of women participating in a separate event – the AIDWA rally on September 4 – will also stay over and participate in the rally on the 5th. Women workers’ contingent is expected to be substantial. Scheme workers are those who work in various government- sponsored schemes or programmes like ICDS (anganwadis), ASHA/USHA working in NHM, mid-day meal cooks, etc. They are demanding regularisation, better wages and social security among other demands. Another big contingent of women will be agricultural workers from different parts of the country.

Large numbers of women from Maharashtra throng the railway station in Palghar, Maharashtra, on their way to Delhi for the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally on September 5.