Hundreds of workers, peasants and tribals in the villages around Padagha participated in a mass rally on November 27, 2011. The theme of the rally was "We are the producers – We are the real Maliks". The rally was organised by the Lok Raj Sangathan. A correspondent of MEL covered the rally and filed this report.
Hundreds of workers, peasants and tribals in the villages around Padagha participated in a mass rally on November 27, 2011. The theme of the rally was "We are the producers – We are the real Maliks". The rally was organised by the Lok Raj Sangathan. A correspondent of MEL covered the rally and filed this report.
Padagha is a small town about 35 km from Mumbai. The Padagah Committee of the Lok Raj Sangathan has been organizing the workers, peasants and tribals of the area for livelihood issues such as getting good quality ration and good quality health care. The struggle has resulted in a large number of people getting ration as per the rules, which they never got earlier. The awakening of the people of the area was evident in their enthusiastic participation in the meeting for which many came in tempos from far off villages, many even walking barefoot for more than 5 km. The people also contributed generously to cover the cost of organising the meeting.
The meeting was addressed by a representative of the Communist Ghadar Party of India. She congratulated the Padagha committee for organising and leading the people in their struggle for their rights and for choosing a very apt subject for the meeting. She highlighted that the root cause of all the problems is the fact that working people do not have power in their own hands. She called upon the people to take up the question of political power as an immediate problem demanding solution.
The LRS speaker first clarified that physical and intellectual workers, peasants, and other working people working in various public services like health, transport, post, PDS, water supply, electricity supply, banking sector, education sector, etc. who are the real producers of wealth of our country and not the big money bag industrialists, big zamindars and big trading companies. Hence the real Maliks of our country should be the working people, he thundered. He raised the question as to why the working people then are not the real Maliks and why are the producers of wealth living the life of misery? He clarified that this is due to the fact that political power is not in the hands of the real Maliks. Power lies in the hands of such big capitalists. He further explained that the only way forward for the real Maliks, the working people of India, is to build their organizations in the form of Lok Raj samitis at all levels, which should not only organize people to defend their rights but also to take steps in the direction of establishing Lok Raj.
A large number of youth and children from local villages and schools presented their songs, dances and dramas. Notable were the youths from village Pilanje who presented their play on the issue of fight for PDS & youths from village Khadavali who put up their mono-act play depicting how leprosy affected people are ostracized in the society.