The struggle for the protection of land needs to be linked with the struggle for attainment of land ownership.

 The struggle for the protection of land needs to be linked with the struggle for attainment of land ownership.

  The all-round attacks on farmers’ lands in Punjab have raised the issue of land protection as a major concern for the State’s landowning peasants. Even during the Delhi struggle against black agricultural laws, the farmers had conceived  the impact of these laws in the form of land loss. Even though those laws were mainly an attack on governmental procurement of crops, the farmers took them as an attack on their lands. The consciousness gained by the farmers through the thrilling experience of their struggles in defence of their lands against the big companies such as “Trident" at Barnala and “India Bulls” at Gobindpura etc. was very much alive in their minds. In the face of these overt and covert threats, the farmers came out massively to protect their land from the companies. Even after that direct and indirect attacks on the farmers land have continued and resistance to these is also going on. Presently right from the projects of various companies to roads under the Bharat Mala project, the onslaught of forcible land acquisition from farmers is gaining momentum in one way or the other. Recently the latest attack has been launched through land pooling policy of the Punjab government, through which the fertile land of the farmers is planned to be pooled for the businesses of corporate houses.  In this environment of rampant land grabbing, some erstwhile landlords, taking advantage of various legal loopholes, are also asserting their claims over the lands which are being cultivated since decades by peasant settlers. Jeond -a small village in Bathinda district has emerged currently as a glaring example of this type of land grabbing. Various  incidents of encroaching settlers’land by the alliance of land mafias, politicians and the state-bureaucracy are also coming to light. Due to indebtedness, the land of poor farmers is also alienating and is going to commission agents/money lenders. After the green revolution, the phenomenon of poor farmers being driven out of their lands and land holdings of money lenders/commission agents getting bigger and bigger has got momentum. In Punjab, the land of poor and middle peasants is under a constant threat of being snatched away, directly or indirectly, by the landlord-moneylender and corporate Sharks.  The struggles of owner-peasants are breaking out in various places to protect their lands. The struggle for the protection of land is currently the most intense and life and death struggle of the peasant movement in Punjab. The issue of protection of land is a burning concern for the peasants in Punjab. 
      During this period, the landless farm laborers have also exhibited their struggle activity for land in Punjab. The right to land ownership has been asserted by farm laborers in various ways. In the villages of Patiala and Sangrur districts, there has been a series of farm-labor mobilizations and struggles over their legal right to take one-third of the panchayat lands on lease. In  many other places too, farm laborers have asserted  their similar right to take one-third of the panchayat lands on lease. The demand to provide lands to the farm laborers by implementing land reform laws has often been raised by farm labor organizations. For the past few months, there has been a relatively increased concern and activity among some sections of farm laborers on this demand. The demand for providing land to farm laborers by implementing land reforms is also coming to the fore in the farm-labor organizations' propaganda. In the context of an agrarian crisis in the state, the most important issue is that of redistribution of lands. The imperialist attack of new economic policies is aimed at making the earlier land holding scenario more unequal and unfair. On the one hand, this attack is accelerating the process of alienation of the lands of poor peasants and passing them into the hands of money lenders and landlords. Further, it is also taking the form of directly handing over land by the state to multinational imperialist companies and big businessmen. This attack is also on those Panchayat and communally owned lands where farm laborers could assert their rights with relatively rudimentary organizational strength. On the other hand, when farm laborers were already suffering from lack of land, a considerable section of poor peasantry swelled the landless ranks. Even for them, the question of land ownership has emerged as the most crucial issue. Similarly the peasantry up to two and half acres of land is in crisis due to insufficient  land for subsistence. Higher farm input costs and living expenses have made their lives miserable and unsustainable. These sections of society, yearn for land, while the government attack is aimed at snatching land from the existing owner sections as well. This situation has led to prominently projecting the question of land ownership in Punjab. Hence, on the one hand, struggle is going on for the protection of lands and on the other hand, mobilizations are being seen demanding land for the landless. These two types of land struggles need to be inter-linked. These struggles need to be built around the revolutionary agrarian program of land redistribution. The protection and acquisition of land ownership is the issue of vast majorities of farm workers and peasants. About 30 to 35 percent farm workers and about 15 to 20 percent landless owner peasants together make half of the rural population. They do not have land or adequate land but are dependent on the agriculture economy. For this segment getting land constitutes a fundamental issue for its liberation. 
Similarly a very large portion of the owner peasants owns small plots of land. For them too, the issue of land ownership rights is of fundamental importance.  Even, their small land ownership is also under threat and the issue of its protection remains a major task. In such a situation, to raise the fundamental class issue of “who should own the land?” on the political landscape of Punjab becomes the dire need of the times. The policy of all existing governments is to push the peasantry out of agricultural terrain and hand over its land to landlords and big corporate houses. Actually the solution to the agrarian crisis lies in the redistribution of land and agricultural tools among the poor and landless peasants and farm labourers. Giving the right to land to the population dependent on agriculture is one of the major steps for the development of agriculture. At present, it is an important task of the revolutionary peasant movement (including the farm labor movement) in Punjab to raise the questions of land redistribution with reference to the needs of protection and acquisition of land. It must be urged upon that the lands of poor peasants can be protected only if the landless peasants and farm labourers become the leading and active core of the peasant movement. Unless and until, these layers occupy the front ranks of the peasant movement, the struggle for protection of the land will not be able to progress beyond a certain point. And similarly, the struggles for land ownership also require the support of poor owner-peasant sections. There is a need to link these struggles together from the very initial stages of the struggle. While taking perspective of building the agrarian revolutionary movement around the agrarian revolutionary program, there is a need to emphasize the imperative of developing a mutual inter-linkage between these two types of struggles from the very beginning. In the current context, let the polarization emerge along the corporate-landlord alliance versus the worker-peasant alliance line-up. 
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                                                                                    Pavel Kussa 
                                                                                    (July 2025)