Dalit
Collective: The Unity of Struggle to Fraternity of Commune Life
Ish
Mishra
The Context
For the last two years, the villages of
Malwa region of Punjab are witnessing a new caste/class conflict between the
landless Dalits and landowning upper caste rich farmers in collusion with the
administration. The rise of Dalits for their rights is partly owing to the
steep rise in Dalit consciousness in terms of scholarship and assertion. In
about 65 villages, the Dalits are
agitating for their rights. Though the Dalits have acquired access to
their share of Shalmat (collective) land through protracted struggles
only in over a dozen of the over 12,000 villages of Punjab, yet the Dalit
Collectives that emerged from the experience of collective crusade for their
land rights, have been eyesore of the upper caste rich farmers, who have been
fraudulently occupying and cultivating the Panchayat land reserved for
Scheduled Caste The Dalits of Balad
Kalan, who after acquisition of the land through valiant struggle undented by
severe repression have been doing Sanjha (collective) farming, a novel
way of egalitarian commune-building from below without any directing authority
from above, on the Panchayat land reserved for the members of SC community.
Their united struggle under the banner of Zamin Prapti sangharsh Committee
(ZPSC) had foiled the prior practice of usurpation of the land by rich farmers in
2014. This year again the Sarpanch
(village head) in collusion with revenue and development officials were again
trying to enact the farce of auction
through proxy claims on 24th May 2016. The protest against it by the
Dalits under the banner of ZPSC was brutally attacked by Police seriously
injuring many protesters including women.
Janhastakshep, concerned with the gravity of the situation,
resolved to send a fact-finding team to study the ground reality. The team
consists of Senior journalists, Rajesh Kumar and Anil Dube; Vikas Pajpey,
Assistant Professor at JNU and Ish Mishra, Associate Professor, at Hindu
College, Delhi University. The team visited 3 villages, Balad Kalan, Baupur and
Khedi and interacted with various cross-section and telephonic interview with
the district collector, who was not available to meet in person.
The background
Punjab
has 2 categories of Shamlat land belonging to village Panchayats. Nazul
land was constituted by the land of those who migrated/fled to Pakistan after
the partition and of those who die without leaving behind the legal heir. The
other is the common village land called Panchayati land. Consequent to the land
struggles (1946-52), known as Mujara movement in Punjab and its aftermath, The Punjab Village Common Lands
(Regulation) Act, 1961 was enacted
that mandatorily reserves 33% of all available Shalmat or common land in
all the villages Panchayats. But in reality the upper caste farmers in
complicity of village Sarpanch and revenue and development officials have been
invariably hosting dummy SC claimants to deprive the most Dalits access to the
land. The Nazul/Panchayat land can neither be sold nor bought. The Nazul land
is one time allotment but the Panchayat land is auctioned yearly. On papers 56,000 acres have been allotted to
Dalits but practically remained under the occupation of rich farmers.
The Benra struggle: The new beginning
This state of affairs of deceptively
grabbing the common land reserved for Dalits by the upper caste rich peasants
continued uncontested in any substantial way till 2008, when Behal Singh
of Benra village mobilized all the 250 Dalit families of village under the
banner of Pendu Mazdoor Union. The united mobilization of Dalits created
an awareness of their rights and the importance of the strength of unity among
the ‘wretched of the earth’. This
created an atmosphere that finding a SC dummy by upper caste rich farmers
became impossible. They collectively got the 33% of land on collective lease.
The 9 acres leased at lowered rates proved to be life line for the Dalits in
terms of self-respect and human dignity. The fresh memories of being
co-victims, realization of the strength of unity and experiences of collective
struggles gave them insight of collective ownership, production process and
equitable distribution. This became the experiment-field of creating a model of
Dalit Collective and its advantages. The land was too little for cultivation of
food grains as each family’s share would be just 10 Bishwa. In a planned
departure from the traditional paddy-wheat cycle, the Dalit Collective
collectively cultivates fodder crops – Chari (sorghum) and Berseem (clover)
round the year. As has been said above the access to the land is not so
important for the Dalits owing to the little shares of each family, it’s more
important in terms of the self-respect and dignity.. The landless Dalits,
particularly women had to go to for off places to collect fodder weeds for
their cattle. The green weeds became confined to the banks of the canals and
their distributaries and the fringes of the fields of the landowners. The women
going to the fields of the upper caste (generally Jat) for weeds had to face
disdainful contempt and many kinds of insults including physical and verbal
abuses. Now they have their own fields and do not need to go to the landowners’
fields. As was clear from the reactions of all the women we met during our
visit, this gave them the sense of self-respect and confidence to fight for
their rights may what come. Thus this struggle gave the idea of new collective,
probably the first of its kind in the recent history of the country. The Dalit
Collective that emerged from this struggle created a precedence and model
for collective ownership of means of production, its working and distribution
of the product. An elected committee of
11 members manages the collective production process and the equitable
distribution with sufficient saving for the bidding year after year. The idea
of the Dalit Collective can play the foundational role in building rural
communes whenever revolutionary transformation of society takes place.
The idea of Dalit Collectives became
the driving force and immanently innate feature of all the subsequent land
right movements of Dalits. The Benra experiment for over half a decade did not
expand into other areas but its ideas spread all over the Punjab, particularly
in the Malwa region, creating a panic among the rich farmers who have been
deceitfully cultivating the land earmarked for Dalits.
Shekha: The setting
The second phase of land acquisition by
Dalits began in 2014 with claiming and occupying 7 acres of land by the Dalits
of Shekha, in Barnala district, under the guidance of the students’ activists
belonging to Punjab Students Union (PSU). As told by Sukhvinder Singh Pappi,
the leader of the Punjab Naujawan
Bharat Sabha, the PSU activists came to know by examining the government
documents that the Dalits (mostly landless), have never been practically
accessed the reserved land. The initiation and participation of students in
land movement is a good omen for future. In Shekha village, the students
mobilized the Dalit families made them aware of their legal rights over the 1/3rd
of the village common land and equipped them with idea of collective lease.
They identified the land from the documents, occupied it and fenced it with red
flags. They held Dharnas and protests at BDO/DDO offices and succeeded
in getting occupation on the land, through collective lease in the annual
auction that legally belonged to them but was occupied by higher castes. This
victory was not as important in terms of economics as in terms sociology. It
saved them from humiliation and indults at the hands of the upper caste big,
middle and small farmers.
In
Shekha after acquiring the land through struggles, the Dalit families began Sanjha
Kheti (collective farming) on the pattern of the Berna village’s Dalit
Collective, once again refuting the prevalent notion of self-seeking
individualism. This collective ownership and collective labor process has
provided the Dalits a platform for labor socialization in Marxist terminogy. It
is not only economic gain for the mostly landless Dalits but more than that, it
is the gain in terms of dignity and self-respect. Owing to mechanization of
farming and use of herbicides, the weeds for fodder became scarce. They could
be found only on the forage along the canals and on the fringes of the
agricultural lands. The Dalit women going to collect fodder weeds to the fields
of Jat farmers were usually insulted with physical and verbal abuses and
casteist contempt. Once they have access
to land and grow fodder crops, they save themselves from such abuses. Therefore
for Dalits, it’s not merely economic but social struggle for human dignity. One
of the peculiarities of this land movement is that it is not only supported but
initiated by the students with continuing active participation. In order to
coordinate various movements, and spearhead new ones, an organization on the
principles of democratic collectivity, an organization Zmain Prapti
Sangharsh Committee (ZPSC) was
formed after prolonged deliberations. It adopted the red flag with thde sun in
the center as it flag of struggle and construction. ZPEC henceforth became the
revolutionary organization that is leading the movement for liberating the
reserved Shalmat land for Dalits in many villages of Sangrur, Barnala,
Patiala and other districts of Malwa. Most important has been the struggle in
Balad Kalan, the center of the present controversy, where the size of the
Panchayati land is huge, 375 acre with 125 acres reserved for the SC community.
Henceforth the Dalit movements for access to their share of Shalmat land has been steadily spreading in, many
villages of the 5 districts of Malwa region – Sangrur, Mansa, Jullundur,
Barnala and Patiala.
Balad Kalan: Consolidation
After success in Sheka other
villages too witnessed the rise of Dalits for collectively claiming the
Panchayati land reserved for the SCs. Rise of Dalits in Balad Kalan holds
special significance for 2 interlinked reasons. The first is the size of the
land. Total Panchayati land is 375 acres of which 125 acres are reserved for
yearly auction to the SC community. Secondly, just because of the size of the
land and assertion by otherwise subdued Dalits on it, made the rich peasants
who had been by deception and fraud reaping the fruits of that land and hence
it faced the brutal repression police and the administration in complicity of
the rich farmers. For all these years after the passage after passage of the
law regarding this in 1961 till April 2014, the Dalits of Balad Kalan remained
deprived of their land rights. The awareness among the Dalits of the village of
the might of the Dalit Collectives motivated them towards the collective
crusade for the rights and they organized themselves into an unit of ZPSC and
held protests and launched protracted agitation for their rights. There were
lathicharged beaten up leading to seriousies injuring many men & women. 41
people were detained for 59 days, as is the usual method of breaking the
strike, charged under various IPC charges including attempt to murder. ZPSC
took a decision of not applying for bail of the arrested agitators but to
pressurize the government to withdraw the false cases through agitations. There
were protests for their release all over Punjab. Eventually the struggle
yielded fruit and the Dalit Collective formed under ZPSC won the battle and
secured the release of the comrades and the lease of the land. That proved to
be a historic victory.
The
54 year old Karnail Singh was overwhelmed recollecting the experiences of those
days. He was among the arrested agitators. His forearm was severely injured in
brutal lathicharge that needed stainless steel prosthesis and still pains. He
feels that pleasure of the access to land after working for generations as
laborer on the fields of Jat Zamindars.
It brought about a new spring in the lives of the 143 Dalit families of
Balad Kalan. As Sandip Kaur, who had been badly beaten up by male cops in the thighs
and back in brutal police action on 24th May 2016 to break the
protest, recalled the inhuman insults inflicted of the Jat Zamindars whenever
they went to collect weeds for the cattle in their fields. The access to land
was a kind of emancipation. Notwithstanding the pain of nearly fresh injuries she proudly expressed her
determination not to lift the collective occupation of land and to fight till
the end.
The
activists of ZPSC visited the village and held the meetings with Dalits and
made them aware of their rights and the experiences of Dalit Collectives. On
June 27, 2014, all the Dalits of Balad Kalan came out came out of their homes
to battle a 500-strong posse of Punjab Police men called out to support
panchayat and revenue officials attempting to subvert the auction of 125 acres
of common land reserved for lease to SCs. "They were brutal," says
Paramjit Kaur, 40, who spent weeks in a coma after a particularly vicious
policeman repeatedly pounded her on the head with his baton. Balad Kalan became
a precedent of transformation that is overtaking rural Punjab, quietly but
firmly challenging, even demolishing, age-old caste equations. Dalit
Collectives like in Balad Kalan have managed to take control of common land
legally reserved for Scheduled Caste communities in as many as 16 Sangrur
villages.
The Dalits had already the experience of
advantages of Sanjha Kheti (collective farming) in relatively smaller pieces.
Applying that experiment at a relatively larger scale was a challenge that the
Dalits Collective of the accepted and carried on successfully in the advantage
of all. It proved to be vitally advantageous vis-à-vis individual farming as
practiced by rich and middle upper caste farmers. The guiding principle of
collective is the common ownership of the means of production, collective labor
process and equitable distribution of the product. The successful
implementation of Dalit Collective that is not only an economic unit but the
social and cultural unit too, has provided an alternative model to self-seeking
individualistic perception of humans. It has also provided a platform of
socialization and organization and association with other Dalit Collectives
that have already come up in over dozen
of villages and join hands with upcoming such movements. The functioning of the
collective is supervised by an elected committee of the Collective that manages
the efficiency in production and equitable distribution after saving the money
for next auction.
This
year as mentioned above, the administration connived with the village Sarpanch
representing the interests of the Jat farmers tried to subvert the auction
through proxy claimants. Once again all the men and women of Dalit families and
their supporters from outside and the members of other collectives came out on
Roads and blocked the road at Bhawanipur and once again they were brutally
attacked by the Police. Like in 2014, this time too male Police dragged and
beat up women along with men. 4 girls were going to attend coaching classes,
despite all their pleadings; they were dragged and brutally beaten up with
rifle butts and lathis. 8 people are arrested with the usual charges of attempt
to murder, obstructing lawful authority et.al. At the time of writing this
report they are still in Jail. The women’s participation is quite encouraging.
Out of around 400 protesers, half of them were women. May what come, Dalit
Collective is determined not to give up their legitimate occupation of the land
and have begun the process of cultivation of the Kharif crop. The threats of
the withdrawal of MNREGA and BPL cards, arrests and false cases have not been
able to dent into their courage and determination to fight for their legitimate
right to land. The Balad Kalan ZPSC President, Kishan Singh categorically told
the team that their struggle was not for any charity from the government but
regular work.
Badau: Study to Struggle
In Badou, we met the villagers in Raidas
Dharmshala whose walls were decorated with quotations from revolutionary
Punjabi poet Pash; Che Guerra and Bhagat Singh. A ZPSC whole timer Pirthi Singh
Longowal from Longowal village of the district is camping there as a whole
timer of ZPSC to consolidate the Dalit awakening and organization and take the
experiment and struggles of Dalit Collective to other villages. In the villages
where Dalit Collectives are active, as told by Prithi Singh during our visit to
the village, they plan to open libraries. On being asked about priority for
library he quoted Ambedkar’s famous teaching that to end the suffering one has
to struggle and to struggle one has to study as struggle without knowledge is
doomed to fail. Here too 22.5 acres for 180 families is not enough for forming
the food grain and hence they too adopted round the year fodder crop cycle.
Team went the field with greeneries all around the pump in the middle. A year
ago when ZPSC launched the movement, the stotry of Police and Zamindar
brutality was the same as at Balad Kalan. Many including 3 women were injured.
The Police did not spare even the rag picker women.
At
the time of writing this report, Sukhvinfer Singh of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha
telephonically informed that in Badau, Janedi and Grachon villages the Dalit
Collectives have eventually been allotted the land of their share and Balad
Kalan and other villages there is status-quo. The Dalit Collective is spreading
fast. As yet Dalits in more than 16 villages have gained the access to the Shamlat
land and movement is on. Sukhvinder also informed that in attempt to expand the
Dalit Collective to other villages, Pirthi Singh reached Mandera village near
Longowal. As they were holding the protest meetimg Police cracked down and
arrested him along with 13 others. They are still in Jail. In the struggle
Other Movements:
During the 2014-15 land movement under the leadership of
ZPSC, according to Basheshwar Prasad from the Associaton for Democratic
Rights (AFDR), Punjab, over 250 acres of Shamalat land reserved for
SC has been occupied by the Collectives. The villages having Dalit Collectives
include Bijda, Namod, Kalara, Chandeli, Bavpur, Janedi and others.
The Dalit Mahapanchayat
The
ZPSC, in order to consolidate the gains and spread the movement to other parts
of the Malwa region, organized a Dalit Mahapanchayt in March 2015 ahead of the
auction in May. It was attended by the delegates from 80 villages of the 5
districts mentioned above. The strength of the Panchayat and revolutionary
deliberations alerted the Jat farmers and the administration about the possible
rise of Dalits in other villages. Their fear was not baseless. Collectives came
up in few more villages’ including Matoi in Sangrur district. In continuation
of the Mahapanchayat, ZPSC and various other peasants’; students’ and human
rights organizations have given a joint call to protest the Police action and
demand the withdrawal of fake charges on the agitators and their release along
with the main demand of access to the land to Dalits reserved for them, district headquarters of Punjab. On 20 March
2016 there was another ZPSC convention in Grachon village in which Dalit
Collective had won the lease of the reserved Panchayat land. The convention was
attended by over 400 Dalits from 102 villages. It pledged to carry on the land
movements for the Dalit Collective in all the villages of Punjab. The movement
is opposed by Bhartiya Kisan Union And Punjab Kisan Union as they represent the
interest of the rich farmers.
Ever
since, many meetings and convention attended by Dalit representatives of
various villages from Sangrur, Mansa, Barnala and Patiala districts have been
organized with purpose of elevating radical Dalit consciousness and awareness
about their land rights and advantages of Collectives. The ZPSC held a meeting
of 80 villages but attracted people from over 100 villages. In 2015 the meeting
in Mansa at PSU Office was attended by over 1000 delegates. Another convention
of 4,000 Dalits from 102 villages was held at Grachon village. One of the
common agenda of all these conventions and meetings has been occupation of the
reserved land and creation of Dalit Collectives as not only economic but also
as socio-political platform and educational center for the radicalization of
Dalit consciousness.
Janedi: The rational rebuttal of criminal
attack by Zamindars on the Collective
Janedi village is another village where the Dalit
Collective was able to secure the lease of the reserved land and to
institutionalize the collectively farm. The collective was attacked by the
goons of the Zamindars. The goons were beaten up by the members of the
collective and their guns snatched and deposited in Police station and Police
was forced to arrest few goons. There was a murder in Baupur in personal
rivalry; the leaders of the Collective were arrested in false cases. One of the
accused named in the 24th May is already in Jail.
Dalit Collective in Matoi :
Women’s Empowerment
One of the special features of the movements of
these Dalit Collectives has been participation of women in significant number.
In the protest gathering of over 400 in Dalad Kalan on 24th May
number of women was well over 200, according to the villagers we talked
to. Another significant feature has been
the initiative and participation of students. Learning about the Dalit
Collective of the Shekha village, created on the initiative of the students of
Punjab Students Organization (PSU). Few female students under the leadership
Sandip Kaur of Matoi village in Sangrur sought to experiment of Dalit
Collective in her village. She mobilized the educated Dalit girl from her
college and other villages in 2014 and led a protracted agitation and finally
won the lease of 17 Bighas of farmland reserved for SC communities. Like
Shekha, Berna and Badou, the Matoi Collective also adopted to cultivate fodder
crops round the year. Now the women of the village no longer needed to forage
for fodder for the cattle.
Khedi: The Travesty of
Social Justice
The case of Khedi is mind boggling. 56
Dalit families were allotted residential plots in 1976 but they never got its
notification and hence the possession. Punjab & Haryana High Court
gave a judgement that if the house on the plot is not built within 3 years of
allotment the land shall be taken over by the Panchayat. It is
only during the land movements in other villages, the students associated with
PSU explored the reality. The Dalits have identified from the documents and
occupied the land under the banner of ZPSC. For all these years it had been
leased for agriculture. The allottees were made aware of their rights by ZPSC.
Learning about the experiences of other movements and Collectives, the Dalits
organized them into Collective and occupied the land, erected tents under the
red banner of ZPSC with the ZPSC red flags marking the boundaries. Octavian
Nakshtra Singh, an ex-army man, oozing with confidence, narrated how they
confronted the attackers. There was some quarrel between two families of the
village for which the Sarpanch’s husband, acting as the de-facto Sarpanch, on
the behest of the rich upper caste farmers accused the agitators and Police
lodged FIR against 18 people and confiscated a Scooty and a motor bike from 2
Dalit boys. 4 People are still in jail.
The
Sapanch’s husband terminated 4 women’s work from the MNREGA project and
threatened them with withdrawal of their BPL letter. It is to be noted that
these 4 women are from the families whose houses were demolished for road
construction without any compensation as they didn’t have any land documents. They
also don’t figure in the list of 56 allottees.
It is also to be noted that the ZPSC of Khedi have in principle have
resolved to accommodate these families too. The Sarpanch’s husband, when
confronted took the plea to be SC himself and counter questioned us why the
issue is being raised only now? The position in the village is reserved for SC
and Woman. The Dalits are camping in the
open enduring the heat and wind but the pleasure of struggle for rights keeps
them untired. All the men and women were unanimous in their determination to
fight till they breathe last.
The Collective Kitchen
The other Collectives practice
collective ownership of land, collective farming and equitable distribution
Near, Khedi has Collective kitchen of 200 people. Each member contributes one’s
share and the collectively cook and dine. They have constructed Raidas temple
adjacent to common kitchen where plenty of utensils and plates can be seen. In
the context of propagation of individualism, as the ruling principle of society,
the collective kitchen is a model and inspiration of collective ventures.
The Role of Police and
Administration
The role of the administration has
always been against the Dalit agitators and tp break their united struggle all
kind of repressive actions including violence by Police and registration of
false cases against the agitators. (Details from Vikas’s draft)
Observations
·
The notion that agriculture in Punjab has
transcended feudal social relations to capitalist stand refuted by the
prevalent caste biases, particularly against Dalits.
·
To fulfill its constitutional obligations
under the Directive Principles of the State Policy, the Punjab Government
passed legislation in 1961 to reserve the allotment of the 1/3rd of
the collective land in every village for SC communities. But this reservation
had remained futile for over half of a century, as in practice, the Dalits
remained landless and their share of land was fraudulently appropriated by the
high caste farmers using dummy/proxy Dalit claimants in connivance with the
administration, Police and politicians.
·
With the rise of Dalit scholarship and
assertion owing to historical reasons during the last 3 decades, there have
been corresponding rise in the Dalit consciousness and awareness among them
about their constitutional rights.
·
As a matter of pleasant surprise, after the
precedent of Benra Dalit Collective, the initiative of Dalit mobilization for
their rights was taken by students indicating future alliances of radical
movements.
·
The participation of women has been
significant alluding to rose in the feminist consciousness in the rural Punjab.
The movement for claim and occupation of the Panchayat land reserved for Dalits
in Matoi by female students, not belonging to any organized group, is incredible,
symptom of a dialectical unity of Dalit and feminist consciousness that needs
to be channelized.
·
The administration and Police have always
sided with the rich farmers to crush the Dalit demands for their legitimate
rights in the collective land. The not only aid and abet the usurpation of
rights of Dalits by upper castes but actively participate in perpetuating the
fraud, using the government machinery and its coercive apparatuses.
·
When the determined, fearless might of the
collectivity of the oppressed, with ‘nothing to lose attitude’ rises for the
right, no repression can stop it. Eventually it would have its way, as
exemplified by Dalit Collectives of ZPSC.
·
The functioning of the Dalit Collectives and
the solidarity among its members is a strong refutation of the privatization
model of development.
Demands
1. Review of land reforms
implementation and redistribution of the land.
2. Survey of all the collective (Shamlat)
land and allotment of 1/3rd of it to real and not the fictional
Dalits.
3. Immediate recognition of the claim
of residential plots of the Dalits of Khedi.
4. Release of all the agitators,
withdrawal of false cases against them and action against the Policemen who
mercilessly thrashed men and women.
