Janhastakshep:a campaign against fascist designs
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Press
release Date: 14 June, 2016
Subject: Peasants Battle Cry for Land in Punjab: An
Investigation into Police and Land-lord Repression on Land Struggle of Dalit
Peasants in Villages of Sangrur District of Indian Punjab.
A Janhastakshep team visited some of the villages in Sangrur
district of Punjab on the 28 and 29 May, 2016 to investigate reports of police
and landlord repression on struggle for agricultural land being waged by dalit
peasants in over hundred villages of the district. The team comprised of Ish
Mishra, Prof at Hindu College, Delhi University; senior journalists Sh Rajesh
Kumar and Sh. Anil Dubey and Dr Vikas Bajpai, Asst. Prof., Jawaharlal Nehru
University. The team wishes to acknowledge the generous support of friends from
APDR (Association for Protection of Democratic Rights), Punjab in the conduct
of this inquiry.
Apart
from visiting three villages – Bald Kalan, Bhadoh and Kheri, the team had
extensive interaction with peasant men, women and youth; activists of PSU
(Punjab Student Union), NBS (Naujawan Bharat Sabha) and APDR; village Panchayat
representatives and the district collector.
The Dalit peasants in different villages of Sangrur district
and adjoining areas of Barnala, Patiala and Mansa district of Punjab have been
agitating under the leadership of ZPSC (Zameen Prapti Sangarsh Committee),
mainly for the following two demands over last three years.
1. The
effective control of 33 percent of Panchayat land in the villages be given to
the Dalits by eliminating dummy Dalit candidates fostered by the landlords
during the auction of the land every year in order to maintain their effective
control over this land.
2. The
auction price of the land be reduced drastically such that the Dalit households
can successfully bid for the land.
In
Punjab the total land of the Panchayats is 1, 58, 000 acres, out of which the
share of Dalits comes to 52,667 acres. Village Bald Kalan located on the
Patiala-Sangrur highway in Bhawanigarh tehsil has emerged as the biggest centre
for this struggle. This is owing to the fact that the village Panchayat
has a huge 375 acres of land under its control and thereby the Dalit land also
adds up to a substantial 125 acres.
ZPSC had earlier forced the government to auction the land
meant for Dalits at half the rate at which it is auctioned to non-Dalits.
However, this price still comes to around Rs 23,000 to Rs 25, 000 an acre which
still poses difficulties for the Dalit families. Earlier this year the district
administration allowed leasing of thirty acres of Panchayat land in Jhaneri
village of Sangrur for a ‘gaushala’ (cowshed) at the rate of Rs 7,000 an acre
and that too for a thirty years period. ZPSC is now demanding that land be leased
to them also on same terms. The villagers argued – “If the land can be given for
animals at Rs 7,000, then why can it not be given to us at the same rate? We
are after all living human beings.”
The
dominant Jat landlords, a large section of which is affiliated to the Akali
Party, and their acolytes in the state structure have been alarmed by this land
struggle and have teamed together to put down this movement of the Dalit
peasantry.
On May
24 a huge police force was mobilized by the district administration to conduct
the auction of the dalit land of Bald Kalan village at the BDPO (Block
Development Projects Officer) office at tehsil headquarter Bhawanigarh even as
Dalit peasants and ZPSC activists from Bald Kalan and several other villages
protested outside the auction site. When the administration refused to yield to
their demands the agitators moved to outside Bald Kalan village and staged a
dharna on the Patiala – Sangrur highway.
Even as the villagers peacefully staged the dharna, two dalit
boys, who were drunk, of the dalit families of the village siding with the
landlords ploughed into their dharna on motorcycles at the behest of the
landlords. When the villagers beat up the boys the police resorted to a heavy baton
charge for more than half an hour on the protesters including old men, women
and children. Villagers also alleged that the police opened fire in air and on
their tractor to scare them.
Fourteen people were grievously hurt in the baton charge. Two of them
suffered multiple fractures and had to be taken to Patiala Medical
College Hospital for treatment. Several women who showed us the injury marks
over their bodies where the skin had turned blue said that they were beaten up
by male policemen.
On May 25 the police filed an FIR – No. 0075/2016, under
sections 307 (attempted homicide), 353, 186, 323, 148 and 149 against seventy
nine persons including twenty unknown persons. Till now 7 people from Bald
Kalan are in jail. A series of FIRs are being slapped and arbitrary arrests are
being made by the police in several villages.
The district administration has been refusing to concede this
demand. When contacted by us on phone, the district collector Mr Thind admitted
that the land has been given for ‘gaushala’ at a huge loss of revenue to the
government, but said that the rules did not permit the same for these dalit
peasants. He had no answer to explain what rules permitted this for cattle
while the marginalized peasants are being denied the same. District collector Arsh Deep
Singh Thind said that ZPSC is a group of people who have been provoking the
peasants in different villages to commit violent acts. He justified the arrests
in the name of maintaining the rule of law.
Undaunted by the police atrocities the villagers state that –
“this
is a struggle for our self-respect. It is the first time that we are feeling
independent of the landlords. We have our own land; there is no need
for us to go to their fields now.” ZPSC leader of Bald Kalan, Jarnail Singh
said – “The truth is that the landlords cannot digest the fact that we too
have the land now. Earlier our girls had to go to their fields (to get
the weeds for fodder), and they would say nasty things about them. Our women
were not respected. Our brethren are simple laborers; sometimes they would get work,
sometimes times not. They used to sit idle; but with access to land, our year
goes by in comfort. Now we do not have to bow before them.”
Our demands and
conclusion
In view
of the findings of our visit and the existing socioeconomic realities of life
in the villages of Sangrur district visited by us, the Janhastakshep team
demands from the present Akali Dal-BJP coalition government in Punjab:
·
That all false cases filed against the
protesting dalit peasants in different villages of the district be withdrawn by
the government forthwith and all arbitrary arrests that are being carried out
should be stopped immediately in the interest of justice and public harmony.
·
All men and women
languishing in jails should be freed immediately unconditionally.
·
The district
administration should allot the panchayat land meant for dalits at very nominal
price without any commercial motive in order to ensure the wellbeing of these
marginalized sections of the society.
·
The dalit families
in Kheri village who had been allotted land for homesteads should be
given possession of the same without further ado and law should be implemented
in the spirit of justice rather than selectively to ensure the benefits of the
dominant sections in the village.
·
The policemen guilty of
committing brutalities on villagers in Bald Kalan village should be booked
under law and compensation be given to those injured in police action.
Readers
can have an idea of the direction in which this movement is headed from the
reply we got from Baksish Singh, a highly educated youth in the village of
Bhadoh, to our question – why did you choose the color of your flag to be red;
because it is blue that is considered to be the color of the Dalit movement in
the country? His straightforward answer was – red is the color of revolution.
We couldn’t have agreed more with Baksish.
-sd- -sd-
Prof Ish Mishra Dr Vikas Bajpai
(Convener) (Co-convener)
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