T.K.
RAJALAKSHMI
in Hisar
in Hisar
FRONTLINE: Volume
29 - Issue 12 :: Jun. 16-29, 2012
A
playground, a public space and redistribution of common village land.
These are the three elements in a dispute that has driven a wedge
between the landless and the landed communities in Bhagana village in
Haryana's Hisar district. When this report was written, on June 4,
some 125 Dalit and Backward Caste families, including women and
children, had been squatting on the premises of the district
secretariat at Hisar for some 10 days, braving the sweltering heat.
Some of them had their livestock with them. They claimed that they
felt unsafe in their homes at the village. It is a peaceful protest,
and the administration does not deny it. “They have a right to
protest,” says Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar Aggarwal, who is also
a qualified doctor.
The
dispute in Bhagana began in 2011 when the gram sabha of the village
panchayat decided to distribute 280 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare)
of land in and around the village, including the common village land
called Shamlat land, among the residents. The move, according to
informed sources, was in response to the Haryana government's
announcement that 100 square yards of land would be allotted to every
BPL (below poverty line) family. But that announcement had been made
before the Congress returned to power for a second term. No State
government initiative on distributing land in Bhagana village,
however, materialised, and the gram panchayat decided to take matters
into its own hands last year.
The
common village land was distributed in proportion to the land that
the residents already owned. This meant that the Dalit families,
which were mostly landless, ended up with less than 100 square yards
each. They were also asked to deposit Rs.1,000 as registration fee.
Karamveer, a Dalit youngster studying for a bachelor's degree in
business administration, said: “We gave it willingly but learnt
later that there was no registration fee for BPL families.” The
dominant caste group in the village, most of its members belonging to
one family, managed to corner most of the redistributed land.
Karamveer's father was a daily wage worker, and the young man, too,
works on farms.
In
February this year, the socially and numerically dominant Jat
community in the village decided to lay claim to a playground that
the Dalits had used for years. On February 23, the Jats uprooted the
trees that the Dalits had planted around it and levelled the seating
arrangements they had installed. The Jats claimed that the playground
was also part of the common village land. The Dalits felt otherwise.
“Our children used to play football here. They were trained by some
of our youth. The adjoining area was greened and there were seating
arrangements, too, for spectators. We used to hold sports events
regularly for the children,” said Karamveer.
When
the Dalits made a representation to the government, the Jats were
angry and allegedly ordered a social and economic boycott of them. A
Dalit resident said: “The shopkeeper in the village was told not to
sell to us; the common village pond was denied to our buffaloes.”
The Dalits also alleged that despite the administration providing
security (a posse of policemen have been posted at Bhagana), a young
man called Shamsher was beaten up only because he dared to ask for
the wages for the work he had done.
The
dominant community is in no mood to relent. “We told them that
their children can play in the stadium of the school. Why should they
have a separate playground? Yes, we divided the Shamlat land and gave
the poor families 100 square yards each. We decided that those who
owned one acre of land would get 60 square yards from the Shamlat
land. We wanted to divide the playground land as well. That they did
not allow,” said a member of the Jat community.
The
Jats contend that their population has grown and land is scarce, but
“those people”, meaning the Dalits, keep on getting land. “They
wanted to make an Ambedkar Chowk in the middle of the village. Today
they are making a chowk. Tomorrow they will sit on our lands,” said
Raja Choudhary. The Jats of Bhagana vehemently deny that they
engineered a social boycott of the Dalits.
Another
bone of contention is a 250-square-yard piece of land in the middle
of the village. The Dalits and some members of Backward Castes went
to court under the banner of the Ambedkar Welfare Samiti claiming
that the land was theirs as they had been using it. The gram sabha
won the case in the court after the land records were dug up. As per
the land records, it was called Ahlaan Paana Chowk. Immediately
afterwards, the Jat-dominated gram sabha built a wall around the
piece of land and put up a sign that announced Ahlaan Paana Chowk.
The wall sealed off entries to at least two Dalit homes. This
happened in mid-April.
A
Dalit youth from the village said, “The common land in the middle
of the village can belong to anyone. How can a six-foot wall be
constructed, preventing access?” Suresh, whose home has been
affected, said: “There is a narrow passage of three feet now for
me, my livestock and my family to enter. Is this justice? We do not
have a separate shed for our buffaloes. We share a common roof with
our animals.”
The
conflict is not the only one of its kind. It is just one of the many
disputes that have characterised the State over the past decade. In
Khanpur village in the same district, when an agricultural labourer
asked for his wages, his buffaloes were taken away forcibly by the
landlord. He and his wife managed to appeal to the Deputy
Commissioner with help from the All India Agricultural Workers'
Union. The district administration intervened and ordered an inquiry.
But
there are many others who do not reach the office of the district
administration and therefore cannot hope for redress. At the time of
the last harvest, in Kheri Locham village in the district, women
agricultural workers refused to work after some people misbehaved
with them. It is alleged that tractors were driven over their legs in
retaliation. Such incidents are viewed as isolated ones and therefore
not given much importance. A year ago, not far from Bhagana, at
Mirchpur village, Dalit homes were torched and two people, an old man
and a disabled girl. The agitation that followed dragged on for more
than a year.
Bhagana
is located not very far from the epicentre of the recent agitation by
Jats demanding reservation in the Other Backward Classes category.
With the administration preoccupied with how to contain the
reservation movement, which is expected to erupt again in September,
it is not surprising that conflicts like the one in Bhagana are not
taken seriously. But the mood for a confrontation is slowly building
up.
Omwati,
69, who finds it difficult to join the protest in Hisar because of
her age, says that the number of such conflicts has gone up in the
last 10 years. Another Dalit villager, Dilbagh Singh Khokhar, said:
“Tensions have gone up as we have prospered. Some of our young
people are employed in the government. We wear good clothes and so we
have to hear all kinds of insults. ‘ Ke paa gaya hai Dedh [what has
he achieved]' ‘ Dedh chamal raha hai [the Dedh is glowing a lot]'
or ‘ Dhedhan ki chadh gayi' [it has gone to the Dedh's head] are
some of the insults we hear regularly.” . ‘Dedh' is a commonly
used derogatory term for Dalits in the State.
Ram
Avtar, president of the State chapter of the All India Agricultural
Workers Union, also spoke of how things had changed. Earlier, he
said, Dalits often worked for the Jats without wages: they chopped
wood, ground wheat, fed livestock and even made shoes. Sometimes,
they got buttermilk for clearing dung. “These days, they misbehave
with Dalit women if they refuse to do work for free. If Dalits
protest, they refuse them work, saying that they do not do it
properly,” he said.
The
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) initiated changes in
the economic and social equations in villages. Though much of the
work under the scheme was cornered by unscrupulous sarpanches for
their cronies and members of their own castes, and though muster
rolls were often fraudulently prepared and payment was irregular,
Dalits and members of the Backward Castes did get employment under
this scheme.
An
inquiry into fraudulent muster rolls in Mujadpur village had
implicated the sarpanch and her family members. “Earlier, Dalits
used to work day and night and get paid Rs.2,000 for the entire year.
Now, with the NREGA, things have changed and they do not do that kind
of work anymore. And as it is voluntary and for a specific number of
hours, they feel more free,” said Dilbagh Singh, who had taken up
the NREGA fraud case. But in Bhagana, for the last one and a half
years, there has been no NREGA work. The Deputy Commissioner has
promised to start such work very soon.
The
atmosphere in Dalit and Backward Caste families in Bhagana is
despondent. “I was just born in a wrong family,” rues Omwati. She
said that earlier for every seven or eight bundles of grass she
prepared she would get one free. “I don't do that work anymore,”
she said. The Dalits fail to understand why the administration is so
helpless in giving them a fair deal.
The
Jats of Bhagana blame the stand-off on Virender Singh Bhagoria, a
potter by caste (listed in the Backward Caste category), who is
leading the Dalits. “We let our Dalit brothers work on our fields.
We gave them land to build their houses. We need their labour. Our
children do not do agricultural work anymore,” a Jat villager said.
Bhagoria, who was with the protesters in Hisar, told Frontline
he had nothing to gain personally from the protest. “I am from that
village but do not live there anymore. But when I learnt what was
happening, I decided to help. The Jats want to occupy the Shamlat
land as well. They called a panchayat meeting but we didn't go as we
knew what usually happened at such meetings. We filed no FIR [first
information report] but just a complaint to the administration, and
they want us to apologise for that,” he said.
He
said that the administration wanted the Dalits to patch up with the
Jats and return to the village. “Our children play better, our
youth study better, and they do not like this. They abuse our
children in the school playground, that is why we have a separate
playground,” he said, showing photographs of sports events held on
the now-demolished playground. They took pictures when the trees and
the flower beds and pots were being levelled by the machines.
“They
didn't take any action against them for cutting trees. When a
Backward Caste sarpanch in a nearby village cut a tree, he was
suspended. Here so many trees were cut down. There was no action by
the administration,” Bhagoria said, articulating what many others
felt. It was generally felt that the administration gave members of
the dominant community a free hand and expected the victimised
communities to abide by the rule book.
“The
Deputy Commissioner says we should compromise. But that means we have
to apologise, and for what?” Bhagoria asked. Ishwar Singh, an
electrician, spoke of the alleged social boycott. “They do not let
me enter their homes. If I speak out, they threaten to slap a fine on
me,” he said. Kamla, a member of the potter caste, said that she
and others like her were not allowed to collect clay to make pots. A
carpenter, Sanjay, said that members of the dominant community owed
him a lot of money for the work he had done for them.
The
administration keeps a close watch on journalists visiting Bhagana
and the site of the protest. “We keep an eye on all the visitors.
And as soon as we know it is a media person, we ensure that they get
to see the administration's point of view,” said a member of the
Public Relations Department. The Deputy Commissioner claimed that
only 40 families were sitting on protest, while the rest were in the
village.
But
a shopkeeper from the village, who did not want to be named, told
Frontline that his business had suffered as some 150 families
had left the village.
The
Deputy Commissioner said: “There has been no mass atrocity. There
is a dispute over the two-acre land used as a playground and the land
used for common purposes owned by the gram panchayat. They decided to
make a boundary and they were well within their rights to do so to
protect it from encroachment.” Excavators were used to demarcate
the land and not to level the playground, he said. As for the trees
that were cut, he said that even the Dalit families had carried away
a share of the trees for themselves. “My main objective is to
restore peace.”
But
peace always comes at a price. Neither should the onus for
maintaining peace be placed on the victimised community alone. The
price for peace is very high in Bhagana and elsewhere in the State
where such conflicts are on the rise. And it does not take very long
for a conflict, if left unattended, to become a mass atrocity.
Copyright
© 2012, Frontline.
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