Robbing Dalits

The government deprives Dalit families of their precious land in the name of development.

PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI in Bhopal

POOR people who have been allotted land by successive governments in Madhya Pradesh face the threat of being dispossessed of their only means of livelihood by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, all in the name of development. Dalits, who have benefited from such mafis or doles in the past, are the worst hit.

Madan Lal and his brother Ram Gopal, residents of Misrod village, situated on the outskirts of Bhopal along the Bhopal-Hoshangabad highway, and their family of 12 eke out a living by tilling their ancestral land. The land was given as mafi to the Dalit family in 1930 and since 1958 it has been in the name of Madan Lal. Revenue records of this period mention the name of Madan Lal as the owner of the land.

On September 26, revenue officials and senior BJP leaders met Madan Lan and informed him that the land had been allotted to the Institute of Applied Sciences and Fundamental Research Society to start a dental college. They asked Madan Lal to vacate the land within 24 hours. The Society is headed by Vinay Sarang, son of senior BJP leader Kailash Sarang.

Taken aback, Madan Lal asked to see the relevant papers, which he was denied. He sought to secure information about the papers under the Right to Information Act and found to his horror that in 2006 revenue record his name had been removed from the column indicating the owner. The six-acre (one acre = 0.4 hectare) plot bearing revenue numbers 261, 363 and 266/1 had been listed as nazool or government land. He approached the High Court for a stay on the Government Order, stating that if dispossessed of the land, he would lose his livelihood and his family would starve. The court issued a stay order on October 13.

Since the Dalit family did not move out of the land, it has been receiving threats and has been forced to hire an armed security guard. The members of the family are scared to venture out on their own; they move around in a group. "I fear going to the city alone because I don't want to die on the road," says Ram Gopal, the younger brother. Their six sisters have now come to live with them along with their families, saying, "If we have to die, we will all die together".

They told this correspondent that in the absence of the men folk, strangers visit their land, hurl abuses at them and warn them to move out. Madan Lal tried to approach the Chief Minister for help, but he was not allowed inside the residence. He tried to take the help of the police, but to no avail. The market value of the land is roughly Rs.6 crores but Vinay Sarang will be required to pay only an annual rent of Rs.2,42,760. Besides, Sarang has already been provided with a kabzanama (letter of possession) although the Dalit family still lives on the land.

The government justifies its action by saying that it has been taken as per the 1997 policy of the Digvijay Singh government, whereby urban land can be allotted free of cost to start industries or educational institutions. "Besides, only government land is being allotted. No individual land owner has been deprived of his land," said Manoj Srivastava, the Chief Minister's media adviser and Commissioner, Public Relations, quoting the Madhya Pradesh land revenue laws.

Referring to the case of Madan Lal and Ram Gopal, he said the land was given as mafi and they were never the actual owners. The land in their possession always belonged to the government, and it was entitled to use the land whichever way it liked. "There is no law which prevents the government from allotting land to those associated with the BJP," Manoj Srivastava said.

Unlike Madan Lal, who continues to live on his land, Narayan Nath, another Dalit with a huge family to support, has been deprived of his 14 acres of land at Islamnagar village on Bairasia Road, near Bhopal. He alleges that his standing crop was destroyed by the BJP Rajya Sabha member, Laxmi Narayan Sharma. The government maintains that Sharma is the legitimate owner of the land because Narayan Nath's father Shyamlal Nath had transferred the title to him. Narayan Nath refuses to believe this and produces land records proclaiming him and his mother Budhia Bai as the legitimate occupants. This case comes up for hearing in the district court on December 6.

Another person, Ramkishore Khatri of Seoni village, has also been deprived of his land. The district administration has allotted it to Balram Jat.

According to the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Jamuna Devi, the government is grabbing land belonging to poor people with impunity and doling it out to its favourites. "The government is behaving like a land mafia," she said. She wrote to various District Collectors across the State seeking redress for the affected families, but to no avail.

However, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan denied that any "land grabbing" was happening. "I will personally stop it if any wrong-doing is brought to my notice."

Manoj Srivastava claimed that only government land was being allotted to deserving people for various developmental activities. What is being glossed over is the fact that it is Dalits who are being dispossessed of their land because they have never been landowners. In the case of Madan Lal, for example, he said, the family had been given the land in lieu of its services as "kotwar" (a revenue official in rural areas). Since Misrod was included in the urban area, the post of "kotwar" was abolished and the land was taken away from Madan Lal.

"We have compensated the family," he said, a claim denied by the Dalit family. "We have not received a single penny. Moreover, we do not want the money. This land is our only means of livelihood, we don't want any money. We only want to be allowed to till this land as we have always been doing," says Ram Gopal. The land has more than 100 fruit-bearing trees and three tombs.

These are not sundry incidents. According to Jamuna Devi, such complaints are pouring in from all over the State. "In Hoshangabad district alone I have received at least 10 such complaints and even though I have written repeatedly to the District Collector, there has been no response," she says.

Uma Bharati, Bharatiya Jan Shakti Party leader, who has vowed to finish off the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, agrees. "In Bidhuni the Chief Minister doled out huge chunks of land to industrialists from Haryana. Precious farm land is being taken away from farmers and given free to rich industrialists," she says. She plans to launch a movement to oppose this.