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Poor farmers lose out due to unending protests by Arpit Parashar

Farmers are caught between Mayawati’s promises, Rahul Gandhi’s idealism and mounting debts

Land acquisition policy in Uttar Pradesh has been changed at least five times in the past five years to benefit the farmers. Amidst the raging controversies over what should be the land compensation rate and debates and protests over the various clauses of the land acquisition policy, most farmers have lost more than they could gain from Mayawati’s new land policy.

The real winners in the extended fight for better compensation are the realtors and landlords across the National Capital Region (NCR).

Investing in property and land already acquired for various development projects is not an option now. Market rates have come down crashing over the years because of unending protests by farmers.

The lucrative market now is the 74,131 acres of land that has been notified for acquisition but not yet acquired in Greater Noida.

Shaqeel Ahmad’s land was notified for acquisition more than five years back. His village Jahanu Ka Nagla comes under the Jewar assembly seat, where the international airport and the F1 racing track have come up. As the protests by farmers led to delay in acquisition and subsequent payment of compensation, his debts kept piling up. With barely 6 bighas (1.1 acres/4452 square meters) of land, the money earned from the wheat crop was not enough to sustain his family and pay off the loans.

He sold 2 bighas to a realtor from Gurgaon at Rs 450 per square meter, just half the rate that the government has promised to the farmers. “I had no option. The loans were piling up and I had to marry off my daughter too,” he says.

Ahmad is not the only farmer selling his land at dirt cheap rates.

More than 70 percent of the farmers in western Uttar Pradesh own barely 2-8 bighas of land. Acquisition of their land by the government is an opportunity for them to settle their debts, save for the family and continue working on the fields of the richer farmers to earn their livelihood.

In areas where land has already been acquired, like in Bhatta and Parsaul, where 3 farmers were killed in police firing during anti-land acquisition protests in May, almost all farmers with small land holdings have accepted the government’s compensation rates.

“Those who had huge land holdings took the compensation money and blew it all away. Now they are protesting against the compensation rates and demanding more money,” says Dharmender Singh, who owns a small land parcel of 3 bighas on the outer limits of Bhatta village.

Farmers with holdings of 30-150 bighas of land are the ones who are protesting against the state government’s policy. “They are better off farming since their crop yields run into lakhs of rupees every year. They can afford to fight for better rates since they are financially well off,” Singh says.

It is farmers like them who are have joined Rahul Gandhi in the protests against the state government through the Kisan Sandesh Yatra, he adds.

Shaqeel Ahmad attended Rahul Gandhi’s panchayat at the neighbouring Rampur Bangar village and walked back home disappointed. “Nobody talks about getting the farmers their compensation money anytime soon,” he rued.

Gandhi has been criticizing the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh claiming that the farmers in the western UP region either do not want to sell their land or want a better compensation rate and a land acquisition policy that favours them.

For farmers like Ahmad, though, it is high time they get the money they have been promised as compensation over the years.

Rahul Gandhi’s padyatra through the villages along the Yamuna Expressway is just a spectacle for thousands of farmers like Ahmad. At least 50 farmers from his village have sold chunks of their land to realtors from across the NCR in the past one year.

In Jewar, as in other areas of Greater Noida, realtors have developed an unspoken understanding to target the farmers who are willing to sell land. Surinder Bhati, who runs a real estate business from Greater Noida, says, “At least 5000 farmers have sold their land (whole or part of it) since the protests in Tappal (in September) last year.”

The protests had resulted in cancellation of land acquisition for the Yamuna Expressway for a few weeks. Before the Mayawati government reversed its decision, around 1000 farmers had already sold chunks of their land.

Bhati says there is a buyer for everyone who wants to sell his land in the district if it has been ‘notified for acquisition’ under Section 4 the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

The buyers have been either real estate dealers themselves or businessmen from across the NCR. Shabbir Qureshi, who bought land from Ahmad, runs a real estate business from Gurgaon. “I have bought (his) land because its market value is only going to increase over time,” he says.

Real estate agents across NCR acquire information on saleable land in villages across the region from village heads. The village heads, who are mostly the comparatively well-to-do farmers from the village, either buy the land themselves or find a buyer through the realtors. The information is also passed on among other agents across NCR.

All, of course, for a fixed rate of commission to be paid at every level – from the village head to the realtor who gets the buyer.

And when the acquisition finally happens, the new buyers will claim the compensation; not the real owners. And it will be perfectly legal to do so because the state government’s acquisition policy does not put any kind of restriction on the non-inherited land.

Thousands of more farmers who will have sold off their land at rates much lower than the government’s acquisition rate are will lose out.

Arpit Parashar is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.com
arpit.parashar@tehelka.com