Sreelatha Menon: These farms are not for sale

Farmers fighting the UP govt's efforts to seize their farm land don't want more money but agriculture

The farmers of Aligarh are on the verge of losing their land to a whim of the Uttar Pradesh government, which wants three real estate boom towns to come up along the Taj Expressway.

Tappal in Aligarh, where four people died in a conflict with the police a week ago, is just 100 km from Delhi. The expressway stands here wide and majestic.

It is flanked by green fields which bear or once bore wheat and cane. Here, on the highway, farmers and their children turned killers as well as victims. A farmer, two children and a policemen died. The farmers refused to give their fields to the government. And later, they asked for a higher price.

The government sent police to seize their land. They first stopped the farmers from entering their fields. The next day, they started levelling the fields, cutting standing crops of cane and wheat. Chaudhury Bhura’s 26 bighas bear no sign of the cane that stood there till a week ago. They came and flattened the land, removing all standing crops under police supervision, said Bhura.

There were so many policemen, none of us could say anything, said Bhura. He belongs to Kansera, on the other side of the expressway.

He and many others like him had not entered into any agreement with the government or the company to sell their land. Hence, many of them came to their fields the following day, August 14, to start work again. That is when it happened, the farmers say, pointing at the spot on the expressway where their children fell dead while trying to stop those who were flattening their fields.

They are not upset about the expressway taking their land. What they cannot comprehend is why they must give up their fields for townships. Tappal will lose 500 hectares to real estate, while a total of 1,500 hectares are needed in six districts along the expressway.

It hurts them that the government is giving a low price. But what angers them is that they will be landless soon. Whatever money they get will not buy them these fields again, the old men say.

They say what will people eat if they finish agriculture? No leaders who swarm the place say this — that these farm lands are not for sale.

Rahul Gandhi came two days later as the “soldier” of the farmers and promised to get them rates comparable to those in Noida. Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Mahinder Singh Tikait also came. But for these farmers, their fields are not tradable.

Agriculture economist Devender Sharma.points out the need for a farm land conservation law. Most countries have such a law, he says. The Phililippines enacted such a law recently when it realised its food security was in danger.

The Pipari village in Tappal has no power, no National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Wasn’t it better that townships came up and brought work? If you pose this question to villagers, right from the 10-year-old school boys to 80-year-old farmers, you get the counter-question—What will you eat?

Can food grow in IT cities and malls? They know it. Their city-bred leaders don’t.

So, who is the real soldier? The farmer fighting for our right to food or leaders trying to facilitate sale of farm land?