Kanpur: The town of Bithur, located 20 kilometres to the north of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, is a centre of Hindu pilgrimage. According to mythology, Bithur is the birthplace of Ram’s sons, Luv and Kush. More recently, it was the centre of the 1857 uprising against the British with Nana Sahib having made it his base for some time. Bithur was also the place where Valmiki wrote the Ramayana.
But for the villagers of Hirdaypur in Bithur, the only history which holds real meaning for them is what happened in 2002, when they were made to sell their land to the Kanpur Development Authority (KDA) at throwaway rates.
Once the residents of a sprawling village on the banks of the Ganga, north of the Barrage, about 5,000 villagers belonging to the Nishad (boatmen) community now find themselves squeezed into less than 50 bighas of land where they tend to both their families as also their cattle and goats. The surrounding land, which comprised the flood plain of the Ganga and which they cultivated, is now home to large residential multi-storeyed apartments which the KDA hopes will house the upwardly mobile citizens of Kanpur.
“We are boatmen by profession but we were also farmers. The majority of us had small farm holdings which we and our families would tend to. The land provided us enough to eat. Now that we have lost our land, we have no alternative employment and most of us are struggling to make ends meet,” said middle-aged Suresh Chand Nishad, the pradhan (head) of Hirdaypur village.
The traditional ferrying of boats by the villagers is also endangered, they say, if the Ministry of Water Resources’ plans to introduce modern barges on the Ganga fructify.
“Hum vidambana mein phans gaye hein,” ( we are caught in a dilemma), Chand adds wistfully.
Paltry compensation
The compensation offered to the villagers in 2002 was paltry, given the present astronomical market rates being charged by KDA for these apartments.
Going southward from Hirdaypur is the Ganga barrage, officially named the Lav Kush barrage, built at an astronomical cost of over Rs 300 crore. But the crowning irony is that most of the year, the barrage has little water. It also serves as a four-lane highway bypass for NH91 where, on the other side of the river, is located the TransGanga city, the brain-child of the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial development Corporation (UPSIDC) which plans to ‘develop’ this farm land and create a township.
Part of the TransGanga city is located on the flood plains of the river, which has traditionally been an area where farmers have grown a variety of fruits and vegetables that are sold in Kanpur, Unnao, Lucknow and other neighbouring cities.
The village of Shankarpur was just one of the villages acquired by the UPSIDC for development of the township with villagers here being given notice of land acquisition way back in 2002. The land to be acquired was around 1,152 acres and belonged to three villages.
The farmers of Shankarpur, like their counterparts in Hirdaypur, said they felt they had no choice but to accept the amount initially offered to them, which was a paltry compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh per bigha. But then the Land Acquisition Act of 2014 gave them hope that they need not part with this land if they did not so desire.
So from a situation where their land was practically taken over by the UPSIDC, a sustained agitation by the villagers saw many of them making repeated trips to Lucknow, the state capital, seeking higher compensation. Their struggle has gained momentum and the villagers are hopeful of winning the battle.
Hirendra Nigam, a farmer leader of this region, said: “The process of land acquisition saw many twists and turns and the Mayawati sarkar (the erstwhile Bahujan Samaj Party government) and the Akhilesh sarkar (the previous Samajwadi Party government) were all party to it. For one, this is land close to the Ganga flood plains (the Ganga shifted course and whereas earlier it flowed one km away, it now flows 3 km away from their village). These farmers have been growing four crops a year on this fertile land but the district authorities had no qualms about categorising this agricultural land as ‘banjar’ (wasteland) in order to justify the takeover,” he pointed out.
Nigam added that “at first, when the notices were served to us in 2002, we did not even understand what was happening. Meanwhile, governments kept changing and the bureaucrats who interacted with us kept telling us that since the land was being take over in national interest, we had no choice but to sell.”
In 2011-12, the farmers were offered compensation of Rs 5.5 lakh per bigha and many of them opted to take the money. But the Land Acquisition Act 2014 was an eye-opener for us, said Nigam, adding that “we realised that farmers cannot be coerced into selling their land and the government had to offer us market rates.”
“When we conveyed our apprehensions to the Akhilesh sarkar, they came up with a revised offer of Rs 28 lakh per bigha to be given in four instalments, or so we were led to believe. The entire negotiations were being done through one of their middlemen, and in 2015, when we filed an RTI (Right to Information application) to find out what the exact quantum or payment would be, imagine our shock and horror when we discovered we would get only Rs 7 lakh. We had been completely misled into thinking the figure was four times higher,” he said.
Farmers’ protest
In 2016, thousands of farmers led by women marched to the district administration office and warned the authorities that they were not going to part with their land. Activist Saraswati, the grand daughter of the former chief minister of Bihar, Karpoori Thakur, helped organise the women of Hirdaypur and other neighbouring villages, and played a key role in the agitation.
“When we decided to take our protest to the district headquarter of Unnao, there were 10,000 women from the villages of Shankarpur, Shadipur, Muralipur, Laxmn Kheda, Vikram Kheda and Man Bhavana who marched there. We were accompanied by more than 20,000 farmers who protested for several days outside the office of the district magistrate Unnao district magistrate. The lady DM refused to come out to meet us. Ultimately, she was transferred and we entered into negotiations with the new DM,” Saraswati told this writer.
Thirty-five year old Laxmi, a housewife farmer from Shankarpur said, “No one can understand the pain that a farmer undergoes when he is forced to give up his land. We end up losing a skill that we have imbibed over generations.”
Laxmi’s neighbour, Bhuja, said ,”We farmers living along Ganga mata (mother) have protected her for generations. Most of us do organic (gobar) farming, so no toxins from our fields flow into the river water. Since farming on the flood plains is largely confined to the summer months, it remains seasonal, though many farmers also grew vegetables in the winter months when the flood waters had receded.”
Pointing out the villagers’ predicament, Saraswati said, “The government needs to understand the enormous contribution that our farmers have made in sustaining our rivers because they follow the patterns of nature. They need the river’s water and, till some years ago, before the water had become polluted, farmers used to actually use Ganga Ma’s water for drinking purposes.”
In 2016, when the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav realised that the farmers were not in a mood to relent, his government invoked the Goonda Act on 1,400 farmers, which allows for arbitrary detention, said the villagers. The farmers then approached Unnao MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar (now under arrest for charges of rape), who was then with the Samajwadi Party, who assured them that the chief minister would accede to their demands. Hence, the agitation was called off.
Meanwhile, following the UP state elections in 2017, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Adityanath was sworn in, and Sengar switched over to the BJP.
“The new government is in no mood to talk to the farmers. So the women decided that they would lead the fight to take their land back. Wrapping themselves in the national flag, they arranged for several pairs of bulls which were used to plough the land. A large posse of policemen from 17 thanas (police stations) looked on as these women ploughed their fields and sowed wheat,” said Saraswati.
She said the farmers had now grown two crops on this land even as the state officials looked on. “The women here are all praises for former district magistrate Vijay Shankar Pandey who, way back in 2008, had supported their cause and had stated publicly that agricultural land should not be indiscriminately colonised,’’ Saraswati added.
Raising questions about the growth model being pushed in the country, Kanpur-based activist Rakesh Mishra of the Ganga Alliance, said, “It is time we question the development model being pursued by government after government. The most fertile land in the sub-continent has been acquired to build flats, the majority of which are lying vacant, while thousands of farmers here have lost their livelihoods and source of revenue.’
Industrial waste polluting Ganga
The majority of farmers also expressed their anger at the massive amounts of untreated sewage and toxic industrial effluents being dumped into the Ganga in Kanpur.
Said Nigam, “You cannot stand on the banks of Ganga Ma in the Jajmau area where the Dabka Ghat is located and where toxic chemicals from almost 100 tanneries are being offloaded into the river. See the river flowing past farm lands and villages and then look at it in the city areas where the flowing water has been replaced by toxic effluents.”
Robby Sharma, an activist with NGO Eco Friends, cites a 2013 report by the Central Pollution Control Board which states that the Sisamau drain carries the highest biological oxygenation demand load in the city. He believes that despite the plethora of government schemes and initiatives as well as court interventions, the government machinery has done little to reverse this pollution. “They have been working on cleaning these 40 nullahs for three decades and yet little has been achieved so far,’” he adds.
But it is the women of Shankarpur who have the last word. Gudiya, a mother of three, says, “Impure water is causing so much damage to agriculture and to the health of our children and us. The Kanpur administration tests the water quality when the river flows past farm lands and then tests it after all the pollutants have been dumped into it. It is not surprising that so many illnesses are spreading because of our polluted waters.”
Rashme Sehgal is an author and a freelance journalist based in Delhi.