“We went to the sahib pleading him to wait for 20-25 days more so that we could harvest our ready crop. He paid no heed. We were hit with lathis while JCBs were run upon our fields trampling upon our ready-to-harvest crop of wheat. Isn’t this wrong? What will we eat now?” asked Sriram Bihari, 71, a resident of Jadhavpur village in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.
Sriram Bihari is one of the farmers from Mirzapur whose ready to harvest crop was mowed down by a JCB upon orders from the administration. The administration took this action as the construction of the railway track had commenced in the Adalhat police station area of Mirzapur. These farmers from about 12 villages had sown crops on the acquired public land. So, the administration took action to remove encroachments and destroyed the crop up to seven kilometres from the railway tracks through JCB, affecting more than 500 farmers of about 12 villages.
The land of Anand Kumar, also residing in Jadhavpur village, has been similarly acquired for the railway track and JCB run on his wheat crop. He said: “We did not refuse to give land but just requested them to wait till harvest. Even that was not heard. Earlier in November, when the same officers had come to the farmers’ panchayat, they had talked of beginning their work only after the harvest but now quite opposite has been done.”
The farmers’ panchayat that Anand spoke about was held on November 27, 2019. The administrative officers had also attended this panchayat. It was said that the administration would claim the land only after the farmers’ crops were harvested. But on March 2020, the administration embarked upon removing encroachments from the acquired land. The land had the ready crop of farmers which was mowed down by the JCB.
Several farmers of the affected village are extremely unhappy with the acquisition. One among them is Dharmendra Singh, a resident of Gorakhpur’s Mathi village, who alleged that although it was decided at the time of the acquisition that one person in every family whose land would be taken away, will be given a job, it didn’t happen.
“Our land was acquired in 2009. Thereafter, the government issued a mandate that for every family whose land has been taken, a man would be given a job. We had hoped that somebody would get a job in the railways, but nobody got it. This is an outrage,” he said.
At present, talks are going on between the farmers and the district administration regarding the issue. Regarding the alleged lathicharge upon the villagers, district magistrate Sushil Patel has reiterated to the different media institutions that there had been no lathi charge.
Meanwhile, the issue has become politically charged up. Congress general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi tweeted on the issue that “the farmers of Mirzapur had worked hard to grow their crops and the police of BJP government had mowed down their ready crops. Yesterday, the PM and the CM had made false proclamations and barely 24 hours had passed when the government behaved atrociously towards woman farmers. BJP is totally anti-farmer.”
