Let them live with their land and honour

In the shadow of Bengaluru’s emergence as a global megapolis and in the vicinity of the international airport, farmers have been engaged in a prolonged and peaceful protest. Since May 23, 2022, farmers from 13 villages have gathered every day in Channarayapatna village, Devanahalli taluk, to highlight their demand for the government of Karnataka to revoke its decision to acquire 1,777 acres of land. A rich agricultural belt, the region supports a variety of horticulture, sericulture, animal husbandry, and agricultural activities, including the cultivation of ragi and the famed Bangalore blue grapes, a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, and more recently, flowers.

Protesting the impending land acquisition and potential loss of livelihoods and displacement, the farmers reiterate their decision to remain farmers. Taking turns at their protest site, where they gather after their day’s work and where pooled grains and money provide meals for all and continued discussions on land-related issues are held, the farmers are clear about their decision to contest such land acquisition. Many assert their aspirations and rights to continue to be farmers on their own land, and are clear that no amount of compensation will convince them to give up their fertile land. Mohan, a Scheduled Caste farmer who cultivates two acres of the land that he had received via land distribution during the 1970s, asserts that “land is a part of me; I feel what it feels. Why give up land that gives me satisfaction and joy?”

Beyond asserting their right to their land, the farmers are aware of the speculative land economy’s expansion, in which acquired land and its uses and abuses are determined by a cabal of land touts, agents, officials, and elected representatives. Questioning such an acquisition as phase II of a larger plan to develop an industrial and investment park near the Kempe Gowda International Airport, farmers point to the fact that the earlier Phase I acquisition of more than a thousand acres has meant the displacement of residents, disruptions of agricultural and horticultural economies, and a range of environmental problems. The cordoned land now houses only two factories, which are under construction, and a campus of a private university that benefited by receiving a large parcel of land for throwaway prices even as village residents were pushed out of their land.

Rupturing both the physical and social links of many villages, the acquired and cordoned land as an industrial park provides little or no employment or life opportunities for the locals. That such land acquisition by the KIADB does not serve them but serves larger speculative interests is clear to the farmers, who have continuously petitioned the government and their own representatives to rescind the notice to acquire their land. Their protests and demands have fallen on deaf ears; the Congress government has not been able to abide by its pre-election promise of addressing a range of land-related issues in the state.

Questionable land acquisition represents only one of the unaddressed land issues in Karnataka and the failure by successive governments to resolve a range of land-related issues. The recent tragic suicide by a youth from Varuna constituency, who for more than 10 years had awaited a just resolution to the forced acquisition of his agricultural land, is only one other indicator of the widespread distress that land loss has triggered. Will the two draconian Acts that the BJP government promulgated, the Land Acquisition Act of 2019 and the Land Reform Act of 2020, which promote unregulated acquisition and accumulation of land, be reviewed so that just and people-oriented policies can be framed? Will the administrative pressures that prevent regularisation of lands for cultivators and small homestead owners and the illegal acquisition of farmers’ land by various real estate mafia be addressed at all?

As farmers gather on December 23rd, Chaudhury Charan Singh’s birthday, to voice their various demands, it is pertinent that the Congress government pay attention. As many of the people who waited in long lines at the recent Janata Darshan held at the CM’s office highlighted, there is significant land loss among marginalised community members. New rules permit the purchase of agricultural land by anyone, and land sales have been brisk across the state, and most sales indicate abandonment of agriculture by the most vulnerable and marginalised. Even as existing forests are allowed to be encroached upon for constructing resorts and entertainment centres, marginal farmers who have cultivated allocated land are being forced to return land to the forest department. Expanding extractive economies of granite and mineral mining are leaving vast tracts of land in conditions of deep ecological degradation. As urban sprawl expands and intensifies, the hinterland has become victim to the unplanned and unlivable construction curse.

To integrate land into the ledgers of only capitalist interest and to promote ‘Brand Bengaluru’ at the expense of the vast rural and agricultural belts is not only myopic but also overlooks the very promises that the Congress made during its election campaign. At a time when both drought and the vagaries of climate change are only too evident, it is important for the government to take stock of what trends portend in its neglect of land issues. Declining land under cultivation, a sharp dip in food crop cultivation, the increasing loss of production from climate-related factors, the extant degradation of all natural resources, increasing out-migration and malnutrition among the most marginalised are issues that need to be addressed immediately. If the current government seeks to uphold its declaration of being an ‘inclusive government’ that caters to all, then attention to the pressing needs of rural Karnataka must be an immediate responsibility. If to own and cultivate land is a sign of the highest honour, then to implement its own promises and to chart new policies that assure both social justice, economic stability, and ecological sustainability for a plural and democratic Karnataka must be the government’s goals. As the protesting farmers at Channarayapatna hobli villages assert, they have a right to live in and with land and the sense of honour it bestows on them. Similarly, the government must also honour its own promises to address the needs of rural citizens and their rights to land.

(The writer is a social anthropologist)