'They Killed My Mother': Cost of Dalit Fight for Land in Punjab

Ground Report | How the death of a 72-year-old labourer sparked a Dalit struggle for land ownership in Punjab.

Balwinder Singh's 72-year-old mother was killed by upper-caste Jat Sikh farmers in Punjab's Jhaloor village in 2016.

(Photo: Himanshi Dahiya/Altered by Namita Chauhan/The Quint)

VIDEO EDITOR: ABHISHEK SHARMA

In October 2016, Balwinder Singh's 72-year-old mother, Gurdev Kaur, was killed in Jhaloor, a village in southern Punjab's Sangrur district. Gurdev, a landless Dalit labourer, was attacked by upper-caste Jat Sikh farmers over the ownership of common Panchayati land in the village.

"They severed her leg with a sickle. She fell off her cot and bled out," says Balwinder as he recollects the incident six years later – in February 2022. "There was nobody to even give her a glass of water," he adds.

In 2016, the clashes between Dalit labourers and upper-caste Jat farmers in Jhaloor made headlines. At the heart of the controversy was the ownership of 33% of Panchayati land in the village, reserved for the Scheduled Castes as per the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961.

Since then, the Dalit community in the village has been fighting for justice, and to reclaim their land.

Balwinder Singh looks at a photo of his deceased mother – Gurdev Kaur.

(Photo: Himanshi Dahiya/The Quint)

How 'Dummy' Auctions Led To Violence

Gurdev Singh, 59, says that soon after the 2016 violence, Dalits in the village with the help of Zamin Prapti Sangharsh Committee (ZPSC) — a left-leaning organisation, which fights for land rights of Dalits across the country — started staging protests to get the ownership of their land.

"Before 2016, the upper-caste Jat farmers used to prop up a dummy candidate from the Dalit community during auctions. That person was bribed with alcohol or money. He would participate and win the auction and later transfer the land to upper-caste Jats."

Gurdev Singh, Labourer

"In 2016, we protested against this dummy auction as a result of which violence broke out," he adds.

Balwinder, the son of the elderly deceased woman, told The Quint that during the protest against these dummy auctions, the Dalit community faced micro-aggressions from a group of Jat farmers. "We complained to the police. They sent two policemen who did nothing and returned."

Mohak Singh, another labourer from the village, claims they weren't expecting the police to do much anyway. He alleged, "The authorities (police and local MLA) were hand-in-glove with the farmers who came to attack us. They were given two hours to do whatever they want without any police intervention."

A memorial dedicated to Gurdev Kaur who killed by upper-caste Jat farmers in Jhaloor.

(Photo: Himanshi Dahiya/The Quint)

Fight for Honour

On 5 October 2016, a mob entered the house of 34-year-old Lakhwinder Kaur. "I still shiver when I think of that day," she recollects.

"They entered my house with swords, sticks, rods, and sickles. They cut the leg of my nephew, who was rushed to the PGI hospital in Chandigarh. They came very close to me and hurled abuses."

Lakhwinder Kaur, Labourer

Lakhwinder Kaur along with other women who are at the frontline of the Dalit movement in Sangrur.

(Photo: Himanshi Dahiya/The Quint)

Kaur says that the fight and struggle since that day was about her dignity. "Some of them (upper-caste Jats) went to the gurdwaras and made false announcements saying that the Dalits from nearby villages had gathered to harm the Jat farmers. This wasn't just a fight for land. It was a fight for our honour."

Mohak concurs, "The upper-caste Jat farmers don't want Dalits to live a dignified life ever. They don't want us to own even a small piece of land."

'Elections Are a Dramebaazi'

In September 2021 when Charanjit Singh Channi replaced Captain Amarinder Singh as the Chief Minister of Punjab, he became the first Dalit CM of the state.

A poster of Charanjit Singh Channi at the village square where violence broke out.

(Photo: Himanshi Dahiya/The Quint)

Many Dalits in Jhaloor, however, feel that Channi's elevation does little to help their cause. "He is from our caste but he is not one of us," says landless labourer Mohak. "In January, some of us went to meet him over a land dispute. His people lathicharged us. Our women were injured. Our elders were attacked," he adds.

Balwinder believes that elections are a futile exercise. "It's all one big dramebaazi. We've been voting for 70 years now. Nobody has ever helped us," he says.

"Whatever we have achieved has come out of mass movements and the struggle of the people. We don't trust these netas. We'll fight for what we want."