Social Boycott of Landless Dalit families

• Posted by: Dalit Dasta Virodhi Andolan
• Date of incident: 10-06-1995
• Create date: 02-03-2014
• State:: Punjab
• District:: PATIALA
• Police station:: Sardar Patiala
• Chargesheet:: Not Filed
• Summary:: Bathoi Kalan is one such village which has faced social boycott for a number of years. This is predicament of some 105 Scheduled Caste families of Bathoi Kalan village of Patiala district. A social boycott has been clamped for years with no relief in sight from any quarter. Their only fault was that they had dared to ask the landlords to revise the age-old wages and rates of manual winnowing of paddy in 1995. They had left their homes five years ago following a social boycott by the village upper caste people over their demand of enhancement in wages. They still are homeless, thanks to the indifference on the p art of everybody – the administration, the police and villagers. A large number of Scheduled Caste people migrated to other villages in search of labour, leaving behind their homes. The only thing which has been driving them to fight for justice has been hope, which too is fading now. The precipitant to the incident was that a woman bonded labourer Mrs. Gurdip Kaur had taken an advance of Rs. 2000 from a village landlord and had been doing daily household chores in his house for 20 years till 1995. When the trouble engulfed her and others like her, she had been demanding for an increase in her wage from the landlord who refused to increase the wages. Subsequently other bonded labourers in the village also demanded increase in their wages from their respective landlords. Mrs. Jarnail Kaur who had worked like a bonded labourer for about three years for a mere Rs. 3000 said all labourers had refused to winnow paddy till their wages were revised. This angered the landlords so much that they unanimously decided to boycott the whole working class of the village, consisting of Balmikis, Jheors and Jogis. They were not allowed to enter the fields and were being tormented on one or the other pretext. Fed up with the humiliation, which had become a routine, they decided to move out of village and go elsewhere in search of bread and butter and settled as labourers in a brick-kiln at Chount Kheri village. The police was pressurizing them to strike a compromise with the other party. They were being asked to come to the Police station and made to sit for the whole day which will be clear from the statement of Mrs. Gurdip Kaur as reproduced here. “ We are called to the police station on one pretext or the other and made to sit there for whole of day only to be told to come next day. Can we afford to do so when we don’t have any other means to earn our livelihood than to do manual labour?” Mrs. Gurdip Kaur alleged that in spite of a direction by the High Court on August 13, 1999, the police was yet to register a case. Another victim Mrs. Tejo now working at a brick-kiln in Bhanra village, maintained that while their children were out of school, other villagers had encroached upon the small chunks of land allotted by the government to their forefathers in the form of a cooperative society way back in 1990s. Tejo said, “For fear of an attack, we don’t dare to go to our village. They have even been beating up our children”. (Reporter Varinder Singh, The Tribune, Chandigarh, November 19, 2000). • F.I.R no- 760 dated 29/11/1999 registered at Police station Sadar Patiala. • Cr.W.P No. 1369/1995. The complainant included five females of village Bhatoi Kalan whose names are indicated below:- 1. Gurdip Kaur W/o Kapur Singh 2. Roopi W/o Mahinder Singh 3. Tejo W/o Mohan Singh 4. Chand Kaur W/o Surjit Singh 5. Charanjit Kaur W/o Amar Singh A Complaint dated 2nd Nov. 1995 signed by above five women was received by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court which was also treated as Criminal Writ Petition and fixed for hearing on 3rd Jan. 1996 before Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.S. Agarwal as Criminal Writ Petition No. 1369 of 1995. On 3rd Jan. 1996 notice was issued to A.S. Punjab. Complaint was also filed by following persons belonging to depressed classes of village Bathoi Kalan: (1.) Gurdeep Kaur W/o Kapur Singh, resident of Village Bhatoi Kalan filed a complaint on 21st Oct, 1995 to the S.H.O., P.S. Dakala against a landlord named Waryan Singh of the same village. (2.) Smt. Anti W/o Hari Singh, resident of Village Bhatoi Kalan to S.H.O. PS: Dakal against Jarnail Singh,a landlord of the same village. (3.) Smt. Krishna W/o Rashpal Singh resident of Village Bhatoi Kalan filed a complaint to S.H.O., PS: Dakala against Mela Singh, a landlord of the same village. (4.) Mr. Sucha Singh S/o Chhota Singh resident of Village Bhatoi Kalan sent a complaint to S.H.O., Ps: Dakal against the landlord named Jassa Singh of the same village. The depressed and landless labourers of village- Bathoi Kalan were working as cultivators in the fields of the land owners and also worked as scavengers at their houses. The women who were working as scavengers were provided with only Lassi or Bread and were not paid any money. If a women fell sick then the landlords coerced them by beating and also by abusing them and forced them to work. The male members who worked as Siri (Bonded labour) , their claims were never settled. If a Siri wanted to change his landlord then he had to clear the outstanding loan or else he was forced to continue to working as a bonded labourer. They are often abused by landlords calling them as Chuhras and Chamaras. The children are also employed as bonded labourer for grazing the cattle in the fields. One of the women named Umi, who is a widow told that when she went out to answer the call of nature the stones were pelted at her. Other women Ananto said that the landlords duly armed were creating terror for several days. The landlords of the village also did not give the share of Shamat land to the dalits in the village. Three acres of land which was earmarked for the Scheduled Castes from Shamlat land for construction of their houses were also in the possession of the landlord. The landlords enforced the social boycott of the dalits of the village. They were not allowed to defecate in the open fields. Resistance were imposed by the landlords that the dalit will not be allowed to take fodder from their field. They were also not allowed to do work on daily wages. The dalits complaint that the reasons for the imposition of the social boycott was because the dalit claimed the share of the 1/3 of the cultivable Shamlat land but the entire 552 acres of Shamlat land was in the possession of the landlords. The imposition of the social boycott was a result of a meeting called by 100 landlords of the village on 28th and 29th December 1995. The next day they made it clear to all the dalits that they were not allowed to work because the landlords and Panchayat have imposed a ban on them. Humiliation and discrimination were perputated by the landlords on the dalits including their ladies. Ms. Gurdeep Kaur who was the mother of four children and depended on wage labour stated that when her son in law who was serving in Punjab Home Guard at Rajpura came to the village and went to the fields for answering the call of nature, then he was humiliated by the sons of the landlord. The dalits had to go half K.M away from the village for answering the call of nature where the drad animals are thrown. A woman named Ms. Jarnail Kaur belonging to Scheduled Caste said that it had become difficult for them to undertake their routine bathroom work within the precincts of the village boundary. They were compelled to go to the adjacent village to work as wage labour. The male dalit workers stated that the landlords did not allow them even to put their dung cakes on the Shamlat land. The prominent dalit elderly members had gone to the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Patiala on the 5th of October 1995 to appraise him about the entire situation. In spite of that the social boycott by the landlords continued. A complaint was filed on 2nd November 1995 signed by five women of village- Bathoi Kalan addressed to Hon’ble Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court which was treated as Criminal Writ Petition Number 1369 of 1995. The Petitioners appeared before the honorable judge on 10th September 1996 and the honorable judge appointed an Amicus Curiae. The case is still under judicial investigation. The dalits are even today deprived of the share of Shamlat land.