Twenty Dalit families of Yenikapadu, a remote village near S.N. Padu in Prakasam district, had toiled for two decades to develop 20 acres of land for which provisional land assignment had been made by the then government.
When all is set to begin cultivation this kharif, they have been asked not to enter the land as it has been classified in the revenue records as ‘vagu poramboke’.
Pouring out their woes, the Dalits said they had developed the land over a period of time with small savings and raising private loans. Instead of purchasing land afresh and spend about ₹15 lakh on developing it, the government should allow them to hold on to the land already in their possession, they pleaded. The Scheduled Caste Cooperative Finance Corporation had sunk a borewell 18 years ago to ensure irrigation facility for the land, explained L. Bramaiah.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), we have filled the land with some fine silt from the nearby Uppuvagu rivulet,” he added.
All of a sudden
“If we are deprived of our land all of a sudden, what can we do?” asked a Dalit farmer T. Koteswara Rao.
ADVERTISEMENT
“With a majority of farmers switching to social forestry plantations, we don’t get work in the farms of landlords of late,” added another Dalit L. Srinivasa Rao. “We will be literally on the road without the small extent of land given to us in the past,” another Dalit farmer L. Babu Rao said, and pleaded for giving back possession of the land that they had been enjoying for the last 20 years.
Meanwhile, S.N. Padu MRO R. Prabakar said that this category of land belonged to the government that was keen on restoration of all water courses.
Taking up cudgels for the Dalits, CPI(M)-led Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Workers’ Union S.N. Padu secretary N. Venakteswarlu said the Dalits, be it in Yenikapadu or Devarapalli or Posulapadu, were being displaced under one pretext or the other.
The union would bring together all the aggrieved Dalits for a protracted land struggle, he added.