Farmers In Punjab’s Border Villages Navigate Conflict And Survival

• Farmers in Burj village, a few hundred meters from the India-Pakistan border, have farmlands straddling both countries and face constant challenges due to the proximity of conflict.
• The farmers practice restricted farming, adhering to security regulations, limiting crop choices, monitoring and access to fields.
• Despite being strategically important, Burj village is neglected in terms of infrastructure, education, and healthcare.

“Apna toh ji bas rab rakha!” (Only God can protect us), seventy-year-old Dara Singh says about the conflict situation between India and Pakistan. Singh is a resident of Burj village in Punjab’s Amritsar district, a few hundred metres away from the India-Pakistan border, but miles away from the most basic amenities.

Burj residents are mostly farmers with small land holdings. Many of the farms span the frontier, partly in India and partly in Pakistan. Collectively, the village has about 300 acres of land that lies beyond the line of control that marks India’s boundary with Pakistan. As they straddle two hostile countries, “Only God can protect us” is a common sentiment that the village residents share not just during war, but also at times of peace.

Over the past week, their farmlands and livelihoods are, once again, caught in the crossfire of conflict.

Following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, at the end of April, which escalated tensions between India and Pakistan, Amarjeet Kaur, the sarpanch (elected village head) of Burj received an unofficial call from the nearby Border Security Force (BSF) outpost. The village was asked to harvest all the wheat that they had cultivated on their land that lies across the border, in Pakistan. “The official from BSF told me that they will be closing the gates in three days and advised that we should cut all our wheat before that. Altogether, farmers from our village have around 300 acres of land beyond zero line,” she said.

While April-May is anyway the wheat harvesting season in Punjab, it usually takes a couple of weeks, under normal circumstances, to harvest the wheat and it depends on availability of machines, labour and other conditions. But now, this had to be sped up to be completed in a matter of days. “We had to rent combine harvesters to quickly harvest the wheat. But we couldn’t collect the todhi (straw from wheat used as cattle feed) which we will need throughout the year. We don’t know when the gate will open again. We still need to collect todhi and the machines. And we also need to sow rice for the next season,” said the sarpanch. She told Mongabay India that the last time such restrictions were in place was in 2016, following the surgical strikes conducted by the Indian Army in retaliation to the terror attack on Indian Army brigade headquarters in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.

Farming in war and peace

The practice of “restricted farming” in this border area of Punjab started in 1988-91, when the state government acquired a strip of agricultural land to build a fence along the border. Of the fenced land, 14 feet width of land lay on Pakistan’s side, 22 feet wide on India’s side and 11 feet in the middle. There is another 11 feet-wide strip of land parallel to the international border used by defence forces for patrolling.

In restricted farming, the farming is subject to security restrictions due to close proximity of international borders or conflict zones. Movement, crop choice and land access is also controlled by the security forces. While conflict worsens things, even during peace, restricted farming across the border is difficult, but necessary for their survival.

Dara Singh elaborates on restricted farming protocols in the area, saying, “The BSF allows us to work in our fields beyond zero line only for a stipulated time, between 9 am and 6 pm during summer and between 10 am and 4 pm in the winter. We are issued a Kisan Identity Card which we have to deposit at the outpost while going to our fields and collect it while leaving. We are escorted by 3-4 jawans (soldiers) from Kisan Guards (a unit of BSF specifically to facilitate and provide security for farming beyond the border fence). However, beyond those hours, we are worried about the security of our crops even though BSF keeps vigilance.”

The farmers are also not allowed to cultivate any crop that grows to a height of more than three feet, as it will hamper the visibility of the security forces, they say. “So, we can’t grow crops like sugarcane and commercial cash crops. We have to mainly stick to crops like wheat and rice (1509 brand of Basmati). We could have actually made a profit of Rs. 1,20,000 per acre if we grew sugarcane, while from wheat and rice, the profit is limited to Rs. 40,000-50,000 per acre,” estimates Dara Singh.

While the restricted field access across the border is meant for farmer safety, the absence of continuous monitoring of the fields raises other problems. Dara Singh elaborates that wild animals such as wild boar, nilgai (blue bulls) and barasingha enter from the Pakistan side of the farmland and raid crops. “Sometimes they damage as much as half of the harvest. We put up fences, but they are not enough to stop them,” he says. “There are also times when miscreants put fire on our farms on the Pakistan side. They have done it quite a few times. However, the BSF outpost here doesn’t have any fire brigade or sophisticated machine to douse the fire. So, they try to put out the fire manually. We have never received any compensation for any losses we faced so far. Also, despite this land belonging to us, it never got registered in our name in all these years. Whenever we have demanded rightful ownership of this land, we have been told that this land belongs to the government,” he adds.

The instruction to harvest wheat early this year, from BSF, while unofficial, reached farmers in all the border villages in Punjab. Sukhdev Singh, former sarpanch of Ghanike Bet village in Gurdaspur district, told Mongabay India over phone, “Our village is one kilometre from the zero line. On that side, is village Nangli which is in Narowal district of Pakistan. Our village has 300 acres on that side. After getting the BSF instruction, we hurriedly managed to collect both our harvest and todhi in two days.”

“In Punjab, a total 50,000 acres of land is beyond the fence, out of which 22,000 acres is agricultural land belonging to farmers of 220 villages. Rest of the land belongs to the government,” explains Raghbir Singh Bhangala, President of Punjab Border Area Kisan Union (PBAKU), while speaking to Mongabay India. “I had fought a case against both central and state governments at the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking compensation for farmers whose land is beyond zero line. In 2015, the bench of Justice Surya Kant gave judgement in our favour and it was declared that the farmers would get compensation of Rs. 10,000 per acre annually, which will be borne equally by both union and state government. However, that compensation was also not paid regularly. It is disbursed from the Deputy Commissioner’s office to the Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) to the tehsildar to patowary to sarpanch to the concerned farmer. So, the money often gets lost in this long chain and doesn’t reach the actual beneficiary. Also, farmers who don’t have the land registered or have taken the land on rent don’t receive this compensation.”

Bhangala, who himself owns a few acres of land beyond the border in his village in Fazilka district, informs that as per his knowledge, the compensation for the year 2022 has been disbursed in few areas but for 2023 and 2024, it has not been disbursed at all.

Punjab shares a 553 km International Border (IB) with Pakistan spanning six districts – Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Pathankot and Tarn Taran, out of which 461 km is fenced. As per a report by the Border Area Development Programme (BADP), the programme for the development and well-being of people residing near India’s international borders covers 360 villages in three blocks of Amritsar district – Attari, Ajnala and Chogawan. But the people of Burj have neither heard the name of BADP nor recall receiving any funds from the programme.

Strategic, but ignored

Time stands still in Burj, even though it is just 27 km from the busy Ajnala town, which is the sub-district headquarters and around 50 km from the district headquarters of Amritsar. The village, with an estimated population of around 1200 people in 148 households, is lagging behind in important metrics like health, education and connectivity.

Burj resident, 23-year-old Jugraj Singh, currently doing his graduation in Punjabi literature from Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, is the first person from his village to get a university education. Jugraj, who wishes to do his Ph.D. on either the topic of Dalits in Punjabi literature or the poems of Shiv Kumar Batalvi, rues the lack of employment opportunities in his area. “For people living in border villages, there are no opportunities. There is no private sector, no industry. In villages like Burj, people are mostly small farmers. Most people own around four to five acres. Maximum land someone owns is seven acres. There are also people who own very small land of 1-1.5 acre or are landless. They go to work as daily wage labourers for big farmers in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana, at a rate of Rs. 300 per day. They go with their entire family, including children, to work on those farms,” he says.

As per 2011 census, the village has an extremely low literacy rate of 18.70% with the female literacy rate at 8.81% (India’s national average is around 74%). Sukha Singh, whose family donated the land for the village school says, “There are two primary schools in the village with 150 students each but both of them have just one teacher. One of these schools should be upgraded to a high school. The school buildings are intact, but we need teachers.” The nearest High School at Bhindi Saidan is five kms away and due to lack of transport, girls from the village have to stop their education at the primary level itself.

Even selling their produce is not easy for farmers of Burj. “To sell our wheat, we have to go to Bhilowal which is 12 km away from our village. The mandi (market) there is temporary and is functional only for 30-45 days during harvesting season. To trade our rice, we go to Amritsar,” says Jugraj Singh.

Speaking about the absence of healthcare in the village, Dara Singh says, “There is no hospital, clinic, dispensary or diagnostic centres either for humans or animals nearby. For minor health issues, we go to the pind da hakim (local village practitioner). If the issue is serious, we go to the civil hospitals in either Ajnala or Lopoke town. Arranging transport for a sick person is also a task as most people in the village don’t own any vehicles. 10-12 people have tractors while 3 people have cars. If we call the emergency number, then it will take a few hours for the ambulance to arrive. By then, the condition of the patient might become critical.”

Burj is a strategically important village as it is the last settlement before the Wadhwa border outpost of the Border Security Force (BSF). But the village has hardly seen visits by government officials and legislators who will listen to their problems, say the residents. Burj comes under the Ajnala tehsil (block) in Amritsar district. Mongabay-India contacted Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Sakshi Sawhney and Raja Sansi MLA Sukhdev Singh Sarkeriya, under whose constituency Burj village falls, but they didn’t respond at the time of publishing.

Speaking to Mongabay India on the lack of development in border villages, Jagrup Singh Sekhon, the Head of Department, Political Science, at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar who specialises in border studies says, “When Partition took place (in 1947), we had three border districts, all of which were quite developed. Amritsar was a big centre of trade, politics, culture and religion. Ferozepur was the headquarters of Northern Railways and Gurdaspur was part of the Silk Route. However, as our relationship with Pakistan deteriorated, these districts, especially the areas near the border, suffered.”

Sekhon adds, “Many farmers have their land beyond the border and today, they practice what is known as “restricted farming”. People in these villages are like a residue population who are not heard by anyone. Among them, people who could leave have migrated elsewhere. Those remaining are living a life without much hope.”

The old relive trauma, the young hope for no war 

India and Pakistan have always shared a tense relationship, with a history of four wars between them. Things escalated on April 22 this year, after 26 unarmed civilians were killed by terrorists believed to be associated with The Resistance Front (TRF), considered an offshoot of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir. Then, on May 7, as per Indian Ministry of Defence press communique, Indian Armed Forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, destroying terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, where terror attacks against India have been planned and directed. Altogether nine sites have been targeted in this operation. Following this, all the border districts are on high alert.

As per Google Maps, Muridke, which was one of the nine sites hit by Indian forces in Operation Sindoor, is just 30 kms from Burj. The sarpanch, Amarjeet Kaur, told Mongabay India, “Mobilisation has increased in this outpost. We heard the sound of explosions, but it was very late at night, so we didn’t know what that was about. Till now, we have not received any instructions from the BSF after Operation Sindoor. People in our village are living their usual life.”

Octogenarian farmer leader Bhangala has fought in two wars. He shares, “I enrolled in BSF in 1954. In the 1965 war, I fought on the Amritsar border, while in 1971, I was at the Ferozepur sector. From experience, I can say that evacuating by leaving everything behind is never easy. It may be worse now, especially because, compared to 1965 and 1971, people have access to better houses and modern amenities.”

Seventy-five-year-old Jagtar Singh, another resident of Burj village, can still recount vividly the horrors of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. “They silently attacked at 5 in the evening. Everyone was at their home at that time, completely unprepared. This BSF outpost was also a small one with just 10-15 personnel. They either died or fled and Pakistan had captured both this outpost and the village. Later, the Indian army recaptured the post. Everyone from our village fled, grabbing whatever we could. After 15 days, the gabru jawans (brave young men) came back to check on things. The women and children, however, returned many months later.”

His grandnephew Jugtar, who has never witnessed a war, says that they will evacuate, if necessary, but hopes that situation never arises.

Meanwhile, in Ghanike Bet, another border village in Punjab, fear has led to an unofficial evacuation, but they’re shuttling back and forth to monitor their farms. Sukhdev Singh, a farmer from the village, says, “We evacuated the village on Thursday and shifted to Dera Baba Nanak town, which is five kilometres away. We have not got any official government orders, but we were not feeling safe in the village anymore. We could see the lights of the drones from our village. In the morning, the men of the village (100-200 in number) went back to the village to check on our farms and feed our cattle. In the evening, we will go back to Dera Baba Nanak and in the morning check on our village again.”

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India. Read the original article here)