All for six gold bangles

Surinderjit Singh Sandhu 

I STILL have nightmarish memories from my childhood in Amritsar in the 1960s, when big landlords would flee their houses whenever a tehsildar or a naib-tehsildar visited their village for the recovery of land revenue and taccavis (loans). He would go back after attaching and taking away some cattle and household goods of defaulters. This horrifying visit would start the process of searching for a better-off relative or acquaintance for credit of hundred rupees or so to pay revenue etc. 

The peasantry has remained a deprived class in spite of government claims of granting it favours. The Partition had set in motion the beginning of long tales of woe of millions of displaced farmers. Their rehabilitation was accompanied by the consolidation of holdings, which brought for them immense misery. Then came the security of the Land Tenure Act in 1953 to limit landholdings. The 1970s consolidated  the Green Revolution, but gave another blow to farmers by way of enactment of the Land Reforms Act, further reducing the landholdings.

The government legislated the Punjab Commercial Crops Cess Act, 1974, fixing Rs 3 per crop per acre each season for chillies, cotton, mustard seeds, potatoes, sugarcane, etc., in addition to the land revenue and surcharge. Along with the Green Revolution, Punjab saw the emergence of the Naxal movement. Sangrur district was considerably affected by it. A renowned revolutionary leader, Teja Singh Swatantar, represented Sangrur in Parliament. So, the peasantry in the area was spirited to call in question any government action, which it deemed was not in its interest. Farmers refused to pay revenue, water rate and commercial crops cess in protest. In those days, this collection was reviewed every month. The SDMs of Sangrur had to feel small in these meetings. The government took a serious view and decided to seek police help.

I was under training in the revenue department and was assigned two villages. A police inspector and 20 policemen accompanied our team of revenue officers. We started at 4 am and reached the village in an hour. The nambardar took us to a big house. The door was opened by a perplexed man who argued that he would pay only when the entire village paid. The villagers got wind of our raid and started pouring in, raising slogans. However, looking at the number of armed policemen, some of them courted arrest. We started attaching articles like sewing machines, utensils and cattle. The scene was pathetic, even big houses did not have anything of visible valuable. In one house, only a young boy and a girl were present. The girl said she would pay if even one person from the village paid it. The tehsil jamadar tried to enter the house, but she warned him against it. Angry, she went inside and returned with six gold bangles. ‘My father bought them for my dowry before dying. Take them.’ Saying so,  she burst into tears. We entered the bangles as attached items and tried to comfort her, saying once the arrears were cleared these would be returned. But she slammed the door. 

After some days, hundreds of villagers came to pay her revenue and take the bangles back.