LAND UNDER SEIGE
In the early 90’s we migrated from a fairly congested area in downtown Srinagar to Bemina. The village presented a mix of an agrarian lifestyle and a society rooted in rich traditions. The dilapidated road unwinding towards Budgam, with vast expanses of lush green paddy fields on the either side, presented a breathtaking look. An early morning stroll on the leeve of a paddy field would leave you drenched. While carefully wading through the fields, the dew drops on the blades of rice leaves would soak you with water.
The glistening morning dew on vibrant green rice leaves under bright sunlight created a fresh, exotic and serene atmosphere. The strategically placed rivulets, locally called KOL’s, traversing the fields after every hundred meters would add to the charm of the fields. There is an age old adage in Kashmir that looking at green coloured objects or walking barefooted on grass improves your eyesight. While the assertion is debatable but there is no denying the fact the panoramic view, the dreamy ambience and the stunning vistas relaxes the mood, reduces the risk of anxiety and depression, increases overall health and well being and has benefits for creativity, memory and attention.
A couple of weeks ago, while walking through the main chowk of our village, an altercation between two stoutly built gentlemen caught my attention. The two were having an argument over the turn to receive rice from the ration depot. Some sane voices intervened and the matter was resolved amicably. I was surprised rather shocked to see the number of people who had turned up to receive the monthly quota of rice.
The beneficiaries, mostly villagers, were standing in unorganized long serpentine queues to receive a bagful of rice. Some anxious faces near the terminal end of the queue were worried about the stock of food-grains in the ration depot. My memory took me back to the time when we relocated to Bemina from my birthplace. Those days the ration depot, which catered to the needs of the entire village, presented a deserted look. If at all there was an occasional visitor, it would invariably be a person who had migrated from the city.
The current scene presented a starkly contrasting view with people swarming around the Munshi. I was astonished to learn that the village presently had 5 (five) Ration Depos/Fair Price Stores and all the stores receive massive footfall on all the working days of the week. While the large scale influx of city dwellers in the area cannot be negated but the sizable proportion of farmers gathered to receive their quota of rice was striking.
Back home, I began to search for reasons for this paradigm shift. I was shrouded in disbelief on the fact that how a village which once used to be self sufficient in paddy cultivation reached this point? While searching for answers, I reached few viable conclusions which I have summed up in this article.
Development does comes at its own cost. The large scale takeover of thousands of kanals of prime agricultural land by Rakhs & Farms Department in order to rehabilitate the Dal-Dwellers lent a telling blow to the agricultural activities of the area and whatever land remained was devoured by brokers and real estate agents. Hundreds of Kanals of agricultural land was & still is being converted for non-agricultural purpose in Dandoosa & Dargund areas which lie on the periphery of the land acquired by LCMA Department for rehabilitation purposes.
Strong parallels can be drawn between this situation and the situation elsewhere in Kashmir where the takeover of agricultural land for railway lines, National Highways, ring-road projects, roads etc is shrinking the agricultural land with each passing day. While the Government is facing a pressing concern of the shrinkage of agricultural land but at the same time the empowered agencies are sitting silent on the blatant conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes.
In the absence of proper regulation and monitoring by the field agencies, the land conversion mafia has run amok. The large scale encroachment of irrigation canals vernacularly known as KOl’s has further compounded the problems. At many places, the Kols have vanished to exist and brokers in reported connivance of revenue officials have laid approach roads on them. These canals play a vital role in the irrigation of the agricultural land, which is the backbone of the economy in Kashmir.
Rapid urbanization coupled with the emergence of residential colonies in paddy fields in blatant contravention of Section 133-A of Jammu Kashmir Land Revenue Act, Svt 1996 has eaten up vast chunks of agricultural land in the last three decades. In the last ten years alone, Kashmir’s agricultural land has shrunk from 467,700 hectares to just 389,000 hectares. The urban sprawl has also raised the incidences of floods as in the wake of the unplanned earth filling of the agricultural land, the land which acted as a buffer for flood water and absorbed a large volume of water has lost its capacity to do so.
In order to arrest this alarming loss of farmland, the authorities must come up with concrete measures which include surveying of non-productive/non-agricultural land for developmental projects, conduct of awareness programmes in different villages & reinforcing the indispensability of agricultural land to farmers, enactment of laws and legislation’s prohibiting the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, providing incentives to new generation and encouraging them to take farming etc.
Meanwhile, the surreal ambience of the lush green paddy fields that dotted either sides of the Bemina-Budgam road has vanished. The glistening morning dew is sparse & insufficient to drench a soul & the grasshoppers that once danced to the tunes of nature in the harvesting season have left for hinterland away from the maddening din.
In all this hustle and bustle, I am wondering that where will we relocate from here?
(The author is a freelance writer & can be mailed at: [email protected])
