The Punjab Village Commons Land (Regulation) Act, 1961 allows panchayats to lease village land to the highest bidder on the condition that a third would be reserved for the Scheduled Castes and auctioned separately on a lower price. Jat-Sikh landowners have been subverting the process by bidding in the name of Dalits or through proxy candidates. In 2014, young Dalit women of Matoi village, Sangrur district, stormed one such proxy auction and demanded a fair process to be installed. They were badly beaten up. But they stood their ground and demanded their share of the land. The women then said that they wanted land for livelihood—and also because they did not want to be humiliated when they went out to get fodder for animals or to relieve themselves. Open defecation is still very much prominent in prosperous Punjab, largely because the poor don’t have toilets at home. Today in over 100 villages, under the banner of Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Samiti, Dalits have been bidding and acquiring one-third panchayati land. In many villages, they are doing cooperative farming. Dalit women have been at the forefront of these struggles.
Navsharan Singh, feminist and activist