Farmers bitter as stir eats into betel harvest

Motilal is a worried man these days. All the 61-year-old farmer in Khareli village can do is hope the Gurjjars would call off the agitation.

Motilal is a worried man these days. All the 61-year-old farmer in Khareli village can do is hope the Gurjjars would call off the agitation. With the highways still blocked, his crop of betel leaves, on a small patch of land next to the hut, has started wilting.

“Paan is a very delicate plant. We have to maintain the precise temperature and regulate the amount of sunlight entering the enclosure. But with the electricity supply cut, we can’t use pumps and haven’t been able to water our crop,” he says, inspecting the betel plants covered with dry grass to protect it from the scorching sun.

Motilal belongs to the Tamoli community. Spread across five villages in a 20-km stretch dominated by 80-odd Gurjjar villages, they are the traditional paan farmers of the area.

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“We grow desi paan, which is sent to Delhi, Varanasi, Aligarh and Meerut. Each leaf costs about Rs 2,” adds Bihari Lal Nabela who owns a farm in nearby Bagran village.

“We need to sprinkle water on the crop at least thrice a day. With no water supply, we have to pump water from 300 feet. But our tanks are now empty,” says Nabela. With no end in sight to the deadlock, Damyanti Devi, sarpanch of the five Tamoli villages, visited the District Magistrate last week. “We didn’t know the Government had cut off the electricity. We thought there was a fault till the DM admitted they had done it because of the Gurjjar stir,” says Nabela.

Motilal’s wife Sunehri says they have sent some consignments by night to the nearest point from where transport is available, some 50 km away. “But now the fresh leaves are drying up before maturing,” she adds. “We have to take great care of the plant. We sprinkle curd, milk and besan on the leaves to keep the insects away. But where is the water?”

“The authorities have asked us to wait till Sunday, but most leaves will dry up by then. Let’s hope that it will rain well so that we water the plants at least once in a day.”