‘Kill us if you take our land’, say protesting Indian farmers

BANGKOK: More than 5,000 farmers in the western Indian state of Gujarat have told authorities they would rather die than live without their land, as disputes over the resource become increasingly contentious in the country.

Farmers in Bhavnagar district said they have written to state officials and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding the return of more than 2,000 hectares of land they say was acquired by a power utility more than 20 years ago, but has lain idle. Most farmers had gone back to cultivating the land, but they were forcibly removed some months ago, said Narendrasinh Gohil of Gujarat Khedut Samaj, the group leading the protest.

“They had not done anything with the land for so long. Either they must reacquire the land under the new law, or return it to us, so we can cultivate it and earn a living,” Gohil said. “Without our land, we are dead. So they may as well kill us,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. A Bhavnagar district official acknowledged they had received a letter from the farmers, and said police had not used force in removing them from the property.