A Gram Baithak in Nadipara, February 2008

It was approaching 9 p.m. on a cool evening in Nadipara. Nadipara was inhabited almost exclusively by people who made their living as khet majur, that is, as agricultural labourers without land to their name, who gain their livelihood primarily from working on other people's land (cf. Thorner 1991, 265). With few exceptions the khet majur belonged to the SC Bauri caste. Even though it is often the case that the real wages and material wellbeing of agricultural labourers increase significantly when new employment opportunities open up in the non- agricultural sector (Lindberg 2012, 67) – for instance in the guise of a new car factory – the large majority of Nadipara's khet majur had from the outset rallied behind the SKJRC to oppose the land acquisition that would have paved the way for Tata Motors’ new factory.

We had just left the village club, one of only four concrete buildings in Nadipara, where the SKJRC had concluded a gram baithak with the residents. The meeting had witnessed a heated debate between some of the khet majur villagers and the local leadership of the SKJRC, which was generally comprised of men of the Mahishya caste of chasi, or owner- cultivators, residing in Shantipara and elsewhere. Ajay Bairagi, an industrious and vocal khet majur in his twenties, had complained that nobody in the SKJRC's leadership really cared about the plight of Nadipara's khet majur. The whole mobilization, he had alleged, was dominated and led by local chasjomi malik (landowners), and the SKJRC's agenda was shaped by their desire to retain their agricultural land in the face of dispossession. Although they owned hardly any land, Nadipara's khet majur had supported the landowners in this struggle because they wanted to fight for their right to make a living through tilling the land. But so far they had gotten nothing in return, and their concerns were hardly ever raised by the SKJRC in public fora. What Ajay was in effect saying was that the concerns of the khet majur and the chasi differed significantly: should the SKJRC ultimately fail in securing the return of the acquired land, the landowners would still be legally entitled to financial compensation. But the khet majur, who were not officially recognized as eligible for compensation, would be left jobless and empty- handed.