Reclaiming of Maru Land

Reclaiming Of Maru Lands

Shivpreet Singh with Gobind Singh at the Tube-well

S. Preet Mohan Singh, S. Gobind Singh, S. Shivpreet Singh, at vast leveled Maru Land

S. Shivpreet Singh, S. Gobind Singh, Srdn Dashminder Kaur, and Jania Kaur

Maru Land 14+ acres Parcel, As It Looks today

My father had also owned about another 25 Acres of Maru Land (a short name for Marusthal meaning desert). The crops from this part of parcel of land always depend upon the rains. The land was full of hilltops all around and hardly any two acres were at level which is the prime condition of fruitful farming. There were sand and pebbles all around. You will not be able to see a tree for miles. The water level available was very deep and if available it was very salty, sour and of inferior quality. At times when God was pleased, we used to have some crops of ground nuts or corn on a few spots. Most of the times, it will not rain for years, and when it rained, it rained excessively resulting in floods which will create havoc. All the lands around will be seized by water and nothing else.

The Government tried to take measures to control the floods but was not very effective due to paucity of sufficient funds. And even these reforms would never reach to the parcel of land we owned. A brick lined canal was laid down, which did help us a little during the floods. But the sub soil water level raised to a very high level and the land almost converted to marshy conditions. One could easily dig a few feet to reach the water. The irrigation department of the Punjab Government planned a Open Rain drain and constructed the same through our Parcel. Thus about 8+ Acres were on one side of the drain, while 14+ acres came on the other. The drain consumed about 2-3 Acres of our land and we were nominally compensated. to prevent the soil erosion, they planted 'kikkar trees on either side of the drain. We did use this 'kikkar' for brushing our teeth free - another perk for owning lands.

The land of 8+ Acre was better leveled and cultivatable, and a few people got interested to rent the same for cultivation. But we hardly made any money, it was just negligible. While on the other side, the 14 + acres were either hill tops or deep slopes. To make it worst, during the rainy season, the flooding water will bring lot of pebbles and loose soil and sit on our part of land. After the floods, the land will become so hard that no cultivator will dare to plough the land and only a paste of white 'shora/Cullar' will cover the entire land.

I remember my Dad will bring that 'shora' from his lands in a Jute bag from all the way to Panipat and we shall use the same for washing utensils. It was really effective on them. It was in great demand by friends, neighbors and even relatives who will not mind to take the so called 'shora' to Delhi for such a use.

After the death of my Mom in Jan 1985, my Dad started showing less interest in lands and one day handed over the charge to me. But he wanted me to give him Rs 10000/- per crop ( two in a year) from the income of lands. Major part of the job was to pay for the expenses being done during the cultivation process. Our persons will normally take the money from the 'Aarati' while I shall pay back to the 'Aarati'. I shall keep the accounts as being done by my father. That is the way my Dad taught me everything just giving me free hand while supervising me.

I made many visits to this parcel and tried to study to rectify the problem. I found that some cultivators who had migrated from Distt Ludhiana had stared improving their newly purchased lands. That was a good sign. I consulted my cousins who had been doing farming all their lives. I found that the migrant cultivators had sold out their lands in Ludhiana at exorbitant prices and with the same money they had acquired larger parcels here in Badbar and were cash rich. They used that cash on the improvement of lands by way of spending on equipment like tools, tractors, trolleys and fertilizers and labour. The land sold by my uncle Sh Inder Jit Singh was simply converted into lush green crop yielding fields.

On every visit, I was pleasantly surprised by the new environment and tried to mingle with village folks and often praised them for their hard working habits. When asking for an advice, the learned friends and relatives will make a fun of me as they were sure that a white collared bureaucrat like me was only walking in the dark. They remarked that how could I be successful while sitting at a distance of 250 Kms in Delhi. Many times it took me more than 12 hours to reach my village Badbar, besides I had a regular government job to attend to. Now a days, he will only direct me from Delhi and teach me the tricks of the trade. While the people in charge will hardly listen to me and would most of the time pass me off and leave the decision to check from the Dad before really initiating any action.

So I made a plan to reclaim the land and reluctantly went ahead to discuss it with Dad. I knew he had worked all his life on farming and knew every ins and outs of the industry. I told my Dad that we wanted to dispose off the oxes as we could not maintain them, while the servant's animals were all fed on our lands and our animals were week and died every other year. We had to spend to buy another set of oxen and would continue to lease one acre of land free to the servants. Thus a lot of revenue was bleeding in the process. On the other hand. the cultivators will not undertake to cultivate our lands. We were so much dependent on them.

We, the people from city, will not dirty our hands and dare to plough ourselves. We had never done this ever in my last ten generations. To do physical work was really very difficult and arduous. Hence I felt, we were so much influenced by them that we carried on to do the same way for ages. How can we be slaves to their backward habits for so many ages, I cried again and again. I tried to study the history and found that we were following the same process of farming as being done since the Akbar era. In other words, we had not moved forward at all for hundreds of years.

Now the times had changed, new technologies are being developed and have been proven for progressive farming. First suggestion was to buy a tractor. That is good, my father reacted. Where will you get the money, the driver, maintenance and running expanses and day to day supervision. I had the answers to all of them.

The plan was like this:

• To dispose of a part of land.
• Invest this money on development of land by making two -three overall levels by dividing into various pockets at ONE GO.
• Get rid of the animals, engage sub-contractors for seeding and deploy harvesting combines on hire.
• Buy a Tractor in partnership with the cultivator.
• Give the cultivator more responsibilities.
• Get a deep tube well.
• Get the fruits in three ears.

My Dad reacted, that this was only a plan which will be successful in the dreams. Who was going to buy this rotten land. I immediately replied him that there was a customer who wanted to buy our 8+ acres parcel of land. This was a pleasant surprise for him. Two years back, my uncle Sh InderJit Singh had sold his part of land in the Maru for Rs 13000/-per acre and my father had arranged the customer a cultivator from Ludhiana. He was so thrilled to get that rate and was feeling elevated to have won the lottery. So he allowed me to initiate the negotiations on my next visit.

I pre-poned my visit the following weekend. I had couple of meetings and pressed the customer to offer Rs 27500/- per Acre and promised to close the deal after consulting my Dad next week. My Dad would not believe that the offer was actually there. As promised, I took Rs 1000/- as advance came back happy after clinching the deal of selling of 8+ Acres, the balance money was to be paid at the time of next harvest in April, 1988.

The hectic project of improvement of land started immediately after the Crops harvesting. I bought a Tractor in partnership with one Charanjit singh, a very honest and hardworking ex-army man from Ludhiana. He badly needed a tractor, as he had lost the rights of owning the tractor his brother on distribution of his family assets. He had his own land also besides he worked for us. I asked him to get his1/2 acre mortgaged along mine 1/2 acre. We became the proud owner of new Red Coloured Fergusan tractor after buying it for Rs 140000/-(through loan). He arranged all loan papers and finalized the deal with a Tractor Dealer in Sangrur. He also purchased a trolley and many other associated parts etc.

Charanjit singh was a crack shot for me. after using the tractor for my Nehri land and also lending to others started making money. This money was used in buying some accessories for tractor. Now the need for the animals was eliminated. After the leveling and consolidating the various acres into bigger lots, our tractor worked wonders in the Nehri land. suddenly my status of a farmer was upgraded to a progressive former.

now the plans of developing the Maru land were drawn and we were waiting some rains to start so that the digging and grading works can be smoothly done on a wet land. I decided to visit the land every week end not to check Charanjit singh but to give him moral and financial support. Part of the money received from the sale of land, I purchased a two bed room flat for Rs 145000/ - Sidharth Extension near Bala Sahib Gurdwara and rented the same for Rs 800/ pm.

Normally after dinner on every Friday, I shall take a DTC bus to Delhi Railway Station and catch a Jammu-Tavi express which was scheduled to reach 5.30 AM at Sangrur. This train was typical, it never started on the same date. As the schedule time to start was 11.50 PM, it never ever will stream off that day. Invariably it will start 2-3 hours late. There was hardly any rush, only a few business man with goods from Delhi will use this train.

It was summer time, some times very hot and sultry. But being the mid of night, it was a little consolable. Harvinder will give me some package of lunch and mangoes for my consumption the next day. That was the only luggage besides a inflatable pillow. I shall go to the conductor and take his permission to use one sleeper. He was always glad to accept the offer, meaning that he will wake me up a station called Tiwana and we shall take a cup of tea and I would pay him Rs 5/- for allowing me the luxury of sleeping without booking. The journey was in a way comfortable.

I shall reach Sangrur early morning depending upon the mood of the driver, guard or the system. From Railway station Sangrur, I shall avail a morning walk for about half a mile and reach the Bus stand to catch a Punjab Transport Bus for going to Badbar at a distance of 10 miles. Most of the time I could take the very first Bus starting at 7.00 AM and was there in Badbar by 7.30 AM. On the way came important mile stones like Badrukhan. Badrukhan is about 5 km from Sangrur, the district heaquarters, on Sangrur-Barnala road. There are two versions about the nomenclature of the village. One is that it was named after Badru, a pandit of this village, by Raja Gajpat Singh. Another version, which is more believable is that when Raja Gajpat Singh took control of these villges,(Vada Agwarh, Vichla Agwarh, Dalamwal, Dhaliwas and Thagan wali Patti) at that time very big trees Rukh were standing here on the basis of which it came to be called Badrukhan.

The present village Badrukhan consists of five small villages, which, daring the times of Raja Gajpat Singh, were amalgamated and came to be known as Badrukhan. Prior to it, these villages were in Badbar thana and were being ruled by Nawab of Malerkotla. The residents of these villages were feeling insecure on account of the dacoities committed by Muslims. The leaders of these five villages, under the leadership of Pandit Badru, approached Gajpat Singh, the Maharaja of Jind, for their security and gave him 1700 bighas of land. Maharaja Gajpat Singh amalgamated these villages and named it Badrukhan. In 1763, when Gajpat Singh captured the town of Jind, Badrukhan was made the capital of Jind State. He also built the fort here.

Badrukhan is believed to be the birth place of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Raj Kaur,daughter of Gajpat Singh gave birth of Maharaja Ranjit Singh on 13 November 1780 here. Maharaja Hira Singh of Nabha was also born here, Lieutenant General (Retd.) Harbaksh Singh (Vir Chakra). Major General Gurbaksh Singh (DSO and OBE)-and Major Rajnit Singh also belong to this village.
In the village, there exists a smadh of Baba Guddar Shah who is said to have taken out the body of Raj Kaur, daughter of Maharaja Gajpat Singh buried in the large earthen vessel. Maharaja Gajpat Singh distributed large sweet thick cake of bread. Every year on the anniversary of Baba Guddar Shah, large sweet thick bread is baked and distributed as prasad.. Then comes a a very famous place called 'Mastuana sahib' which has been developed a great place of learning for college going students of the area. Mastuana Sahib, established in 1923, by Sant Attar Singh, is not a historical shrine as such hut a prestigious institution for training young scholars in the theory and practice of the Sikh faith. It is a vast complex comprising dormitories, rows of cubicles, a dining hall, an agricultural farm and a magnificent Gurdwara with a large assembly hall. All these shrines, other then Mastuana Sahib, are under the management of the Sh - Gurdwara Parbhandhak Committee, which took over control in 1963 from the family of the - Captain Ranjit Singh of Shahzadpur. My dad and my grandmother will visit once every year in April and present the first harvest to the Gurdwara Saheb.
I used to pray here to the 'Waheguru' while sitting in the Bus for giving me strength and vision to be successful for this project. I would love the view on both sides of the road. The air was cooler and fresh and scent of wheat smelling all around. In late fall, it was all smelling rice, as if the almighty was cooking the rice in His kitchen for feeding his subjects. The views had various rainbow colors at various part of the year. It was a wheat green in January, dull brown in march and glittering gold on the ground and deep blue in the sky in April, dark grounding black in May/June with some patches of soft green and red blood sun set in the evening, lush green in August/ September and smoggy purple & green in winter. My grand mother and my Dad and my uncle will inhale in this fresh and unpolluted air and at times, I would smell them in the same air and at times, I would also smell of their bodies cutting across the fresh breeze which passed, jumped and crisscrossed through the fields laden with various crops at all the times. I thanked Almighty for the fresh air, developed in these fields, which kept my Dad and his mom and his brother safe and healthy. I myself felt invigorated with this scented air while thinking all this. By the time it was 7.30 am and I would reach Badbar. What a change from a polluted air, contaminated atmosphere, and foul environment of a city called Delhi.

Somebody had pushed me into a heaven called Badbar.

to be continued and edited...

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