Around noon, on October 6, a group of women and men gather under an old banyan tree next to a water catchment area in Banhari Kalan village of Madhya Pradesh’s Panna district. After a brief meeting, they pick up their green and yellow flags and handmade posters on cardboard. The women enter the water, while the men begin sloganeering on the shore.
Some elderly women lie on symbolic pyres in the water, and others stand with loose nooses around their necks, while a man is strapped to a cross. The chanting begins with slogans like “Nyaay do ya maar do (Give us justice or kill us); Ladenge aur jeetenge (We will fight and win);” and “Hum apna adhikar maangte, nahi kisi se bheekh maangte (We demand our right, not alms from anyone).” The methods of protest are chita andolan (pyre agitation) and jal satyagraha (water resistance). This has become part of people’s routines here.
They gather at the spot twice a day to keep a protest alive, while carrying on with their daily lives. The protest was launched on September 11 against a dam being built under the Majhgaon Medium Irrigation Project of the Madhya Pradesh government. This will displace 1,450 families in four villages out of eight in the Ajaygarh sub-division. The project requires 1,552 hectares of land across eight villages, of which 988 hectares are privately owned. This land has been acquired by the Madhya Pradesh government.
Villagers, mostly tribals, have demands involving fair compensation and rehabilitation. The project will cost ₹693 crore. The protestors allege irregularities, inconsistencies, and delays in the compensation process, despite the land acquisition having begun in 2018. The project will benefit 43 villages, irrigate 8,370 hectares of land, and help with drinking water in the area, according to government documents.
Closing in on a month, the movement currently survives without its leaders, Amit Bhatnagar and Divya Ahirwar of the Jai Kisan Sangathan, a farmer-led movement. While Ahirwar is currently lodged in Panna district jail, Bhatnagar has been granted bail but has been sent to neighbouring Rewa for treatment following a seven-day hunger strike.
The struggle
The current protest is an extension of a movement on for over eight months in the poverty-stricken Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, primarily in Chhatarpur and Panna districts. While demonstrations have been going on in villages for about two years, they gained national attention in April, 2026, when Bhatnagar, a Chhatarpur-based activist, brought together people being affected by five projects and launched a jal satyagraha on the banks of the Barana river near Kupi village.
The projects included the ₹44,000 crore ambitious Ken-Betwa River Link Project (KBLP) of the Union Government, the Madhya Pradesh Government’s Barethi Solar Power Project in Chhatarpur, and Majhgaon and Runjh medium irrigation projects in Panna. The foundation stone of the KBLP was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 25, 2024. The KBLP is the first of 30 such link projects under a National Perspective Plan (NPP) for water resources development.
The project is aimed at solving the water woes of the drought-prone Bundelkhand region that spans parts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, but has also displaced people from 22 villages in Panna and Chhatarpur.
The protest raised allegations of irregularities in the survey and selection process of people affected by the KBLP. Leaders said several people who had no connection with the villages had been included in the rehabilitation plan, while many genuine residents had been left out. The April protests were paused with government assurances, after which fresh surveys were conducted in the 22 villages.
The protest was relaunched in early July in Kupi village with the demand that the rehabilitation package for the people affected by the Majhgaon and Runjh projects be raised from ₹5 lakh to ₹12.5 lakh, on the lines of the KBLP. The demand was accepted on July 10, with the Madhya Pradesh Cabinet announcing another ₹300 crore for the increased package.
The demonstration, which saw affected people standing in water and lying on pyres with mud rubbed on their bodies, ended on July 19 when the police dismantled the protest site in an early-morning action and admitted Bhatnagar, who had been on a hunger strike for two weeks, to hospital. Chhatarpur officials had said that the action was taken owing to heavy rains and rising water levels of the Barana river, and that the demand for a hike in the rehabilitation package had already been accepted.
However, allegations of irregularities and several people being left out of the package forced the Majhgaon project-affected people to once again enter the water and resume their movement, this time in Panna, close to the dam construction site.
The feeling of promises broken
Sampat Pal, in her 70s, stands with a noose around her neck and says that she has not received any money under the rehabilitation package, even as water has reached close to her house in Kunwarpur village. “My husband died years ago, and my name is not included in any records for the rehabilitation money. I have two sons aged between 25 and 30, who are married with children, but their names are also missing. They work as labourers, as we don’t have much agricultural land. We are still staying in our house, but don’t know where we will go once the water enters,” she says. Standing next to her, Gudiya Bai, 45, also from Kunwarpur, says her house is already submerged, but her family is yet to receive any money from the rehabilitation package.
“My husband’s two brothers have received ₹5 lakh each, but our family and another brother’s family have not received a single penny. Our houses are next to one another’s, so if two families are eligible, how come the other two are left out?” Gudiya asks. She says that her family has all the relevant documents, but no official has come to their village to listen to their grievances. “We have been protesting here for 25 days and only once the SDM (Ajaygarh) came. But he also just heard us and left without any resolution or even an assurance,” she says. Pal says that most of the affected people had also gone for the Chhatarpur demonstrations and had only been getting assurances. “We were in Chhatarpur for 16-17 days in July. We slept in tents, stood in water, ate whatever people distributed, and raised our demands in whatever way we could. Every time, officials come, make promises, and we wait, but nothing changes here,” she says. The grievances here are of many kinds. Some people have received the earlier announced ₹5 lakh and await the additional ₹7.5 lakh. Some say that they have only received the compensation for their land and houses, and nothing from the rehabilitation project.
The protestors also allege that several people from the affected villages have been “wrongfully declared ineligible” for the rehabilitation package, while their land and houses have been “incorrectly valued”. Ram Milan, 67, says that his brick house with a cement floor was valued as a mud house, resulting in him receiving “very little compensation” that was not enough to build a new house. “They have been giving us the money in small parts with several delays since 2018. If they had given us all the money at once, we would have been able to utilise it better to rebuild our lives,” he says.
“It seems that if four rotis (breads) are sent from above (the government), officials keep three for themselves and only give us one. Then they came to demolish our houses and ask us to leave. The officials threaten to cut money when we go on protest,” Milan alleges. The long exposure to still and dirty water has also caused infections and wounds. Dhaniram Raikwar is limping, but still joins the protest outside the water as he shows his swollen foot and a large wound on it. “Until a week ago, it was so bad that I could not move my foot,” he says.
“It seems if four rotis (breads) are sent from the above (the government), the officials keep three for themselves and only give us one. Then they came to demolish our houses and ask us to leave”Ram MilanProtestor, Panna district
The protestors also demand that the cutoff date for the rehabilitation package be increased from February 16, 2024, to 2026, as they still have not received the full amount. They allege that local officials and middlemen demand bribes from people affected by the projects to get their money disbursed or their names added to the eligible list.
Earlier in September, a Lokayukta police team arrested Santosh Chikwa, a land revenue officer in Panna, when he was caught taking a bribe of ₹47,000 from a tribal man, who was affected by the Ken-Betwa project. He had allegedly sought ₹80,000 from Dayaram Adivasi for getting his compensation increased.
Bhatnagar had termed Chikwa a “small fish” and alleged that a racket of such officials and middlemen was active across Panna and Chhatarpur, while demanding an investigation into the survey, valuation, and compensation process.
Panna Collector Usha Parmar admits that there is a problem and says that officials from the district administrations are being sent across villages to gather details.
As per official records seen by The Hindu, 988 hectares of private land have been acquired from 1,006 owners in the eight villages of the Majhgaon project, and compensation of ₹194.86 crore has been paid to 97.43% of the people. Of the 1,450 families being displaced from the four villages, 1,219 families have been given ₹5 lakh each under the rehabilitation package. Parmar says that the payment to 231 families is pending, due to court cases over inheritance or lack of documents.
Parmar says that the process to pay the additional amount has already started. “This, however, will take some time this time because we have asked the couples to give us a joint account. The initial ₹5 lakh had been deposited into the account of the family head, usually a man, but many women complained that their husbands wasted that money on things like liquor,” she adds.
Tribals being misled
The Collector also claims that the current protests are politically motivated. “The activists from Chhatarpur are misleading people by promising them land for land. They are claiming credit for getting the package increased to ₹12.5 lakh so the tribals are following them,” she adds.
In Bhatnagar and Ahirwar’s absence, a group of local Congress workers led by former Panna Assembly seat candidate Bharat Milan Pandey have been visiting the protest site to gather data on people who have been left out or declared ineligible for the package to help villagers with documentation. “If the administration corrects its mistake, then fine; otherwise we will file a petition before the Madhya Pradesh High Court,” Pandey says.
Police versus the people
On the evening of September 28, a large number of police personnel arrived at the protest site to arrest Ahirwar and Hisabi Rajput in an alleged attempt-to-murder case lodged at Chhatarpur’s Kishangarh police station in February 2026. Ahirwar, Rajput and two others had been booked following clashes with the police during Ken-Betwa protests. The site turned chaotic.
Villagers allege the police baton-charged and abused them, and later searched their houses. The police claim the protestors tried to free Rajput. Thirteen were arrested, including Ahirwar, for allegedly obstructing the police’s work and assaulting personnel. Bhatnagar and some of his supporters courted arrest following a demonstration at a police outpost. Panna Superintendent of Police Nivedita Naidu says, “Ahirwar instigated the protestors to shield Hisabi Rajput. Their arrest had nothing to do with the protest, and the police did not try to disrupt the demonstration or dismantle the site,” she says.
While nine people were given bail, Ahirwar and three others continue to remain in jail. Bhatnagar, who is in Rewa’s Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, where the police shifted him, alleges that he was forced to give up his hunger strike and has been admitted to the ICU based on a “fabricated medical report”.
He wishes the Panna administration had just talked to the affected farmers. “But why—instead of dialogue—were there jail, legal cases, and repression? Are hospitals and ICUs being used to silence voices raised against corruption and administrative arbitrariness?” he wrote late on October 7, on Facebook. Back at Banhari Kalan, the protestors step out of the water and gather back under the banyan tree. An elderly Sattu Bai says the movement will continue until they get full and fair compensation for their displacement. She raises the slogan, “Zameen hamari, manmaani tumhari; nahi chalegi, nahi chalegi (Our land and your highhandedness; it won’t work).”
mehul.malpani@thehindu.co.in
