It was all laurels for the organisers of India’s first Formula One Grand Prix (F1 GP) which concluded at Greater Noida’s Buddh International circuit last Sunday. The event was high on speed, adrenaline and razzmatazz. Organisers Jaypee Group had spent a whopping 145 million euros building the venue and the same amount again to obtain an F1 license fee.

A few metres outside the gates of the venue, the glamour and glitz were missing as thousands of farmers marched in protest on Sunday. “We were 3,000-4,000 farmers from about 360 panchayats from around the region demanding justice and equality,” says Jagdishchandra Nirmohi, general secretary of the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), an Indian farmer’s union.

Land acquisition
The farmers were demonstrating against the grand event held on the circuit, which spreads across 875 acres. This circuit is in turn a part of the larger Jaypee Green Sports City that is located about 25 kilometres from Delhi and sprawls over 2500 acres of land.

The protesting farmers say these 2500 acres of land used to be theirs until 2008, when the Uttar Pradesh government bought it from them at the rate of 325 rupees (5 euros) per square yard. The government then sold the same land at almost ten times the rate to the developers.

The price hike is what the farmers say is unfair. “This is inequality and totally arbitrary. The government has decided what rate to buy the land from us. We were paid peanuts compared to the money they made out of it,” says Nirmohi.

‘Victims not conspirators’
The Jaypee Group, which now owns the land, maintains that the land acquisition deal between the government and the farmers doesn’t concern them. “We have paid the compensation that the government has asked us to pay. It was by mutual consent,” says the infrastructure development group’s spokesperson Askari Zaidi. 

However, the BKS maintains they are victims and not conspirators. “We are farmers. Most of us aren’t aware of our rights, we are uneducated. The government said they wanted land and said they would pay us so much. We didn’t know they were going to hike up the price by so much while reselling it,’’ Nirmohi claims.

He adds that the new infrastructure project has not only taken away their livelihoods but has also been built on cultivable land: “We used to grow vegetables here. This is going to have an adverse impact on the prices of vegetables and other food grains we were growing here. People living in the cities nearby are going to have to pay the price.”

Employment opportunities
The Jaypee Group thinks differently. It sees the infrastructure project, which also hosts a cricket stadium, as an employment opportunity for the farmers who have lost their land. “We have offered employment to one member of a five-member family which has given up five bhigha (2.5 acres) of land. We have created around 8000 jobs and will create more employment opportunities in the years to come,” Zaidi says.

On Sunday, the Noida police detained nearly 50 farmers as they demonstrated to demand better compensation for their land. 

The first Indian Grand Prix was hailed as a “grand success”. The curtains have now drawn on the event and the banners have come down. The media vans have packed up and the venue is edging out of the limelight. But the farmers vow to continue their struggle. “We will stop further development if our demands aren’t met,” Nirmohi says. But he is quick to add, “We don’t have a voice. We are struggling to fight this battle alone, by ourselves.”