Tested by mud and water, in Bundelkhand

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.