Tenants Association of Punjab explained

The Tenants Association of Punjab (AMP, Anjuman Muzareen Punjab) represents almost a 100,000 peasants in the Punjab province of Pakistan, who work and live on Pakistani government- and military-owned land, managed by the Punjab Seed Corporation.^{[1] [2]}

The peasants had been working the land since 1900, under British rule, mostly under a crop share agreement. This agreement continued after independence. The military and the government of Pakistan imposed a cash rent on the farm land, which the peasants tried to resist. There has been a dispute between the military who own the land and the peasants, which has led to military action, imprisoning and killing various members of AMP.^[3]

The Chairman, Younis Iqbal, and others were arrested in 2001. At the time of their arrest, another faction was brought forward, supported by the Peoples' Rights Movement and the Labour Party Pakistan. The AMP General Secretary Meher Abdul Sattar was arrested again under the Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (MPO) in 2016.^[4]

Further reading

• Akhtar . Aasim Sajjad . The state as landlord in Pakistani Punjab: Peasant struggles on the Okara military farms . Journal of Peasant Studies . Informa UK Limited . 33 . 3 . 2006 . 0306-6150 . 10.1080/03066150601063058 . 479–501. 144410921 .
• Book: Rizvi, Mubbashir A. . The ethics of staying : social movements and land rights politics in Pakistan . Stanford, California . 2019 . 978-1-5036-0877-1 . 1048657189.
• Raza . Shozab . Between militants and "mafia": Interrupting dispossession in rural Pakistan . Ethnography . SAGE Publications . 2020-10-22 . 1466-1381 . 10.1177/1466138120967688 . 226333541 .

Notes and References

1. Web site: State has no right to kill unarmed citizens - The Daily Times Pakistan . 2007-12-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110606154611/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_26-8-2002_pg3_1 . 2011-06-06 . live .
2. Zaidi . Rushed Zehra . Entering the field: Examining the relevance of political ecology to the agrarian struggle of Anjuman Muzareen Punjab in Pakistan . Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography . 25 April 2012 . 33 . 1 . 63–76 . 10.1111/j.1467-9493.2012.00454.x . 8 May 2020.
3. News: Yusuf . Ahmed . Between the lines: The Thaapa Force . 8 May 2020 . Dawn . 24 January 2016.
4. News: Preventive custody: Peasant leader detained ahead of scheduled convention . 8 May 2020 . The Tribune . 17 April 2016.