Between 16 and 18 March 1949 the Maharaja of Patiala's forces bombarded Kishangarh in Mansa district. The muzaras, the tenant farmers, had refused to pay batai or vacate. Reports describe armoured vehicles used against the village.
Dharam Singh Fakkar Ji surrendered with 85 tenant farmers to stop the assault. A memorial gate at the village entrance reads: Dedicated to the memory of martyrs of PEPSU-Muzara Movement, who fought against feudalism and monarchy.
Other muzara villages: Bir Khurd and Gobindgarh Jejian in Mansa, Retgarh and Safipur in Sangrur, Bhagtuana in Faridkot. Leaders included Teja Singh Sutantar, who formed the Lal Communist Party in 1948, and Jagir Singh Joga.
The Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act of 1961 reserves a third of village common agricultural land for Scheduled Castes. Upper-caste farmers used proxy bidders to take it anyway. The Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Committee formed in 2009 and now organises across roughly 70 villages, mostly in Sangrur. At Jhaloor on 5 October 2016 a 72-year-old Dalit woman was fatally injured in clashes, and she died on 11 November. Families working reclaimed land earn about ₹30,000 a year, grain included.
The muzaras were tenants of the biswedars, the landlords to whom the Patiala state had granted revenue rights, and they had worked the land for generations without owning it.
The movement demanded ownership and refused to pay batai, the share of the crop. It was organised by the Lal Communist Party and the Kisan Sabha and it held whole villages.
State forces shelled Kishangarh in March 1949. The movement won its point six years later, when the Pepsu tenancy legislation converted the muzaras into owners.