 "In Punjab, turning populism into policy")
Na rahega baans, na bajegi bansuri," declared the triumphant Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as he moved a resolution in the Punjab assembly on the disputed issue of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal. The resolution stated that the canal would not be allowed to be built at any cost. If there's no bamboo, the flute won't play, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patriarch said. What he meant was: if there's no canal, there won't be any water sharing.
Thumbing a nose at the Supreme Court, which had just a day earlier directed the Punjab government to maintain status quo on the SYL canal land, the Punjab assembly then unanimously passed the resolution. Three days later, the Punjab Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal Land (Transfer of Property Rights) Bill - to de-notify the 3,928 acres of land acquired for the canal and return it to its original owners - was tabled in the assembly. By evening, there was a free-for-all on large stretches of the 122-km canal in Punjab. Jubilant farmers rushed to reclaim the land and fill the canal to ready it for the crops they intended to grow there.
With this, the fate of the SYL canal, which is meant for allocating surplus Ravi- Beas waters to Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi, is now more uncertain than ever before.
With assembly elections barely a year away, Badal is desperate. And a desperate man will resort to desperate measures. Having been in power for two terms in a row, he knows he has to find a way to counter anti-incumbency, which has historically been a very real threat for any ruling party in Punjab.
This tenure of his too has been far from smooth. Last year, the state witnessed a series of incidents of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, which led to massive public outrage, violent protests and saw the resignations of a large number of Akali Dal politicians and members of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. Demands for the resignation of the state government and the imposition of President's Rule reached a crescendo.
Playing to the gallery
Now, as the election nears, Badal has pulled out all the stops to win people over. To counter the perception that the government failed to protect the holy book of the Sikhs, his son, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, recently moved a Bill providing for life imprisonment as maximum punishment for those convicted of desecrating the Guru Granth Sahib. The Bill, passed by the Punjab Assembly, also aims to increase the punishment for desecrating other religious texts from two years to 10 years. The measure is being called "populist", "politically-motivated" and "draconian", but analysts say Badal is confident of reaping political dividends from it.
Earlier this week, in a move to appease farmers, the state government passed the "Punjab Settlement of Agricultural Indebtedness Bill, 2016", which aims to rescue farmers from the clutches of the arhtiya (commission agent or private money lender) and provide for "fair and expeditious settlement of agriculturists' debt-related disputes".
And a little over a year ago, Badal announced a slew of measures for cow protection in the state: such as, not charging value-added tax on building material used by registered gaushalas (cowsheds) and providing free electricity to them.
But his most powerful salvo so far has been his brazen defiance on the SYL canal issue. Every political party that wants a share of Punjab, be it SAD, the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party, realises that river water is an emotional issue in the state where the water table is plunging. So, each party has been shouting itself hoarse to be seen as favouring Punjab's whole and sole claim over the Ravi-Beas waters that the SYL canal is meant to carry.
That explains Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal's statement during a visit to Punjab's Kapurthala district that he was against the construction of the SYL canal because Punjab did not have enough water to share with other states.
"What Kejriwal forgets is that Delhi is also meant to get a share of the river waters," says Randeep Singh Surjewala, Congress leader and member of the Haryana legislative assembly, terming Punjab's move as an affront to the Constitution.
Of the available supplies of 17.17 million acre feet (MAF) of the Beas and Ravi waters, Punjab and Haryana are meant to get 5 MAF and 3.83 MAF, respectively. There is also a share for Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi. While Haryana completed its part of the canal by the end of 1981, Punjab completely stopped the construction of the canal, which was 90 per cent complete, in July 1990. It was Haryana that paid Punjab for acquiring land for the canal and for its construction.
In a gesture that could go down well with voters, the Punjab government earlier this month sent a cheque of Rs 191.75 crore to Haryana, returning all the money it had received for the SYL canal from the state. But the Haryana government promptly returned the cheque to Punjab.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Haryana Irrigation Minister O P Dhankar claimed that had Punjab completed the SYL canal, then 800,000 tonne of additional grain would have been produced and Haryana farmers would have received Rs 1,000 crore per year. Haryana, he said, had suffered a loss of Rs 35,000 crore because the canal wasn't built.
The tug of war isn't over yet, though Punjab insists it is. "This canal has been the cause of farmers' misery," says SAD General Secretary Daljit Singh Cheema. "It attracts wild animals, rats and snakes that destroy the crops growing in fields alongside the canal. The land belongs to the farmers and they have taken it over."
He, like the other leader of the state, insists that according to the riparian principle, Punjab has the rightful claim on the river waters. The riparian doctrine gives the owner of the land bordering a stream or a river the legal right over that water. This right cannot be bought or sold.
"The state is running dry," says Cheema. "We are compensating for water with tubewells. There are 1.2 million tubewells across the state. Imagine what that is doing to the ground water level."
Ashok Gulati, agricultural economist and former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, does not buy the riparian argument. "The state from where the water is originating cannot say I should get it all," he says, giving the example of the Narmada. "The dams on Narmada were built in Madhya Pradesh, so more people were displaced in Madhya Pradesh, but Gujarat has got a greater share of its waters."
Badal scores a point
By bringing in the Bill to de-notify the canal land, Badal has scored a political point over his arch rival, Amarinder Singh of the Congress. In 2004, as the state's chief minister, Singh had cornered Badal by bringing in the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act. The Act had terminated all agreements relating to the Ravi-Beas waters. The Supreme Court had earlier this month started hearings into a presidential reference to decide on the legality of the 2004 Act, when Badal declared that the canal cannot be built and decided to de-notify the land acquired for it.
"The whole politics of river water sharing in Punjab and Haryana has been guided by apportionment rather than harnessing of the water resources," says Pramod Kumar, director of the Institute for Development and Communication, Chandigarh. "The politicians of Punjab realise that political advantage lies in conflict enhancement rather than its resolution," he says.
In the last 40 years, since the dispute started, people had found comfort in status quo, says Kumar. They were no longer interested in wasting time holding protests and fighting over the canal or the water. "The political dividend from the SYL issue had weakened," he says. "But now, by de-notifying the land, Badal has earned more political capital than he would have by saying that we are going to fight it out. People were fed up, they wanted this to end."
Scrambling to claim credit, which seems to have fallen into Badal's pocket, political leaders from other parties are now rushing in to help farmers level the land and demolish the canal.
While maintaining that the waters rightfully belong to Punjab, Badal's estranged nephew, Manpreet Singh Badal, who recently joined the Congress, says his uncle was sleeping over the issue for the last nine years and appears to have woken up just before the elections. "He has been a past master at these things. But this is his last tamasha," says the nephew. "Sometimes he says the panth is in danger; at other times he says the river waters are in danger. But he never addresses the real issues -drugs, poverty and unemployment."
Constitutional expert Madhav Khosla calls Badal's resolution on the SYL canal "totally illegal". "The court will have to take the government to task, initiate contempt proceedings," he says. "Under Article 262 of the Constitution, the authority to deal with the distribution of and control over any interstate river water issue lies with Parliament. Resolutions, like the one Punjab has passed, have no bearing on anything."
The apex court, in its interim order, has, meanwhile, appointed Union home secretary, Punjab's chief secretary and director-general of police as the joint receiver of land and other property meant for the canal till the next date of hearing on March 31. Badal, however, is not worried.
