Tag: Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal

Parkash Singh Badal: The Leader Who Saw the Making of Punjab

During the course of his seven-decade-long political journey, he never missed the chance to speak about Sikhs, Punjab’s rights and communal harmony in Punjab.

Jalandhar: It was February 1984. Parkash Singh Badal and a host of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) workers reached Delhi’s famous Bangla Sahib Gurdwara and burnt a copy of Article 25 (B) of the Indian constitution, demanding the Union government to amend it and give separate identity to the Sikhs. That clause said that the “reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly”.

Badal not only tore the copy of Article 25, he even wrote a letter to the United Nations raising the same demand. However, later Badal admitted several times that his actions were based on orders from Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, who was the president of SAD during the insurgency-hit Punjab of the 1980s.

A staunch supporter of federalism, Parkash Singh Badal breathed his last on April 25, 2023 at the age of 95. During the course of his seven-decade-long political journey, he never missed the chance to speak about Sikhs, Punjab’s rights and communal harmony in Punjab. He would take pride in the fact that Punjab never witnessed any communal clashes.

During his career, he witnessed the historical, religious and political developments of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s such as the Sikh-Nirankari clash of 1978, Operation Blue Star in 1984, the Rajiv-Longowal Accord in 1985 and the militancy in Punjab in the early 90s.

And in his main rival congress, Badal found the political ground to grow as the tallest leader of Punjab. His attacks against the Congress revolved around Operation Bluestar, its alleged anti-Sikh stance and corruption. He was known for maintaining cordial relations with everybody, a quality which earned him respect across party lines.

Tryst with BJP

By adopting moderate stand and politics following the SAD-BJP alliance during the historic Moga Conference of 1996, Badal started a new chapter in not just Akali politics but that of Punjab’s politics too.

During the Moga conference, Badal gave the slogan of ‘Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat’. Despite stiff opposition from the then SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Badal went ahead with the SAD-BJP alliance and ruled Punjab for two consecutive terms from 2007 to 2017. However, it often left the SAD juggling between the ideology of ‘Panthic party’ (focused on Sikh politics) and a ‘Punjabi party’.

The SAD’s journey with the BJP came to an end in 2020, severing ties with the party because of the three farm laws. But the damage had already been done. If its show of 18 seats in the 2017 assembly elections, owing to to aaparent failure to curb drug abuse and a lack of progress in sacrilege cases, was considered dismal, it was reduced to merely three seats in 2022. It clearly hinted at that the Akalis’ base was eroding in Punjab.

Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal. Photo: By arrangement

‘Art of compromised politics’

Director of World Punjabi Centre from Punjabi University, Patiala, Professor Balkar Singh said, “From being a common farmer, he became a sarpanch and a wealthy politician. His art of compromised politics, sometimes under pressure from the public and largely with the Centre, ensured his political success.”

Along with SGPC president Gurcharan Singh Tohra and ex-SAD president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, Badal was one of the few leaders who not just led but was also well informed about the behind-the-scenes politics of fundamental issues like Punjabi Suba Morcha, Anandpur Sahib Resolution, Dharam Yudh Morcha and the agitation against Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal.

Jaspal Singh Sidhu, a former journalist who covered nearly all the major developments of Punjab, said Badal was the main leader of the Punjabi Suba (state) struggle. “Punjabi Suba came into existence in November 1966 but Chandigarh was not part of it. He did not do anything for it. Badal was the main architect of Dharam Yudh Morcha, which started on August 4, 1982 from the Golden temple. He was the first one to volunteer and court arrest for it. Badal’s political trajectory was like that: if needed, he would compromise with the public, else go in sync with the Centre,” he said.

The Dharam Yudh Morcha led to the protest against the SYL Canal.

The senior journalist also said that during the 1997 assembly elections, Badal announced the constitution of a Truth Commission to expose fake encounters and human rights violation cases in its election manifesto. “That Truth Commission never saw the light of the day. Leave taking action against the guilty police officers involved in fake encounters, Badal appointed most of them to key posts and left the victims begging for justice,” he added.

The senior journalist said while the BJP kept on expanding its centralist agenda, Badal as chief minister chose to brush aside Punjab’s interests for the sake of electoral gains. “The rout of SAD [in the previous two assembly elections] was primarily because it kept ignoring the interests of Sikhs and Punjab,” Sidhu said.

Also Read: In Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab Loses a Mass Leader

Overt and covert messaging

Badal also sought to commute the death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was convicted for the assassination of former Punjab CM Beant Singh. In 2012 Badal and his son, then deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, handed a mercy petition to the President, seeking clemency for Rajaona. The latter was supposed to be hanged on March 31, 2012 but the Union government stayed it on March 29, 2012.

It was for this reason that the recently formed SAD-BSP alliance fielded Rajaona’s sister Kamaldeep Kaur as the ‘joint panthic candidate’ for the Sangrur by election in May 2022, where SAD (Amritsar) president Simranjit Singh Mann won.

The former CM was also known for subtly conveying even the toughest of messages. With a laugh, he would convey messages which hold deep meaning. At an event in Lovely Professional University, where the then president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai was the chief guest, CM Badal – while concluding his speech – asked Karzai to “stop the smuggling of heroin from Afghanistan” as it was affecting the youth of Punjab.

Senior congress leader and the first woman CM of Punjab Rajinder Kaur Bhattal shared an anecdote about Badal. “He was committed to his party and Punjab issues. During the Dharam Yudh Morcha, he could not attend his only daughter’s wedding because he was arrested,” she said.

Badal spent many years in jail during emergency and for participating in different morchas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called him the Nelson Mandela of India during an event in Delhi in 2015.

When in power Badal undertook several populist measures like providing free power to farmers, Atta Dal scheme for the poor, Shagun scheme for the marriage of SC girls and distribution of cycles to girl students in government schools. All of them struck a chord with the voters.

In Badal’s demise, people not only lost a popular leader but a politician whose life spanned parallel to that of Punjab’s journey.

SGPC Installs Sikh Militant Balwinder Jattana’s Portrait at Central Sikh Museum

Jattana’s assassination of two Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal officials resulted in the project work halting in July 1990. His name is in the limelight again because of a posthumous Sidhu Moosewala song.

Jalandhar: Brought back into the limelight by slain singer Sidhu Moosewala’s posthumous song ‘SYL’, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has decided to display the photo of militant Balwinder Singh Jattana at the Central Sikh Museum that is located in the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar.

The SGPC is a body that is responsible for the maintenance of gurudwaras in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Its president Harjinder Singh Dhami, who presided over a meeting of the body’s executive committee on July 6, announced said Balwinder Singh Jattana’s photo would be displayed at Central Sikh Museum because he was “a brave struggling Sikh who opposed the Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal for the protection of waters of Punjab”.

The canal was designed to carry water from Punjab to Haryana and Rajasthan. Its construction was stopped in July 1990, after Jattana and other militants of the Babbar Khalsa – a pro-Khalistan group – shot dead the canal’s chief engineer M.S. Sikri and superintending engineer Avtar Aulakh. A year later, Jattana was killed in a police encounter on September 4, 1991.

Jattana was in the news nearly 31 years after his death when Moosewala’s song ‘SYL’, referenced him. In the song, Moosewala demands sovereignty and adds that if the government did not relent, “someone like Balwinder Jattana will return”.

The song, which was released on June 23, created a buzz across the region and garnered rave reviews. However, the Union government banned it within three days, on June 26.

Talking to The Wire, SGPC president Dhami said the body gets requests from families and independent groups to install photos of different Sikh personalities in the museum. “The decision to install photos is taken by the sub-committee of SGPC, which decided to put up Jattana’s photo.”

Asked if such a decision could be interpreted as the SGPC encouraging extremism, Dhami said, “The SGPC is a Sikh body constituted to represent the Sikhs. We have earlier installed the photos of Beant Singh and Satwant Singh (assassins of former prime minister Indira Gandhi), Sukhdev Singh Sukha and Harjinder Singh Jinda (assassins of former Army Chief Gen A.S. Vaidya) and many others.”

Dhami further added that the SGPC honours Sikhs who fought for their community, sacrificed their lives or brought laurels in the fields of religion, politics, Sikh issues, Punjab affairs or exceptional government service.

Last month, the SGPC installed the photo of Dilawar Singh, one of the assassins of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh ahead of the Sangrur by-poll held on June 23. Because the affairs of the SGPC and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) are inextricably linked, the move was seen as an attempt to gain the Panthic (Sikh religious) vote. The SAD’s candidate for the election was Kamaldeep Kaur, the sister of Balwant Singh Rajoana, who assassinated Beant Singh.

Hardliner’s role in the move

Kanwar Pal Singh, the leader of the Sikh Hardliner group Dal Khalsa, told The Wire that he had submitted a memorandum to the SGPC on July 4 to install Jattana’s photo.

“The SGPC did not take this decision on their own. We have been late to honour Jattana. It was because of his actions that the SYL canal construction was stopped,” he said.

Kanwar Pal Singh admitted that Moosewala’s song ‘SYL’ was hugely popular, people had come to know about Jattana. “We felt that it was the right time to approach the SGPC with this demand,” he said.

A screenshot from Sidhu Moosewala’s song ‘Jatt Da Muqabala’.

“He sacrificed his life for the sake of Punjab’s river waters and richly deserves a place in the Central Sikh Museum,” Singh said.

The Dal Khalsa leader said that those who are rattled by this move should understand that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Bhagat Singh was also labelled a terrorist and killed by the British, he said as justification.

‘Exposes SAD’s double standards’

Malvinder Singh Mali, a former advisor to Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, said that ideally the Central Sikh Museum was meant to project the glorious history of Sikhism.

Mali, who has worked with two previous Punjab governments, said that this approach witnessed a shift after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. “The SGPC displayed the photos of Sikhs who were mercilessly killed in the 1984 riots at the Central Sikh Museum,” he said.

The move to display Jattana’s photo exposes the “double standards” of the SAD leadership, he said. “When they were in power, they never raised their voice for the extrajudicial killings of Sikhs during the militancy period in Punjab despite promising justice to the families. Now, when they are out of power, a desperate SAD leadership is trying to cling to anything that may help them regain the lost ground,” he said.

Mali pointed out that if the SAD was serious in its approach to Sikh issues, they should have supported the Anandpur Sahib resolution instead of signing in the Rajiv-Longowal accord. “Rather in July 1985, the SAD agreed to construct the SYL canal. At that time, the SAD was headed by Harchand Singh Longowal, who too was killed by Sikh militants on August 20, 1985. Basically, a section of Sikh leadership sided with the Sikh radicals and the SAD merely focused on forming governments,” he said.

The people will not be convinced about the party’s sincerity towards Sikh issues through actions such as putting up Jattana’s photo at the museum, Mali added.

Victims of Indira Gandhi’s policy: Sikh historian

Former Panjab University history professor Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon supported the SGPC’s decision to install Jattana’s photo at the museum. He said he condemns violence of any form, adding that the slain SYL canal officials, Sikri and Avtar Aulakh, were “victims” of Indira Gandhi’s politics.

“The construction of SYL was illegal. Indira Gandhi forcibly went ahead with the construction of the SYL canal. River water is a state subject but Indira Gandhi trampled upon Punjab’s river water rights through Sections 78, 79 and 80 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966. Till 1966, Punjab had direct control over its river waters. Gandhi ignored all peaceful means of redressing the demands of Sikhs, leading to one disaster after the other,” he said.

Dhillon, who has penned many important books on Sikh history and Punjab’s affairs, said that in this context, there is nothing wrong with putting up the photo of Balwinder Jattana at the Central Sikh Museum. “Sikhs have the right to project their heroes,” he added.

File photos of Central Sikh Museum, Amritsar. Photo: By arrangement

About the Central Sikh Museum

The Central Sikh Museum was established in 1958 at Amritsar. The museum has been divided into different eras of Sikh history. Apart from the life and historical developments of Sikh Gurus, Hindu and Muslim saints, the museum also contains rare paintings, pencil sketches, portraits and rare handwritten ancient holy books.

The museum also displays the history of the travels of the first Sikh master, Guru Nanak Dev and a detailed account of the Sikh struggle after 1708.

This is followed by portraits and paintings of the Sikh Empire and contemporary history, including the independence movement of Punjabi-speaking states, the Sikh-Nirankari clash, Operation Blue Star period, Sikh scholars, religious, social and political figures.

The museum also displays portraits of Sikh war heroes. Among those who are honoured are Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh, the hero of 1965 Indo-Pak war; Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Arora, the poster boy of 1971 Bangladesh war; Major General Shabeg Singh, who participated in the 1971 and later joined the Khalistan movement; IAF Marshal Arjan Singh; Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon, the only IAF officer to have been honoured with the Param Vir Chakra.

Interestingly, the portraits of these war heroes are displayed alongside Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the 14th head of the Damdami Taksal, a Sikh seminary. He emerged on the national scene during Operation Blue Star in 1984. Bhindranwale was declared a ‘martyr’ of the Sikh community by the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikhism in 2003 and his photograph was put on display at the museum though many consider him a terrorist.

Interview: ‘River Inter-Linking Only a Pipe Dream Being Sold to Extract National Resources’

Environmentalist and water management expert Ravi Chopra says river inter-linking will sow the seeds for future conflicts between states.

Environmentalist and water management expert Ravi Chopra says river inter-linking will sow the seeds for future conflicts between states.

The interlinking of rivers project is facing some hurdles in BJP-ruled states. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

There is nothing new about the proposed river-interlinking project being pushed by the government, and this ‘unnecessary excess’ of a project will create more problems than it promises to solve, says environmentalist and water management expert, Dr Ravi Chopra, the director of People’s Science Institute, Dehradun and a managing trustee of the Himalaya Foundation, New Delhi.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

In recent years, the river inter-linking project has been revived. The current government through its various departments is moving ahead with multiple studies and estimates of costs and impacts etc. On a broader scale, what is your take on this idea and is this the best way to manage our rivers?

The whole thing is a joke, honestly. I am not being facetious. This idea was first proposed in the 1960s by an airline pilot, Captain Dastur. He talked of a garland canal, that there should be a string of canals that could take the water from the Ganga to the southern rivers. In the 1960s, we also had a civil engineer, K. L. Rao, a very highly respected name in Indian civil engineering. He, too, pushed the very nebulous concept of a garland canal and it was he who, I think, first used the term inter-linking of rivers.

You said this whole idea is a joke. Where does this joke start?

The joke starts with the fact that we already have a natural garland canal and that garland canal is called the Ganga. The Ganga is meant to collect all the waters of the Himalayan rivers and take them to the sea. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to manage this garland canal at all and have made a mess of it.

The second reason I am saying this is a bit of a joke is that the basic premise of the project is that we will be able to transfer water from the north to the south and from water surplus areas to water deficit areas. Now, northern rivers have lots of water, floods, during monsoons. It is almost exactly the same time when the southern rivers also have lots of water. It is not as if the glaciers are so huge that they keep the northern rivers full of water throughout the year.

To give you a small example [of] the Ganga. Bhagirathi and Alaknanda join at Devprayag to form the Ganga. The total contribution of glaciers to the annual flow of water at Devprayag is only 27%. The total contribution of glacial melt is only 27%, year long. OK? So the glaciers are not keeping the northern rivers alive. This is another misunderstanding that a lot of people have, ki arey woh toh Himalayan glaciers ki nadiyan hain isi liye woh perennial hain (that these are rivers from the Himalayan glaciers, that’s why they are perennial).  [When] the problem of flooding happens, the southern rivers are not ready to receive water [either].

Environmentalist Ravi Chopra. Credit: PSI

The first river-interlinking that is being operationalised is the Ken-Betwa link and it has also got environmental clearance a few months ago. Could you please explain what are the issues you see with this particular interlinking.

In the current situation, they are talking about the Ken-Betwa link.  The People’s Science Institute had done a thorough study of the Ken-Betwa link. These are two adjacent (contiguous) basins. Ken is on the east and Betwa is on the west. The year Betwa will have a drought, Ken will also have a drought. And the year Ken will have floods, Betwa will also have floods because they are adjacent watersheds – the same amount of waterfall, same part of the country, so the weather pattern is almost identical. So what is this nonsense about Ken being a surplus basin and Betwa being a deficit basin?

Betwa is a much larger basin than Ken. But [in the case of] Ken, much of its watershed is full of forests, so all this is a part of central India which drains through the Ken. Ken does not have much population, it does not have large cities and it does not have industries, so it has less demand for water. There is a much larger tribal population which does not practice irrigated agriculture. So all those things are creating a lower demand for water at present.

Now, what is your development model for Ken? You don’t have any other model for Ken. Tomorrow, Ken is going to be like any other part of the country and when the people of that area reach this level of development as in Betwa today, then they are going to say that we don’t have surplus water.

Betwa is the region that goes back to the Bhopal side. Bhopal to Vidisha to Jhansi etc are part of the Betwa basin. Betwa [‘s basin] has highly irrigated agriculture [area], a lot of soybean farming goes on over there, commercial cropping [etc]. So there is a huge demand for water in the Betwa basin. Therefore, it is said to be deficient. In terms of god-given rainfall, nature-given rainfall, it’s the same [between Betwa and Ken]. So it’s the lesser demand in the Ken basin at present that is creating a “surplus” and the joke – the third joke – is that now a report has come out of Madhya Pradesh, a government report, that says that Betwa basin is surplus; so whose numbers do we believe?

Also read

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  • Mukesh Manjunath’s story on the British General who was a master of irrigation

When we did our analysis, we came to the conclusion that there is almost no difference between the rainfall amounts and patterns in both the basins and Ken has excess water today only because its own demand is low. That’s it. By doing this link, you are sowing the seeds for a future conflict of the kind that you see between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. So you are sowing the seeds of future conflicts.

In terms of the project cost – given the complexity and scale of the project – we have seen many figures. Some people say it is going to be the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in India. Some sources also say that just the cost itself makes the project almost infeasible. What’s your estimate of the cost and what are the factors that we need to consider while estimating the cost?

The actual figure that has often been given in the public domain on the cost of the inter-linking project was Rs 5.56 lakh crore (trillion). Now, I started seeing this figure about 15 years ago and I don’t think it’s Rs 5.5 lakh crore anymore. By the time the project gets finished, if it ever takes off, and if it is ever implemented, the cost would be in the neighbourhood of Rs 25 lakh crore. Anything of that sort. What I mean is three to five times higher because we know the history of such projects. For example, look at the Narmada Valley Project.

Another factor is that a lot of these cost calculations were done when the land acquisition Bill had not been passed (in parliament). Now if we start paying people for their land as per the current Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, this figure will become astronomical. A lot of this is very, very fuzzy, garbage that has been spewed out by third-rate engineers working in useless government agencies where you park non-performing engineers. So, I frankly do not see this working out. And, by the way, this is no longer a boondoggle of a project. The industrial corridor project is much bigger than this. OK? Again, these are pipe dreams.

As concerned citizens, civil society activists and people’s scientists, what should be our approach in dealing with an idea like river inter-linking?

We must put forth our point of view and point out the fallacies in this kind of thinking and make people understand that none of us is going to benefit from these kinds of things except for the engineering fraternity, the construction companies, the contractors, the politicians who get their cuts out of this and the bureaucrats. So this is just another scam that is being promoted and I do not see this project going very far.

It is also a misnomer to talk about inter-linking of rivers as something new. It is being talked about as something new because most of us don’t know anything about how this country’s water is managed. After all, if you look at the Bhakhra dam; it not only has the water of Sutlej but also of Beas and it is done by inter-linking through a tunnel that brings the Beas water into the Bhakhra dam. You have the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal. So these are not new ideas, it is just a pipe dream being sold to the country to extract national resources.

Do you think that’s the only agenda behind this project or do the people pushing this project truly believe in this idea?

Well, you would have to be a pretty third-rate engineer to believe in this idea – an absolutely third-rate engineer.

This idea somehow sounds like a BJP favourite. Not to differentiate between the Congress or the BJP, but it was the favourite idea under the (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee’s government and is now gathering steam again.

It seems it was gathering steam under Vajpayee also. The first set of basic feasibility studies were done by something called the National Water Development Agency that is a “research” organisation of the Ministry of Water Resources. And that’s where they park third-raters.  

Today, the problem is that the lobby that stands to gain a lot of money from this project, they are not going to give up the idea easily. So they will revive it at any chance they get. It’s a lot of money. Unfortunately, [incidentally] they will also face a lot of resistance from all kinds of forces and each time they will have to buy off the resisters. For example, at one time the Bihar government used to say that we won’t give our water. Now, Bihar doesn’t say with gusto that we won’t give our water.

Arif Hussain is the director of Coalition for a Democratic India, a non-profit, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This interview is a part of CDI knowledge series “Food, Finance and Data”.

Badal is the New Saviour of Punjab’s Waters But Eventually There May Not be Much to save

The Sutlej-Yamuna Link Land Bill 2016 will help chief minister Parkash Singh Badal gain political mileage but it will not help the state solve its water woes.

The Sutlej-Yamuna Link Land Bill 2016 will help chief minister Parkash Singh Badal gain political mileage but it will not help the state solve its water woes

Patiala Mayor Amarinder Singh Bajaj operates a eath moving machine brought by youth activists to fill up the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal, near the Banu-Chandigarh road last week. Credit: PTI

Patiala Mayor Amarinder Singh Bajaj operates a eath moving machine brought by youth activists to fill up the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal, near the Banu-Chandigarh road last week. Credit: PTI

Chandigarh: Punjab’s political narrative witnessed unprecedented changes last week thanks to chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s unexpected, and bold, step of adopting the Punjab Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (Transfer of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016 in the assembly. With the March 14 decision, the process of denotifying (and dismantling) the 121-km long Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal that was constructed in Punjab to carry water to Haryana has begun.

At the political level, this major action has changed the direction of political discourse in the state, with the Akali Dal regaining its lost credibility. The Akali leaders had lost every hope of an honourable exit in the February 2017 assembly elections, such was the tsunami of anti-incumbency they felt they were facing.

Interestingly, the situation would have been different had state Congress chief Amarinder Singh given a call to the people to fill up the canal on March 3 –  as was suggested to him at a meeting of the party’s manifesto committee – rather than on March 16, after Badal had already stolen a march over him. Amarinder was known as the ‘saviour of Punjab waters’, an honour he earned after the enactment of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004, which put a stop to the Supreme Court’s intervention pressing for the completion of the SYL. That legislation is presently under scrutiny by the apex court, a situation that prompted the move to denotify the canal.

While Singh had succeeded in getting his bill signed by the governor within hours of the assembly adopting it, Badal has not been so lucky. But judging by the speed with which people, helped by the state administration, have deployed heavy earthmoving machinery all along the canal to fill it up, the technicality of the governor giving his consent to the new bill is no longer relevant. Nor will it matter if the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 or the latest SYL bill is struck down by the Supreme Court.

The facts behind the controversy

The issue of the apportionment of Punjab river waters has always been dictated by political considerations.

The seeds of the dispute can be traced to the time immediately after partition, when the Bhakra Nangal project was conceived and executed without anyone taking notice of the fact that the command area of the Bhakra canal also included parts of Rajasthan, which was in violation of the riparian principles under Article 262 of the constitution.

The facts are simple: Punjab owns three rivers but less than 30% of its land is under canal irrigation. It is the one state in which virtually all land, barring some negligible forest area, is under cultivation. The major portion of all its river water flows to Haryana and Rajasthan.

Perhaps nowhere in the country is water wastage so high as in the areas serviced by Rajasthan feeder, which carries its 8 MAF share from Harike in Punjab to Rajasthan. In the Suratgarh area, water from Punjab has turned the desert into huge swamps. Lifts have been installed at three places along this canal to lift water as this canal is an anti-gravity one. The layer of gypsum in the soil does not allow water to be absorbed. The actual utilisation of the canal water is about 45%. In southern Haryana too, lifts have been installed along the canals. Neither Haryana, which was earlier a part of Punjab, nor Rajasthan, are in the Punjab rivers’ basin.

This jinxed project took the lives of prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 and Akali Dal chief Sant Harchand Singh Longowal on August 20, 1985, both of whom were gunned down by extremists driven by a set of grievances that included the question of river waters.

The waters of the three Punjab rivers started turning red on April 8, 1982, when Indira Gandhi laid the foundation stone of the Punjab portion of the SYL canal at Kapoori in Patiala district. It was at Kapoori that Congress MLAs joined people in filling up the canal on March 16, an exercise that farmers started on their own, soon after the state assembly passed the bill to de-notify the canal.

At the Congress manifesto committee meeting on March 3, Amarinder Singh was advised to mobilise people to start filling up the canal in view of the case having come up in the Supreme Court for day-to-day hearing. The idea came from committee member Gurpartap Singh Mann. Amarinder liked the idea. However, Abohar MLA Sunil Jakhar suggested a walk along the canal to mobilise people. Later in the evening, Dera Baba Nanak MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa also tried to convince Amarinder to go ahead with the filling of the canal. Perhaps the idea was leaked to the government, which then took matters to a logical conclusion.  After March 14, it is not Amarinder who will be known as the saviour of Punjab waters but Badal.

Badal’s role questionable

The situation is ironic for Badal as well. It was the his government that issued the first two notices on February 20, 1978 for the acquisition of land for this project under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, in villages including Kamalpur, Sarala Kalan and Ramnagar. This canal was conceived when Indira Gandhi apportioned 7.2 MAF surplus from Ravi-Beas water with each state being given 3.5 MAF on March 24, 1976 under Section 78 of the Punjab Re-Organisation Act, 1966. It is the Badal government that has now de-notified this canal and returned land to the original owners.

Badal’s role is questionable, for according to Haryana government records, his government wrote a letter to Haryana on July 4, 1978, seeking Rs 3 crore for the project.

Work on the canal stopped after the gunning down of 32 labourers at Majat village in 1988, followed by the killing of a chief engineer and superintending engineer by the Babbar Khalsa in 1990. By that time, about 80% of the job had been completed. Over the years, the canal has been crumbling. Now even its remaining parts are being destroyed by the people.

Punjab has again created history. The basic problem – of the ownership of waters – remains unresolved, however. The present flow to Rajasthan and Haryana cannot be stopped, but that is not the issue. The issue is about supplying water that is just not there, since the entire availability is presently being utilised by three states. With the alarming rate at which the water table is going down due to excessive tubewell irrigation, Punjab faces the eventual threat of turning into a desert.