See how India is fighting against poverty with buckets of paint?

Poverty in these parts comes color-coded. 
Exactly how poor one is, is painted right on 
the front wall of the house. As the Indian elite
display utter lack of sensitivity, the poor have
little choice but to watch their poverty turned 
into a town square tamasha. 

Ravleen Kaur


In the Jungle Books of Rudyard Kipling, Seoni in Madhya Pradesh seems far more romantic than it does on the ground where poverty figures shame many a sub-Saharan nations. But perhaps Seoni's administrators have a special talent for slapping some egg on their face.
In order to embarrass people who, as per the perception of the admninistrators, did not really qualify for being beneficiaries of Below Poverty Line benefits like cheaper rations or kerosene oil, the authorities took a decision to paint outside each poor man's house "Main Gareeb Hoon" alongside his BPL card number.
Certain houses were marked with "Yeh Ghar Gareeb Hai" (This household is poor) and still others, apparently covered under the Antyodaya scheme, with "Yeh Ghar Atee Gareeb Hai" (This household is very poor) outside the main door.
The administrators said the step is meant to weed out the non-qualifying BPL card holders as they will then rush to get their names deleted. Clearly, poverty was being linked not with bad luck or lack of resources and opportunities but with the idea of shame. If you are poor, you ought to be ashamed. If you are called poor, and you can afford to forego the label, you would rush to do so.
Now, the BPL families of Gopalganj village in Seoni have taken offence to these "I am poor" declarations and the panchayats in several villages are effacing the same. In earlier such incidents, protests by dalits and BSP activists had led to the markings being painted over.
Collector Manohar Dube claimed the campaign was meant to target fake beneficiaries.
Even as the society elite display utter lack of sensitivity, the poor have little choice. If they resist and ask that their poverty not be made a matter of town square tamasha, they will lose out on the little ration that could be crucial to them.
In Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh, and now in Seoni, the poverty is being paraded on the front walls. Much thought has gone into devising these pernicious plans.
In the Karera and Tendukheda tehsils, the branding of the poor as ‘Yeh parivar garib hai’ was in blue letters on a white background and ‘Yeh parivar ati garib hai’ in yellow letters on white, corresponding with the blue cards issued to BPL families, and yellow cards issued to the ‘poorest of the poor’ eligible for the Antodaya Anna Yojana. The colour-coded poverty-driven public humiliation of the poor has elicited little reaction from India's civil society.
Shockingly, such devious methods to deprive a few people of meagre benefits come at a time when, 25 years after Rajiv Gandhi said that for every rupee sent to the common man, only 17 paise reached him, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia claims that even now, a Plan panel study on PDS recently found that only 16 paise out of a rupee was reaching the targeted poor.
But when administrators are being so clever in counting the "poor" and the "too poor" accurately, even splashing poverty paint on their front walls, the latest data onpoverty has brought out how callous the Indian demographers and poverty fighters have been in counting.
Recently, the Indian poor were recounted and it has been found that their ranks have swelled. With a new definition of poverty kicking in, 38 per cent of India's population is now officially below the poverty line, instead of 28.5 per cent.
A family of five with an income of less than Rs 3,000 a month in urban and Rs 2,250 in rural areas should be considered poor, a report of the Planning Commission, suggesting fresh criteria for determining how poverty should be defined, has said.
At present, using standards laid down in 1998, an urban family earning Rs 2,200 per month or less and a rural family earning Rs 1,650 or less is 'poor'. The raised bar will lead to many more people being classified poor. While urban poverty will increase slightly from 26 per cent to 28 per cent, rural poverty will jump from 30 per cent to 46 per cent.
The painters of poverty are soon going to need a lot more paint buckets.

Politics Sans Morality

Bir Devinder Singh

The unrest among different sections of the society and the bloodshed being indulged in violence engineered by terrorist outfits is a challenge that the leadership in our country faces today. It is indicative of a deep rooted malaise of intolerance. What breeds intolerance and who is responsible for this? Why the golden principles of democracy seem going asunder? Have the people lost faith in the values the democratic set up represents? The answer is certainly 'No'. One needs to think dispassionately with clinical precision.
    The fact that it is happening at a time when people at the top of our political pyramid are doubtlessly the gems of our times is all the more ironic. We have people leading the country who have demonstrated beyond even a whiff of doubt qualities of selflessness and monumental integrity.

The speech on the inauguration of the State of Nagaland on December 1, 1963 by late Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishanan, the second President of India, clearly lays down the ground rules of governance: "The rule of law and government by the consent of the governed are the essence of democracy. Government must be the custodian of the general welfare of the people and not of any special interest. The government must capture the hearts and the minds of the people…."  In the days of yore, our national leaders used to keep a direct line to the people, a direct channel of communication. They did not let the so-called "threat perceptions" to come between them and the people. Perhaps it was because of such an approach that the people also reciprocated. They would suffer the vagaries of nature to welcome their leaders, not because someone had organized and arranged a roadshow but because someone was out to get to know the people intimately.
Today, the leaders in top governmental posts are playing into the hands of such people who have established a proximity through shady methods but whom the people have not accepted because of their black deeds. These are the second rung leaders who have attained this position through "number two" deals in trade and business. They are looking for more comfortable abodes and are trying their hand at politics as their chosen vocation. They are throwing crores into the business of politics and are managing to get into state legislatures or the Parliament. Once there, the nexus between politics and money becomes only stronger. They become proxy for their feudal political bosses. Such an approach to politics isolates the teeming millions who were to be stakeholders in democracy.
The leaders on the top rung are thus lost to the people whom they govern. When people cry because of policies that inflict untold miseries on them, their voice does not even reach the political top hierarchy because the entire system of communication channels collapses by then.
 The above new class of neo-rich politicians is joined by the bureaucrats as well as people in the judiciary. Even the bureaucrats are being convicted for amassing ill-gotten wealth whereas the political leaders in the country who set the wheels of corruption into motion and make no secret of it by displaying the ill-gotten fortunes, go scot free.
If a whistle blower raises an alarm, more often than not it is the whistle blower himself who gets the stick, a tribute to the kind of pimping that has crept into the system. Even the charges as serious as wholesale massacre of minorities take decades to bring the perpetrators of such heinous crime to justice. Appallingly, the people going to the Courts in the hope for justice get judgments but not justice. Generations after generations feel trampled in their fight in the courts due to the snail-paced process of justice delivery system. Those who can manage money to pay the hefty fees of lawyers render the doctrine of "Equality before Law" redundant for the poor underprivileged classes in the country.
I wish there were no sympathizers for the demons of corruption but that seems to be a wishful thinking. The cancerous growth of corruption in the system has eaten up the vitals of all the three organs of the democratic government i.e. the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. Fortunately, the only silver lining exists due to the emergence of the fourth pillar - the Press. It has braved all allurements and maintained the confidence of the masses, fearlessly unearthing the scams and scandals paralyzing the working of the other three wings of the Government. The clean politics itself is becoming a utopian wish. The vitiated atmosphere all around makes the honest living a curse. The confluence of circumstances surrounding a common man has convinced the people that except money, no other consideration works for someone who has legitimate aspirations to play a role in politics. The things have now reached such a pass where the people have started hating the very term 'politician'. This clearly is the outcome of a vacuum between the people and their leaders. In this paradigm of politics without morality, we are seeing the emergence and empowerment of pseudo-leaders who are far removed from ground realities and are busy amassing wealth and comforts. Their pursuits are marked by insensitivity towards the concerns of their electorate.
Such a class of leaders has no qualms about the fact that they are facing trial for corruption charges in courts. Instead, they are happy to  attend such court hearings by arriving in chartered aircrafts. On display is not humility before law but the abundance of their resources. Rousing receptions that clearly take millions to be arranged have become the order of the day. That receptiosn mark the entry of the leader into the court premises or while he walks out after n'th such appearance says something about our politics.
 The first casualty in this entire scheme of things is the ground level worker, the first line of interaction of the party with the people. He has no contact with the top leader. He knows what's wrong but the channel through which that information was to flow upwards stands destroyed. The spirited workers of parties, all parties, feel cheated, disgruntled and starved of ideological living because their voice is lost in the din of these money minting political bosses.
 Names like that of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shashtri, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad are invoked by those who do not even have a passing acquaintance with the ideals espoused by these leaders. The Mafiosi only besmirch the names of these saints by uttering them from their lips.
Every unrest in the country is viewed from a rather queer angle. Instead of looking at the root cause of the social problems, the neo rich politicians coin different and ready catch phrases that offer ready-made solutions to their bosses by dubbing unrests with clichéd terms like Naxalites, Maoists, Militancy etc.. This makes it possible to turn a blind eye without seeming even guilty for failure to comprehend the real cause of such unrests.
 Leaders have lost contact with the masses because of walls created by minions who have managed to become their lieutenants through unfair and unprincipled routes. Once the aspirations of the masses find no apt expression in the system of governance, they are propelled to adopt the last painful resort - violence.
 It is with much humility that I beg and solicit the kind indulgence of the leaders of the political parties to read the writing on the wall. It is possible for you to dust away this new class of neo-rich political feudals and put an end to political slavery. If you do not act now, even this option will be lost since these parasites are becoming increasingly strong. The leaders must realize that such a class of politicians is injecting the venom of hubris which is overwhelmingly present in their working attitude. A golden rule for any leader is to preserve his humility which is possible only in the field with the men one is privileged to lead. Give a sympathetic hearing to the critics within the party who take the cudgels to call a spade a spade. Hail those who call a spade a bloody shovel. Sometimes voice of dissent is motivated by the practical wisdom and manifestation of the conscience of the critic and does not always qualify to be treated within the parameters of contempt by the authorities that be.
If the most legitimate aspirations of people even after 60 years of independence remain unsatisfied, the nation may plunge headlong into civil war between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots". You will not even get to know the bitter realities gnawing away at the roots of the political system should you chose to listen and see only what is served through a system of sieves set up by political minions. Be bold, venture out and establish direct public contact. Out there are people dying to be heard.
The voice of disagreement is proving to be a curse for humble and committed workers in the present day political system. The sifting of information should be done at level of the people who are known for their integrity and not left to the interpretation of a coterie of vested interests who often gather around the leadership. It is time the humble workers are made part of the thought process as against the system of decision making where the politicians, the contractors, the bus permit wallah, the cement wallah, the sand quarrying syndicate and the liquor vend monolpolists sit together to decide how to make the state progress. Their idea of progress is not the people's idea of progress.
 When an individual blunders, it is unfortunate and it affects the fortunes of a family but when a leader as a ruler fails, his failure has the potential to adversely affect the future of the nation and such a failure becomes a national tragedy. We need to remedy the situation we are apprehending today. The morality and value system must find its due place in the stream of our polity. Otherwise, we are doomed today, and shall stay doomed tomorrow.

Marching on Chandigarh

The insistence on holding protests at Matka Chowk can be explained by the fact that the activists are adamant that their voice is not meant for the dead at the cremation site but for the government, for the citizenry and for the media. They don't come to wake up the dead. They want to wake up the motionless apathetic rulers.


Nischay Pal

In their march to constantly shrink and eliminate any democratic spaces  for raising the people's voice, our democratically elected governments and administrations continuously try to push the boundaries.
The onslaught does not come only in the form of raising the heights of dams and drowning villages in reservoir waters, or beating people to pulp to get land for dream projects a la Nano at Nandigram. Such fights are being imposed on people in every state, town, village.
In Chandigarh, home to three governments besides being capital of Punjab and Haryana, farmers of neither state can come to protest that their legitimate, long pending demands were not even being considered properly.
But asking the farmers not to protest would have earned the Chandigarh administration the tag of being undemocratic. In these times of media-spinning and well-articulated attacks, the Chandigarh Administration has found a way to stiffle democratic voice of the farmers but this time with the help of the citizenry.
In the largely well educated and middle/upper middle class Chandigarh, it has hinged its entire line of argumentation about how the march of farmers through the heart of the city will spoil the beauty of the capital region, inconvenience the local population and creates traffic snarls, stoppages and blockade, lasting hours.

Chandigarh's media, whose bias is only too well known, has not much independent thought. (And we are only referring to the institutional stance, not that of reporters/journalists whose idea and views on the subject are much more progressive and diverse.) Most newspapers have taken the editorial line that the farmers and other interest groups must gather for any protests at the Sector 25 site earmarked by the administration for the purpose.
The Sector 25 site is next to a crematorium, completely removed from the daily life of the city, away from the eyes of the people. It is easier for farmers to gather there, raise slogans, and then disperse, without anyone noticing them. And the very purpose of protests is to pressurise the government through public exposure.
One would have thought that the point of public protest is that such a gathering or protest will expose before the people how the government has been wronging its own citizens. If such an exposure is to take place in an isolated place, next only to where the dead are burnt, which sensible human being expects the government to even listen, forget about being shamed?
Matka Chowk belongs as much to residents of Chandigarh as to every citizen of this country.

In a front page report in its city edition, the Hindustan Times said under the provocative and accusatory title 'They ran amok, now they're back', that the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) workers had "ransacked the city last year" and "will return for a similar protest on July 26."
In any other country, a journalist would have thought that he or she will be held responsible for deducing that the farmers were indeed guilty of a crime no less than ransacking the city last year. Ransacking the city?
The BKU activists have said that they are not prepared to accept that the rulers will decide where they should gather to raise a cry for justice. The fact that the administration has earmarked a far off place is a dead giveaway of the intentions: those who are crying for justice must not be seen or heard in public places that are too prominent.
There are also serious insinuations that the pro-activity of the Chandigarh administration and police is due to the pressure from a five star hotel near Matka Chowk that does not want milling crowds of rather shabbily dressed farmers to be seen from its windows.
The BKU leaders have clearly told the administration that the protesters will march from Sector 17 to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. On the other hand, the administration seems adamant on not allowing the marchers into the city except Sector 25.
Ram Niwas, UT Home Secretary, is taking the lead in this connection. Even last year, he had claimed that since demonstrators and protesters of the Bharti Kisan Union and PSEB employees had ran amok without any permission from the administration to hold a rally, the neighbouring states must intercept the movement of such demonstrators at the borders of Chandigarh.
The entire issue assumes a highly provocative context, considering that Punjab's rural folks backed the protests for trans5fer of Chandigarh to Punjab for decades. Political parties across the board pay lip service to Punjab's right over Chandigarh, but here are a bunch of officials who do not want to even allow protestors from Punjab into Chandigarh.
The violent scenes were witnessed only for a day in 2009 but the administration's move to shift out the protests pre-dates such scenes by several years. Even at Matka Chowk, one has seen the police unleashing water cannons and severe lathicharge on unarmed protesters. One can only imagine what will happen at an isolated place in Sector 25.
Clearly, Chandigarh seems to have been completely lost to Punjab. A local English daily wrote highly provocative anti-farmers' editorial, and strongly argued that protests must be confined away from the seat of power at the Secretariat and from the eyes of the general public. What the media, so eager to not allow the picture postcard beauty of Chandigarh to be spoiled even for a few hours, is failing to focus on are the reasons why thousands of farmers are forced to leave their villages to converge upon Chandigarh.
The right of the affected people, activists, farmers, teachers, labourers, unions and political parties to hold a dharna in front of the Secretariat or at Chandigarh's Matka Chowk or anywhere else cannot be taken away by the police or officialdom in the name of maintaining smooth traffic flow. If that is the reason, then there has to be a nationwide policy.
What the Chandigarh administration is saying is that citizens of Mohali or Kharar or Panchkula or any other place, for that matter, can be held to ransom but not those of Chandigarh. This is a dangerous argument, and hardly bodes well for the citizens of Chandigarh, who, one is sure, have far more progressive idea about democratic struggles.
That a section of the media is fully backing the police instead of the affected citizen asking for his rights has been lost on the politicians.
Unfortunately, Punjab's ruling Akali Dal has maintained a deafening silence on the issue of the police and the administration banning any protests in Chandigarh.
It may be mentioned that after last year's violence, the police had gone on a vengeance spree. Teams of Chandigarh police had raided many places in Punjab and had caught and arrested farmer leaders and embroiled them in petty multiple cases. The police were shameless to make clear that their strategy was to exhaust the leaders in getting bail for themselves in one after the other case.
Cases were registered against unnamed farmers for damaging public property, assault on public servants, attempt to murder and rioting.
In its highly provocative and one-sided editorial damning the farmers, The Tribune had then called the visibly poor protesting farmers a "a veritable mob" who, it said, "beat up the badly outnumbered police officials and commandos...teased women and caused mayhem."
Not even the newspapers' own reporters had reported any instance of farmers teasing women, and no newspaper has ever reported in the past protest groups indulging in such behavior. Clearly, the editorial betrayed a mindset: "Many of the protesters were heavily drunk and made a nuisance of themselves wherever they went. If this can happen in the capital of two states, Punjab and Haryana, and the UT, one can well imagine what havoc marauding mobs can cause in mofussil towns."
So what does such a section of the media think about the farmers in "mofussil towns"? That they tease women, drink and make a nuisance of themselves? Such is the media's understanding of our rural folk? The newspaper was angry that the protesters were allowed into the city and said "it was the administration’s duty to keep them away from the centre of the city."
"The organisers...must be given due punishment for this unpardonable act...it should not be too difficult to identify the actual criminals also and to punish them severely. If they get away with what they did, they can be depended on to repeat their activities. As it is, they have all been coming to Chandigarh way too often to disrupt normal activity and hold the capital to ransom at the slightest provocation."
In better evolved democracies, protests are allowed in places where perhaps the Chandigarh administration would have issued shoot at sight orders. It will be pretty sobering to note that at a time when the Chandigarh administration disallowed farmers or teachers to hold a protest at Matka Chowk, the French government chose to allow environmental activists to not only protest at the Eiffel Tower but to even add a nuclear hazard symbol right in the middle of a ring of golden European Union stars on the Eiffel Tower. The stars were sponsored by French state nuclear company Areva to mark France's term as EU president.
With the Punjab Governor losing charge, and a new generation of Punjabis never having heard 'Khiriya Phul Gulab Da, Chandigarh Punjab Da', one can well imagine the wages we will have to pay to raise a slogan near Matka Chowk. So much for having a capital! It is time the capital learnt a bit more about the mofussil towns.
The UT administration claims that it has made sure that the Sector 25 site has all arrangements for water and toilets for protesters. Could it be that our rulers are so dumb that they think farmers swoop down on Chandigarh every year for a sip of water, or to relieve themselves?
If the protesters are insisting on holding their rally in Sector 17, it is because they are adamant that their voice is not meant for the dead at the cremation site but for the government, for the citizenry and for such sections of the media. They don't come to wake up the dead. They want to wake up the motionless apathetic officialdom.
There are none so blind as those who won't see, and there are none so deaf as those who won't listen.
But there is no reason for those sworn to democratic struggles stop trying to make the blind see, the deaf hear and the prejudiced understand.

PUNJAB TODAY July 24-30, 2010 FRONT PAGE - THE MOTHER OF ALL FRAUDS - Rs 80,000 Crore

The Great Rajasthan Loot

TOP EXPERT IN INTER-STATE DISPUTES, PRITAM SINGH KUMEDAN BRINGS OUT THIS SHOCKING STORY

Right from the PM, they were all party to it. Plans were drafted overnight and Punjab was told it will get compensation for its waters later from Rajasthan. No one disputes that. Now that rough estimates show Punjab has been looted to the extent of Rs 80,000 crore by Rajasthan, will our politicians wake up and act? 

Punjab must reclaim its Rs 80,000 Crore from Rajasthan

This is the great rip off trick played upon Punjab. For several decades now, Rajasthan has been using waters from Punjab’s rivers, waters for which it was to pay, for which it had agreed to pay. Everything is a matter of record. Documents are available, and experts have the same view on it. Yet, when Punjab made a demand for royalty for the waters, such hue and cry was raised. Inter-state disputes expert Pritam Singh Kumedan lifts the veil. 

For far too long, Punjab has been demanding royalty for the river waters that it has given to Rajasthan. Even the highly controversial Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 included a clause, called Clause 5, that provided legal cover for the continuous flow of these waters to Rajasthan. But it is not even the case of Rajasthan, or anyone else for that matter, that these waters were not to be paid for.

In fact, as this article will prove clearly and convincingly, the state of Rajasthan was to pay for these waters and the cost was to be calculated later as the agreement of 1955 was reached in a hurry because of an international aspect of the waters problem. 

Pritam Singh Kumedan

For too many decades, Punjab has been fighting with Haryana over the SYL canal, and the entire dispute over waters has been reduced into a Punjab versus Haryana binary but one very important part of the dispute has been left uncommented upon, and has completely moved outside the public or the media gaze. So much so that even the experts dealing with the river waters issue and questions of availability of waters in Ravi and Beas have not been heard talking about this aspect.

The recent demand by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and the concomitant expression of 

disagreements from Haryana have triggered the debate but the latest spat between the two states over the floods induced by a couple of days of rain should not be allowed to obscure the very, very important aspect of the royalty debate. While 'royalty' is a term used by Mr Badal, we are merely concerned about the cost and compensation for the water that is, and has been, flowing into Rajasthan from Punjab. 

But first, some historical facts need to be gone into. The story is thrilling, to say the least, if you care to stick with the narrative

In the Conference held on 29 January 1955 under the Chairmanship of Gulzari Lal Nanda, the then Union Irrigation and Power Minister, it was decided to give 8.0 M.A.F. of Ravi-Beas waters to Rajasthan. Nowhere was it said that the water is to be given free-of-cost. 

In fact, it was specifically decided that the cost of water will be worked out separately by the concerned states since the Conference was concerned only with distribution of water. This cost of water that has gone to Rajasthan has not been calculated so far, and it is this cost that we plan to put a rough ball park figure to, as suggested by experts.

About 40 crore Acre feet (400 M.A.F.) of water has gone to Rajasthan from Punjab's rivers over the last 40 years. 

Besides this, Punjab also has to be compensated for the depletion of 40 crore acre feet of its sub-soil water and the cost of electricity for pumping out this water. 

But under what circumstances was the water actually allocated to Rajasthan? 

The Pre-partition story

After the Partition of the country in 1947, a "Standstill Agreement" for maintaining the pre-Partition allocation of water to West Punjab was signed in December 1947 at Shimla between East Punjab and West Punjab governments. This Agreement was to expire on 31 March, 1948, unless renewed. In spite of reminders, West Punjab did not bother to get it renewed. On April 1, 1948, East Punjab cut off water supplies to Upper Bari Doab Canal, taking off from Madhopur, and Dipalpur Canal, taking off from the right bank Ferozepur headworks. The result was that Lahore city was deprived of its main source of water supply and 8% of culturable command area in West Pakistan found itself without water. 

S. Swaran Singh was then the Irrigation Minister and S. Swarup Singh was Chief Engineer of East Punjab. 

This water tap to Pakistan was turned off without making any reference to the Central Government. No wonder, this cutting off of water supplies led to great resentment in Pakistan and a war-like situation developed between the two countries. 

Eventually, the West Punjab Government sent two Chief Engineers to Shimla for negotiating a new agreement. A new agreement valid up to October 1948 was signed on 18 April 1948, in which East Punjab asserted that as per Punjab Partition (Apportionment of Assets and Liabilities) Order, 1947, and the Arbitral Award, the proprietary rights in the waters of Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rest wholly in East Punjab government and that West Punjab shall have to pay seigniorage charges (water royalty) for supply of water to CBDC (i.e. Pakistan portion of UBDC) and Dipalpur Canals. West Punjab Chief Engineers agreed and signed the agreement. Subsequently, an agreement more or less along similar lines was signed between the two Dominion Governments on May 4, 1948 at New Delhi. 

This Agreement was signed on behalf of India by Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, N. V. Gadgil, Minister for Works, Mines and Power, Government of India and Swaran Singh, Minister of Irrigation East Punjab. On behalf of Pakistan, it was signed by Ghulam Mohd, Minister of Finance, Government of Pakistan and Shaukat Hyat Khan and Mumtaz Daultana, both Ministers of West Punjab. 

Pakistan agreed to pay for water to East Punjab an amount that was to be specified by Prime Minister of India and deposit the same in the Reserve Bank of India. After some time, Pakistan started back-tracking on the agreement on the ground that it was signed under duress and is, therefore, not legally binding. India registered the agreement with U.N.O. on 10 May 1950. Pakistan, subsequently, terminated it unilaterally. 

As the water dispute was leading to great tension between the two countries and could have led to war, the World Bank stepped in and offered its "good offices" to settle the dispute, an offer that was accepted by both India and Pakistan in March 1952. 

In May,1948 after signing the agreement, Pakistan started digging a new supply channel on the right bank of Sutlej, five miles upstream of Ferozepur headworks (where both banks of Sutlej fall in Pakistan) to connect it directly to Dipalpur canal. India took strong objection to this and Pakistan, therefore, stopped digging the diversion channel in July 1948. 

In May 1948, when Pakistan had posed the threat of by-passing Ferozepur headworks by constructing a new channel from the Sutlej in her territory, just above Ferozepur, East Punjab decided to construct a new barrage at Harike. In April 1949, East Punjab was asked by Central Government to submit at an early date, proposals for the construction of this barrage. 

By the end of 1950, it was decioded that the Harike Barrage Project should include one head-regulator with a capacity of 7000 cusec for the proposed Ferozepur and Sirhind Feeders and another head-regulator, with a capacity of 18,500 cusec, for the proposed Rajasthan Canal. East Punjab also drew up a plan for diverting 20,000 cusec of River Chenab waters to Ravi by constructing a diversion tunnel at Marhu (5 miles downstream the confluence of Chandra and Bhaga). The Harike Barrage was completed in 1952. The intake gates of the 7000 cusecs Ferozepur-Sirhind feeder and 18,500 cusecs Rajasthan Feeder Canal were sealed with masonry until the feeder and part of the Rajasthan Canal were ready for use. 

Central Govt's Fraud with Punjab   

Although, the decision to give 8 MAF of Ravi-Beas waters to Rajasthan was taken only on 29.1.1955 in the conference held under the Chairmanship of Gulzari Lal Nanda, Union Irrigation Minister, it seems the GoI had already made up its mind and taken all necessary steps to give Ravi-Beas waters to Rajasthan in 1949-50 itself when the plan to construct a barrage at Harike was just under consideration. 

Such was the awe and authority of the Central Government and the Planning Commission in those days that an unwilling East Punjab had to bow before illegal dictates of the Centre and agree to give 8 M.A.F. of Ravi-Beas Waters to Rajasthan. Bhim Sen Sachar was the Chief Minister and Ch. Lahiri Singh was the Irrigation Minister of Punjab in 1955. In April 1950, the Government of Rajasthan was asked by Government of India to undertake skeleton surveys of the areas likely to be commanded by a canal to serve parts of Rajasthan from Harike, Rajasthan government refused and the Government of India had, therefore, to get the survey done through its own agency. 

N. D. Guihati, in his monumental work, "Indus Waters Treaty", observes:

"It would be interesting to recall here that East Punjab preferred at that time to go ahead with the Bhakhra Dam rather than with the Bhakhra Canal and had almost to be forced by the Planning Commission, in which I was the Chief of the Natural Resources Division, to give the Canal a higher priority. At the same time, not only was East Punjab somewhat hesitant about schemes which would take the waters of the Indus rivers outside East Punjab into Rajasthan but also,  and surprisingly, the then Government of Rajasthan was averse to undertaking investigations for the Rajasthan Canal as it feared that, in the event of an adverse decision with regard to the use of these waters, Rajasthan might not be able to derive any benefit from such investigations. It was, therefore, decided that these investigations be undertaken by an agency of the Government of India and the costs borne by that Government. 

Decision to give 8 M.A.F. Ravi-Beas Waters to Rajasthan 

The decision to allocate almost half of Ravi-Beas Waters to Rajasthan was taken by the Centre at break-neck speed within a period of three weeks as a team of World Bank was to visit Pakistan and India in February,1955 to resolve the Waters dispute between the two countries and each country had to build up a convincing case. N.D. Gulhati, India's Chief negotiator and leader of Indian delegation for negotiating with the World Bank, writes:

"Earlier, at the beginning of January, the Bank had suggested a tour of Indus Basin to begin in the middle of February, to acquaint the new Bank team with the irrigation techniques and problems of the basin…Accordingly we had to be vigilant during the visit not only to counteract efforts of Pakistan but also to emphasize the urgency and importance of irrigation development in the Indus basin in India. Nothing would be as effective, I advised my Government, as concrete steps already taken before the field trip towards utilization in India of the entire flow of the Eastern Rivers. I urged, therefore, that work should begin immediately on the construction of the Rajasthan canal. This would furnish the best proof of India's needs."

"In January 1955, when it had been decided to undertake a study tour of the basin, I wrote from Washington emphasizing the urgency of reaching an interstate agreement and of according sanction to some of the proposed new works. This, I stated, was necessary to bring home to the visiting Bank and Pakistan groups, the need for, and the importance we attached to, the full utilization in India of the waters of the Eastern Rivers. Before the end of January, the necessary agreement between the States was secured by the Minister of Irrigation and Power, Gulzari Lal Nanda, under which 15.85 M.A.F. of the waters of the Ravi and the Beas, based on mean supplies in the two rivers, available over and above the actual pre-partition use in India., was allocated as follows between the States concerned: Jammu and Kashmir 0.65 MAF; PEPSU l.30 MAF; Punjab 5.90 MAF; and Rajasthan 8.00 MAF." 

It may be added here that it was not an 'Agreement' in real sense of the term between the States but only a 'decision' taken in a meeting and that too under duress. 'The decision' was never put up before Punjab Cabinet for approval and in fact was never shown even to the Chief Minister, Punjab. Union Ministry of Irrigation and Power wrote to the States concerned for confirming the minutes of the Meeting and after many reminders from that Ministry, Ch. Lahiri Singh, Irrigation Minister, Punjab, hesitatingly sent only one line reply: "Minutes of the Conference held on 29.1.1955. are confirmed." 

Why Punjab Demanded only 5.9 M.A.F. Waters? 

The Centre had asked the States that white coming to the Conference on 29th January, 1955, they should bring along their requirements/demands for Ravi-Beas Waters. The instructions to the States were, that no area, which required lift irrigation should be included in the demand of Punjab or Pepsu. But for these instructions, Punjab and Pepsu would have demanded much more water by including Haryana areas and in that case no spare water would have been available for Rajasthan. 

Rajasthan gets Ravi-Beas Waters

Work on the construction of Rajasthan Feeder was actually started in March 1958 and by the summer of 1966, 134 mile Feeder and approximately 100 miles of 292 mile Rajasthan Canal had been finished. In the spring of 1964, the masonry was removed and metal gates installed. Some kharif irrigation was provided in 1964 along the upper reaches of Rajasthan Canal, using supplies released from Bhakhra. 

According to Rajasthan's own assertions, it is already getting 8 MAF of Ravi-Beas water (out of 8.6 MAF allocated to it as per 31.12. 1981 Agreement), about 1.5 MAF of Bhakhra water and 1.1 MAF for Bikaner Canal, i.e. a total of 10.6 M.A.F. So far, during the last 40 years, Rajasthan has received about 40 Crore Acre Feet (400 MAF) of water from Punjab's rivers. 

Cost of Ravi-Beas waters yet to be decided 

The Conference of 29.1.1955 was called in great hurry and only for the purpose of distributing Ravi-Beas Waters. Para 5 of decisions taken in the Conference stipulates: "The question of allocation of the cost of water including the cost of storage and other works may be taken up separately as the conference was concerned only with the distribution of supplies."

S. Harbans Singh, Chief Engineer, Irrigation, Punjab (retd), who was dealing with the subject in 1955 as XEN, has told me that they tried to discuss the question of payment for water by Rajasthan, but were snubbed on the ground that the Conference was concerned only with the distribution of water and that the cost of water etc. may be discussed by the States separately.

The reason why the question of payment of cost for water to Punjab by Rajasthan has remained dormant for the last 40 years is that Rajasthan started getting water for Rajasthan Canal only after about 10 years of the Conference. At the same time, Punjab was reorganized in 1966 and dispute about SYL Canal started with Haryana. The result was that clause 5 of the decision of the Conference dated 29.1.1955 was completely forgotten and Punjab has not worked out the cost/value of water supplied to Rajasthan so far. Nowhere, it is laid down or decided in any meeting or any conference that non-riparian state of Rajasthan would get Ravi-Beas waters free-of-cost. 

Precedents where non-riparian States paid for water 

Nowhere in the world has a non-riparian state ever got water even on payment and there has never been any claim or dispute about water by a non-riparian state in the whole world. However, in India, there are three instances, where non-riparian states got water on payment from riparian states because in those good olden days, there was abundance of water and most of it went waste to the sea. 

The three instances are: 

Sirhind canal: Agreement signed on 18 February, 1873 between the British Government and the non-riparian States of Patiala, Jind and Nabha, regarding Sirhind Canal, stipulated supply of water on payment of seigniorage by these States. 

Periyar River: The Periyar river rises on the western side of the Ghats where there is superabundant rainfall and falls into the sea close to Cochin, Tamil Nadu, then called Madras province, a non-riparian, entered into an agreement with Travancore-Cochin State and got water of Periyar River on annual payment. 

Gang (Bikaner Canal): Punjab agreed to give water to Bikaner State from Sutlej in 1918. Bahawalpur State objected on the ground that no water can be given to non-riparian State of Bikaner. Punjab gave water from its own share, an agreement was signed on 4 September,1920 and Bikaner State got water for Bikaner Canal on the basis of annual payment for water. 

But why the secrecy, and from whom? 

It may be noted that copy of 'Record of the decisions arrived at the Conference' circulated to the States concerned is marked SECRET (See picture).  It is quite intriguing why the decisions were to be kept secret. And secret from whom? Not from the World Bank and Pakistan because these were meant only to be shown to them and convince them about utilization. Obviously, these decisions were to be kept secret from the media and the people of Punjab, fearing that there may be resentment and agitation in Punjab against the decision of giving 8.0 MAF of Ravi-Beas Water to the non-riparian State of Rajasthan. The decisions were never brought to the notice or approved by the Punjab Cabinet or Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary. In 1955, the Chief Engineer used to be the Secretary of the Irrigation Department also. Ch. Lahiri Singh who was the Irrigation Minister, Punjab in 1955, reluctantly and hesitatingly confirmed the minutes of the Conference. Even now only officials dealing with the subject have any knowledge about the so called 'Agreement'. 

It is, therefore, time for Punjab to have a new look at the whole problem besides claiming cost/value of the water already supplied. 

Realising Rs. 80,000 Crores by Punjab from Centre & Rajasthan for Ravi-Beas Waters

Clearly, decisions that normally would have taken decades to arrive at, were taken in great haste in a matter of hours, ignoring all Constitutional and legal provisions. And above all, "the decisions" taken in the meeting held on 29 January, 1955 were kept "SECRET" and with the passage of time, after some years, were dubbed as an "Agreement" between Punjab and Rajasthan regarding distribution of Ravi-Beas Waters. 

As per clause 5 of the "Decisions" of this Conference, the question of cost of water was to be taken up separately as the Conference was concerned only with the distribution of water. This has not been done so far. Nobody has ever pointed this out during the last 55 years. It is time we do it now and also look at every aspect of the whole problem of giving water to Rajasthan from Punjab rivers afresh. 

Here are some more startling and interesting facts regarding this so- called "Agreement" of January 29, 1955:

Views of Shri Kanwar Sain, Ex-Chairman, Central Water and Power Commission regarding Agreement of 29 January, 1955:

 Shiromani Akali Dal launched Dharam Yudh Morcha in 1982 against injustice done to Punjab in the distribution of River Waters and Chandigarh etc. In order to resolve the dispute, the Central Government constituted a Cabinet sub-committee of five Central ministers to negotiate with the Akalis. Leaders of major political parties, such as L.K. Advani, Madhu Dandvate etc were also roped in. A meeting between this Central team and Shiromani Akali Dal representatives (Surjit Singh Barnala, Balwant Singh and Ravi Inder Singh) was held in New Delhi on 8 February, 1983. S. Parkash Singh Badal and S. Gurcharan Singh Tohra stayed back in Kapurthala House and guided the SAD team. This meeting remained inconclusive as there was stalemate regarding river-waters and the meeting was adjourned to 10th February. 

On 9 February, 1983,  Kanwar Sain, ex-chairman of Central Water and Power Commission, gave a press interview which appeared in the Press on 10th February 1983. He stated that Akali demand for reopening the whole river-water issue was fully justified and that even the Agreement of 29 January, 1955 should be re-opened. He also stated that the Agreement of 29 January 1955 was drafted by him and that he had given a note on the file, "Realities about the assessment of requirements may be different." He further stated that 24.3.1976 Award of Prime Minister, giving 3.5 MAF water each to Punjab and Haryana was not fair to Punjab. Punjab Today is in possession of the press interview appearing in the Indian Express dated 10th February, 1983). 

It may be mentioned here that Kanwar Sain was one of the top most and renowned irrigation engineers of India and retired as Chairman of the Central Water and Power Commission. He belonged to Haryana and after retirement, Bansi Lal, Chief Minister of Haryana, appointed him as Chairman of Haryana Development Board. He also remained Chief Engineer of Rajasthan Canal. He himself admitted that for these reasons he had soft corner for Haryana and Rajasthan. In spite of this, he boldly stated true facts and demanded justice for Punjab. 

In the meeting held on 10th February, 1983, the facts stated by Shri Kanwar Sain were brought to the notice of Central team. The meeting ended in stalemate and no meeting between this Central Committee and SAD Committee was ever held after that. 

Punjab's Requirements of Water 

Total net area under cultivation in Punjab is 1.05 crore acres. About 98% of this area is irrigated and double-cropped. Total cropped area of about 2 crore acres requires more than 5 crore acre feet of water annually. We have 85 lakh acres under wheat and 68 lakh acres under rice besides area under other crops. 

As per recommendations of PAU, rice requires 20 irrigations 3-inch deep. Thus rice alone requires 20 x 3 inch = 5 acre feet of water per acre of rice. Total requirement of water for rice alone thus comes to 340 lakh acre feet.

Punjab fulfills its requirements of water through canals, rain water and underground water.

Canals and rains account for about 2.5 crore acre feet of water (25 MAF) while the rest of 2.5 crore acre feet is ground water pumped by about 13 lakh tubewells.  Annual recharge is about 1.5 crore acre feet only, leaving a deficit of one crore acre feet annually. This excess extraction of one crore acre feet ground water results in depletion of ground water by about one foot annually.

It may also be pointed out here that in the Conference of 29 January, 1955, Punjab had put its demand of Ravi-Beas Waters at 59 lakh acre feet only (5.9 MAF) and PEPSU at 13 lakh acre feet, i.e. a total of 72 lakh acre feet (7.2 MAF) which was readily conceded. Shri S.L. Malhotra was the Chief Engineer-cum-Secretary Irrigation to Govt. of Punjab at that time, who worked out this requirement and there was no separate (IAS) Secretary Irrigation in those days. Not an inch of present Haryana's cultivated area of 88 lakh acres was included in the 7.2 MAF demand of Punjab. Had Haryana areas also been included in Punjab demand, not a drop of surplus water would have been available for allocation to Rajasthan and the whole of 15.58 MAF of surplus Ravi-Beas waters would have been utilized in Punjab itself and there would not have been any Rajasthan Canal. 

Depletion of Ground Water

As stated above, Punjab is extracting 2.5 crore acre-feet of under-ground water annually. Annual recharge of ground water is only about 1.5 crore acre feet, thus leaving a gap of about one crore acre feet which results in water-table going down by one foot annually. If Punjab had not supplied one crore acre feet of canal water annually to Rajasthan, there would not have arisen any necessity of pumping out this much underground water and annual recharge and drawl would have balanced each other. There would not have been any depletion of ground water which has now assumed alarming proportions.

According to a recent report of NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration of US) published in the August issue of the journal Nature, "Groundwater beneath North India decreases by one foot every year and if measures are not soon taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, consequences may include a collapse of agricultural output, severe shortage of drinking water, conflict and suffering and it can take thousands of years for aquifers to recharge." 

Experts say that wars in twenty-first century would be over water. Time is not far away when Punjab will face severe shortage of water even for drinking purposes. Giving one crore acre feet of water from Punjab rivers to Rajasthan is the only cause for this alarming depletion of ground water. 

Rajasthan Canal- Government of India's Brainwave 

Before 1948 nobody had ever thought of constructing a Canal for taking Punjab's Rivers Waters to the deserts of Rajasthan. In 1940s and 1950s, there was great shortage of food grains in India and huge quantities of food grains had to be imported every year. In order to boost food grains production, the Government of India launched "grow-more-food campaign". Efforts were made all over India to bring every available strip of vacant land under cultivation. An idea struck the Govt. of India and the Planning Commission that millions of acres of vacant desert land in Rajasthan could be brought under cultivation if water for irrigation could be arranged. 

In May 1948, India and Pakistan had signed an agreement regarding Ravi-Beas and Sutlej rivers of Punjab by which East Punjab's exclusive rights over the waters of these rivers were more or less accepted. 

Those were the days of single crop and there was no intensive agriculture. Knowing fully well that Punjab had no ready-made plans to immediately utilize these waters, Government of India found a golden opportunity to give these waters to Rajasthan. 

While giving approval to the construction of Harike Headworks in 1949, the Government of India asked Punjab Government to make provision for a 18,500 cusec canal for Rajasthan, which the Punjab Government obediently did. 

This was about six years before the 'Agreement' of 29 January, 1955. Harike Headworks were constructed in 1950-52 with a provision of 18,500 cusec canal for Rajasthan. Even the Rajasthan Government then had no idea or any hope of getting Ravi-Beas Waters and even refused to carry out any survey and the Centre had to do it at its own expense.

U.S.A. Bureau of Reclamation whose advice was sought by Government of India regarding Rajasthan Canal Project, advised against the construction of Rajasthan Canal. It advised that instead of wasting water in far away Thar desert, it should be utilized nearer home, where it would produce more food and fibre. However, the Centre ignored this advice and gave go-ahead to the Project. 

Value of Water 

In his monumental work, "The Indus Rivers", Prof. Aloys Arthur Michael of Yale University, U.S.A., says, "As in most sub-humid regions of the earth, water in the Indus Basin is more valuable than land. Had it not been for the modern irrigation network developed after the annexation of Sind and Punjab to British India in the 1840s, much of what is now the economic heart of West Pakistan would have remained essentially a semi-desert." The same applies to Rajasthan and parts of Haryana. 

Only recently, the Central Water and Power Commission issued a press-note stating that iron Gates of Madhopur Headworks had become very old with the result that 100 cusec water was leaking through these gates everyday and it was going waste to Pakistan. They put the annual value of this 100 cusecs at Rs 100 crores, which loss Punjab was suffering every year. Punjab is giving one crore acre feet or say 50 lakh cusecs of water to Rajasthan every year (1 cusec day=2 acre feet). On this basis, value of this much water comes to about Rs 14,000 crores annually. The total value of 40 crore acre feet of water supplied to Rajasthan during the last 40 years would thus come to Rs 5,60,000 crores. 

Loss on Account of Electricity and Diesel etc. 

The biggest loss suffered by Punjab for supplying one crore acre feet canal water to Rajasthan is that it has to extract this much extra ground water for its own use. There are more than 13 lakh electric and diesel operated tubewells in Punjab which pump out about 2.50 crore acre feet of ground water every year. As per PSER Commission, electricity consumed by these tubewells is more than 1000 crore units every year and value of this electricity at the rate of Rs 2.50 per unit comes to about Rs 2600 crores. However, as Punjab purchases electricity from other states at the rate of Rs 7 or 8 per unit, at this rate cost of this much electricity would come to more than Rs 7000 crores. Diesel operated tubewell is 4/5 times more costly than electric one. Due to shortage of electricity, many farmers use generators as well. Taking all these  factors into consideration, if we assume Rs 5 per unit as the cost of electricity, the total cost for 1000 crore units of electricity would come to Rs 5000 crores. 

Since Punjab is supplying one crore acre feet of Canal water to Rajasthan every year, it has to use 400 crores unit of electricity worth Rs 2000 crores every year for extracting this much ground water (40% of the 2.5 crore acre feet). Total amount spent by Punjab for pumping out 40 crore acre feet of water during the last 40 years would thus come to Rs 80,000 crores.

Had Punjab used one crore acre feet of its river water, the necessity of extracting this much ground water would not have arisen. This annual loss of 400 crore units of electricity is all due to supplying one crore acre feet of canal water to Rajasthan every year. 

The cost of boring and reboring tubewells, electric motors, diesel engines, generators, and other associated machinery and labour etc would be in addition to this. Out of 2.5 crore acre feet of ground water, one crore acre feet (i.e. 40 %) could also be debited to Rajasthan and 40 % of all expense on ground water could be debited to that state.

Punjab would have become top-most industrial state of the country if it had used this additional 400 crores units of electricity (free or subsidized) for its industry. And capital and industrialists would have come running to Punjab. Instead of being predominantly agricultural state, Punjab would have become a predominantly industrial state. 

Clearly, it is the legal right and the bounden duty of the Punjab Government and all the political parties of Punjab to recover this cost from Rajasthan. Is Punjab ready to take the step? It must.

The Revenge of Ghaghar

Punjab and Haryana are today blaming each other for floods. A strange variety of discourse is being constructed and de-constructed as if the problems of the region are because someone diverted the flood water to its neighbour. It is time we stopped playing these games and focussed on the real issues. Nature is doing to us what we are doing to the nature. This article has been penned by well known social activist and environmentalist Umendra Dutt after a journey alongside Ghaghar. He met the people, the land, the river, and brought a tale so sordid that unless we act fast, we will soon have no more tales to tell. 
 A Punjab Today Special 


Umendra Dutt


About two years ago, my friend, the famous singer Rabbi Shergill, wrote: "There is no doubt that it was just because of a major environmental change that the great civilization of Indus valley had completely vanished. The same reasons, in the same form, today exist before us. The only difference between the two situations is that in those times it was a natural disaster but this time it is man made." Rabbi compared the present situation of Punjab with that of the Sindh valley which was destroyed because of scarcity of water.

Umendra Dutt

'Sindh ghaatti ajj fir maran nu tyaar  hai', wrote Rabbi Will this really happen? It is a fading ecosystem, a dying civilization, a whole community being put on slow death. As Dr Amar Singh Azad, my senior colleague in Kheti Virasat Mission, puts it: "It is crime against humanity and nature by our own governments that too in the name of development."
If you want to see crimes against humanity, all you need to do is to visit the villages near Dhakansu drain and Ghaghar River in Patiala and Sangrur districts.
This was our third visit to any river or drain area to educate ourselves on environmental toxicity and its multiple impacts. For me personally, it was the second river I was trying to follow after Jayanti in Ropar district where I did a padyatra about eight years back. I found several similarities between disappearance of Jayanti and Ghaghar. Both rivers have lost their relevance since the people have forgotten what they stood for. Over the years, the river eco-system at both places has been ravaged and ruined by the developmental activities carried out in the name of modernity, the so called new thinking.
Let me share some more about our recent yatra which in simpler words was more of a field trip to learn about multiple crises of water, environmental toxicity, condition of agriculture, biodiversity, health crisis on vast spectrum and socio-economic stress around the Ghaghar river. All in all, a veritable ecological disaster.

Villages Up for Sale

The riverscape is extremely frightening. In recent times, there has been  much more talk about the acute health and water tragedy going on in few districts of Malwa region. But we all need to stand corrected. The deadly devastation has spread to all of Punjab now. Even as this is happening, some of our well-wishers continue to ask us: "Why are you activists creating so much scare?" Let me respond in the words of Dr. Azad: "Yes, we want to create a scare because it is real and because situation is far more destructive then our government thinks it is."
I understand that these are big words, but must not these be used when the idea is that big and scary? Punjab is a dying civilization. Several people may find this offending, ugly and uncalled for. But the indications we are getting from across the Punjab are making it clear that our establishment is signing death warrants of the whole river and related ecosystems in this part of country.
In what kind of a socio-economic set up do you see villages setting themselves up for sale? It symbolises a state of deep distress and devastation across Punjab. Let me illustrate with a real example. It was March 2002, and it was the first of its kind of protests in India in Harkishanpura of Bathinda district. This was followed by Malsingh Wala in Mansa district in 2005. Both these villages, embedded in the cotton belt of Malwa, have one thing in common: an acute water crisis. It is this situation that forced both villages to put their land on sale. Now, such water-distress has engulfed the villages of ecologically more prosperous area of Puadh. A village in Patiala district near Chandigarh - Mirzapur Sandharsi - is willing to put itself on sale too.
A visit to the village showed that Punjab is fast turning into a waterless region. It can be Harkishanpura, Mandi Khurd or MalSingh Wala or Teja Rohella, Dona Nanka near Fazilka or Mirzapur Sandharsi - village after village is being captured by severe water crisis.
There are several indicators to reaffirm of why Dr. Amar Singh Azad said that Punjab is a dying civilization. Severe multiple environmental toxicity stared us in the face as we travelled from Mirzapur Sandharsi to Harpalpur to Shahpur Theri and Makrod Sahib in Sangrur. After confirmation of presence of uranium traces in hair samples of children from Baba Farid Centre for Special Children and water and soil samples, it is certain that Punjab is in the midst of multiple environmental toxicity.
 There is a drinking water crisis due to drying-up of upper aquifers, plunging water quality, destruction of river eco-system and vanishing aquatic life besides loss of biodiversity and crop diversity. This, along with increasing health problems, particularly those related to reproductive health, falling immune capacity, early ageing and cancers, calls for a collective sense of shock. Combine it with falling agriculture productivity, increase in external inputs and rising debts and you have a recipe for growing disconnect between farmer and his land. No wonder, the farmers are selling their farms.  

Acute Water Stress and its Impacts

Punj-aab is fast turning into Be-aab and Punjabis of Be-aab Punjab are bound to become Be-abaad (displaced). Mirzapur Sandharsi underlines this sorry transformation. Surinder Singh, Sarpanch of Mirzapur Sandharsi, says the water stress is forcing them to a situation where they are ready to sell their entire village.
Harbans Singh, chairman of village cooperative society, said as there was no water left in two upper aquifers at 70 feet and 150 feet respectively -  the aquifer at 70 feet went dry about a decade back while the 150 feet one dried off five years earlier  the villagers are forced to dig 12 to 20 feet every year.
When the Ghaghar River was "alive" about 15 year back and its people full of zest, they never anticipated they would face with such acute depletion of water.
But ever wondered about who is ready to buy these villages and agricultural land? The farmers of Mirzapur Sandharsi sold their land to a distillery company which is set to draw water from 1200 feet deep aquifers. Villagers are hopeful that company will change their lives after getting water from 1200 feet deep bore-wells. What is ironic is that after exhausting all upper aquifers, the villagers are finding a solution in a factory producing alcohol as if they are the harbingers of hope.  What they perhaps chose not to see is that it is a distillery which has primarily caused destruction of all water sources and contaminated Ghaghar river and its banks.
From the agriculture point of view, the water that a distillery will access is not the same as the upper aquifers. Although farmers are able to cultivate wheat and paddy, there is no scope for vegetables as the water is extremely hard. It is no surprise then that no farmer is growing vegetables for the last ten years in Mirzapur Sandharsi village.
Vegetables have simply vanished, and now are sourced from as far as Ambala. Harpalpur's farmers used to sell veggies at Rajpura and Chandigarh, but no more now. It is the same story for Shahpur Their, Mandavi, Chandu, Makrodr Sahib and Foold. The vegetable and food growers are now mere consumers, adding an additional economic burden.      
Wheat yields have dropped drastically in the last few years in the area. Some are getting a yield of five quintals per acre of wheat. Usage of chemical fertilizers is zooming and farming is becoming an even more costly affair. Diversity of crops has gone for a kick, and ditto for diversity of species in livestock. Long past have gone the says when farmers would grow through combination inter-cropping of single crops like corn, basmati rice, cotton, sugarcane, wheat, mustard; millets such as pearl millet, barley and pulses such as toria, moong, masar, moth, alsi, til, tara-mira, gwara, arhar as well as chillies.

Biodiversity and Riverscape Lost

Farmers and people living in those times will vouch for the fact that all these crops were grown without any chemical inputs simply by irrigating their farms with Ghaghar water. But as Ghaghar has gone dry, the biodiverse farming system which flourished here for hundreds of years has also shriveled up.
The real and life sustaining wealth of the farmers - water, earth and diversity - stand plundered.  
This has also eroded traditional knowledge system of farming and farming techniques which relied on low or no cost utilisation of natural materials around a household or fields. Now farmers are entirely dependent on externally purchased seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides, confirms Jaswant Singh of Shahpur Theri.
All of this is further complicated by the acute situation on the farm debt front, said Harvinder Singh, Youth Club President of Shahpur Their. Our travels in the belt showed that it was not just Mirzapur Sandharsi. Too many villages would put themselves up for sale if they spotted a buyer. It is the saddest turn in human history when the farmers feel no more attachment to their village. In Punjab, that is a turn history has taken. Bad news is that our rulers haven't been jolted and worse is that we haven't registered the shock.
Our rivers are being murdered, their bounties are being plundered. Old timers recall a clean Ghaghar and the times when they used to drink its water. So many have seen the death of Ghaghar. So few are seen crying. Long lost are the memories of several perennial springs like Nadiya Taal from where people used to get water for the entire year, the memories of Dhaak and Dhaki trees, Jand, Kiker, and bushes of Duaansa. Now, forget about the diverse variety of birds, even spotting a crow or a sparrow has become a rare event.
Punjabis will find it hard to live with the tag of committing violence against nature. But are we ready for the time when nature will avenge itself?
The cancer cases that you see in the villages are one such form of revenge. Rising infertility and other reproductive health disorders are another. Add to this the neurological disorders, allergies and a severely injured immunity, childless couples, cases of miscarriages, spontaneous abortions and premature deliveries, congenital abnormalities, cerebral palsy, autism, learning and behavioral disabilities. The list of illnesses is much longer. The state of animal health indicates that toxicity has reached its threshold level.
We are fast moving towards total collapse of reproductive system. Apart from human beings, cows and buffalos are also losing their reproductive capacity. Lactation periods are down and reproduction cycles have come down to 5 from 15.

Question of Accountability

Today, Ghaghar is asking for justice. We need to fix accountability. Who is responsible for this ecological destruction? How we are going to give justice to Ghaghar, her inhabitants and the nature? Is it not clear to us that the liquor and wine distilleries at Banur, Patiala, Patran have killed Ghaghar? Everyone who issued those NOCs to these factories is responsible. And that includes the Punjab Pollution Control Board, the Revenue department and the Directorate of excise and taxation besides the Punjab's finance ministry. They are killers. Pure and simple.
Punjab needs a true and honest people's movement. Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal has already taken an initiative in this direction, but we need to go much further. . We need to talk political ecology and political economy of decision making. People have to start thinking politically to punish the environmental culprits of Punjab. We have to evolve newer ways to punish those who are responsible for this devastation.
The killers and destroyers of Kali Bein, East Bein, Budha Dariya, Sutlej and other rivulets of Punjab and the harbingers of water crisis in the districts of Faridkot, Muktsar, Bathinda and Mansa need to be named.
My friend Prof Shubh Prem Brar from Bathinda has rightly said, "The Southern Punjab is surrounded by toxic water ways; it is like garland of poisonous waters encircling the large area of Punjab." If you see the map of Punjab you see poisonous waters are encircling entire south, south-eastern and south-western region of Punjab. It is absolutely terrifying. Let's join hands to prove Rabbi Shergill wrong. Believe me, he will not mind. It is time to learn from the death of the civilization of Sindh Ghati. Rabbi does not want to sing any songs about how Punjabis killed their own rivers, their own civilization. Let's not give him the chance.

(The author is Executive Director of Kheti Virasat Mission, a Jaitu based civil society ecological action group working on natural farming and environmental health. For feedback, mail 
punjabtoday@gmail.com. Punjab Today intends to continue this debate since we believe that our politics must be guided by the real concerns of the people. At a time when fights for jal, jungle and zameen are on in the country, it is sad that large sections of the media are not playing their due role. We intend to change that.)

Controversy is knocking at the doors

Darshani Deodi Gates removed after 210 years for repairs, but something else needs some restoration too


Rita Manchanda

One would have thought that a task as sacred as restoration of the famous Darshani Deodi gates would be an occasion that will induce a fervour of religiosity and spirituality among the Sikh community and will only inspire our newer generation to know more about our history. One would have also expected, and rightly so, that thousands of young children would be asking why the Darshani Deodi gates were so important, where they came from, and how have they attained such huge place in Sikh sense of history.
Instead, as the SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar extended his hand for the mandatory photo-op, touching the historic silver gates when these were being removed and carted away, the questions that were tossed by sections of the community were rather disturbing.
And to add distrust to the context of utter failure to find unanimity and conciliation, Makkar himself put a question mark on the origin of the gates of Darshani Deodi by saying he does not want to comment on the origins of the gates. Such a statement is bound to put a question mark on the entire exercise.
Many political bodies of shades different than the ruling Akalis asked if there was any intention to return the gates to the Somnath Temple, and that too, under the influence of the Bhartiya Janata Party, with which the ruling Akali Dal has an alliance?
To prove that he had no such intentions, Makkar took some extra ordinary measures. Special glass enclosures have been erected. He had to announce that the Gates will not be taken out of the complex, not even for repairs, and that all repairs will be carried out in full public view inside the glass enclosures. A whole deal of time, energy and money is being spent on first filming, micro filming and preserving every inch of detail of the gates. And special assurances are being given that the details will not be changed and the gates will merely be repaired, not renovated.
All of this proves the extent to which the SGPC leadership has lost its trust, and what all it has to do to merely underline that if it wants to repair the gates, it will only do that and not run away with them and give these over to some temple. The centuries old huge gates at the entrance to the sanctum sanctorum of Golden Temple had their sandalwood base crumbling and the ivory carving and golden screws on the doors had suffered damage due to more than 210 years of exposure to the vagaries of time. Avtar Singh Makkar has been around for much less time, and seems to have suffered much more damage. Worse, no one is ready to vouch that it can even be repaired.
Since their installation in 1800 AD by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, this was for the first time that the gates were unhooked. Many historians believe the gates were originally from Gujarat’s Somnath Temple, which were looted by Afghan invaders in the 12th century, and which were later brought back by the Sikhs from Afghan hands. That story is part of the popular Sikh folklore for decades now. It is said that the Sikh warriors, after snatching the precious gates from the Afghans, had offered them to Hindus but the Somnath management had refused to accept the doors, terming them “impure” as these had been looked at and touched by the Afghans.
Now, with the advent of modernity and an idea of historical heritage taking deeper roots, there have been demands that the Gates be returned to the Somnath Temple. It is in this context that many had thought that the Gates were being removed with the hidden purpose of somehow effecting their return to the Temple. Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) chief Simranjit Singh Mann, who was against the removal or any “tempering” with the gates, found support from many other radical Sikh bodies.
Both Makkar and the Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh tried to say that the Gates were being removed only for repairs but the trust deficit has been much more than the damage to the Gates, forcing Makkar to issue a statement that said, "The doors are sacred and ... work will be carried out inside the Golden Temple premises and the gates will not be taken out of the complex.”
He said he does not want to get into any controversy by commenting on the origin of the gates. His opponents said that was strange behaviour.
"Does fear of controversy stop anyone from saying a historical truth? And why is Makkar hesitant? Is he ashamed of the Sikh history? Is, of all the people, the SGPC president saying he is embarrassed or ashamed by a chapter of the Sikh history and will not comment on it?" asked a senior leader and opponent of the move to remove the Gates. Makkar is stuck on his "no comments" line: “We do not want to get into any controversy. The gates need repair and we are duty bound to restore them to their traditional pristine glory.”
To underline the levels to which the SGPC president is suffering the trust deficit, members of the Guru Granth Sahib Satkar Committee sat outside the complex to ensure that the gates were not taken out.
Now, restoration cum preservation of the Darshani Gates will be carried out as kar sewa under the supervision of Baba Kashmira Singh Bhuriwale. “A five-member committee headed by Golden Temple head priest Jaswinder Singh will overview the repair work. Gates made of silver have replaced the original gates till the repair is completed, which may take a year,” Makkar said. Clearly, Makkar delayed the Darshani Deodi gates' removal for a year but failed to find conciliation with the opponents. Unfortunately, there is little chance of anyone taking up the kar sewa of Makkar's reputation that has suffered extensive damage due to his behaving more as a minion at the beck and call of his political masters than as a leader of the SGPC. Will our leaders learn from the past?

The Politics of Deluge

From the flood front, the story of a man who reached home late, a child who missed school and a boy who did not turn up for his girl


Nischay Pal

If a man reaches home late, there is a human story involved. If a child misses school, there is a human story involved. If a boy fails to turn up for his girl friend at the rendevous, there is a human story involved.
But not so for the governments in Punjab and Haryana. Nearly twenty people have died in floods, thousands of acres of land lies submerged in flood waters, many lives are at stake, thousands of victims are going hungry and uncared for, and hundreds are making efforts to plug breaches, dig up roads to create water channels and do all they can to pick up pieces of shattered lives.
But amidst all of this human tragedy, much of it man made, the governments of Punjab and Haryana have come out as the most petty stake holders, blaming each other for having diverted the flood waters to the other and hurling accusations of who was supposed to do what.
For the two governments, there is no human story involved even if a father did not come home, a child missed school and a boy did not turn up at the rendevous point because one was washed away by the flood, one was electrocuted and one had to rush to retrieve his parent's body. Now, don't ask who was electrocuted, and who got washed away or lost his parent, because for those who were supposed to care, there was no human story involved.
For the farmer who had taken a loan for paddy transplantation, who had fought at the railway platforms to get migrant labourers, who had taken a tractor on rent, and whose daughter was to be married in a few months' time, the flooded fields meant a shattered life. He can't face his daughter and tell her he would have to reschedule the marriage, fixed in the month of the harvest, because someone had dug an illegal canal in Haryana or diverted some Ghaghar water into the SYL.

A Dostovesky would have plumbed the depths of the soul of such a bride not-to-be, and a more sensitised government would have been seen carrying a cross and working overtime to get relief to the people. In an evolved democracy, you would have seen teams of pyschologists fanning out to deal with the trauma that young children would be facing at the turn of events. But in Punjab and Haryana, all you see is news of more breaches in canals and irrigation drains, and some more mud-slinging.
The politicians, whose careers are built around an 'After me the deluge' philosophy, have used even a tragedy of this level to serve their petty ends.
Even as trains stood halted and terminated at various stations enroute, and TV channels flashed frightening pictures of gushing flood waters from the SYL breach, the stress was not on getting the information through about how bad the situation is and what could be expected next, but on who was to blame.
For the man who reached home late, for the child who missed school, for the boy who could not turn up for the rendevous with his girl, the simple question was: Who is managing the things for us in such a way that a couple of days of rain has led to tragedies of such proportions?
Not one voice was heard that said, "Oops! We seem to have messed up." No political party said it was calling for a shut off to mobilise people for large scale community efforts to get the relief through. No media house announced a campaign to get large number of volunteers to areas where they were needed.
Hope lived on only in the form of local communities discovering the inherent strengths in working together. The men at the gurdwara, the youth in the village, the local dera sadh and his devotees, and the village sports club people, they were all there, mostly without a shirt on and with torrents of rain trying to bust their reservepools of camaraderie and strength.
Across the flood affected areas, the rag tag self-inspired armies of such dedicated  men and women were seen trying to do what governments failed to even attempt with all the resources at their command.
Instead, sophisticated insults were being flung on the people. Politicians sitting with the Deputy Commissioner of the area and other senior officials in inflated motorised boats venturing out to estimate the losses, another boat ferrying the media corps bringing up the rear. Who can let go of such a photo-op? The flood waters in the background, the mike thrusted in your face, the cameramen clicking like men possessed. After me the deluge. It was all so customised. "Look behind me. Can you see the deluge?" If only the politician could. He is the deluge. Behind him in the photographs are only human stories of the man who reached home late, the child who missed school, the boy who could keep his date.
Relief comes marked in boxes that scream "Relief". And politicians distribute it only after the banner is hung properly that shows the benevolent faces of men who are supposed to be caring for us. Every little step should be an opportunity to display your loyalty.
Unfortunately, neither the man, nor the child, nor the boy were in the queue when one or the other minister was contriving such potential photo-ops. They are miles away, stuck amid gushing waters and shattered lives, wondering what a couple of days of rain have done to their lives.