The Supreme Court on 10 November declared invalid a 2004 law of Punjab by which the state had unilaterally annulled all water-sharing agreements, most significantly the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal project with Haryana.
For Punjab, which is undergoing an agrarian crisis that may not reflect in the production but certainly does in the plunging water table and the farm debt trap, it could not have come at a worse time. It wants all the water it can get as it continues to grow water-guzzling paddy in the absence of a price guarantee mechanism for alternative crops. Haryana is celebrating it as a red-letter day, and the Centre is mum, understandably.
Politics Over Water-Sharing Treaty
But for the politicians in Punjab, it could not have come at a better time. Elections are due in three months, and this is yet another chance to put on display their love for the state through a row that has its roots in the 1966 reorganisation of Punjab when Haryana was carved out.
The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, which is battling anti-incumbency for being in power for two terms, was clearly ready for it. So was the Congress. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has tried to catch on and catch up.
SYL Canal Shakes Up Politics
- Badals hopeful of defusing the crisis post-SC verdict
on Satluj-Yamuna Link by passing a law yet again.
- SAD has had a history of flip-flops on the issue with
land being acquired under the Badal regime in the late 1970s.
- As Amarinder tries to win the people’s sympathy, posters of him welcoming Indira Gandhi for the canal’s ground-breaking ceremony in 1982 have gone viral
- AAP yet to thrash out a strategy on the entire row with
the top leadership choosing to keep mum.
Looking for Political Gains
SAD president and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal immediately declared that the Vidhan Sabha would convene on 16 November for an emergency session. On the cards is a legislation that will go beyond the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act of 2004, and stop all the water flowing to other states.
In the Sikh-majority state, the Badal-controlled Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), considered the mini-parliament of Sikhs, has also passed a resolution asking the President for a review. “We will not let a drop flow out… We will not let anyone enter Punjab (for its water), be it the Union government, the Iraqi government or the American government,” Sukhbir has thundered.
History of Flip-Flops
The SAD can claim that it has always been against the canal, but its history has been that of flip-flops. From acquisition of land under CM Badal in the late 1970s, to protesting against it as a ‘dharam yudh’ (holy war) in the early 1980s when Sikh militant leaders such as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale linked the canal to religio-nationalism; to signing the Punjab Accord with then PM Rajiv Gandhi and completing 90 percent of the work; to again turning against the canal after militants killed two engineers and 35 workers at a project site in Rupnagar in 1990.
Now, the SAD is looking to project itself as the sole protector of the state’s rights against an “anti-Sikh, anti-Punjab” Congress, and an “outsider” AAP.
Captain’s ‘Martyr-Stroke’
The Congress in Punjab under Captain Amarinder Singh has been equally, if not more, aggressive. The former CM, under whose regime the 2004 law was passed and hailed as a bold move, has resigned as Amritsar MP, and all 42 Congress MLAs have quit the Assembly. It is the Captain – he is to Congress for Punjab in 2017 what Modi was to BJP for India in 2014 – who wants to be the martyr of the SC verdict.
But the internet is coming in the way. Posters and photos of Amarinder welcoming Indira Gandhi in 1982 to the canal’s ground-breaking ceremony have gone viral. The party anyway cannot take a stand either way — its national spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, who is from Haryana, tweeted his happiness at the SC verdict — and it remains to be seen if Captain can stand apart from, and above, the party based on his purported charisma.
Kejriwal, Missing in Action?
The AAP, which has been battling the non-Punjabi tag, is the first to start a ‘morcha’ (protest) at the SYL ground-breaking site near Kapoori village in Patiala. But the silence of its otherwise-hard-to-silence chief Arvind Kejriwal, a Haryana native, is the talk of the town. The Delhi CM has only been re-tweeting pro-Punjab and anti-SAD, anti-BJP, anti-Congress tweets on the matter, but we all know ‘RTs are not endorsements’!
When asked why Kejriwal is quiet, AAP leaders have said that so are the Gandhis and Modi. “Our national leader Sanjay Singh is leading the morcha at Kapoori, you see!” a senior AAP leader argued, seeking to remain unnamed.
But its latest salvo at the Punjab government – that the state’s advocate-general is a Haryana native and thus did not argue properly in the SC – does not sound very well thought-out. “It is but natural for a Haryanvi advocate to have complete and deep sympathy with the interest of his own state, rather than Punjab,” AAP Punjab spokesperson Sukhpal Singh Khaira has argued. ‘But natural’ for Kejriwal too?
Will the Akalis Gain?
Of the three players, the SAD may gain on the SYL for it is the only regional party. Yet, it’s not that simple. Its alliance partner BJP stands by it in Punjab, but it is the BJP that is in power in Haryana, and the SAD is a junior partner in the BJP-led NDA at the Centre. Even when Badal has blamed the Centre for the row, it has taken a more historical stance of flaying Congress rather than just the current regime.
It looks highly unlikely that a canal about which a vast majority of the current electorate knows little or nothing can do much to counter the Akalis’ widespread unpopularity over the Badals’ alleged self-serving two terms. Not that the Akalis don’t know that!
They are only hoping that it can further divert the attention away from their corruption and nepotism, and fuel their nativist campaign. More than a canal of controversy, the SYL is, right now, a stormy pond of perception.
(The writer is a Chandigarh-based journalist. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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