Captain as Terminator

There can be no two ways about it: the Punjab Termination of Agreement Bill, 2004, has to go. Not only is it bad in law, it is a betrayal of the Constitution since it disturbs the fine balance of power between the Centre and the states and undermines the vital unifying principles that keep this country together. The chief minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, has long exhibited a disturbing streak of self-righteous arrogance and this move testifies to this. It is, in fact, a response to Supreme Court’s directive to the Centre last month to ensure the completion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal meant to carry the waters of the Sutlej to Haryana.

Since the court had based its decision on the 1981 agreement between the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan — on the sharing of the waters of the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — Punjab’s Congress government thought it best to terminate that agreement. In doing so, the chief minister was apparently oblivious of the fact that a unilateral response of this kind to what was essentially a tripartite agreement, with the Centre having played a facilitating role, is legally untenable. Or perhaps he knew this all right but didn’t care because his intention was not so much to win the legal argument as to make a political point and to emerge as a champion of Punjab’s interests. So politically shrewd was the move that even his bitter opponents — from the Shiromani Akali Dal — have walked shoulder-to-shoulder with him on the issue. The Punjab chief minister’s argument is that the SYL canal would adversely affect the population of the basin area within his state and render nine lakh acres of farmland barren — although how he has arrived at this projection remains uncertain. Also, he doesn’t seem to care that he would, by threatening to keep captive for Punjab’s use all the rivers that flow through the state, which is what the new Bill is about, be threatening devastation on large swathes of Haryana — which was once a part of Punjab, let it not be forgotten — as well as Rajasthan.

National resources like rivers cannot be the booty of any captain. If states have the constitutional right to use the waters of a river flowing through their territory, the Constitution also allows for the Centre to regulate the development and regulation of river waters in the public interest. Indeed, given the highly uneven spread of water resources in the country, it is incumbent upon the Centre to play this role. The National Water Policy recognises that managing this important resource — upon which hinges the right to life — in a sustainable manner has to be guided by a national perspective. It is this spirit that Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s latest piece of legislation so rudely destroys. The Bill is an affront to the nation and must find its way to the nearest dustbin.