Dry Run

That was the last of the canal. Left to itself, the 40-feet-deep gigantic trench soon turned into a jungle ruled by jackals, neelgai, deer and snakes. And shunned by villagers.

One foot on the pedal of his cycle, Daljit Singh, the village numberdar, halts at the mention the canal, and the trouble brewing in it. ‘‘Why doesn’t the government complete it?’’ he gripes, holding it — or its absence — responsible for the hard-scrabble existence of the villagers.

The thirsty fields, some with cracks, back him up. The water table in Majat hits a new low every year. ‘‘It started the year they built the canal. We used to bore till 30-35 feet for water, but the moment they touched 40 feet with the canal, the flow dipped,’’ cribs Daljit.

Now the bore has to touch 300 feet before it strikes water. “I spent Rs 3 lakh on a bore, but can a small farmer do that,’’ Daljit, who shares 20 acres with his two brothers, fumes.

An operational SYL, he says, will not only return the moisture to the soil but also raise the water table. But what about the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act? He shoots back: ‘‘Okay, then they should divert the canal back into Punjab, but complete it they must.’’

It’s not only the fields which are parched, but the people too. A tanker parked in the courtyard of Sher Singh is testimony to this. ‘‘Our handpump yields a mere trickle, so I get this filled up from our tubewell for household chores,’’ Sher Singh explains.

It’s this ‘dry’ situation that’s given birth to the Nahar Chalao Committee — the antithesis, perhaps, of the Nahar Roko Morcha of 1982 — which organised a protest in Chandigarh last fortnight.

Janak Singh of Dharak, barely two km away, is banking on the canal to deliver him from the annual floods. ‘‘They dug the canal and piled up the excavated earth into hillocks. Now these block the seasonal choe coming from the hills and, every monsoon, our village is marooned,’’ he says. ‘‘Once the canal becomes operational, so will the siphons to handle the flood waters. And they will also complete the bridge to Bhamour village, which becomes inaccessible when rainwater fills up the canal.’’

Small wonder then that Bhupinder Singh, a farmer from Bhamour who also tills land in Dharak, can’t fathom CM Capt Amarinder Singh’s new Act. ‘‘What’s wrong if the waters flow to Haryana? After all, they’re poor farmers like us. Why should we deprive them of some help,’’ he shrugs as fellow farmer Preetam Singh nods vigorously.

Later, as the long journey along the canal draws to a close without that sentiment being echoed again, Bhupinder Singh’s statement stands out for its sheer generosity.

BASSIAN BAIDWAN
FATEHGARH SAHIB
SURJEET Kaur, a granny with green eyes and a huge smile, indicates a dry well across her house at the mention of SYL. ‘‘It dried up when they dug that canal,’’ she grouses as a beaten Maruti with ‘Singh is King’ scrawled on the windscreen whizzes by.

The village, which took to dairy farming in a big way after water became a worry, now frets about its cattle. ‘‘They’re taking ill because the fodder has become bitter in the absence of water,’’ Kaur complains.

The solution, says Surmukh Singh, a former panch, lies in making the SYL operational. ‘‘That will recharge our ground water,’’ he says.

And yes, he has nothing but praise for the CM. ‘‘How can we give someone else water when we don’t have enough for ourselves,’’ he asks, raising his pitch as a crowd collects.

It’s an argument one encounters time and again. A few km away at Puwala, which is performing a yagna for rains, they call it a matter of common sense. And there is a collective grunt when Rachpal Singh, a former panch, growls: ‘‘Saanu te Rajasthan bana dita hai (They’ve made us a Rajasthan).’’

Try suggesting that the fault may lie with the wheat-paddy cycle replicated in every village, and Rachpal snaps: ‘‘We’ve tried sunflower, potatoes… everything fails, give us a real alternative, and then see.’’

KAPOORI : PATIALA
SITTING astride the Punjab-Haryana border, this village is as dead set against the SYL as it was when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi laid its foundation stone in a Punjab Mandi Board godown here on April 8, 1982.

‘‘All of us boycotted it,’’ recalls Amar Singh, the chirpy husband of silent sarpanch Baljinder Kaur. ‘‘It’s the fountainhead of all troubles.’’

A brief, garbled account of Punjab militancy later, he returns to the present. No, he doesn’t think a full SYL will benefit his parched village, which has sown only 2,000 of its 8,000 acres this year. ‘‘They won’t give us a drop of water. Besides it’s been made in such a way that no moisture escapes,’’ he claims.

But such worries are alien to Sarhali Kalan village on the other side of the SYL. ‘‘Why should we whine about it when we’ve already got compensation for the land acquired,’’ reasons Gurdeep Singh, former sarpanch. The village has other reasons to be contented: its water table is high, and they also get waters from the Narwana canal coming from the Bhakra Nangal dam.

Oblivious to all this, the SYL flows silently a few feet away, hand in hand with the Narwana canal, its stagnant waters and ugly undergrowth a rude contrast to the handsome Narwana with its red brick embankments and gushing waters. What unites them is a Pir Baba’s samadhi standing guard at the point where they step into Haryana.

ISMAILPUR : AMBALA
PUNJAB may be yet to release a drop of water into the SYL, but Ismailpur is already relishing its benefits. The village, whose brackish ground water was slowly eating into the fertility of its land, has almost doubled its foodgrains production ever since the SYL (at present, it’s fed by Narwana branch and flood waters) came into being, and the irrigation department took out a distributory (Koyla Minor) from it.

Of course, there is a flip side to it. ‘‘All awara, laawaris water falls into it and floods our fields,’’ grumbles Arvind Singh, a postgraduate in Economics. But others hush him, saying it’s a small price to pay.

Which is why the prospect of Punjab reneging on its promise makes Arvind’s uncle Gurdial simmer. ‘‘That means we will be back to square one. How can Punjab do that,’’ he knits his brows. Arvind, however, is confident of the kindly Supreme Court bailing them out.

But in the distant Khaira village, there are others like Choudhary Hardev Singh Khaira, former sarpanch, who feel a little bit of armtwisting by Haryana would work better. ‘‘What if we decide to jam all traffic to Delhi,’’ his cold blue eyes glint.

RAOGARH : KURUKSHETRA
SITTING with a lone candle in a pitch-dark room, Om Prakash, the sarpanch of Raogarh, has stopped pinning hopes on the SYL. ‘‘As of now it’s just filled with flood waters and residuals from other rivulets, Kurukshetra district doesn’t really benefit from it,’’ he fans himself. At the moment what does bother him is the truant electricity. ‘‘We get it every third day,’’ moans a portly matron.

The 108 acres of the village get their weekly quota of water from Narwana. ‘‘It’s 28 minutes per acre every week,’’ informs Gulab Singh, who is certain this will increase once Punjab releases its waters. The Termination Act, villagers are confident, is a political ruse. ‘‘It must be Chautala’s pre-poll ploy,’’ declares a bent old man. Tell him it is Amarinder’s and he wags a finger: ‘‘They are all the same.’’

It doesn’t matter to Om Prakash. He lost five acres when they built SYL, and was left with 15. Twenty days ago, he received a notice from Haryana Urban Development Agency (HUDA), saying they were going to acquire the remaining 15 acres as well.

That explains that lost look, the sad eyes. ‘‘I’ll have to leave my village,’’ he sighs. SYL be damned.

SAIDPURA : KARNAL
IT’S on the banks of this small unkempt village that SYL becomes one with Narwana. Standing at its confluence, Omi Ram, an irrigation department chowkidar, has seen its rise and fall. ‘‘They lost interest in it eight-nine years ago. Now the beldars don’t even clear the dirt path running along it.’’

The villagers too don’t think much about it. ‘‘We don’t get any water from it, nor can our cattle use it,’’ says Mohnish Nimrana, explaining the general indifference to its fate. The greying Tehal Singh feels the only reason authorities keep it wet is to keep people from vandalising it.

Yes, they’ve heard of the latest row. ‘‘It’s a political gimmick,’’ Tehal frowns. What irks this bearded Sikh with a kirpan is the arrogant attitude of Punjab. ‘‘Why can’t they keep a promise?’’

The villagers of Dabri across the canal are equally cross with Punjab. The hazel-eyed Gurnam Singh Laadi, whose father immigrated here from Pakistan after Partition, is sure SYL would help them get a better deal. ‘‘It must be built, so many lives depend on it,’’ he sighs.

As you drive back, a sign on a dirt wall says it all: ‘‘Jal hai to kal hai’’. It’s a fight for the future.