LATEST ON THE SYL CANAL ISSUE: India's central government shaken by Punjabi Unity
Delhi may refer matter to India's 'scientist' President for legal advice on the constitutionality of 'The Punjab Termination of Agreements ACT - 2004'
'Not a drop of water more for Haryana' is the word in the Sikh diaspora
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - "Certain Laws have not been written, but they are more fixed than all the written Laws," wrote the famous Roman philosopher and playwright, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (55 B.C. - A.D. 39) also known as Seneca the Elder or Seneca the Rhetorician in his 1st century A.D. monumental work, Controversiae. The above truism applies to a T to the SYL canal issue fermented by the water thieves in Haryana in cahoots with a corrupt two member bench of the Indian Supreme Court.Seneca's two thousand years old presciently line that, "certain Laws have not been written, but they are more fixed than all the written Laws," can be applied to the 'unwritten Law' under which a two member bench of the Indian Supreme Court seems to have based its infamous order of June 04, 2004. The Supreme Court bench synchronized that judgement with the twentieth anniversary of the Indian Army's attack on the Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, which operation destroyed the Sikh religion's Sanctum santorum, the Akal Takht Sahib, and murdered the greatest Sikh of the 20th century Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. There is no Law or Act of the Punjab Assembly or the Indian parliamnent on the SYL (Sutlej-Yumna-Link) canal issue that we know of but, the Indian Supreme Court brazenly allowed the state of Haryana’s application for implementation of the court’s earlier questionable January 15, 2002 order for construction of the SYL (Sutlej-Yumna Link) canal in the territory of Punjab.
In the June 04 order the Supreme court bench rejected Punjab’s counter-suit challenging the January 15, 2002, decree of the court by way of which the state was to construct the SYL canal by January 15, 2003. In the ultimate insult, the court also imposed a cost for filing the suit on Punjab, which was not specified in the order and had to be calculated by the Registry. The court further directed the Union Government to appoint, within one month, a special committee of officials with representatives from both states, Punjab and Haryana, to supervise the construction work, which should be started as early as possible, which order was obediently obeyed by Sonia Gandhi nominated Prime minister Manmohan Singh's government in Delhi.
The Supreme Court bench (Ms. Justice Ruma Pal and Mr. Justice P. V. Reddi) also directed the Punjab Government in the June 04, 2004, order to hand over the land on which the unfinished canal was to be built - 121 kilometers long - to the Central Agency within two weeks of its appointment. Besides, the Punjab Government was ordered by the court order (writtten by Sikh-hater Ms. Justice Ruma Pal for the bench) to provide adequate security to the officials of the executing agency and the construction workers to be engaged by it. The executing agency was directed to prepare a new map of the canal for the area where the job had to be completed on the basis of a fresh survey by keeping in mind that no damage was caused to the green belt falling in the way.
Under what Act of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) or Punjab state assembly Bill/Act did the two, obviously corrupt, judges of the Indian Supreme Court, (Ms. Justice Ruma Pal and Mr Justice P. Venkatarama Reddi - rumour has it that Haryana Chief minister Chautala has these two judges in his pocket) issue all the above illegal orders for the construction of the SYL canal to syphon water-short Punjab's life-giving river water to the non-riparian state of Haryana? There is no such Act of the Indian Parliament or the Punjab State Assembly on the books as far as we know. Under the Indian Constitution, river water is a state subject and the Union Government only has the powers to set up tribunals for water disputes to resolve inter-state river waters or river valley disputes. The Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers from which Haryana wants a share of water are not inter-state rivers as these do not flow through Haryana state or through the state of Rajasthan or Delhi for that matter.
It is unbelievable, that a Supreme Court - the highest court in the land - of a country, which claims that it is the world's largest 'Democracy', would allow two of its (obviously corrupt) judges to pass orders and judgements, on an interstate matter of vital importance, not based on any Law, or Act of Parliament, but a 1981 meeting of four politicians of one political party - the Congress party. The attendees in that December 31, 1981, who get-together were the then Congress party Prime minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, an illiterate Darbara Singh representing Punjab, Bhajan Lal of non-riparian Haryana and Shiv Charan Mathur of non-riparian Rajasthan. At that meeting a river water sharing arrangement was dictated by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, on the basis that Ravi-Beas water flow series had increased, (probably by some Brahmanical mantar - magic) from 15.85 MAF in 1921-45 to 17.17 MAF in 1921-60 and was surplus to the needs of Punjab despite the fact that the Indian government had secretly built a dam on the Beas at Pandoh, near Mandi, in Himachel Pradesh, to intercept, hijack and syphon Beas river water into the Govind Sagar lake formed by the Bhakra Nangal dams on the Sutlej river.
The arbitrary allocation of water by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, made to the states concerned, (under that unequal 1981 Agreement) was as under:- Haryana (non-riparian) 3.50 MAF, Rajasthan (non-riparian) 8.60 MAF, Delhi (non-riparian) 0.20 MAF, Jammu and Kashmir (riparian) 0.65 MAF and Punjab (riparian) 4.22 MAF. The availability of the Ravi-Beas water, claimed to be 17.17 MAF, on December 31, 1981, later turned out to be only 14.37 MAF, as per the flow series of 1981-2002. So in actual fact, after removing the 2.80 MAF phony magical increase 'arranged' by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, from the 17.17 total riparian Punjab's share of water dropped to 1.42 MAF from 4.22 MAF.
The evil and crafty Mrs. Indira Gandhi conned her appointee, the then Congress party Punjab Chief minister, the illiterate brown-noser, Darbara Singh, into agreeing to the sham water sharing arrangement on paper but, it did not fool the people of the Punjab who rose up in mass protest on January 01, 1982, the very next day. The peaceful protests later developed into a decade-long armed insurgency and counter insurgency in which over a hundred thousand Sikh youth were murdered, by the minions of the Indian state, while SYL project Chief Engineers M. L. Sekhri and A. S. Aulakh and thirty labourers were gunned down in 1990 by Punjabis opposed to the SYL canal which stopped the construction. The conflict saw the Indian government resort to draconian measures like the June 1984 Indian Army attack on the Darbar Sahib, Sikhism's holiest shrine, and the assasination of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, by two brave Sikh martyrs who volunteered to punish the evil lady and dispatch her to kingdom come. Following Indira Gandhi's October 31, 1984, assasination, the month of November 1984 saw the conflict turn into nationwide anti/Sikh pogroms in which thousands of Sikh men, women and children were murdered in Delhi alone after a wink and a nod from Mrs. Indira Gandhi son, Rajiv Gandhi who inherited the Delhi 'throne' (Prime minister's chair) from his assasinated mother who had earlier inherited it from her father Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru.
No wonder the members of the beleaguered Punjab state assembly, keeping the current emotional feelings of the Punjabis and a memory of the bloody insurgency of the 1980's in mind, met in a rare and historic show of unity, and unanimously passed, on Monday July 12, 2004, 'The Punjab Termination of Agreements Bill, 2004' - which is now an ACT after the Punjab Governor's signature - under which all previous hand shake agreements on use of Ravi/Beas river waters stand cancelled. However, to the eternal credit of the Punjab legislators, 'The Punjab Termination of Agreements ACT, 2004' magnanimously protects ALL the "existing FREE use" of water by non-riparian states of Rajasthan (8.60 MAF), non-riparian Haryana and non-riparian Delhi. The irony is that non-riparian Rajasthan state gets the lion's share of Punjab's water - more than Punjab - but it does not allow Punjabi Sikhs to settle or acquire land in Rajasthan - the state assembly having passed a law to that effect still on the books.
It seems the Punjab Assembly members (under the guidance of the Chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh and former Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal) unanimously passed 'The Punjab Termination of Agreements ACT, 2004' steeled perhaps by a famous dictum - a truism really - of French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) that, "The opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law."
Despite the above mentioned "existing FREE use" clause in 'The Punjab Termination of Agreements ACT, 2004', an orchestrated Hindu media hate-campaign has been launched against the Punjab and its Sikh Chief minister. The offence; they are trying to protected the Punjab state's vital river waters resource from being syphoned by a non-riparian state knowing as they do that Punjab needs every drop of that water to recharge its rapidly falling underground water table which has resulted in thousands of tube wells going dry. Most important, the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers from which non-riparian Haryana wanted an extra share of water are not inter-state rivers as these do not flow through Haryana state nor can they be considered under the river valley category. For a backgrounder on the SYL canal issue - all you want to know - please read our last week's column (and the links provided there) headlined, "Punjab Assembly unanimously passes the historic 'Punjab Termination of Agreements Bill, 2004', on July 12 which cancels ALL past unequal agreements about Ravi/Beas waters", by clicking at: /home/khalistancalling/2004/july14.aspx.
Meanwhile Sonia Gandhi's Manmohan Singh led central Government said on Monday that it was examining all legal aspects arising out of Punjab Government's action of terminating water sharing accords - some newspapers have the shameless audacity to call them treaties - with neighbouring states and assured Rajya Sabha that it would come out with some action in a day or two. The Manmohan Singh government is reported to be keeping its options open on going in for a Presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution on Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s unilateral move to abrogate water-sharing 'agreements' with neighbouring states. This the media reports claim, will enable the matter to be taken up by a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court.
It is being suggested that the Manmohan Singh UPA Government, in Delhi, has a few options to resolve the crisis. First, is to pressure the Punjab government to delay the notification and let 'The Punjab Termination of Agreements ACT, 2004', lapse but with Chief minister Amrinder Singh refusing to roll back, this will pose a problem. The second is to let one of the affected parties (Haryana or Rajasthan or Himachel Pradesh) challenge the law in the Supreme court hoping the judiciary will strike down the Punjab legislation. The third option is to refer it to the President on the constitutionality of the Punjab law. The fourth option is to dismiss the Amrinder Singh state government in the Punjab. The fifth option is to communalize the issue by starting anti-Sikh or anti-Punjabi pogroms or riots in Hindu-majority Haryana state and elsewhere. The Manmohan Singh Government ultimately may choose to knock at the door of the Supreme Court, which is bound to set up a Constitution Bench to look into all aspects of the Punjab legislation.
A Tribune newspaper report claims that, "The Centre is keeping its options open on going in for a Presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution on Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s unilateral move to abrogate water-sharing pacts with neighbouring states. This will enable the matter to be taken up by a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court.
The above legal hocus pocus not-with-standing, it is obvious that we Sikhs, our children and their children, have no place in an Oligarchic, caste-ridden, unjust state like India which, to quote Mr. Winston Churchill, is as much a country as the Equator. The thuggery displayed by the Indian Supreme Court, India's highest court of Law, in its June 04, 2004, illegal order on the SYL issue, should leave no doubt in any one's mind why a free, egalitarion and democratic buffer state of Khalistan, stretching from the Jumna river on the EAST to the Pakistan border on the WEST, (acting as a bridge of peace and commerce between countries of South and Central Asia) is a MUST for the survival and prosperity of the beleaguered 25 million strong Sikh nation held captive behind India's barbed wire 'Wall' on the Indo-Pakistan border, since 1947, when Imperial Britain quit South Asia.