HEART OF PUNJAB: Waterlogged into debt & desperation

Ravi Dhaliwal

They call themselves the ‘children of a lesser God.’ These souls are no longer captivated by nature’s capriciousness. Like their forefathers, they have become used to it.

Waterlogging in 100 odd villages, a majority of them located along the length of the Beas, means the inhabitants have been trapped in a morbid marsh of debt and desperation.

These hamlets stretch through the revenue blocks of Gurdaspur, Kahnuwan, Dinanagar and Dorangla. Within this cluster of villages, life is all about surviving on one crop a year.

Vimal Kumar, a native of Lamin village, tediously curses his ‘kismat’ (destiny) as he points towards his three acre field where just two things grow — sugarcane and his desperation. The norm is that paddy is grown in the one-crop villages. However, there are many like Vimal who have shifted to sugarcane. This change was necessitated by last year’s flood in the Beas, which washed away paddy fields. There are others who continue to stick to this crop because “God cannot be unkind every year.”

Two years ago Vimal mortgaged his land with a private money lender. He needed the money to send Rahul to Canada. Rahul is his son who is settled in Brampton, the favourite city of Punjabi diaspora living in that country. He claims he borrowed the money at an exorbitant rate of interest of 3 per cent per month. “If you miss paying for a month or two, like when my paddy was devoured by the Beas, you will have to bear with the excruciating power of compound interest for the rest of your lives,” said Vimal.

Youngsters of these waterlogged villages see Rahul as a sort of savior. He has shown them how to clear IELTS and reach Canada. Before that, the teenagers used to get attracted to the bright lights of Dubai. Scores who have gone there admit that the bright lights faded into oblivion the moment they started working as labourers. “They clean the windows of skyscrapers while being tied down by steel ropes. They are as good as bonded labourers,” says Vimal.

As for Rahul, he has found work in Brampton. He now helps his village friends, who have just landed at Toronto airport, to find jobs.

The sons toil it out in foreign lands while their fathers continue to fight the vagaries of nature back home. Nevertheless, both are working hard to keep the fire in the hearth burning.

“Just look at Gunopur Saidowal village, just 3 km away. See how affluent the families are. They may not exactly be wearing opulence on their sleeves but still manage a fairly decent life of SUVs, good schooling and good jobs. That is why we are ‘children of a lesser God.’ We fail to understand what crime have we committed,” says Vimal as he guides you through the sugarcane fields, full of hissing snakes, to his tubewell.

This tubewell seems to be straight out of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Water gushes out round the clock, 12 months a year. The incredible part is that it runs without electricity. This speaks of the abnormally high levels at which the water table exists in these areas. There are around 20 such tubewells in Lamin alone. Many more are scattered in other waterlogged villages down the Beas.

The drains are there, definitely. However, locals say, they have not been cleared of weeds for the last several years. “It has been ages since I saw officials of the Drainage Department in our villages. Life will be much easier if these are cleaned. We can then think of a second crop,” says former Sarpanch Makhan Singh.

Some educated farmers, but only some, have started elevating their agriculture fields by padding them with trolleys of soil. This means, apart from paddy, they can now grow wheat.

The price of agricultural land here is low compared to two-crop villages. Surjan Singh, a native of Karal village, says: “In nearby villages, the rate per acre is Rs 10-12 lakh. In our area, it is just Rs 5.50 lakh. Still there aren’t many buyers because of the negligible returns the land gives.”

With paddy hardly being financially lucrative, their other occupation is to drive trucks. “I have to pay for the education of both my sons. Then I have to send them to Brampton. How else will I send them if I do not drive a truck? For us, hope is what sustains life,” said Surjan Singh. For these uneducated people, Brampton is Canada.

Experts give varied opinions about the reasons for waterlogging. Some say water seeps through the earth from the Beas, which has been flowing nearby for centuries. Others say the river is not the villain of the piece. They claim over the last several decades, a natural depression has been formed which means the cluster of villages falls in a low-lying area.

Debts are being passed on from one generation to the other. “Yes, we are poor people. There is no shame in being poor but it is no great honour either. Politicians present themselves during an election. Promises are made. The biggest promise they make is that once elected, they will remove the problem of waterlogging.

Gurdwara Chotta Ghallughara, where 7,000 Sikhs were massacred by the Mughal army in 1746, is a part of this cluster. “These villages lie in the throes of a topographical depression. This automatically means the entire cluster remains waterlogged,” says Amrik Singh, who has remained an agriculture officer in Gurdaspur for nearly three decades. Singh is a man who has seen it all from close quarters. He says that waterlogging creates an oxygen depletion and carbon dioxide increase in the root zone of crops, leading to loss of plant nutrients.

What these people need is a massive dose of government aid. A collective, coherent approach is the need of the hour. The consensus is that the government should waive their debts, if not fully, at least partly.

Like Pope John Paul-II said: “A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members.”