Pardeep Singh - Defenders of the Environment and the Ecology of Panjab

The Environment and Refugees in Panjab

Despite asylum issues dominating both the media and politics, the actual role of the world’s degraded environment as a factor in human migration is being conveniently ignored, except by the Green Party. I am here today, to talk about the environment and its impact on refugees from my homeland, Panjab, the famous Land of Five Rivers. Panjab is a semi-arid landlocked region in the north -western part of South Asia. Most of the environmental concerns are man-made - political, social, economical and military but there are some natural causes as well. The most urgent problem is the water crisis, which is a direct result of intensive irrigation and agricultural practices implemented under the Green Revolution since the 1960s.

First the Political angle: Despite its historical and geographical unity, Panjab has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947. East Panjab in India was further subdivided in 1966 into the present Punjab State, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. As a result of this, Punjab not only lost control of the headwaters of its rivers and the Bhakra-Nangal Dam for electricity supply, but it also became the only state in India where the rivers are exclusively controlled by the Central Government. About 75 % of its river waters are being diverted to non-riparian states of Haryana and Rajasthan. This has resulted in a shortage in meeting Punjab State’s need for irrigation and has forced the Panjabi farmers to dig tubewells and extract groundwater beyond its sustainability. Experts at the WorldWatch Institute estimate that the aquifer under the Panjab could be depleted by the year 2025. The water table has been falling at the rate of over 30 cm a year over the past three decades. Today, some tubewells have to be dug to a depth of 350 feet and farmers have resorted to the use of submersible pumps.

The Social Angle: The water crisis is having a major impact on rural drinking water as village wells and hand-pumps also depend on the same aquifer. Many are now running dry. Government statistics indicate that there is an acute drinking water problem in more than 60% of the villages.

Another major concern is water pollution and pesticide poisoning by agricultural chemicals such as herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. Many of these are sold by multinationals like the ICI Company of UK and have been banned in the west. Corrupt government and agricultural officials help to promote the use of these chemicals. The use of chemical such as Endosulfan has resulted in stillbirths, congenital anomalies and increase rates of cancer in Panjab. Other environmental problems include deforestation, air pollution, loss of biodiversity, degradation of watersheds, soil erosion, water-logging, salinization and most damaging of all, desertification. There is a strong likelihood that the excessive use of groundwater for agriculture might result in the desertification of Panjab in the early part of the 21st century. All of these are conditions that create environmental refugees.

The Natural angle: Global warming is likely to accelerate all these problems. Already, the Himalayan glaciers that feed the rivers of Panjab are receding at an alarming rate. In addition, changes to the vital monsoon rains have resulted in less than normal rainfall for three of the last five years and the trend is set to continue.

The Economical angle: One of the major causes of the water crisis is the cultivation of rice, a non-traditional crop in this semi-arid region and the excessive use of intensive irrigation. Add to this the Indian Government’s fixed ceilings over pricing of agricultural production and restrictions on the internal movement of agricultural produce in Punjab. Worst of all, are the severe restrictions on the export of agricultural produce which have restricted the Panjabi farmers from planting other crops that use less water. For example, in January 2004 the Indian Government lifted the restrictions on the export of wheat except from Punjab State and Haryana. As Stuart Leiderman argues, Governments refuse to address the causes of environmental problems, or they take advantage of disasters to drive unwanted populations away, even out of the country.

The construction of dams on the rivers of Panjab in India and Pakistan has caused untold suffering. Water released from the centrally controlled Bhakra Dam in 1988, flooded hundreds of villages in Punjab State, killed more than 1,500 people and destroyed large areas of crops. In Pakistan, the construction of the Mangla Dam on the Jhelum River by British companies in 1967 resulted in the displacement of more than 100,000 people from the Mirpur area. Many thousands used their compensation to travel to the UK and have settled in the Birmingham area. This dam is now planned by the Pakistani Government for extension and another 40,000 people will be displaced becoming environmental refugees.

On June 4 2004, an Indian Supreme Court ruling directed the Central Government to ensure the completion of the 200-km the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, originally targeted for August 1986. This canal will carry 3.5 maf (million acre feet) of Sutlej river waters from Punjab to irrigate Haryana in the Yamuna river basin. The construction of this canal spells more trouble for Punjab State..

The Military angle: India and Pakistan almost went to war over water rights in 1948. There are still serious disputes in Pakistan between Punjab Province and other areas and more serious conflicts over water between Punjab State and Rajasthan, Haryana and the Central Government. Many experts including Dr. Vandana Shiva, have showed that water rights became an important contributing factor in the Indian army's attack of the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar in 1984. The danger is that the crisis of water scarcity in this semi-arid region might lead to confrontation and armed conflict between these two nuclear powers with disastrous consequences for the Panjab. In fact in February 2004, the Indian Finance Minister increased the Defence budget by more 2 billion pounds and set-up a defence modernisation fund of more 3 billion pounds. All this is good news for British arms manufacturers who get Export Credit Guarantees from the UK Government for arm sales to India and Pakistan. Unfortunately, it is bad news for the Panjabi people.

Thus, the very survival of the Panjabi people in a sustainable environment is now seriously at risk. Leiderman calls them proto-refugees suffering from near disaster conditions that could happen at anytime. All future trends point to an acute escalation of environmentally-driven human migration. Thousands of rural Panjabis have already left the land moving to the urban slums of India and Pakistan and thousands more have migrated to Europe, especially Britain, USA and Canada. But the scale will be immense when desertification saets in with millions moving out of Panjab. There is thus and urgent need to ensure the conservation and environmental protection of the land and waters of Panjab.

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