As had been anticipated by us more than once by inference, if not explicit statement, the Rajiv-Longowal accord has finally collapsed. This is the obvious implication of the Punjab government’s decision to reject the D.A. Desai commission which Mr. Gandhi has appointed in a bid to salvage something out of the wreckage. The Prime Minister has gone so far as deliberately to confuse the terms of reference of the new commission at the instance of the Punjab chief minister, Mr. S.S. Barnala. But this has not helped him. He is not just back to square one. He is in a much worse plight than he was in before the accord last July. He is completely stuck for any kind of policy on Punjab. Since the day (June 12) when the Venkataramiah commission submitted its report, the Union government has engaged in a public relations exercise of less than reasonably honest kind. It fed the press false reports that an agreement whereby Chandigarh would be transferred to Punjab by the scheduled date (June 21) and 70,000 acres be made over to Haryana in lieu thereof was round the corner. It even distorted the findings of the Venkataramiah commission to make it appear that the commission had identified 45,000 acres which could be transferred to Haryana in lieu of Chandigarh, The commission had done nothing of the kind. It had identified 45,000 acres but said that since the villages were contiguous to Haryana it could claim them under a general boundary settlement which was to follow. In technical terms the villages fell under clause 7.4 of the accord and not under clause 7.2 which deals with compensation for loss of Chandigarh to Haryana. This has not, of course, not availed the PR men who dominate Mr. Gandhi’s set-up. It could not have. The shocking thing is that such an exercise in misinformation should have been engaged in on so crucial an issue. And it is equally shocking that the Union government should have sought to confuse this distinction between areas covered under clause 7.2 and clause 7.4 in defining the terms of the Desai commission. That, however, is now of no significance. The commission cannot function in the face of the Punjab government’s repudiation of it.
Collapse was built into the Rajiv-Longowal accord from the very start. Mr. Gandhi wanted to appease the Akalis but he could not go the whole hog. Thus, on the one hand, he stipulated that only such Hindi-speaking areas as were contiguous lo Haryana would be transferred to it from Punjab, on the other, he provided for compensation to that state in lieu of its loss of its share of Chandigarh. But the transfer of contiguous Hindi-speaking areas would be covered under the proposed general settlement and could not therefore constitute compensation. The intention was clear. It was to deprive Haryana of Abohar and Fazilka which Mrs. Indira Gandhi had awarded it in lieu of Chandigarh which she too had agreed under coercion to transfer to Punjab. But the two stipulations could not be reconciled. Mr. Justice Venkataramiah has brought this contradiction into the open. It is not for us to try and find out if and when Mr. Gandhi became aware of the trap into which he had placed himself. Now the reality glares us all in the face.
As we have argued more than once in this newspaper, the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab on whatever date would not have even helped ease the law and order problem; in fact, the extremists and the terrorists might well have stepped up their efforts to drive out the Hindus in that event. But the survival of Mr. Barnala could be said to have become dependent on the transfer in the negative sense. On this argument, while the transfer might not have ensured the survival, non-transfer would almost certainly guarantee the fall. If this argument was valid, Mr. Barnala’s fate is sealed. Mr. Gandhi will now find it virtually impossible to hand over Chandigarh to Punjab, certainly by or about the next date fixed by him (July 15).
More than semantic confusion has been involved in Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s strategy. Implicit in it has been the proposition that the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab would win Mr. Barnala much popular following. And implicit in that proposition has been still another which is that this mass support would strengthen him to a point where he could deliver law and order.
The validity of the first proposition itself has been open to question. The second proposition has been shocking. It ignores the grim reality that the future course of Sikh politics will depend, above all, on two points: who controls the main gurdwaras and who commands the gun. And, as we all know only too well, Mr. Barnala has shown neither the will nor the capacity to control the gurdwaras, not to speak of the gunmen who roam the state without let or hindrance as if it belongs to them. One hopes Mr. Gandhi will keep these points in view when he begins to undertake the task of shaping a new Punjab policy.