July 27, 1998

The inclusion of Udham Singh Nagar in the proposed state of Uttaranchal threatens the prosperity of the district's affluent Punjabi community.

By Farzand Ahmed

It's the road to prosperity, literally. The highway from Khatima to Panipat travels through 150 km of Udham Singh Nagar. On either side are sugarcane fields, rice mills, paper mills, besides numerous small-scale industrial units. The highway, as District Magistrate Narendra Bhushan, puts it, is the "lifeline of Udham Singh Nagar". The district itself, with its 9.5 lakh population, is among the richest in the country.

Now, the wealth which was once Udham Singh Nagar's pride has become a bone of contention. The BJP-led Central Government has announced plans to include it in the upcoming Uttaranchal state. This move is being opposed by influential forces which have a stake in the district. Among them is the Akali Dal, the BJP's coalition partner at the Centre and in Punjab.

As frequent bandhs paralysed life in Udham Singh Nagar over the past week, the conflict exacerbated. The official BJP position, as articulated by Home Minister L.K. Advani and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, is that keeping Udham Singh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh is "not feasible constitutionally". The Akalis, on their part, have vowed to vote against the Uttaranchal Bill in the Lok Sabha, perhaps even walk out of the alliance. Akali leaders talk of the BJP being unreasonable. Manjit Singh Calcutta even accused the BJP of "behaving like a baniya (trader)".

The political response has been swift. Chief Minister Kalyan Singh asked the local unit of the BJP to oppose the Akali demand. Nevertheless, some of the party's traditional supporters are now on the other side. Says Om Prakash Arora, president, Udham Singh Nagar Vyapar Mandal, "We are fighting for our existence." The mandal's members contribute revenue worth Rs 80 crore annually, nearly half of all collections (Rs 176 crore) from the Uttaranchal region. Their solution is clear: "Either exclude Udham Singh Nagar from Uttaranchal or include the entire Terai region and create a Greater Uttaranchal."

The Akalis apart, the mandal has found backing from Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP). Essentially, the anti-inclusion brigade is a conglomeration of rich farmers and industrialists. In Uttar Pradesh, the Akali Dal is headed by H.S. Cheema, a businessman from Udham Singh Nagar who is considered close to Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab's chief minister.

BJP functionaries in the district accuse Badal of "meddling in Uttar Pradesh's politics". Matters are not quite as simple. Present-day Udham Singh Nagar -- in fact the entire Terai belt -- was once heavily forested and used by the British as hunting grounds. In 1947, recalls Cheema, Govind Ballabh Pant -- Uttar Pradesh's first chief minister -- decided to develop the region agriculturally. Outsiders were invited through newspaper advertisements. Farmers from Punjab, many of them refugees from west Punjab, came in droves. So did east Bengalis, the other victims of Partition. A hardy people, the Punjabi migrants battled disease and beasts to conquer the wild Terai. They lived alongside the Tharus and Buxas -- the autochtons -- and soon surpassed them in prosperity.

The newcomers made good use of the land allotted to them. Farming apart, the district has 3,500 industrial units, big and small. There are six sugar mills and 250 basmati rice mills. In 1995, the then chief minister Mayawati rewarded the Punjabi enclave by carving out the Udham Singh Nagar district from old Nainital. The two districts, however, still share a Lok Sabha constituency. This is why the BJP argues the two cannot belong to separate states.

There are other tensions as well. Subhash Chaturvedi, vice-president of the BJP's Uttaranchal unit, speaks of how the Punjabi farmers expanded their property by capturing forest land and by easing out the Tharus and Buxas. The upshot is that Udham Singh Nagar boasts large farms, ranging from 60 acres to 10,000 acres. Some of them are owned by residents of Punjab. Of course, there is a ceiling of 18 acres to a farm but the law has been effectively ignored.

Among the landholders is Badal's family which, according to local officials, has hurriedly sold off a third of the 120-acre Badal Farm in the Bazpur area. Another huge property is that of Escorts Farms in Kashipur. Authorities detected 1,100 acres in excess of the ceiling but could not acquire the land due to a Supreme Court ruling.

Other big landholders include Rana Bhupendra Singh, former legislator and leader of the sp. He owns property jointly with his brothers. Janakraj Sharma, BJP-nominated chief of the zilla parishad, is also in the game. Apparently, so are filmstars and politicians of Punjab, who are benami owners. Investments to and from Punjab are common in Udham Singh Nagar.

According to Chaturvedi only 3 per cent of the farmers control 27 per cent of the land. In 1946, Tharus owned 2.5 lakh acres of land. Today, they are left with hardly 25,000 acres. No wonder the hill people talk of a "land mafia".

The move to create Uttaranchal threatens this cosy Punjabi nexus. The new state -- built as it will be on the bedrock of hill communities -- can be expected to enforce the ceiling rather strictly. The promised Uttaranchal land law may restrict holdings to only 2.5 acres. The BJP has assured the Akali Dal that the new regulations will not apply to Udham Singh Nagar. In reality, this is a promise only a state government can make -- and the Akalis know that.

Wracked by insecurity, the rich farmers of Udham Singh Nagar have come up with a manifesto for non-inclusion. One of their main fears is that since there is no industry in the hills, the economic burden of 11 hill districts of Uttaranchal will fall upon Udham Singh Nagar. They also feel that, as in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, the land ceiling may be reduced to 3.40 acres or less, leading to loss of property. The Paharis (hill people) have been demanding a curb on outsiders buying property in the new state, as in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The "resale value of our farms will become zero", say the Punjabis.Besides, local industrialists buy raw materials from the Terai region and the creation of a separate state would hinder such traffic.

Economics apart, there is the problem of culture. Seventy per cent of Udham Singh Nagar's people are Punjabis. Many others are Bengalis. They differ from the Paharis in terms of language, food habits, customs, social mores, everything. The assimilation of the imported plainsmen with the indigenous hill races is far from complete. If the Akalis and their friends can help it, so will be the mingling of Udham Singh Nagar and Uttaranchal.

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