Post-independent India is running its 65th year. This is equal to the average span of a person’s life. Tragically, it has taken this long for the Union Government, constituted by the Congress and its allies, to promise the right to clean drinking water and sanitation in a draft National Water Policy, prepared by the Union Ministry of Water Resources.
As the party that has governed the country the longest — roughly 46-47 years — it owes us an explanation on why it failed to provide clean water and sanitation as a basic right to millions of people in the country, and why has it taken so many decades to address these vital issues.
A third of India’s population reportedly lacks access to potable water, and over half the people do not have access to sanitation. This then is the Congress’s dismal track record, a failure compounded by the Supreme Court’s stern observation on the fact of homeless persons spending nights out in the winter cold, 64 years after independence, breaching the right to life, guaranteed under the Constitution.
The latest pledge on water and sanitation comes in the wake of laws enshrining the right to information and the right to education. It is reasonable to suppose that any responsible Government that sets the national development agenda would first have tried to ensure supply of potable water to the largest number of people, and also facilitated creation of lavatories, clean bathing areas and proper drainage in areas that continue to lack these facilities.
Since the early1990s, which marked the advent of economic reforms under the auspices of the then Finance Minister and now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an estimated Rs 1,48,000 crore has been spent on providing drinking water.
Two decades later, the same cabal of policy-makers, consisting of Mr Singh, his IMF-World Bank-NGOs-aides, the Gandhis, other Congress stalwarts and their aides, and a host of advisers and consultants, are still pledging to provide clean water and sanitation to all Indians.
Exposing its skewed priorities, the Congress, which is the dominant component of the UPA’s ruling coalition, has in recent times been pushing the cause of privatising water resources and supply. The draft paper on water policy intends to put the onus on State Governments for water delivery. The responsibility anyway devolves on the States. But this time, laws will be passed to ensure that the States deliver.
The tricky part is that, though local Government bodies will ensure that every household gets a minimal quantum of water, it will come at a price, to be levied by water-user associations. Here is an excerpt from the draft, replete with clichés like, “Water needs to be managed as a community resource, by the State, under public trust doctrine to achieve food security, livelihood ...”
It took over 64 years to reach this point. Among the northern States, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are stated to have about 90 per cent potable water coverage. In all of these three States, there have been long spells of non-Congress rule.
So far as central policy-making is concerned, barring the BJP-led NDA, which reigned for a full five-year term from October 1999 till February 2004, no Opposition party or alliance has been in power in New Delhi long enough to push through its own agenda. The following data corroborates this.
The first non-Congress grouping to wrest power in the Lok Sabha polls was the Janata Party and its allies. Capitalising on the anti-Emergency sentiments, they trounced Indira Gandhi and her camp to form a Government that lasted from March 1977 till July 1979. Sabotaged by infighting, the Government was succeeded by an even more short-lived regime of the Janata Party (Secular) that survived for less than a month (July 28-August 20, 1979). The Congress supported it and then withdrew support.
The coming of age of coalition politics was heralded by the Janata Dal-led National Front taking over the reins of power from the Congress between December 1989 and November 1990. It managed to survive for 340 days. Its successor, Samajwadi Janata Party, ruled for 116 days (November 10, 1990-March 6, 1991), with Congress support, and fell when this support was withdrawn. Then followed a full five-year term of Congress rule after Rajiv Gandhi’s death (June 1991-March 1996), when economic reforms dictated policy-making in all directions.
The foreign direct investment and privatisation agenda was officially sanctioned by Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh and a host of foreign-trained experts, whose mandate was to spur India’s development. However, in the next general election, they were voted out and a BJP-led alliance briefly took charge. It fell after 12 days when AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa withdrew support.
The United Front, a motley alliance of the Left and socialists, seized the chance to govern in two spells, from June 1996 till November 1997. The withdrawal of Congress support during the second stint led to its fall.
It may be noted that whenever the Congress has supported a non-Congress Government in New Delhi, it has also toppled it by withdrawing support. The BJP-led coalition returned to power and ruled from March 1998 to April 1999, and then again for a full term. Thereafter, it is the Congress-led UPA that has been in power, through two successive general elections in 2004 and 2009.
For the Congress to now choose to frame a national water policy is really an admission of the party’s colossal failure.
