New low in the pollution fight

Punjab’s decision to scrap cases filed against farmers for stubble burning is unacceptable

Even by the standards of the cynical and opportunistic decision-making that has increasingly become a characteristic of current-day politics, the decision by Punjab’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to scrap cases filed against farmers for stubble burning marks a new low. Science and data have proved beyond doubt that the months-long miasma of bad air that shrouds the northern plains, including Delhi (and especially Delhi, which bears the brunt of this and often tops global rankings of bad air) has its origins in stubble burning, largely in Punjab (Haryana seems to have got the problem under control). Punjab has shown remarkable unwillingness or inability (or perhaps both) in dealing with this — which is surprising because Delhi too is governed by an AAP government, which, when there was a different party in power in Punjab, was vociferous in its declamations of how the state was to blame for the problem, and how it should be handled. Delhi chief minister (CM) and the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s acceptance of failure on this front is welcome (and also unique in politics), but it doesn’t absolve the party’s government in Punjab of its responsibilities. Sure, stubble burning is a complex problem, but it is one that has been analysed threadbare, including by the HT newsroom — in shorthand, the Green Revolution; Punjab’s focus on cereals, including paddy; the economics of government support; depleting groundwater tables; a law to preserve water that decides the date for paddy cultivation; a shorter gap between the paddy harvest and the winter wheat crop stubble burning. If the state government has done anything to address any of these issues (pushing farmers to diversify into other crops, for instance; or repealing the groundwater law, as damaging as it would be) it has been remarkably silent on these.

Instead, what we do know is that farmers who flouted the law by burning stubble will now not be prosecuted; they may be victims otherwise (as certain narratives have sought to describe them), but when it comes to the bad air across the northern plains in early October and November, they are the offenders. And by scrapping the cases against them, the Punjab government is setting an especially bad precedent. It is a decision that the state’s CM Bhagwant Mann and the AAP’s leadership will have to explain, especially to the residents of the national Capital.