Bhawanigarh, Lehragaga, Moonak, Dirba and Sherpur are the small towns of Sangrur district, in the belt between the Ghaggar and the Sutlej.
Sherpur is where Sant Harchand Singh Longowal was shot dead in a gurdwara on 20 August 1985, twenty-seven days after signing the accord with Rajiv Gandhi. Longowal is a village in the same district.
Lehragaga and Moonak are at the tail of the canal system and have among the worst irrigation reliability in Punjab.
The district records the highest farmer suicide figures in the state's own surveys, concentrated in exactly this belt.
These are ordinary small towns of the Malwa: a grain market, a bus stand, a gurdwara, a few schools, a hospital that refers everything serious to Patiala, and out-migration. There are dozens of them and almost nothing has been written about any of them.
The tail of a canal branch is where the water arrives last and least. Lehragaga and Moonak sit there, and the tubewell depths and the debt figures in those blocks are among the worst in the state.
Dirba and Bhawanigarh are grain market towns with a little industry around them, mostly agricultural implements and ginning.
Longowal village, Sherpur and Bhawanigarh lie within twenty kilometres of each other. The accord signed in July 1985 promised Chandigarh, a tribunal on the river waters and an inquiry. The tribunal gave its award in January 1987 and the inquiry's findings followed in February, but Chandigarh was never transferred. What the district got instead was a funeral.