River row: Trust mustn’t run dry
The waters of the Cauvery river are a coveted natural resource that determines how the rice granaries fare in South India. It is no wonder then that tussles over the Cauvery have been marked by bitterness over several decades between the upper and lower riparian states, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In walking out of the Cauvery River Authority meeting, which, after a nine-year hiatus, was held last week at the Prime Minister’s residence at the prompting of the Supreme Court, Karnataka chief minister Jagdish Shettar reaffirmed his state’s reluctance to share scarce water in poor monsoon years, which is when the resource will be in great demand as in a normal monsoon the excess flow would anyway go to Tamil Nadu.
By refusing to heed any order like the Supreme Court verdict of 2007, interim awards or the most recent award by the CRA chairman, which is to be considered statutorily final since no accord was reached at the meeting, a state may even be threatening the federal structure of India. Had Tamil Nadu and Karnataka been independent countries in, let us say, Europe, the lower riparian state’s right to a share of the water would have been guaranteed under international law.
With Tamil Nadu also rejecting the PM’s interim award of 9,000 cusecs a day till October 15 by when the northeast monsoon should bring relief, the states have no option but to await further word from the Supreme Court. Even then, there is no knowing what action the Centre, as an arbiter, could take in the event of non-compliance with orders in distress years.
There is much to be said for both sides of the argument. Besides having to consider the rights of the Union Territory of Puducherry, the fact remains that Cauvery water has been politicised to such an extent in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka that no easy solution is possible. A measure of the very long time frame of the dispute is readily available in the origin of the conflict lying in two controversial agreements going back to 1892 and 1924; these were signed between what used to be the Madras Presidency and the then princely state of Mysore.
The Supreme Court has been seized of the matter since 1986 and it constituted a tribunal as early as 1990 while announcing its final verdict in 2007 (Karnataka first filed a revision petition in this regard). The tussle for water usually takes a back seat in normal monsoon years but when it comes to distress seasons feelings boil over.
The fact that very little of the arbitration process has contributed to solving the problem with any sense of finality points to deep-seated distrust between the two states. It is easily enough said that much water will have flowed down the Cauvery before a solution is found and the farmers of two major southern states are satisfied.
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