Water Wars

The Cauvery issue

The recent order of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as head of the controversial Cauvery River Authority (CRA) asking Karnataka to release 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu till October 15 has brought out once again the century old debate of sharing of Cauvery river water between the two states. While both states claim that justice has not been meted out in the recent order, several farmer groups in Karnataka are up in arms against the prime minister’s decision as they feel the recent order is not only unjust towards the state but that which threatens their share of water for agriculture. With Supreme Court ruling in favour of the CRA decision on September 28, emotions are running high in the state, the battle for control of water, like in the past, threatens to spill blood in the coming days.

Sharing of Cauvery water has always been a contentious issue between both the states. The heart of the conflict is a century old agreement signed between the erstwhile Madras presidency and Mysore princely state in 1892 and later at1924 — which talks of interstate water sharing and development of irrigation in the Cauvery river basin which is 800 kilometres long. With power resting in the then British government, Karnataka has always maintained that, it suffered discrimination at the hands of the colonial government wherein the right to irrigate land and build dams could not have been done without the prior consent of the British masters, while no such restrictions were imposed on Tamil Nadu which was then under the Madras Presidency.

Even after India became independent, these agreements were not made obsolete in 1947. They continued to remain till 1974, when the 50 year agreement came to an end; which led to Karnataka taking initiation in constructing dams and increasing its irrigation area. This resulted in a situation where in total availability of water was just sufficient to cater to the existing projects leading to periodical altercation and violence with the neighbouring Tamil Nadu, which over the period has become an emotional issue as Tamil Nadu does not control the Cauvery headwaters (as it is in Karnataka) it controls tributaries Bhavana and Moyar. There is relative peace when both the states receive ample rainfall, but daggers are drawn, when the monsoon fails. And that happened in the failed monsoons of 1995 and reached a height when the current external affairs minister SM Krishna was in power in 2002, wherein due to continuous three year drought, the problem complicated due to displacement of local farmers in Karnataka who were dependent on the Cauvery river for their livelihood. Tempers were inflamed when a farmer ended his life by jumping into the Kabini reservoir over the Cauvery water sharing issue. A mass movement erupted, drawing even film stars, resulting in violent attacks on the sizeable minority Tamil population in Bangalore. Subsequently Tamils attacked Kannadigas in their state and vehicles with Karnataka license plates entering or leaving Tamil Nadu were burnt.

The matter came up before hearing several times in the Supreme Court with both parties going for endless round of appeals whenever a judgment was given not to their liking. The Supreme Court finally set up a tribunal to address the issue, which gave a judgment in 1991 asking Karnataka to release 205 thousand million cubic (tmc) of water every month to Tamil Nadu, which was not seen as favourably by Karnataka. The tribunal while delivering the judgement remained mum on the issue of sharing of water when there is a shortage of rainfall, which has become a bone of contention between the states till today. In the meanwhile, Cauvery River Authority (CRA) was constituted in 1998. The CRA was chaired by prime minister and had the chief ministers of the four contending (including Kerala and Pondicherry) parties as members. On 8 September, 2002, CRA ordered Karnataka to release 0.8 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu, which Karnataka refused to comply. The matter was again referred to the tribunal which after full seventeen years finally announced its final ruling on February 04, 2007. The tribunal allocated Tamil Nadu 419 tmc ft of water as against its demand of 562tmc, Karnataka was awarded 270 tmc as against its demand of 465 tmc ft. Kerala and Pondicherry were awarded 30tmc ft and 7tmc ft. The Karnataka government has again filed a review petition with the tribunal.

In the recent CRA order too, Karnataka initially refused to release 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu. Karnataka contested that; it cannot release waters overlooking the interests of its farmers. Recent drought and deficit of south west monsoon rain were the reasons cited for refusing to comply. However, in the meanwhile, Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court, which reprimanded Karnataka government for refusing to comply with the prime minister’s orders. Finally, reluctant state government had to release waters.

Last Saturday, Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, who convened an all party meet announced that the state government would appeal to the PM to grant an interim stay on the original order of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA). “If the PM had revised the order, we would not have had this problem. We will shortly file a petition,” said Shettar.

Meanwhile, in a repeat of 2002, a mass movement has erupted again with religious mutt leaders, film stars, Kannada cultural organisations and farmers threatening to hit the streets if the CRA order is not withdrawn.

Note: The above post was first published in the Tehelka blog.