Bridge over Cauvery

It is good news for the coalition government at the Centre. The breakthrough reportedly achieved in the Cauvery talks gives the governmen...

It is good news for the coalition government at the Centre. The breakthrough reportedly achieved in the Cauvery talks gives the government a reprieve from the recurrent threat posed by the riparian dispute. With the parties concerned displaying good sense, a political crisis has been averted. The accord enables the government to meet the deadline fixed by the apex court on the river water dispute.

Particularly deserving of commendation is the political will behind the patient and persevering efforts of the Prime Minister. The personal intervention by Atal Behari Vajpayee has certainly helped rescue the issue from a persistent stalemate spelt by provincial politics. Not to be sneered at is the significance of the exercise that has brought to an end the seven-year-old conflict over the basic question about the implementation of an interim award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal. By agreeing to the setting up of a Cauvery Basin Authority for such implementation, Karnataka has clearly signalled itsacceptance in principle of the award at last. Tamil Nadu has, for its part, made the CBA possible by dropping its earlier insistence on making it appear a dire statutory threat to the upper-riparian state. The accord has not left Kerala and Pondicherry aggrieved at their interests being ignored. All this does not mean that an enduring bridge has been built over the meandering Cauvery.

The fact that the differences between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in relation to the CBA, particularly its proposed monitoring committee, have been resolved by the drafting committee consisting of the chief secretaries of the four states, redounds to the credit of the four chief ministers. The differences arose when Karnataka wanted the committee8217;s role to be limited to one of assisting the august authority with the Prime Minister and the four chief ministers at the helm, while Tamil Nadu with an apparently stronger legal case favoured extending monitoring to enforcement. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi sees no seriousproblem confronting what he calls a quot;gentlemen8217;s agreementquot;. The reassurance won8217;t suffice to remove all apprehensions on this score. The point is that hypothetical quot;gentlemenquot; at the head of elected governments come and go and compulsions of competitive politics hardly guarantee the fruition of purely goodwill-based accords. The present agreement will need to survive, in particular, the odds posed by the pressure politics of Jayalalitha and her camp followers.

The envisaged authority can indeed help implement the tribunal8217;s interim award but only if the accord itself is allowed to be implemented. The AIADMK and its allies have reacted predictably in rejecting the accord. At the first sign of the accord8217;s failure, they can be counted upon to escalate their campaign for a non-negotiated Cauvery settlement, and their Karnataka counterparts to answer in kind. Vajpayee8217;s commendable initiative will have only gone in vain, if perceived dictates of coalitionary politics are permitted to dilute it.