Opinion Being unneighbourly

A protracted legal battle has effectively ruled out an amicable solution. A negotiated settlement is difficult,as at least one side — Tamil Nadu — is currently in an advantageous position and reluctant to come to the table. Mediation is a near impossibility.

So,water hostility is steadily rising between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu,leading to a flare-up of emotions and regionalism. So much so that the neighbouring states are beginning to behave like enemy territories. At the border crossing between the two these days,buses and cabs stop just short of the boundary on either side and nervous passengers alight with their bags to make passage on foot.

In the interiors of Karnataka,thousands of farmers are leaving their villages and fields to blockade highways. The government has deployed special forces to contain the agitation,fast spreading from its epicentre in Mandya,near Mysore,in the Cauvery Basin. The situation is volatile.

The Cauvery is one of southern India’s lifelines. The river has supported agriculture from ancient times and now serves the water needs of modern southern cities including Bangalore and Mysore.

In this most recent flare-up of tensions,both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu hold that millions of their farmers depend on Cauvery water — Karnataka says it does not have enough,Tamil Nadu insists that it get more — and crops are withering away. Exacerbating the water shortage,Karnataka is going through a severe drought this year.

Tipping the balance of anger,the Karnataka government has just begun a middle-of-the-night exercise to release 9,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of water daily to Tamil Nadu. The move came on the orders of the SC and a Cauvery River Authority (CRA) meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar (whose lacklustre government tackled drought by instructing temples across the state to conduct prayers for rain) attempted to defend his government,saying the water release is “unavoidable” and it would immediately appeal against the court order.

The Cauvery originates in the Western Ghats and courses through the Deccan Plateau covering southern Karnataka before flowing into Tamil Nadu and then into the Bay of Bengal. The distrust over a Cauvery water-sharing pact dates back to the time of two contentious agreements,one signed in the late 1800s and another in the early 1900s between the princely state of Mysore and the then Madras Presidency. The state of Karnataka contends that it does not receive its due share of water from the river as Tamil Nadu,as the agreements were skewed in favour of the then Madras Presidency. Karnataka has demanded an “equitable sharing”.

For its part,Tamil Nadu argues that it has already developed and started cultivating in vast tracts of land and depends heavily on existing water usage patterns. Any change would adversely affect its farmers.

A long-lasting solution,however,appears unattainable. Neither side has statesman-like leaders who could help work out an agreeable solution,says Justice Santosh Hegde,a former justice of the SC and an anti-corruption crusader. Politicians on either side of the border are busy out-shouting each other to grab political advantage,he says.

An innovative formula is urgently needed as earlier solutions have appealed to neither state,says former Karnataka advocate-general and leading lawyer B.V. Acharya. Agricultural,irrigation and engineering experts on both sides ought to join for a ground-level survey and then come up with a formula that allows maximum water utilisation,he says. “The primary goal should be to make the best use of a precious natural resource — water — for mutual benefit.”

As in the past,on both sides of the border,emotion and politics are clouding the Cauvery issue. The dispute lies quiescent in the years of bountiful monsoon,with neither state having the capacity to store water. Then,predictably during the drought years,it breaks out anew. It is a pattern.

A tribunal constituted by the Union government delivered a verdict in 2007 after a long delay,but all four southern states are fighting for reviews and renegotiations. “A solution clearly cannot be easily worked out,we need completely out-of-the-box thinking,” says H.K. Patil,Congress politician and a former Karnataka water resources minister.

In the past decades,farmers’ suicides,chief ministerial padayatras,blockading television and film screenings in the other’s language and violent urban protests have marked the highs and lows of the Cauvery dispute. There is a resigned feeling that no good can come out of this round of the fight either.

saritha.rai@expressindia.com