While people in the districts of Kottayam, Idukki, Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha are getting ready for the eventuality of the collapse of Mullaperiyar Dam, the Tamil chauvinist outfits like DMK, MDMK, VCK and AIADMK are busy campaigning that the 130-year-old reservoir is safe.

Homemakers like Ganga Gopalakrishnan and Sheela Das in Perumbavoor are ready with suitcases packed with essential clothing and identification papers to move out to safer places. There is a sense of uncertainty and unease across these districts, said Anita Prakash, a municipal Councillor.

But the Kerala Government is maintaining a stony silence over the warning given by CP Ramaswamy Aiyer, the then Diwan of the erstwhile Travancore State, which, together with the princely State of Kochi and Malabar, constitute the present-day Kerala.

“The agreement signed between Madras Presidency and the State of Travancore in 1886 is highly discriminatory and detrimental to the interests of Travancore. Travancore was forced to sign on the dotted line by the then Madras Governor conceding the tenancy over Periyar water to the Madras Presidency for a period of 999 years. This was a major fraud committed on a vulnerable Travancore by the British rulers,” Ramaswamy Aiyer had told the then viceroy Lord Mountbaton in 1947 itself.

In his notes prepared after meeting the Viceroy, the Diwan pointed out that, while Madras Presidency (the present-day Tamil Nadu) stood to make a cool `25 lakh profit per year, Travancore would get a paltry amount of `40,000 per year as compensation. “This is gross injustice,” Aiyer wrote in his note. The note has been reproduced ad verbatim by Prof A Sreedhara Menon, a historian of international repute in his book “Sir CP’s Role in Travancore”.

Professor Menon was a staunch critic of Aiyer because of his intransigent approach to all issues concerning life. His books on history of modern-day India speak a lot about his reservations about the Diwan. But research led him to information hitherto inaccessible to all and proved the sincerity of Aiyer,

A probe by P Sujathan, a chronicler of Kerala’s history proves that the 1886 agreement between the two States were signed by K KV Rama Ayangar, the Tamil Nadu-born Diwan of Travancore and the Resident Collector of Madras Presidency.

“The 999-year-long tenancy itself is a mystery as all such agreements are for a period of 99 years. Ayangar and other Tamils working for the Travancore Maharajah manipulated the deal in favour of Madras Presidency,” Sujathan told The Pioneer.

Though by 1941 Ramaswami Aiyer argued in favour of Kerala and made the umpire appointed to arbitrate on the dispute to nullify Madras Presidency’s right to generate power from Periyar River water, the alliance governments that ruled the newly carved out State of Kerala squandered the successes won by Aiyer.

 “The Mullaperiyar Dam agreement itself has lost its validity following the departure of the British from India for good. The question why the Kerala Government signed another deal with Tamil Nadu leaves much to be answered for,” said P C George, veteran legislature, spearheading a battle for the decommissioning of the outdated and dangerous dam.

Those who question the legality of the dam are arrested by the DMK government and jailed. “Interestingly, Tamil Nadu has done nothing to resolve its water shortage though it has spent crores on lawyers for filing cases in the apex court,” said George.