The recent flare-up in the century old Cauvery water dispute showed as never before the importance of people-to-people resolution of the contentious issue. Kestur Vasuki in Bengaluru tells you more
Unperturbed by the political divide, the sacred Cauvery, lifeline of the two most important cultures in Bharat varsha, flows quietly. The river knows no boundaries created by conflicts and unrest. It has to flow from origin to destination, creating and rejuvenating life cells to augment life itself. Cauvery, a perennial source of life for human habitat, knows no boundaries as it meanders and races towards the sea not bothered about consequences.
The river rises in the mighty Western Ghats and is the main water source to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The sharing of its waters has been a constant source of strife between the two States which strive on similar cultures and depend on each other for survival. Cauvery, which helps sustain agriculture in these two States, is also a victim of human greed for money and power.
“Unmindful exploitation of the yield in the river in both the States has pushed this situation of undoing a wrong,” a farmer in the Cauvery basin who has seen the exploitation of water for personal gain says. His analogy is a great opportunity for the political class to correct its strategy of utilising the waters of the sacred river and end water wars. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have become victims of hydro-politics disturbing the peaceful culture growing along the banks of the Cauvery.
The availability of drinking water per capita is inadequate and shrinking worldwide. The causes, relate to both quantity and quality and are varied; they include local scarcity, limited availability and population pressures and also human activities of mass consumption, misuse, environmental degradation and water pollution, as well as climate change.
Both States are in an ongoing water conflict, which have powered political conflicts for more than a century, questioning the essence of two oldest cultures in the south of India. It has also affected the cultural relationship between two States which they have shared since time immemorial. The UN World Water Development Report (WWDR, 2003) from the World Water Assessment Program indicates that, in the next 20 years, the quantity of water available to everyone is predicted to decrease by 30 per cent. Currently, 40 per cent of the world’s inhabitants have insufficient fresh water for minimal hygiene. More than 2.2 million people died in 2000 from diseases related to the consumption of contaminated water or drought.
Experts say that the conflict between two neighbours has increased as the river water has become more precious than ever for its extensive use in agriculture, high-tech manufacturing units and energy production.
World Bank vice-president Ismail Serageldin had predicted that many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil, but wars of the 21st century will be over water unless we change the way we manage water resources.
The recent violence over the Cauvery exposes the increased failure of the political class to tackle hydro-politics. For them, it is the politics of survival. Besides, the intense politics over the water-sharing has impacted the cultural relationship between the people of these two States. The emerging social conflict has made the river a scapegoat. The idea of taking refuge in a serene river for political gains has taken many twists and turns. Apart from causing irreparable economic loss, the social trauma has increased on both sides of the border. It is shameful that a modern India eyeing superpower status is insensitive to its environment and plays dirty politics to settle inter-State scores.
As a social activist said: “Burning buses, inflicting damage to property and crippling livelihoods will not solve the issue of water sharing. legal and law agencies can control the mob fury temporarily but we need a permanent solution to the Cauvery dispute, that too, on a people-to-people level.” The recent violence over the issue escalated needlessly, causing a lot of harm to the peace and economy. Buses plying between both the States were stopped for more than 15 days affecting movement of people dependent on each other for livelihood.
Social anthropologist at the Central University, Hyderabad, Professor Rambatla Siva Prasad, says it is a conflict of crumbling resources which leads to a lot of unrest and deprivation. He feels the conflict will only increase if stakeholders are not involved in the process of resolving the issue. “It is a conflict of crumbling natural resources. It has its own implications on the population. Because of this, there is an increasing competition for control and access. This brings in imbalance within the host community as was evident in the recent flare-ups between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu much like the flare-ups between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and also between Indian and Pakistan,” he explains.
“She flows quietly creating a wide divide between the two States. We have to involve farmers of both the States to resolve the water sharing issue which has caused immense economic loss. We need to bring the Cauvery family together to fight this menace,” KS Puttannaiah, an MlA from the Cauvery basin in Karnataka says and a farmer leader in the special session of the Karnataka Assembly.
The Cauvery Family comprises a group of farmers and experts from both riparian States. Formed in 2003, the Cauvery Family has, in the past, attempted to help farmers understand ground realities in both States through extensive field visits. The Family had travelled from the birthplace of the Cauvery at Talacauvery in Kodagu district of Karnataka to Poompuhar in Tamil Nadu where the river joins the sea. The Family has not been active in the last few years and experts and academicians are now trying to revive it.
Puttannaiah strongly believes that reviving Cauvery Family at a time when executive heads of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have not been able to come to the talking table to discuss the Cauvery row, will facilitate farmer-to-farmer dialogue and help ease the situation.
The ruling Congress Government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made efforts for an out-of-the-court settlement of the crisis. Politically, Karnataka, one of the biggest States in the Deccan, is crucial for the Congress to keep its identity in national politics. Siddaramaiah, who has had a dented image over many issues, had banked on Cauvery but it went out of his purview. He made the first move and wrote to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa seeking a discussion to resolve the issue. But that did not happen because of Tamil Nadu’s political compulsions. He also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in bringing an end to the crisis. He harped on working out a suitable solution to water-sharing in a distress year. He also next took refuge in the legislature, calling for two special joint sessions of the Karnataka legislature which had to pass a resolution releasing water only for drinking water purposes to cities and towns in the Cauvery basin in Karnataka.
This infuriated the Supreme Court and Karnataka had to face its wrath. later the intervention of the Central Government and the release of water to TN as per the directions of the apex court diffused the situation but it is not a permanent solution.
The politics over the Cauvery waters has overtaken the real problem. Both the States need to work together with the involvement of stakeholders to resolve the dispute.
Professor DS Poornananda, a Mass Communications professor at Kuvempu University, Bengaluru, who has worked on displacement, says that involving and establishing communication with the stakeholders was important to resolve social conflicts. “The Cauvery dispute cannot be solved only through court orders although the judiciary has made significant efforts in resolving some contentious issues related to the dispute. The stakeholders in both States have to sit together with the facts before them and resolve the problem through negotiations and understanding each other’s needs,” he says.
“Any aggressive posturing by either State will have disastrous consequences as in the past. Farmers in the both the States should ensure that political parties do not complicate the issue by trying to gain political mileage through posturing. Everyone should accept the fact that water has to be shared and that no one owns it,” he adds.
In his acclaimed book The Cauvery River Dispute: Towards Conciliation, S Guhan writes that at the outset, there must be the recognition that since rivers do not respect political boundaries, the water disputes are not uncommon. The Cauvery dispute need not be an exception. It can also be solved, and indeed must be solved, in a conciliatory framework.
“First, any sharing arrangement, if it is to be sustainable over time, will entail continued goodwill and cooperation among the parties. In disputes relating to the allocation of hitherto unused waters, or the specifications of an individual dam, or to cost-sharing or benefit apportionment, a once-for-all solution is possible. In such cases, any residue of resentment among the contesting parties can be expected to heal over time. In contrast, a settlement of the Cauvery dispute will need to address the continuous sharing of waters — year after year and season after season—subject to the fluctuations of water availability and need. Obviously, any such settlement, to be durable, has to be grounded on the willing, active consensus of the parties involved. Only on this basis can long-term harmony be established” he writes.
According to a study published by researchers at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the water yield in the Cauvery river basin is coming down every year, faster than the rate of declining rainfall in the region. Scientists are suggesting that the authorities concerned find out an ecological solution to the conflict, as catchment destruction and decreasing rainfall is not helping Karnataka.
Professor T V Ramachandra, head of Wetland and Energy Research Group, IISc, who headed a project on Cauvery catchment study in lakshmana Tirtha river in Kodagu district, a major tributary of Cauvery, states that instead of the present 50 TMC ft of water in the reservoirs in Cauvery basin, the State could have had more if the catchment destruction was arrested.
“The water availability in a catchment depends upon the integrity of the land use and meteorological parameters. The land use in the catchment plays an important role in maintaining the water flow into the rivers or streams. A number of perennial streams, which fed Cauvery, are drying due to increase in agricultural activities in the shola forests of the Ghats in Kodagu district. Both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu must come forward to reverse the damage,” he says.
Renowned water conservationist, Rajendra Singh, popularly known as the Waterman of India, advised both the States to follow community-driven water management or decentralised management of resources to resolve the Cauvery crisis. Singh, who is part of finding an alternative to resolve the issue through the “Cauvery Family”, wants conservation initiatives such as rainwater harvesting, facilitating the recharge of groundwater and rejuvenation of local water bodies. He points out that even the Judiciary could not resolve the water dispute. According to him, it is now for Parliament to take up the initiative.
“Parliament has not discussed the Cauvery or other water disputes even once in the last few years. It should act as a bridge to bring the parties in dispute together and arrive at a solution,” he says. He also stressed the need for a re-look into the cropping pattern based on the local availability of water besides enhancing the efficiency of water usage.
Expressing his opposition to the interlinking of rivers so that surplus water from one region could be transferred to water deficit areas elsewhere, he says that this would only transfer pollution and warns that the project would spell unmitigated environmental disaster for the country. “What is required is the linking of minds instead,” he adds.
Professor RS Deshpande, former Director of Institute for Social and Economic Change, who has worked with the complexities of conflicts like farmer’s suicides, strongly advocates saving the culture and agriculture. “River is a true representation of flow of culture. The culture of South that flourished on the banks of river Cauvery is now in peril and on the upstream and downstream people are determined to destroy the monolithic web of culture that was woven over centuries. They are at loggerheads and forgot the organic link that bounded them that can be negotiated and resolved. We have not cultivated animosity across the reaches but the same crops same festivities and same gods and the same villages systems. We have to save that monolithic culture at any cost,” he says.
The Cauvery river water sharing should not lead to more conflicts of a full-fledged hydro politics. The river is sacred and saving the water with careful utilisation is the need of the hour. People of two cultures should shed sectarian politics and must become stakeholders in deciding the affairs of the river with the help of Governments and courts. let the river flow as Nature’s child singing its life and in the words of laura Gilpin be “a magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself” instead of being part of man’s manipulations and greed.
The folklore
Cauvery flows from its origin at the Brahmagiri hills in Kodagu in the Western Ghats, one of the rare bio-diversity hotspots in the world. It flows at an altitude of 1,350 metres from the south to eastward direction. The river is approximately 760 km long. Its flows 320 km in Karnataka and 440 km in Tamil Nadu before merging into the Bay of Bengal. The principle tributaries of the river include the Shimsha, Hemavati, Arkavathy, Honnuhole, lakshmana Tirtha Kabini, Bhavani, the lokapavani and the Amaravati rivers.
People of both the States worship this sacred river as an embodiment of a cultural link. The river is full of mythology, cutting across borders defining its significance in the growth of culture and agriculture.
As the legend goes, rishi Agasthya once turned Cauvery into water and left her in his kamandala (pot). On realising that she had been left alone for a long time, lopamudra flowed out as a river. The sage’s disciples tried to stop her but she dived into the Earth and they could not track her. Eventually, it is said, she reappeared as Cauvery in a vessel at Bhagamandala. Much later, the sage came looking for her and recognised her as Cauvery river. It goes on like this in both the States interwoven into two cultures. Mythology, folklore, religious groups and communities and farmers are interwoven into the Cauvery.
History of arbitration
The hydro-politics between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over sharing the waters of the Cauvery is over a century old. The genesis of this conflict rests in two agreements in 1892 and 1924 between the erstwhile Madras Presidency and Princely State of Mysore. Things came to a head in 1910 when Mysore, under Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar as the king and Captain Dawesas as Chief Engineer, came up with a plan to construct a dam at Kannambadi village to hold up to 41.5 TMC of water. The dam was planned to be built in two stages. In the first stage, a capacity of 11 TMC was envisioned, while in the second stage the full capacity was set to be realised. Madras, however, refused to give its consent for this move as it had its own plans to build a storage dam at Mettur with a capacity of 80 TMC.
After a reference to the Government of India, permission was accorded to Mysore, but for a reduced storage of 11TMC. During construction, however, the foundation was laid to suit the earlier desired full storage. This raised Madras’ hackles and the dispute continued. As a result, the then British Government of India referred the matter to arbitration under Rule IV of the 1892 Agreement. The Cauvery dispute thus came up for arbitration for the first time. Sir H D Griffin was appointed arbitrator and M Nethersole, Inspector General of Irrigation in India, was made the Assessor. They entered into proceedings on July 16, 1913 and the Award was given on May 12, 1914. The award upheld the earlier decision of the Government of India and allowed Mysore to go ahead with the construction of the dam up to 11 TMC.
Madras appealed against the award and negotiations continued. Eventually an agreement was arrived at in 1924 and a couple of minor agreements were also signed in 1929 and 1933. The 1924 agreement was set to lapse after a run of 50 years.
The dispute, however, did not end there as all the four States decided to file review petitions seeking clarifications and possible renegotiation of the order. In the Post-Independence era even though complexities have changed the arbitration continued. By the late 1960s, both States and the Central Government began to realise the gravity of the situation as the 50-year run of the 1924 agreement was coming to an end. Negotiations were started in right earnest and discussions continued for almost 10 years.
It was in 1990 that the Central Government constituted a tribunal to look into the matter. After hearing arguments of all parties involved for the next 16 years, the tribunal delivered its final verdict on February 5, 2007, allocating 419 TMC water annually to Tamil Nadu and 270 TMC to Karnataka; 30 TMC of Cauvery river water to Kerala and 7 TMC to Puducherry. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu being the major shareholders, Karnataka was ordered to release 192 TMC water to Tamil Nadu in a normal year from June to May. The entire dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu is mainly about what is to be done in a distress year.