Cauvery River Dispute. - Elinor Wakefield

Emerging in the mountainous Western Ghats of Southwest Karnataka State the Cauvery river flows southeasterly for 475 miles, through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu where it fans out into distributaries before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The Cauvery (also spelt Kaveri) is one of the seven sacred rivers of India. It’s entire course is considered holy by Hindus, who sometimes call it Daksina Ganga or 'Ganges of the South', and it’s scenery and sanctity are celebrated in Tamil literature. However, since living in Bangalore, capital of Karnataka, we have come to associate the name Cauvery more with political disturbance than with its dramatic waterfalls. Since we have been here the newspapers have been full of stories of warring politicians, angry farmers and film starstudded rallies. Travel to Mysore, a key stop-over on the tourist itinerary of Karnataka, has been advised against. Two centuries of construction of reservoirs and dams on the river in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has magnified its potency as an economic and political issue, in addition to being a religious waterway. This has been exacerbated over the last decade by delayed and frequently insufficient rains, as well as by the belligerent stances taken by politicians and farmers of the two states.

What is now a dispute between two Indian states, was, under the British, fought out between the Madras Residency (then part of the British Raj and now part of Tamil Nadu) and the princely State of Mysore, in what is now Karnataka. Irrigation got a head start under the Madras Residency and by the mid 20th century an extensive canal network had been engineered in the Thanjavur delta region, which transformed the district into the 'rice bowl' of the state. Mysore, as a princely state, had less clout than Madras and in 1982 it was committed by an agreement to seek the prior consent of the Madras government before embarking on new irrigation projects.

Nevertheless, there are now major reservoirs and dams on the Karnataka section of the river, and in conditions of limited rainfall, Tamil Nadu has to request that Karnataka release water downstream to fulfill the irrigation needs of farmers in the delta region. The Cauvery tribunal of 1991 directed Karnataka to release water "so as to ensure that 205 tmc* of water is available in Tamil Nadu's Mettur reservoir in a year from June to May". Despite anti-Tamil riots in Bangalore in 1991 in response to the decision, Karnataka has met this requirement every year since, except in the drought year of 1995-1996. That is, until this year. The delayed monsoon meant Karnataka's government was unable to release water due to insufficient volumes stored in its reservoirs to meet the needs of its own farmers. As a result, the irrigation systems of farmers in the Thanjavur region have been dry.

The Tamil Nadu government obtained a ruling from India's Supreme Court, subsequently modified by the Cauvery River Authority, that required Karnataka to release specified volumes of water to Tamil Nadu every day. The Karnataka chief minister, S M Krishna, refused, preferring to make a well-publicised padyatra along the banks of the river to meet affected farmers. Meanwhile, the chief minister in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, has offered a substantial relief package (Rs 1.64 billion - more than 20 million pounds) to the delta farmers as compensation for lost crops and income. She herself took dramatic action some years ago when she embarked on a (shortlived) hunger strike over the release of the water to Tamil Nadu: both politicians are keenly aware of the political nature of the Cauvery water. In the Mysore region there have been continued demonstrations against any release of water while in both states, film stars have capitalized on public emotions and organised tours of the State to rally support amongst farmers. Train and bus routes between Bangalore and Mysore have also been periodically suspended.

This year, tension over Cauvery water seems to have dissipated with the arrival of late rains in October. But a permanent solution is far off. There has been some talk of networking rivers throughout India, including an ambitious project to link the to more affluent rivers in Northern India. Funding for such projects would likely come from the beneficiary states, as well as the World Bank and other private financial institutions. Meanwhile others take the view that provision of cheap water to farmers, even in droughtprone areas at times of water shortage, encourages the planting of water-intensive crops, such as sugarcane (grown in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu) and has produced unrealistic expectations of what nature herself can provide. Certainly, politics has not provided a solution to water scarcity in the Cauvery basin.

* tmc = thousand million cubic feet

Acknowledgements: www.redriff.com, www.cauvery.com, Deccan Herald