Shanthi Rajagopal
History
This is not a dispute which has arisen recently. The sharing of waters of the river Cauvery has been the bone of contention of a serious conflict between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Cauvery River originates in the Brahmagiri ranges of Kodagu district flows through large parts of Tamil Nadu and also some parts of Kerala and Pondicherry. No attempt was made to utilise its waters for irrigation until 1883 when the Diwan of the princely state of Mysore launched a scheme. His primary aim was to increase the revenue to the King’s coffers. This move was resented by the Madras presidency under the British Raj. Thus began the Cauvery dispute which is yet to be solved.
Mysore’s plans to revive the irrigation projects met with resistance from the Madras Presidency. Mysore state made a representation to the then British government as a result of which, a conference was held in 1890 with the objective of agreeing “…on the principles of a modus vivendi, which would on the one hand allow to Mysore reasonable freedom in dealing with her irrigation works, and on the other, give to Madras practical security against injury to her interests” and eventually the Agreement of 1892 was signed There was some respite after two rounds of talks between the Mysore state and Madras presidency in 1892 and 1924. Mysore was permitted to construct a dam in Kannambadi village to impound 44.8 thousand million cubic feet 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 realized. 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.
Madras had what is called prescriptive rights over the upper riparian state of Mysore. Malabar district was then part of the Madras presidency. Malabar is now part of Kerala, and Kerala too has joined the Cauvery fray. As per this agreement, Mysore was required to obtain Madras’ consent for any new irrigation reservoirs across any of the main rivers it wished to utilize and share information on any new irrigation scheme it wished to undertake to utilize the waters
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 had come up for arbitration for the first time
The agreement also stipulated that Mysore was not to increase its area under irrigation more than 110,000 beyond what was already existing acres while the same cap for Madras Presidency was pegged at 301000|acre|km2. Nonetheless, Madras still appealed against the award and negotiations continued. Finally 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. As a result of these agreements, Karnataka claims that Mysore was forced to give up rights
The 1924 Agreement
The 1924 agreement was valid for 50 years, after which there was to be a review. It stipulated that Mysore could undertake any extension of irrigation by impounding Cauvery waters only with the prior consent of the Madras presidency. Twelve years after Independence and 15 years before the expiry of the pact, Mysore, by then rechristened Karnataka, wrote to Tamil Nadu, inviting its attention to several clauses, and suggesting changes. Tamil Nadu turned down the plea. Changes, it said, would be contemplated only after the expiry of the pact in 1974.
The central government began an initiative soon after, but the entire issue was given the appearance of a bilateral dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the other two riparian states, namely Kerala and Pondicherry, having been left out until the 1970s.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu had expanded its irrigation by leaps and bounds against the letter and spirit of the agreement. Its acreage increased from 1.665 million in 1924 to 2.82 million by 1971. Karnataka’s score showed a rise from 314,000 to 682,000 acres. The agreement had stipulated that Madras was entitled to increase its irrigation land to only 300,000 acres. Mysore’s quota was 110,000 acres. Both had violated the agreement.
What the dispute is all about
The state of Karnataka feels that it has not got its due share of water utilization as against Tamil Nadu. Karnataka claims that agreements between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were skewed heavily in favour of the Madras Presidency, and has since demanded a renegotiated settlement based on “equitable sharing of the waters”. Tamil Nadu on the other hand, pleads that it has already developed almost 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of land and as a result has come to depend very heavily on the existing pattern of usage. Any change in this pattern, it says, will adversely affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in the state.
Countless rounds of talks have taken place to resolve the issue, without any success.
According to a study conducted by the central government in 1972, the utilisation of water from Cauvery in Tamil Nadu was 489 tmc ft against Karnataka’s 177 tmc ft. Now Karnataka wants to utilise 465 tmc ft, against its present usage of 312.32 tmc ft. It is against this background that Tamil Nadu went to the Supreme Court.
The Cauvery Water Tribunal, in its interim award of June 1991, ordered that Karnataka release 205 tmc of water to Tamil Nadu during one water year, that is from May to June. It also stipulated a weekly quantum of flow, much to the chagrin of Karnataka. This led to large-scale violence on Tamils living in Karnataka. Karnataka has followed the interim order and has released much more than 205 tmc ft of water every year except during the year 1995-96. This led to the Supreme Court coming down heavily on Karnataka.
Effect of Negotiations
When decades of negotiations between the parties involved bore no fruit, the Government of India finally constituted a tribunal in 1990 to look into the matter. The tribunal after hearing arguments of all the parties involved for the last 16 years delivered its final verdict on 5 February 2007. In its verdict, the tribunal allocated 419 billion ft³ (12 km³) of water annually to Tamil Nadu and 270 billion ft³ (7.6 km³) to Karnataka; 30 billion ft³ (0.8 km³) of Cauvery river water to Kerala and 7 billion ft³ (0.2 km³) to Puducherry. The dispute however, seems far from over with all four states deciding to file review petitions seeking clarifications and possible renegotiation of the order.
Post independence developments
After independence, the equations changed drastically. Tamil Nadu was carved out of Madras Presidency and Mysore province became a state. Coorg (the birthplace of the Cauvery), became a part of Mysore state. Huge parts of erstwhile Hyderabad state and Bombay Presidency joined with Mysore state.
All these changes further changed the equations as Kerala and Pondicherry also jumped into the fray. Kerala staked its claim as one of the major tributaries of the Cauvery, the Kabini, now originated in Kerala. Karaikal region of Pondicherry at the tail end of the river demanded the waters that it had always used for drinking and some minimal agriculture. While these additional claims complicated matters greatly at a technical level, Mysore state and Tamil Nadu still remained the major parties to the dispute.
During the 70s, a Cauvery Fact Finding Committee (CFFC) was constituted, in order to inspect the ‘ground’ realities and come up with a report. Finally in 1974, a draft agreement which also provided for the creation of a Cauvery Valley Authority was prepared by the Ministry of Irrigation. This draft however, was not ratified.
While all these discussions went on, Tamil Nadu’s irrigated lands had grown from a pre-Mettur command area of 1,440,000 acres (5,800 km2) to 2,580,000 acres (10,400 km2) while Karnataka’s irrigated area stood at 680,000 acres (2,800 km²). Karnataka maintains that these figures demonstrate the lop-sided nature of the agreement.
In 1976, after a series of discussions between the two states and the Central government, a final draft was prepared based on findings of the CFFC. This draft was accepted by all states and the Government also made an announcement to that effect in Parliament. Tamil Nadu came under President’s rule soon after that and the agreement was put on the backburner. When President’s rule was lifted, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) with M. G. Ramachandran at the helm came to power for the first time in Tamil Nadu and the dispute took a new turn.
The Tamil Nadu government now rejected the draft agreement and started insisting that the 1924 agreement had only provided for an extension and not a review. It began insisting that status quo be restored and everyone go back to the agreements of 1892 and 1924. This however, did not cut ice with Karnataka which had throughout maintained that those agreements were partisan and had been signed between unequal partners.
When Karnataka began construction of the Harangi dam in Kodagu, it was once again met with resistance from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu went to court demanding the constitution of a Tribunal under the Inter State Water Disputes Act (ISWD) of 1956. It also demanded the immediate stoppage of construction work at the dam site. As a result of Tamil Nadu’s protests, Karnataka had to fund the construction under the non-plan head and this led to a severe strain on its finances.
Several rounds of discussions were held in the 80s. The result was still, a stalemate
The constitution of the tribunal
The Supreme Court then directed the government headed by Prime Minister V. P. Singh to constitute a tribunal and refer all disputes to it. A three man tribunal was thus constituted on 2 June 1990.
The four states presented their demands to the tribunal as under
Karnataka – claimed 465 billion ft³ (13 km³) as its share
Kerala – wants 99.8 billion ft³ (2.83 km³) as its share
Pondicherry – claims 9.3 billion ft³ (0.3 km³)
Tamil Nadu – wants the flows to be ensured in accordance with the terms of the agreements of 1892 and 1924 (ie., 566 billion ft³ (16 km³) for Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry; 177 billion ft³ (5 km³) for Karnataka and 5 billion ft³ (0.1 km³) for Kerala).
Once the tribunal was set up, Tamil Nadu demanded a mandatory injunction on Karnataka for the immediate release of water and other reliefs. The tribunal dismissed this. Tamil Nadu now went back to the Supreme Court which directed the tribunal to reconsider Tamil Nadu’s plea.
An interim award was given on 25 June 1991, in which the tribunal calculated the average inflows into Tamil Nadu over a period of 10 years between 1980–81 and 1989–90. The extreme years were ignored for this calculation. The average worked out to 205 billion ft³ (5.8 km³) which Karnataka had to ensure reached Tamil Nadu in a water year. The award also stipulated the weekly and monthly flows to be ensured by Karnataka for each month of the water year. The tribunal further directed Karnataka not to increase it irrigated land area from the existing 1,120,000 acres
Karnataka could not digest this award and issued an ordinance seeking to annul the tribunal’s award. The Supreme Court now stepped in at the President’s instance and struck down the Ordinance issued by Karnataka. It upheld the tribunal’s award which was subsequently gazetted by the Government of India on 11 December 1991.
In 1995, the monsoons failed badly in Karnataka and Karnataka found itself hard pressed to fulfill the interim order. Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court demanding the immediate release of at least 30 billion ft³. The Supreme Court refused to entertain Tamil Nadu’s petition and asked it to approach the tribunal. The tribunal examined the case and recommended that Karnataka release 11 billion ft³. Karnataka pleaded that 11 billion ft³ cannot be implemented in the circumstances that existed then. Tamil Nadu now went back to the Supreme Court demanding that Karnataka be forced to obey the tribunal’s order. The Supreme Court this time recommended that the then Prime Minister, Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao intervene and find a political solution. The Prime Minister convened a meeting with the Chief Ministers of the two states and recommended that Karnataka release 6 billion ft³ instead of the 11 billion ft³ that the tribunal ordered.
Karnataka complied with the decision of the Prime Minister and the issue blew over.
Constitution of the CRA
In 1997, the Government proposed the setting up of a Cauvery River Authority which would be vested with far reaching powers to ensure the implementation of the Interim Order. These powers included the power to take over the control of dams in the event of the Interim Order not being honoured. Karnataka, which had always maintained that the interim order had no scientific basis and was intrinsically flawed, strongly protested the proposal to set up such an authority.
Under a new proposal, the Government set up two new bodies, viz., Cauvery River Authority, which would consist of the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers of all four States (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala) and was headquartered in New Delhi and Cauvery Monitoring Committee, which would be an expert body which consisted of engineers, technocrats and other officers who would take stock of the ‘ground realities’ and report to the Central Government.
In 2002, reservoirs in both states fell to record low levels and inevitably tempers rose. The dispute point yet again, as in 1995–96 was how the distress would be shared between the two states. Tamil Nadu demanded that Karnataka honour the interim award and release to Tamil Nadu its proportionate share. Karnataka on the other hand stated that the water levels were hardly enough to meet its own demands and ruled out releasing any water in the circumstances that prevailed.
The Supreme Court ordered Karnataka to release 1.25 billion ft³ of water every day unless CRA revised it. Karnataka started the release of water but pressed for another meeting of the CRA which was fixed later. The CRA revised the Court’s order from 1.25 billion ft³ to 0.8 billion ft³ per day.
This time however, the Karnataka government in open defiance of the order of the CRA, refused to release any water succumbing to the large scale protests that had mounted in the Cauvery districts of the state. When Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court, Karnataka now resumed the release of water for a few days, but stopped it again on 18 September as a protesting farmer committed suicide by jumping into the reservoir and the protests threatened to take a dangerous turn.
The centre now stepped in and asked Karnataka to release the water. While the CRA inspected the reservoirs in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu flatly refused to grant them permission to inspect its reservoirs. On 30 September 2002 the Supreme Court ordered Tamil Nadu to co-operate with the CRA and Tamil Nadu gave in.
Demonstrations
Things took an ugly turn and there were accusations and counter accusations being thrown all around in both states. The opposition parties in Tamil Nadu too had jumped into the fray and at the same time joining the then Chief Minister Ms Jayalalitha in stinging rebukes of both the Centre and the CRA.
To add to all this, the dispute had already spilled onto the streets in the district of Mandya in Karnataka and was threatening to spread to other parts of the state too. Precipitating the matters on the streets, the SC ordered Karnataka to comply with the CRA and resume the release of water.
Karnataka once again refused to obey the orders of SC. Tamil Nadu slapped another contempt petition on Karnataka and soon the issue degenerated into a ‘free for all’ with all and sundry from both states joining the protests. Soon, film actors and various other cross sections of society from both states were on the streets. The belligerence soon hit a crescendo and even as some groups in Tamil Nadu called for a stoppage of power from the Neyveli Power stat ion to Karnataka as a tit-for-tat measure, a Pan-Tamil militant outfit (a month or so later) went ahead and blasted a major power transformer supplying power to the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
In the meanwhile, Tamil Nadu’s contempt suit on Karnataka came up for hearing. The Karnataka government, by now saw the gravity of the situation, and in a bid to salvage the situation, decided to resume the release of water; while at the same time compensating its own farmers for the loss. The Supreme Court censured the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for attacking the CRA and the Prime Minister and ordered Tamil Nadu to tender an unqualified apology. Tamil Nadu complied with it and tendered the apology.
2003–2006
The last four years haven’t seen any major flare up in the dispute even though the summer of 2003 saw a dry spell in both states. The monsoons in 2004, 2005 and 2006 were quite copious and this helped a great deal in keeping the tempers calm. While the last 3 or 4 years have been relatively quiet as far as jingoistic voices are concerned, a flurry of development has been afoot in the courts.
The extension for the term of the tribunal was granted and the tribunal’s term was extended for another year until September 2006. Early in 2006, a major controversy erupted over the ‘Assessor’s report’ that was apparently ‘leaked’ to the press. The report had suggested a decision which Karnataka summarily rejected. Another major controversy erupted when just a couple of months before the September 2006 deadline, the tribunal recommended the formation of another expert committee to study the ‘ground realities’ yet again. This was unanimously and vehemently opposed by all the four states party to the dispute.
Judgment
The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal announced its final verdict on 5 February 2007. According to its verdict, Tamil Nadu gets 419 billion ft³ (12 km³) of Cauvery water while Karnataka gets 270 billion ft³ (7.6 km³). The actual release of water by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu is to be 192 billion ft³ (5.4 km³) annually. Further, Kerala will get 30 billion ft³ and Puducherry 7 billion ft³. Tamil Nadu appears to have been accepting the verdict while the government of Karnataka, unhappy with the decision, filed a revision petition before the tribunal seeking a review.
Is it going to be a never-ending dispute or a dispute to test National Integrity?
Dream Dare Win
www.jeywin.com
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