It was by sheer coincidence that we met the late chief Jayalalithaa in her Fort office on the day a significant Cauvery verdict was pronounced in the Supreme Court in 2013. She was supremely happy that day and spoke for an hour with an infectious enthusiasm. Ever the sceptic, I asked one question - “Madam, the verdict is fantastic. But will Karnataka abide by it and give water?” “Of course, they will. They have to,”Jaya said while beaming with optimism. Sadly, it was never justified.
This is India in a nutshell. Courts may hand out verdicts. Will they ever be carried out is a million-dollar question, perhaps even trickier since the obdurate neighbour has never been known to be charitable about releasing Cauvery water. Never mind if the top court of the land has ordered so. It will probably be as contemptuous of contempt petitions because the chief minister will claim there will be a law & order problem if water leaves the KRS. The court would then thunder about the obeying of its order and a promise to reform and obey would be followed by a trickle through Billigundlu.
Now that the additional Bengaluru thirst must be tended to before the paddy fields of the delta or the water needs of Kozhikode and Pondicherry are to be met, there will be even less optimism about any water leaving the dams. That is, until they are filled by the coming southwest monsoon and water cannot be impounded without endangering the environs of the pretty Brindavan Gardens or the banks of the Kabini. This is the true story of the waters of the Cauvery and the rest is a myth shaped entirely by what each one would like to believe in. The earnestness of judges in attempting to find a solution to a knotty problem is matched only by the insouciance of the upper riparian state and the reluctance of the federal player.
The Cauvery Management Board and a “scheme to regulate Cauvery water” is like chalk and cheese. The CMB, if formed, would be the central authority in control of the waters whereas a Cauvery panel would be controlled by Karnataka. Where the top court may have slipped is in talking of the CMB in the narration but failing to put the three-letter acronym down in the final order. This was sufficient for the great waiting game that the Centre played at the expense of Tamil Nadu, a state eternally foxed by the prospect of getting sufficient Cauvery water, save in the years of Nature's bounty when some water would actually flow into the Bay of Bengal from the Cauvery at the very end of its zig zag course from Talacauvery to Poompuhar.
The BJP's strategy to prioritise Karnataka may have been shaped by the proximity of the poll date of May 12. But, historically, the preference for both Congress and BJP has been Karnataka over Tamil Nadu simply because of the political scenario. Both national parties have as much hope of coming to power on their own in Tamil Nadu as Chennai has of seeing snow this summer. Contrast that with the Congress having been in power in Karnataka for many years except in Ramakrishna Hedge's heyday and again for a while after 2004.
The BJP won in 2008 on a sympathy wave after being let down by the JD(S) in alternate sharing of power. The two are in the running for power in Karnataka now but stand no chance in the Dravidian heartland of Tamil Nadu.
The postponement of any decision on the Cauvery may be opportunistic political strategy but it is downright chicanery since any doubts on the CMB and overseeing mechanism may have been sought to be cleared much earlier than the expiry of the six-week deadline after another potentially historic verdict was given last month. While reactions to the verdict were based on the quantum of water lost or gained, very few seemed to focus on the probability of the Centre taking the courageous decision to implement an order by which the water resources of the nation could potentially be nationalised, or at least under central control rather than left to the upper riparian state, which in this case is the notoriously acquisitive Karnataka, and not only in the case of the Cauvery.
The AIADMK legislator Navaneethakrishnan may have been emotionally overcome in Parliament, but he did say get in one home truth about the Constitution being a mere piece of paper. The nation seems helpless when one state is defying top court orders blatantly. The point is no one has the courage to bell the cat because it would be politically suicidal for them in one major southern state. Tamil Nadu's water woes are disregarded because it doesn't vote for a national party. One of them may have been an alliance partner in the state but they still did nothing to promote equity in water sharing. In bad or poor monsoon years, the Cauvery has become a river of sorrow for Tamil Nadu, much like the Yellow River of China and there is no one to share the distress.
(R. Mohan is the Resident Editor of the Chennai and Tamil Nadu editions of Deccan Chronicle)
