Solution to the Cauvery Issue Must Be Sought Outside the Court

Citizen-led forum may help Karnataka and Tamil Nadu reach a consensus on the Cauvery issue, writes BS Nagaraj.

Is it time to go for out-of-the-box solutions, with courts and tribunals failing to ensure conflict-free sharing of the Cauvery river waters between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu?

It may be worth a serious try as there is no guarantee that the two states will stop squabbling even after a much-delayed Cauvery Management Board is set up. In a distress year, when the states find it difficult to share water proportionate to the deficit, the aggrieved state can approach the board for relief. But if the allegations that court and tribunal orders are not being obeyed are true, the board would be equally helpless in getting a defiant state to follow its fiat.

But are there any alternative solutions at all?

Is Voluntary Transfer by Tamil Nadu the Solution?

Some answers could arise from certain initiatives taken in the past and suggestions put forward by experts.

Let us examine a proposal mooted by late Ramaswamy R. Iyer, a renowned water resources expert who also served as Secretary, Water Resources Ministry, Government of India. In an article titled Cauvery Dispute: A Lament and a Proposal that appeared in Economic & Political Weekly in 2013, he proposed “a voluntary transfer of some part of its allocation by Tamil Nadu to Karnataka.” Such an action on Tamil Nadu’s part, he said, will transform the situation.

This is indeed a radical, even ‘quixotic’ in the author’s own words, suggestion, that too coming from a Tamilian. Iyer begins by referring to the fact that he is a Tamilian but that he has always tried remaining equidistant from the two states in his writings.

Pointing out the failings of the Central government, the Supreme Court and the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal over the years as also the confrontational positions adopted by the two states, Iyer feels that if Tamil Nadu were to agree that Karnataka indeed had a sense of grievance and say that it is prepared to make a voluntary sacrifice of 20 tmcft or so of water, there could be a good response from Karnataka.

“Many in TN will argue that having obtained a certain judicial allocation after a prolonged adjudication process, it would be foolish to give away a part of it. They could of course stick to their legal right, but in practice the enforcement of that right is going to be problematic. I think that it would be in TN’s interest to ensure the receipt of a certain quantum of water, even if it has to make a sacrifice of 20 or 30 TMC to get that assurance,” he wrote.

The ‘Cauvery Family’ Forum

In the article, Iyer says for such an idea to work, it would be incumbent on Karnataka to adhere to the monthly schedule of releases and agree to a formula for water-sharing in the distress years.

A noteworthy non-political initiative that achieved some success, at least in terms of the farmers of the two sides understanding each other’s issues, was the Cauvery Family, a forum of academics, farmers and other stakeholders formed in 2003. Iyer too was part of this forum which held over a dozen meetings in the two states, mainly to arrive at a workable formula for sharing distress in water deficient years, a big source of conflict.

This forum worked on five formulae for water sharing before concentrating on one but as its convenor S Janakarajan of the Madras Institute of Studies has been quoted as saying, a lack of recognition for the initiative by either of the two governments or the tribunal halted its progress.

Legal Solution May Not Work

The initiative came in for praise from UNESCO which observed in a 2006 document titled Water: A Shared Responsibility: “There have been attempts to promote citizen efforts towards conciliation through people-to-people dialogues, and most recently, to form a ‘Cauvery family’. Such efforts should help in encouraging informed dialogue and building trust. Collective action theory suggests that it is possible for riparian states to voluntarily reach self-enforcing agreements, provided the costs and benefits are considered in a transparent manner and sustainable development priorities are given primacy.”

Citizens’ groups and farmers’ organisations of both states will do well to encourage such initiatives and pressurise governments and political parties to acknowledge their contribution and help them evolve solutions. The legal route alone may not work as history has proved.

(The writer is a senior editor working with a Doha-based daily. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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