In the NEWS:

19^th September, 2012 : Karnataka was directed to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu from 21^st September, 2012 till October 15^th September, 2012 daily.

21^st September, 2012 : Karnataka filed a petition before the Cauvery River Authority seeking review of its 19^th September order.

24^th September, 2012 : Tamil Nadu filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to Karnataka to release Cauvery water.

28^th September, 2012 : The Supreme Court slammed the Karnataka government for defying the order of the CRA which lead to the release of water and also to wide protests and violence in Karnataka.

04^th October, 2012 : Karnataka government filed a stay order petition (until 15^th October, 2012) before the Supreme Court.

06^th October, 2012 : Bandhs were called all over the state and several protests were held all over.

08^th October, 2012 : Supreme Court of India played the ball into CRA’s court and tried to avoid interference. CRA stood firm and even reviewed it till 20^th October, 2012. Raged at this, within hours Karnataka stopped release of water to Tamil Nadu.

What is all this about?

No Clue?? Its a Conflict! Huh! Another one!

Though it has been a hot debate all over the country for the last couple of weeks, it has a history of more than one and half centuries.

Conflicts:

Why do conflicts (resource conflicts) arise? Can’t they be resolved? are the two major questions that strike our mind when we come across any conflict or dispute. I guess I can answer the first one pretty well and the answer to the second is (un)known to everyone.

"Natural Resource Conflicts are disagreements and disputes over access to, and control and use of, natural resources" which have become an inevitable feature of all societies whose scope and magnitude are increasing and intensifying every day. They can arise due to lack of information about programme objectives, lack of clarities in laws and policies and even due to poor programme implementation. Of all, Inequity in Resource Distribution is a major factor which can be observed in any dispute.

These conflicts exist in every country and community and India is no exception. In India we find most of these conflicts over Water. Being the second largest populated country in the world, it faces a major challenge in meeting the demands of the people. Not only is the availability of the water resources but also distribution of those resources a mighty task. Most of the population lives in places where demand for water exceeds supply, or the place eventually moves to scarcity due to increase of population. Water scarcity and inequities are also risk factors for violent conflict which are common in the country and are impeding integral human development.

“Too often, where we need water, we find guns instead.”

-Ban Ki-Moon

There are many water disputes in the country; almost every river is associated with one, of which Cauvery River Water Dispute, a unique, seemingly never ending, is one of the oldest disputes which is yet to be sorted out.

Before moving on to know about the historical background and causes of the dispute, we’ll have a look at the geographical location and its role in this issue.

Geographical Location:

Course of River Cauvery

Cauvery originates from "Talakaveri", "Kodagu" in the Brahmagiri ranges of the Western Ghats. It is the fourth largest river in southern India and runs the 800 km long journey across three states i.e. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and a Union Territory, Pondicherry till it joins the Bay of Bengal. On its course in Karnataka it forms a couple of islands Srirangapatna and Shivanasamudra where it drops 320 ft to form waterfalls which serves a source for electricity. It served many hectares of land in the southwest of the state in irrigation and has been a major source of water for many purposes.

Hogenakkal Falls

After passing through many dams, reservoirs and ‘ayucuts’ in Karnataka, it enters Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu and later drops into the "Hogenakkal Falls" as it enters the town of Hogenakkal. Later it continues to flow through famous Mettur dam, then splits into branches and provides irrigational facilities in Tamil Nadu.

Monsoon plays the card:

The southwest monsoon causes rain effectively in southern Karnataka in the Cauvery basin leading to more water than the Tamil Nadu region in the basin which receives a meagre rainfall. This paves way for a conflict as both the regions receive unequal amount of water and moreover Karnataka stores most of it in various dams, reservoirs and Ayucuts.

The Birth - 'Historical Agreements':

Cauvery being a rich source of water, was exploited by the then Maharajas of Mysore as they started constructing dams, reservoirs etc. on it in the middle of the nineteenth century. It didn’t take much time for the Madras Province to act against those constructions which eventually lead to the water shortage in their state. It was more than 150 years ago this happened, which lead to negotiations and eventually ended up in signing agreements.

The first such agreement was signed on 18th February 1892 in which the state of Mysore agrees to stop the new constructions on the river and cannot construct without the consent of the Madras state.
In the year 1910 the Government of Mysore formulated its proposal for a reservoir on the Cauvery at Kannambadi and sought the consent of Madras Government as per the agreement of the year 1892.
As difference and conflict arose with respect to this project between the two States, the dispute was referred to Arbitration in accordance with the Agreement of the year 1892 whose proceedings began on 16^th July, 1913 and concluded on 12^th May, 1914.
The award given was not accepted by the state of Madras and hence they filed a petition with the Government of India which later didn’t interfere in this issue. Without giving up on the issue, the Madras state appealed to the Secretary of State in July, 1916 requesting for an intervention in the matter as it would cause a serious damage to the then existing irrigated areas.
Though, the then Government of Mysore objected to the appeal, the Secretary of State came to the conclusion that there was a "prima facie" case for interfering the award and different possible choices were given to the Mysore Government with respect to the sharing of the waters in November 1919.
Eventually, after years of negotiations another agreement was signed on 18^th February, 1924 between the Governments of Madras and Mysore. The above two agreements were the two historical pieces in this issue though few minor agreements were made in 1929 and 1933.

The Battle of the 'FOUR':

After the reorganization of the princely states in 1956, the Madras state turned into Tamil Nadu and the State of Mysore turned into Karnataka. As the time period of the historical second agreement of 1924 is 50 years, there was a need to address the situation and solve it at the earliest. But, then entered into the fray were the state of Kerala and the Union Territory, Pondicherry.

Soon the negotiations started and continued for a decade and later a committee was called, the "Cauvery Fact Finding Committee" (CFFC) was constituted to make a report. It submitted an initial report in 1972 and a draft in 1973. Later, after many discussions, 50 years from the 1924 agreement, an agreement draft was created but was not ratified.
In the State of Kerala, the diversion of the water from Cauvery basin provides a scope for development of hydroelectric power in addition to meeting the need for consumption of water for irrigation purposes. In spite of several negotiations with other States Kerala could not materialize.
Karnataka started to construct the dams on Cauvery during which, Tamil Nadu though initially opposed later held several negotiations. But, the farmers agitated and demanded for a tribunal in the end of 1980s.
Eventually, a tribunal was formed on 2^nd June, 1990 which gave its final verdict on 5th February, 2007.

Critical Errors:

The major reasons in the failure of reaching a solution are "Politics and Inefficient Governments", "Failure of Negotiations" and "Delays of the Tribunal and its faulty solutions" which made this dispute as old as 150 years and still no proper solution.

Politics and Inefficient Governments:

The Union Governments were inefficient in providing a proper deal and solution.
Instead they used it as a point in their agenda in the center and the states as well where the farmers' votes were used to win the elections.

Failure of Negotiations:

The Cauvery issue became intensely politicized in the 1970s and 1980s where both states were run by different political parties which made a final solution almost impossible.
The irrigation ministers were not the same all over the period and it was a hindrance for the uphill task and moreover the engineers too got involved in the politics.
There didn’t exist a common interest between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the question of pursuing negotiations as Karnataka tried to prolong the negotiations in order to gain time to complete its new projects.

Delays of Tribunal and its Faulty Solutions:

The constitution, the submission and the enforcement of the tribunals have caused a lot of delay in sorting the issue.
Sometimes, the orders either were not followed or were delayed which led to further increase in the gravity of the situation.
The solutions provided by the Tribunal were dependent on the values of resources , instead they should have provided a solution based on percentages which would have been same in distribution of the resources in any season. This is solely due to the fact that Cauvery is not a Himalayan river and it is highly dependent on monsoon, thus the water level varies again leading to the conflict in the former case.

The Final word:

Though, this is the last part of the blog but I feel that, the end is nowhere near to the dispute. We see that there has been no outcome in several major disputes such as Godavari - Krishna, Ravi - Beas etc., and in the future, it is no wonder if we see that no solution is also a solution. These kinds of issues have negative impacts on economic growth. Now-a-days these problems are compounded by the general center-state conflicts, and everyday political issues. We need a more efficient design of mechanism for negotiating inter-state water disputes such as a "National Water Commission", an autonomous body, so that it works independent of regular political pressures.

The river knows the way to the sea;

without a pilot it runs and falls,

Blessing all lands with its charity.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
References:

The Report of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal with the decision : Volumes I - VI .
Wikipedia : 1) Cauvery 2) Cauvery River Water Dispute.
Water Stress in the Cauvery Basin, South India.

-- Marius Ferdin, Stefan Görlitz, Steffen Schwörer

Making Sense of the Cauvery River Water Dispute.

-- P.B. Anand

The Cauvery Conflict.
-- SS Meenakshisundaram, Priya Raghavan and
M Amarjeet Singh.
An article on Inter State River Water Disputes.

www.law-essays-uk.com/resources/sample-essays/

indian-law/inter-state-river-water-disputes.php

Images Courtesy : Wikipedia

Definitions were taken from:

Inter State Water Disputes in India: Institutions and Policies.

-- By Alan Richards & Nirvikar Singh

Water and Conflict.

-- By Jason Gehrig with Mark M. Rogers

Conflict and Natural Resource Management

                                             -- By Violet Matiru for FAO of UNO

                                    Ratnakar Alkanti
                                                                                (AE11B003)