It’s not rare to find expressions such as “Water is life” or “Water is basic”. However, after delving into the innumerable attributes of life that water is crucial to, we realize this is grossly understating its value. Cause since time immemorial, even great societies have met their unfortunate fall due to the failure to develop sustainable water policies. Therefore it is only apt to state that water is progress and water is, indeed, development. However, since it is multifaceted in nature, it impacts developmental issues on multiple levels. By virtue of being structurally scarce and intrinsically invaluable simultaneously, water is enhanced into being possibly the most vital resource for not just sustaining life but for stability of societies across. This vitality when placed against the reality of human inhabitation of the Earth rather unsustainably, we see the birth of the biggest reason for conflict. Hence there is a need for better understanding of these conflicts, as traditional discourses seem to ignore certain key factors. As reliance on water increases, so does the competition for the control of the resource, edging the issue into the political domain as the issue of power symmetry crops up. It is precisely for this reason that Hydropolitics, as a branch of studies and as an area of research for solutions, is multi-disciplinary in nature, locates and attempts to understand the problem with respect to the various aspects of the issue itself and seeks for solutions that solve the conflicting plethora of variables that operate within a water conflict.
Hydropolitics can be understood from four major angles:
Water and state control – This core aspect of hydropolitics places the resource of water in a context of control, analyzing cases of conflicts and domination and co-operation and equity. Here, the underlying theme of hydro hegemony is crucial to understanding as there is a particular imbalance in the power structures involved in the conflicts and this impacts the way solutions are arrived at. In most cases, the core of each conflict can be traced back to its management and hence, state policies and regulation play a massive role in the discussion of a water conflict, the case of the Oslo Agreement II that the Palestinians signed over the Jordan’s waters that Israelis had an bizarrely inequitable veto over is a perfect example.
Water and environment – The setting of a natural resource in the environment might seem a little too obvious but the nature of politics with regards to this aspect is quite complex. By looking at water as a resource of the environment that is being contested, other factors such as population pressure, pollution etc. are directly linked, pointing towards a whole new arena of the issue that requires specific solutions. Power and politics play a crucial role in deciding the nature of arbitration in such cases of collective responsibility and in analyzing weak institutional frameworks that work towards the protection of the environmental variables.
Water and security – The extended principle of security is one that in exists as one of the more genuine reasons for the politization of water conflicts. This exists as a result of the other factors that are being discussed – the question of sufficient access and availability. The idea of water security in hydropolitics is of even more importance thanks to the intrinsic value of the resource itself and life’s dependence on it. Most African nations, China and India are considered to be water insecure, according to the findings of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research.
Water and society and culture – One of the background factors of hydropolitics, the social and cultural dimension is one that is almost subtly at play in every case of hydropolitics we have ever known. Water, the most important resource man has ever known of is therefore also made to possess certain societal and cultural dimensions that impact the conflict even when cooperation is possible. For example, parties not possessing the necessary physical infrastructure to handle their own demands or instances of solutions where despite state consensus, social disapproval towards the other party due to other reasons often affect mediation even when there is no clear case of power asymmetry. The case of Little Colorado water dispute settlement involving the tribes of Navoji and Hopi is a clear case of conflict due to disapproval of the other, purely on historical and social grounds.
THE INDIAN CASE SCENARIO – The Cauvery River Dispute
When considering the political contexts of various water disputes raging around us in India today, the world unanimously agrees that the dramatic farce around the Cauvery river issue needs to die. Since its first notable entry into the public opinion decades ago, it has only been a series of unnecessary events ranging from fasts called on by the chief ministers on either sides, flouting orders from the supposed mediator the Centre to film stars making speeches, declarations and even innuendos cleverly smuggled into their movies. The Cauvery Waters dispute is a classic case of the ideal Indian Dispute reconciliation method. To never reconcile. Egos and demigod status take precedence over real problems, power struggles of politicians over the real struggles of the common man.
However, the outcome of the heavy hydropolitics at play is one demanding immediate attention, away from the drama itself. With the political stage too busy to look at facts, policies emerging from the debate (or lack thereof) are increasingly skewed and actively harmful. According to the final verdict of the Cauvery Waters Disputes Tribunal, Tamil Nadu was awarded 419 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of Cauvery water, out of which 192 tmcft will be released by Karnataka and the rest 227 tmcft is to be released from tributaries within Tamil Nadu such as the Amaravathy, Bhavani and Noyyal rivers, apart from ground water. Karnataka was awarded 270 tmcft, Kerala is to get 30 tmcft, and Puducherry was awarded only 7 tmcft. Karnataka was unhappy with this arrangement and instead of seeking a review on the allocated amounts of water, the battle between the states began. What was needed was a credible discussion considering the constraints and requirements but what did happen were unreasonable ego clashes. This meant that key issues that has to be dealt with in the policies and strategies adopted, fell through the cracks leaving an eventual solution to the problem in wreckage and dangerously pushing the states towards acute water shortage.
First such issue cropped up in as early as the 1960s. Pressure on farmers to grow water-intensive cash crops in Tamil Nadu has been a direct outcome of the two governments trying to grab more water off Cauvery, especially since the construction of the Mettur Dam. The PDS system’s pricing of rice allows it to be consumed like water itself, suggestions of water minimizing rice crops not withstanding. For instance, the kurvai crop of rice was the summer season rice, a crop that requires huge quantities and a steady supply of water to grow in a season where scarcity is at it’s excruciating best. Traditionally farmers grew winter rice or sambha crop because the region gets its rainfall during these months. Seedlings were prepared in August and the rice transplanted a month later, ready for the northeast monsoons, the rainwater was stored in the fields and its flow to the sea minimized. The paddy seasons of both states were different and conflict was contained as they each could grow the necessary crops at ease. But the kurvai crop changed all this as it water guzzled far more than what the State needs, more than what Cauvery can provide for. Karnataka, however, has not played it safe; it has arbitrarily increased its water needs, expanding irrigated agriculture massively and without thinking. The need to seek political mileage has been growing and rapidly, since 1992.
As early as 1990s, water policy planners had warned both the states about the necessity to reduce the rice growing area as even a 2 percent decrease would make available enough water resources that could satisfy the growing needs of both the states. It wasn’t just about water as well, it was also about the toll the haphazard cultivation was taking on the soil and thereby making it impossible to ensure productivity. Scientists had also worked on early maturing crops and water minimizing rice crops but crucially enough, there was an active stated need to diversify the crops in the lower reaches of the river to less water consuming, but equally profitable crops that could be grown. Clearly, it was not a case of not knowing the right thing to do but to compulsively do the opposite; naturally those ended up being suggestions that were ignored as the governments were too busy protesting on the streets.
However, what seems to have gone past the concerns of these governments is that the overall supply of water from the river will remain constant; the key is to regulate and manage demand, not increase it. According to a Central Water Commission report, thanks to the construction of dams in both states and bad irrigation decisions, water utilization level in the Cauvery basin is the highest among all rivers in the country; the estimated demand of approximately 900 tmc per year is way above the real yield of 780 tmc. Political drama has shifted the light away from judging the realistic sharing, irrigation and crop diversification plans leaving the issue, not about how much water that the Supreme Court or even the Cauvery River Authority will decide Karnataka must give to Tamil Nadu, it’s about a river that is under colossal pressure.
But what the political struggle has also done is create an artificial obsession that convinces all of the supposedly humungous dependence on the river. Investing crores in gigantic projects on the river has allowed research and development of alternatives fall through the cracks, despite tanks and ponds proving to be stable sources of water supply in the past in both these states. Alternative sources and conservation and augmentation strategies will prove to be key to solving the real water scarcity in these states, however, only if enough attention was given to assessing its potential and facilitating its realization. Noyyal and Bhavani, for example, were the rivers that Tamil Nadu was also expected to depend upon. While one is considered to be dead, the other witnesses horrifying levels of pollution thanks to industrial waste dumping. Both emerge from the Western Ghats and empty into the Cauvery in Tamil Nadu making them perfectly viable but hardly ever actually considered options. This needs to stop, both the states need to analyse all probable options available, as the real problem is not one of sharing but one of scarcity.
Informed consent of stakeholders is yet another factor that would make the solution, if ever arrived at, implementable. Because the considerations of a supposedly modern disputes settlement infrastructure, the tribunal here, cause the announcement of the verdict only managed to flare up fasts and outright rejections from both sides, each demanding more. If only the river could satisfy their seemingly bizarre demands. However, the problem with stakeholders’ consensus is deeper than just figureheads and their war cries. With farmers and industry wielding considerable political clout, negotiations and compromises end up in deadlock as a lack of information disallows for possible solutions to even be considered. The role and authority of the arbitrator needs to be acknowledged if consensus has to be reached, forcing away the slangling match of the two cities. Cause it all began in 1892 when agreement was reached on sharing the Cauvery water. But ever since its revision in 1924, we have witnessed nothing but mere disagreement without any efforts to negotiate and mammoth clashes of the ego, despite the formation of the Cauvery Waters Disputes Tribunal in 1990 and the 16 years it has taken to come up with the final plan in 2007. However, one needs to remember that other than tribunals, there are no other statutory remedies under the Constitution implying that unless cooperation is promised and delivered from both the sides with respect to the Cauvery Waters Disputes Tribunal and negotiate with its verdict on the table, the deadlock is pointless, here to stay and leave both the states bitter and water-less.
We can see from the above failures to deal with availability, accessibility and feasible solutions, the Cauvery dispute draws from all the angles of Hydropolitics as stated earlier, making it one of the worst possible conflicts the country has ever known. Possible solutions would involve the constitutionalizing the rights of the centre to allocate water resources equitably, increasing the judicial enforceability of the tribunals and their verdicts, a representative arbitration process, strategically sound policies and a plea for increased cooperation from the two parties to resolve the issue in an amicable manner.
But until then, what are real concerns in front of turf wars. Water water everywhere, not one politician to save!
REFERENCES
Johns Hopkins University Press, William Ascher, Why Governments Waste Natural Resources: Policy Failures in Developing Countries
Tony Allan, Virtual Water: Tackling the Threat to Our Planet's Most Precious Resource
Mark Zeitoun and Jeroen Warner, Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts
http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/bibliography/articles/hydropolitics_book.pdf
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/the-power-politics-of-water-struggles/
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/a-difficult-choice-on-water/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_River_water_dispute
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/cauvery-river-dispute
http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/cauvery-water-dispute-the-ambedkar-way-3738.html
http://www.ndtv.com/topic/cauvery-water-disputes-tribunal
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cauvery-water-dispute-is-there-hope-for-a-permanent-solution/300016-37-64.html
Sithara Rasheed
HS10H033
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