Periyar agreement

Sir, - Mr. C. Gunasekaran (The Hindu, Nov. 20) adopts a facetious approach to the question of the danger posed by the Periyar dam debilitated by aging beyond its expected life. As early as in 1884 the Maharaja of Travancore wrote to the British Resident: ``What guarantee will there be that the proposed dam will not be a permanent threat to the safety of my subjects after its normal life is over.'' In reply at the instance of the Governor of Madras, the Resident had informed the ruler that once the agreement is concluded, there was no need of reminding the paramount power of its responsibility with regard to future contingencies arising out of it. Today the apprehensions of the Maharaja stand by and large justified but the British have left the shores of India long ago. A glaring lacuna in the Periyar agreement is the absence of provisions to deal with the infirmity of the dam either on account of normal wear and tear or due to unexpected hazardous development.

The writer recalls in laudatory terms the British deflecting the Periyar waters but he tends to ignore that the quantity of water that is being supplied to Tamil Nadu by Kerala from its other rivers is five times more, for no royalty or return whatsoever. Taking delight that the Periyar waters have turned a great part of the Madurai district into a granary, he lends support to the Speaker Palanivel Rajan in consolatory terms, that the agricultural commodities produced there are supplied to the market in Kerala. They are transported to Kerala not for gratuitous distribution in return for the free supply of water but because it is the nearest market where they can be sold for prices higher than those prevailing in the districts of Tamil Nadu.

The achievements of the ``superpower'' which are recounted by the writer in his oversimplificative style have all undergone radical changes under the impact of the rapidly advancing science and technology and the new pattern of political process, and there is no reason why the Periyar agreement, like the 1935 Constitution which the British enacted for India, cannot be rewritten in the light of the existing socio-economic realities.

S. N. Sadasivan,

Mysore (Karnataka)

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