The Hindu : Containing violence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 17, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Containing violence

EVEN AS THE Governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are wrangling at the levels of statutory and judicial fora over the sharing of woefully deficient Cauvery waters, a section of farmers and quite a few essentially chauvinistic outfits in Karnataka have embarked upon a dangerous course that constitutes an open challenge to the rule of law. Although the protests and the violence triggered by them are, as of now, sporadic and confined largely to Mandya and Mysore districts, the agitation has ominous portents for inter-State good neighbourliness and amity, given the sort of sectarian pulls at work and the fact that the Cauvery issue lends itself easily to the whipping up of people's passions. For about two weeks now, ever since the Supreme Court ordered Karnataka to release 1.25 tmcft of water a day for Tamil Nadu, groups of farmers have been on the warpath, resorting to such defiant and violent tactics as laying siege to the storages (primarily Kabini and Krishnaraja Sagar) and holding out threats of suicide by drowning. In fact, there have been reports of the protesters having caused damage to the sluice gates of the Kabini reservoir so that no water could be released.

Admittedly, this has been a pretty bad year for the Cauvery basin, the southwest monsoon having played singularly truant so far, with little prospects of it doing any better in the couple of weeks that are yet to go. Given that Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have failed to agree on a `distress sharing' formula (in a situation where the upper riparian State has genuine difficulty in making water available to the lower riparian as stipulated in the timetable set by the Tribunal in its interim order) and considering also that the Cauvery River Authority has never seriously tried to break the deadlock, the Supreme Court felt constrained to intervene when the issue was brought before it by Tamil Nadu. While the apex court determined the quantum of water to be released at 1.25 tmcft a day, the CRA which met hurriedly at the instance of Karnataka scaled it down to 0.8 tmcft and this in turn left Tamil Nadu crying `foul' and seeking judicial remedy at the highest level once again. In the very nature of the severe hardship the farmers and the people at large in both the States have to put up with on account of a failed monsoon, there has to be a certain degree of give-and-take while sharing whatever water is available. It would just not do for those upstream to take a blatantly unreasonable and insensitive `not a drop of water to spare' attitude.

It should be the prime endeavour of responsible political leadership, whether in power or out of power, as also other sections of articulate public opinion, to make the misguided farmers and the chauvinistic elements realise the dangerous implications of what they are up to. Any attempt to prevent release of water to Tamil Nadu by physical obstruction would amount to taking the law in9.to one's hands and render the Karnataka Government liable for non-compliance with the court order. Worse, there is the real risk of such sectarian agitations taking on vicious dimensions and resulting in a backlash. In fact, the past decade and more has seen mounting of tensions on several occasions due to unrest linked in one way or another to the Tribunal's June 1991 order. Against this backdrop, it is imperative that some quick initiatives are taken to tackle the current spell of agitation. It would be eminently worthwhile to enlist the cooperation of farsighted and reasonable political leaders and farmers from both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

Stories in this Section

Weakening multilateralism

Containing violence

The Musharraf conundrum

U.S. attack on Iraq — at whose cost?

The Bar Council's strike call

Spiralling oil prices