(A fellow columnist has already agonised a lot about bandhs in his own home state of Kerala. This piece is not so much about bandhs as such but about protests relating to interstate disputes.)

Some TV channels are busy toting up the "huge" economic losses caused by the bandh and expressing concern that investments in the IT sector could be slowed down as a consequence.

Of course no reflections on what such developments mean for the integrity of the country. Perhaps rightly so too, for the elements behind such protests run away at the first
sight of lathi-wielding police and hence are unlikely to pose any problem for those running the nation.

Granted, still one could reflect on whether such bandhs and unending court cases do not actually imply a signal failure of governance, why of the political system itself.

If we still allow things to fester, one shudders to think even of the prospects in store for us all, especially when governments at the Centre become progressively weaker. Just look at what happened to the erstwhile Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

It is indeed a cliché that the political class has failed us all. But what are we doing about it and what perhaps could we do?

First almost all political parties know that organising protest rallies against another state is futile in that the parties there too can retaliate in kind.

Worse, there is this unedifying sight of the participation of the national parties in rival rallies or bandhs. "Well, you see, the high command might take a considered view of the issue, but we have to ensure that our base in the states concerned is not eroded. We don't want to be accused of betraying the interests of this state or that," it is claimed on their behalf.

In any dispute there will always be merits in the stances of the contending states and one has to work for some viable compromise.

Take the Mullaiperiyar dam controversy. The idea should be to strike an ideal balance between the needs of the farmers of Tamil Nadu and the Kerala "settlers." Farmers have been irrigating their lands with the use of water released from the Mullaperiyar reservoir for a century now and due concern should be shown for their livelihood. Many new settlements have come up on the Kerala side since 1979 when the storage level of the dam was lowered following concerns over the safety of the structure. They cannot be left to be drowned when the dam level is raised and more water stored, submerged vast acreage.

Besides, Kerala can legitimately claim that it has not been able to make use of a river that originates on its side.

There is a striking parallel to the Cauvery dispute here.

It may be remembered that Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are fighting over an agreement dating back to the colonial times when the British masters running the Madras presidency could armtwist small princely kingdoms to doing their bidding.
 
The conflict there is also between the traditional ayacutdars (on the Tamil Nadu side) and the newer ones (on the Karnataka side).

But neither would acknowledge the needs of the other.

What is important to note is that the lower riparian state of Tamil Nadu which had been hogging it all for decades is metaphorically too at the receiving end now. It can survive only courtesy the once-backward societies emerging into asserting modernity.
 
But the Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu, irony intended, reveling in ethnic pride and nursing such a constituency in Tamil society for what it is worth, keep ratcheting up the rhetoric.

One can pour one's hearts out, make hair-raising speeches and shut down even essential services, yes, beyond that what? You can also bash up some Keralites or Kannadigas here and there.

But you cannot force Karnataka to release the much-needed water or make Kerala agree to raising the dam's storage level. If you do so unilaterally, there would be bloodbath.

Still the charade goes on. And you have someone like Subramanian Swamy hotfooting between courts and the Cumbum valley in Tamil Nadu, vowing to get justice done.

Meantime the situation only deteriorates on the ground.

But why talk of Dravidian parties or a feckless Congress or the rootless Swamys, when the Left, despite their avowed international concerns, can lead the charge of the chauvinist brigade as they do in Kerala?

And that poor man's Chief Minister V.S.Achudanandan is giving endless blushes to Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa, Ramadas, Vaiko and their tribe with his saber-rattling.
If the 'enlightened' Left too is going to muddy the waters so much, who will clear it all up, who will defuse tensions?

Whether it is Chandigarh or Belgaum or Alamatti, the problem remains the same everywhere– parochial interests backed by political parties. That is a deadly combination indeed.

Now, what is the way out? Courts. To some extent, perhaps. The judiciary has been devalued like never before and the material churned out by our law colleges does not give us much hope.

Still the fact remains our courts are deferred to by the powers-that-be in most cases and hence one can perhaps hope that any impartial verdict would have some salutary effect.

On the other hand in interstate disputes, the governments concerned have a way of circumventing the courts, and judges themselves have been humming and hawing.

In the Periyar dam case, for instance, the Supreme Court first directed the storage level be raised by at least six feet in the interim, basing itself on the report of a technical committee.

But as Kerala sought to overturn the ruling through a legislation, the court could only advise the parties concerned to try and sort it out amicably before rushing in with petitions.

It was perhaps a prudent move. One can issue any number of directives. But who is going to enforce it, when the ruling elite baulk for one reason or other?

Such realization is all fine. But the question remains, what is the way out then? Nothing but pressure by the civil society, meaning various public interest groups. Of course they find themselves intimidated by chauvinist elements. The threat of physical harm is very real. Still someone has to brave it.

But intellectuals seem to prefer to succumb to ethnic temptations. Many leading Kannada writers are found to be the most aggressive on that score.

That is tragic. Being coerced into silence is understandable to some extent, but not an active role in a reactionary mobilization.

Poet Bharati rose defiantly against all vested interests and he will serve as a beacon light for generations to come.

That kind of a vision and fortitude, that is what is demanded of the educated class.
The political one is willy-nilly anti-people and anyone drifting towards it finds himself or herself terribly compromised.

In the circumstances only the educated, at least the more intellectual among them, could be expected to raise above themselves and boldly strike out for sanity.

If they don't, who will? They have to, for the very future of the nation as we know it is at stake.