Deve Gowda's solution is the best for Hogenakal imbroglio | A. Jayaram

Published on 10-04-2008 In National

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Deve Gowda's solution is the best for Hogenakal imbroglio

It was the French statesman of First World War vintage Maurice Clemenceau who had said "War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals." One can modify his words to say the Cauvery river waters issue is too serious a matter to be left to the Kannada activists or the Kannada or Tamil film industry.

The Cauvery river water dispute is again going out of hand. The age old prejudices between the people of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are again to the fore. The fact has to be faced that large sections of the people of the two States are parochial. There is no point in overstressing the so called cosmopolitanism. Interestingly through its silence or helplessness, the Union Government has feigned ignorance about the entire issue. No minister intervened even when the controversy reached the flashpoint in the two States.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has to be thanked for announcing that his Government would put on hold the Hogenakal project in view of the Assembly elections being held in Karnataka.

Hogenakal is going to be a major issue in the coming elections. The State Congress would no doubt claim credit for persuading Tamil Nadu to put off the taking up of the project. Its leaders would go to town saying that it was the intervention of their Party President Sonia Gandhi, who had made an appeal to Karunanidhi, which made the latter to change his mind. They would also refer to S.M.Krishna's appeal to Karunanidhi.

On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party would claim that it was the dramatic visit of the former chief minister B.S.Yaddyurappa to Hogenakal which brought the matter to the fore. It was their leader who first pointed out that there is a territorial dispute between the two States as to the Hogenakal falls.

But the two national parties have to do much explaining before the electorate. The Congress led UPA Government at the Centre failed to intervene and maintained a "diplomatic silence" to use the words of the former Prime Minister H.D.Deve Gowda. The Centre viewed it as a party to party or political matter. Karunanidhi and his DMK are allies of the Congress in the UPA and the BJP has set out to befriend J.Jayalalithaa and her AIADMK. Jayalalithaa has criticized Karunanidhi for deciding to stop the Hogenakal project for the time being.

But the role of Deve Gowda cannot be belittled. He wrote to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prevail upon Karunanidhi against going ahead with the project. One should also appreciate Deve Gowda's admission that when he was the prime minister (1996-97) he had suggested to Karunanidhi, who was even at that time chief minister of Tamil Nadu to build a composite project at Hogenakal, a reservoir and a power generating station along with Karnataka. He suggested it to tap the large quantum of water which emptied into the sea. The Centre would treat it as a national project, he had suggested.

Another welcome stand on the issue has come from the former MP and minister H.N.Nanje Gowda, who is an expert on inter-State river water disputes. In a newspaper interview he has asked "Is this really a problem that is worth fighting for?" Nanje Gowda has also said that if the Hogenakal project is really a drinking water project, there should be no problem at all. After all it is just 1.46 tmc.ft of water that is needed for Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts in Tamil Nadu.

Deve Gowda's admission is in contrast with his often hostile stand against the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal. At one time he had questioned the impartiality of the then Chairman Justice Chittatosh Mookerjee and the two members.

The problem with Karnataka's handling of its disputes with the neighbouring States is that it never makes the first move and only reacts. Leaders in the State only cry hoarse whenever the Maharashtra Government and the politicians of that State make the periodic demand for merger of Belgaum with their State. No leader from Karnataka has ever demanded the inclusion of the Kannada speaking areas in Maharashtra especially Solapur in the State. Similarly nobody has countered Tamil Nadu on the Cauvery issue by insisting on taking up the Mekedatu hydro-electric project. The political leaders and Kannada activists, who harp on Belgaum and Cauvery waters, rarely raise their voice for the merger of Kasargod with the State.

A dispassionate view of the current controversy shows that Karunanidhi was in the wrong in raking up the Hogenakal issue even before the final word has been uttered on the final award of the Cauvery Tribunal. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and even Kerala have challenged the final award in the Supreme Court through special leave petitions. Tamil Nadu has taken the stand that the Tribunal had not protected the existing irrigation area in the Cauvery Basin of the State. Karnataka has questioned the methodology adopted by the Tribunal in apportioning water to the three States and Puducherry. Kerala has contended that its share in the Cauvery waters would boil down to a mere 1.3 tmc.ft and the grant of 30 tmc.ft is illusory.

In its final award passed on February 5, 2007 the Tribunal headed by retired Supreme Court judge N.P.Singh and members N.S.Rao and Sudhir Narain apportioned the 740 thousand million cubic feet of water in the Cauvery basin among Tamil Nadu (419 tmc.ft), Karnataka 270 tmc.ft, Kerala 30 tmc.ft and Puducherry seven tmc.ft. It reserved 10 tmc.ft for environmental protection and four tmc.ft for inevitable escapages into the sea. Karnataka had demanded 465 tmc.ft and Tamil Nadu 562 tmc.ft.

The solution to the Hogenakal dispute lies in the suggestion made by Deve Gowda during 1996-97 and not in burning government buses, cinemas screening Tamil films or those of Rajnikant and similar acts of vandalism in Tamil Nadu directed against Karnataka and Kannadigas.

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