Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay’s provide to carry talks together with his Karnataka counterpart DK Shivakumar to hunt the discharge of the Cauvery water marks a marked departure from the nation’s conventional intuition that when Karnataka seeks talks, Tamil Nadu normally seeks an award.
For greater than three a long time, the Chennai metropolis’s argument has been that river disputes, burdened by historical past, competing crops, altering monsoons and electoral sentiments, can’t be resolved by two CMs throughout the desk, regardless of how cordial their relations could also be. It has to undergo the Cauvery Water Authority, the Regulatory Fee, the ultimate ruling of the court docket and the Supreme Court docket.
Mr. Vijay is now making an attempt one thing extra delicate. It could restart political dialogue with out seeming to reinstate rights already enshrined in regulation.
Tamil Nadu has proposed a date for talks with Shivakumar from July 31 to August 3, however affirmation remains to be awaited. If this occurs, it will likely be the primary direct assembly between the prime ministers of two main riparian states in virtually 14 years.
A disaster approaches
The instant disaster is severe. Based mostly on a 2018 amended bench ruling by the Supreme Court docket, Tamil Nadu was speculated to obtain round 32,000 million cubic ft of water between June 1 and July 23. Nevertheless, solely about 3.5 trillion cubic ft had been acquired. The state believes that no less than one other 3 trillion cubic ft ought to have been launched, even contemplating the dearth of rainfall within the southwest monsoon and the proportional decline within the catastrophe 12 months.
The pink numbers will not be simply numbers written on the reservoir map. This water flows downstream into the Cauvery delta area, the place delayed launch may imply crop losses, non-payment of loans or farmers ready for rain that has already fallen in different areas.
Okay. Kannan, a former decide of the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket recognized for his experience in mediation and the regulation relevant to varied forms of disputes, informed The Indian Specific that Mr. Vijay’s transfer “deserves assist”.
“Dialogue between elected governments isn’t a concession or an indication of weak spot. It’s an obligation that stems from India’s federal construction,” he stated. “A authorities that refuses to have interaction just because variations persist is abdicating one in all its most vital constitutional tasks.”
However Kannan cautioned in opposition to treating dialogue as an alternative to regulation. “The CM can create an environment conducive to cooperation, scale back political hostility and promote compliance with current authorized obligations,” he stated. “Nevertheless, rights and obligations which have already been decided via authorized proceedings or judicial selections can’t be renegotiated.”
This distinction is on the coronary heart of the present controversy surrounding Vijay’s actions. Opposition events, farmer teams and authorized and technical companies worry that direct negotiations may enable Karnataka to bypass the Cauvery Water Authority, or worse, that instant water launch might be imposed over Tamil Nadu’s opposition to the Mekedatu reservoir challenge.
Choose Cannan described the water disaster and Mekedatu as “two conflicts, two authorized techniques.” “The primary one considerations instant launch of the Cauvery waters within the present 12 months of disaster,” he stated. “This matter is ruled by the ultimate judgment of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, as amended by the Supreme Court docket and carried out via the Cauvery Water Authority.”
“The second considerations Karnataka’s proposal to assemble a balancing reservoir at Mekedatu. This raises solely completely different points associated to environmental clearances, inter-state consents, challenge approvals, and the continued supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court docket.”
“In the event you confuse the 2 points, you threat complicating each,” he added.
The Tamil Nadu authorities seems to concentrate on the hazard. The instant goal is to safe water, to not negotiate away opposition to Mekedatu. The state is searching for a separate unique tribunal for the dam challenge and will insist that any dialogue of the challenge happen exterior the present state of emergency.
Minister defends the transfer
Public Works Minister Aadhav Arjun stated the federal government had no “slender political agenda” and was open to constructive recommendation, even from former Prime Minister MK Stalin. Nevertheless, he didn’t straight reply Stalin’s central objection about whether or not Mr. Vijay ought to maintain bilateral talks with out convening an all-party assembly.
Arjun as a substitute defended the federal government’s document and blamed the earlier DMK authorities for failing to successfully refute Mekedatu within the ultimate authorized problem. He stated the TVK authorities would proceed to pursue all authorized and constitutional avenues whereas accepting helpful criticism.
It’s clear that Mr. Vijay has a political benefit. The Congress guidelines Karnataka and is a junior associate to the federal government in Tamil Nadu. Opposition chief Rahul Gandhi attended Vijay’s swearing-in ceremony and Shivakumar additionally congratulated him because the maiden chief from exterior the state. Nevertheless, rivers hardly ever revered get together self-discipline.
“Interstate river disputes hardly ever succumb to get together self-discipline,” Choose Cannan stated. “State governments stay accountable to state legislatures, rural communities, and concrete residents, no matter political affiliation.”
“No nationwide political chief can realistically compel state governments to launch water in opposition to prevailing public sentiment on this 12 months of disaster with out severe political penalties,” he stated.
previous precedents
Historical past helps that warning. Karunanidhi and Devaraj Urs met in 1972, MG Ramachandran and Karnataka leaders negotiated within the Nineteen Eighties, Karunanidhi and JH Patel met 5 instances in 1996-1997, and Jayalalithaa met Jagadish Shettar in November 2012 in Bengaluru on the suggestion of the Supreme Court docket.
Typically the dialog lowered the political temperature. They didn’t choose the river.
Earlier than the Tribunal was established in June 1990, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had negotiated 26 instances over 22 years. Twenty-one circumstances concerned the federal irrigation minister. 5 had been bilateral. Nobody resolved the battle.
MGR himself spent two days in Bangalore in October 1981 after the initially scheduled one-day assembly failed to achieve an settlement.
“CM-level conferences have been held commonly for the previous 50 years,” Justice Cannan stated. “There isn’t any doubt that these conferences helped keep political communication, at instances easing instant tensions and stopping public bitterness from escalating into constitutional battle.”
“However they hardly ever created everlasting settlements,” he says, and the reason being structural.
“Interstate river disputes are completely different from regular political disagreements,” he says. “They contain competing agricultural pursuits, an unsure monsoon, hydrological constraints and powerful native sentiment.”
“Each further 10 million cubic ft launched downstream is usually perceived as a corresponding loss to native farmers upstream. Conversely, each deficit downstream threatens viable crops and rural livelihoods.”
Choose Canaan argues that the true alternative isn’t between dialogue and judgment. “The true alternative isn’t between political dialogue and authorized rulings,” he stated. “They serve completely different constitutional functions.”
“India’s expertise with the Cauvery dispute exhibits that neither litigation alone nor politics alone can present full solutions. Litigation brings certainty however doesn’t at all times result in cooperation. Political negotiations encourage cooperation however can’t override authorized rights.”
He stated the one viable path is “a hybrid one, one that mixes political dialogue to handle the instant disaster with institutional decision-making to find out lasting rights and obligations.” Which will in the end be the measure of Vijay’s experiment.
If Mr. Vijay returns from Bengaluru with a direct cannon with out compromising Tamil Nadu’s authorized place in opposition to Mekedatu, his unconventional actions will look extra like political invention than naivety. If the talks merely reopen settled points, critics will say he’s coming into a room his predecessors had been making an attempt to keep away from.
Nevertheless, rivers will not be simply water. It’s a future that arrives erratically throughout reminiscence, upbringing, worry, and geography. Vijay can begin a dialog. He can’t command the monsoon, erase historical past, or substitute establishments.
However in a federal democracy, typically the primary accountability of energy is solely to sit down on the other financial institution, remembering that the river and the legal guidelines that govern it belong to a couple of individual within the room.
