Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan recently admitted the ruling National Democratic Alliance was struggling to shake off the percept ion that it was anti-Dalit and anti-Muslim. Add to that the widespread impression that it was failing the farmers — in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere — and you get a sense of unease among a vast section of the populace. No wonder, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance of offering 1.5 times the cost of farm output as the Minimum Support Price, and factoring in labour while computing the cost hasn’t set the Cauvery on fire.
In Tamil Nadu, the BJP is not just getting it from the usual suspects like the DMK and Tamil nationalist outfits that had stormed the Marina during the fight to restore Jallikattu, a popular bull sport. The Centre’s failure to meet the Supreme Court mandated six-week deadline to set up a Cauvery release monitoring mechanism prompted a friendly party like the ruling AIADMK to call it betrayal and announce a day-long fast across the State.
Also, the State government filed a contempt of court petition in the SC. Such degree of open hostility is new, though there were hints of a tacit AIADMKBJP understanding to disrupt Parliament on the Cauvery to put off a rash of no-trust notices. For its part, the DMK decided to hold a black flag demonstration against Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he arrives in Chennai on April 15 to inaugurate a defence expo. Newbie politicians joined in, and stray voices seeking secession added to the surround sound. It later emerged that the Centre was wary of the Cauvery mechanism giving hotheads in Karnataka a handle to trigger violence and spoil the atmosphere ahead of the Assembly elections due on May 12.
“If the Central government were to constitute a scheme and notify it during the currency of the state Vidhan Sabha election process, the Central government fears it would lead to massive public outrage, vitiate the election process and cause serious law and order problems,” the petition said. On the face of it, the concern appears valid.
Had the Centre quietly shared its fears with the major stakeholders well in advance, chances are the situation would have not become as emotive in Tamil Nadu as it is today. After all, the State has waited for over three decades for getting its rightful share; it surely wouldn’t have minded if the mechanism were to come up immediately after the elections. But the Modi government chose to shoot itself in the foot by putting the point across at the fag end of the deadline through a clarification petition in the SC. The affidavit also sought three more months to set up the mechanism and flagged questions on the “scheme” it wanted formulated.
The fight now is on the nature of the “scheme” the SC had directed the Centre to set up in its February 16 ruling. While all three lower riparian states — Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry — say it ought to be a Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as mandated by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, Karnataka is against it. Curiously, the SC upheld almost all the calculations and assumptions made by the Tribunal — though it trimmed Tamil Nadu’s share — but directed the Centre to formulate a new scheme despite the Tribunal saying a CMB run by experts was THE SCHEME.
Ever since the Tribunal announced its final award in 2007, the then chief minister J Jayalalithaa had been hammering away at various fora on the need to create the CMB. Yet, there was no speaking order from the SC on the CMB, which is at the root of the current crisis. The Tribunal had recommended a CMB on the lines of the Bhakra Beas Management Board, where the operation, maintenance, regulation and control as well as ownership of reservoirs are vested with the board. The Centre in its clarification petition sought to know whether its scheme could be at variance with the one proposed by the Tribunal. Tamil Nadu took it an attempt to dilute the CMB to create a softer, toothless mechanism that wouldn’t deliver.
Would the formulation be decided based on which party wins Karnataka? Both the ruling Congress and the BJP are locked in a eyeball-to-eyeball electoral contest in the State, but there is bipartisan support on the Cauvery line. The SC in its landmark verdict wanted the Cauvery matter frozen for 15 years. That wouldn’t happen if the scheme is toothless. Call it by any name but make it work. Tamil Nadu wants a scheme that delivers, not scheming.
Suresh Sundaram
Senior Associate Editor, Tamil Nadu
Email: ssuresh@newindianexpress.com