Kaveri River water dispute

History of the dispute

The waters of the river Kaveri has been the bone of contention of a serious conflict between Karnataka and the state of Tamil Nadu.

The history of this conflict goes back a long way. There were disputes as long back as 1807. But decades passed uneventfully. The British controlled both Mysore and Madras in the middle of the 19th century. During their regime, numerous plans were drawn up for the utilization of the Kaveri waters by both states. However, the drought and subsequent famine in the 1870s put a hold on the implementation of all these plans. By the time these plans saw the light of the day, Mysore was back in the hands of the Mysore kings while present day Tamil Nadu continued to remain a part of the Madras Presidency.

As a result of these administrative and political changes, the project plans for Mysore state grinded to a halt while those for Madras were executed. Mysore state made a representation as a result of which, the Agreement of 1892 was signed.

This agreement however, was between unequal partners because while Mysore state was a princely state, Madras Presidency formed a part of the British Raj. As a result of this, Mysore state was forced to sign the agreement, though it went totally against its interests.

The reason this agreement can be deemed as being against Mysore’s interests is because, this agreement gave sweeping powers and prescriptive rights to Madras, the lower riparian state. As per this agreement, Mysore had to get Madras' consent for every single drop of water it wished to utilize. In other words, Madras was vested with powers to veto any plans Mysore state might draw up for utilization of the waters.

For nearly two decades after that, Madras continued to expand its irrigated land by leaps and bounds while most of Mysore's plans did not see the light of the day.

Things came to a head in 1910 when Mysore, under Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar and Sir. M.Vishweshwariah (one of the prominent Diwans of Mysore state and a genius engineer) came up with a plan to construct a dam at Kannambadi village to hold up to 41.5 TMC of water. The dam was planned to be built in two stages. In the first stage a capacity of 11 TMC was envisioned, while in the second stage the full capacity was set to be realized. Madras however, refused to give its consent for this move as it had its own plans to build a storage dam with a capacity of 80 TMC. The dispute continued.

After a reference to the Government of India, permission was accorded to Mysore, but for a reduced storage of 11TMC. Mysore had no option but to accept the decision and proceeded with the construction. During construction, however, thanks to the genius of Sir.M.V and the foresight of the King, the foundation was laid to suit the earlier desired full storage. The dispute continued.

As a result, the Government of India referred the matter to arbitration under Rule IV of the 1892 Agreement. The Cauvery dispute thus had come up for arbitration for the first time.

Sir H. D. Griffin was appointed arbitrator and M. Nethersole, the Inspector General of Irrigation in India, was made the Assessor. They entered into proceedings on 16 July 1913 and the Award was given on 12 May 1914. The award upheld the earlier decision of the Government of India and allowed Mysore to go ahead with the construction of the dam upto 11 TMC.

In his award, Sir. Griffin making no secret of the underlying basis for the judgment, concluded thus,

The resolution we have arrived at, recognises the paramount importance of the existing Madras interests, has for its primary object the safeguarding of those interests and does, we believe, safeguard them effectually.

In other words, it was made clear once again that British (and hence Madras) interests came first and scant regard, if any, would be shown to competing interests.

Amazingly however, Madras appealed against the award and negotiations continued. Finally an agreement was arrived at in 1924 and a couple of minor agreements were also signed in 1929 and 1933.

The 1924 agreement was set to lapse after 50 years, a very long run by any standards.

As a result of these agreements, Mysore was forced to give up rights to over 80% of the Kaveri waters. However, both Mysore and Madras were able to complete their projects (Kannambadi and Mettur respectively).

From that point onwards, except for the KRS dam and associated canal network which was completed, Mysore had to suffer the draconian award for decades. While Madras continued to expand its irrigation network unhindered, Mysore’s progress was severely constrained.

Post independence developments

In 1947, India won Independence from the British. This changed the equations drastically. Tamil Nadu was carved out of Madras Presidency and Mysore province became a state.

Further in 1956, the reorganization of the states of India took place and state boundaries were redrawn based on linguistic demographics. Coorg or Kodagu (the birthplace of the Kaveri), which had always been a part of Mysore continued to be a part of Mysore State. Huge parts of erstwhile Hyderabad state and Bombay Presidency joined with Mysore state. Parts of Malabar which earlier formed part of Madras Presidency went to Kerala. Also, Pondicherry was carved out as a Union territory from Madras Presidency.

All these changes further changed the equations as Kerala and Pondichery also jumped into the fray. Kerala staked its claim as two major tributaries of the Kaveri, the Kabini and the Bhavani now originated in Kerala. Pondichery at the tail end of the river demanded the waters that it had always used for drinking and some minimal agriculture. While these additional claims complicated matters greatly at a technical level, Mysore and Tamil Nadu still remained the major parties to the dispute.

By the late 60s, both states and the Central government began to realize the gravity of the situation as the 50 year run of the 1924 agreement was soon coming to an end. Negotiations were started in right earnest and discussions continued for almost 10 years.

70s

While discussions continued, a Cauvery Fact Finding Committee (CFFC) was constituted. The brief of the CFFC was to inspect the ‘ground’ realities and come up with a report. The CFFC came up with a preliminary report in 1972 and a final report in 1973. Inter state discussions were held based on this report. Finally in 1974, a draft agreement which also provided for the creation of a Cauvery Valley Authority was prepared by the Ministry of Irrigation. This draft however, was not ratified.

While all these discussions went on, Tamil Nadu’s irrigated lands had grown humongously, while Karnataka’s had stagnated. Tamil Nadu’s irrigated area stood at a huge 24 lakh acres while Karnataka’s irrigated area was a mere 4.2 lakh acres. The one sided nature of the so-called agreement was there for everyone to see.

In 1976, after a series of discussions between the two states and the Central government chaired by Jagjeevan Ram, the then Irrigation Minister, a final draft was prepared based on findings of the CFFC. This draft was accepted by all states and the Government also made an announcement to that effect in Parliament.

Tamil Nadu came under President’s rule soon after that and the agreement was put on the backburner. When President’s rule was lifted, the AIADMK came to power for the first time in Tamil Nadu and this was when the dispute took a new turn.

The Tamil Nadu government rejected the draft agreement which was ratified with its own consent and now began singing a new tune. It started insisting that the 1924 agreement had only provided for an extension and not a review. It began insisting that status quo be restored and everyone go back to the agreements of 1892 and 1924. Tamil Nadu had once again gone back on its word.

This however, did not cut ice with Karnataka which had throughout maintained that those agreements were partisan and had been signed between unequal partners.

When Karnataka began construction of the Harangi dam at Kushalanagara in Kodagu, it was once again met with resistance from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu went to court demanding the constitution of a Tribunal under the Inter State Water Disputes Act(ISWD) of 1956. It also demanded the immediate stoppage of construction work at the dam site. As a result of Tamil Nadu’s protests, Karnataka had to fund the construction under the non-plan head and this led to a severe strain on its finances.

80s

Later Tamil Nadu withdrew its case demanding the constitution of a tribunal and the two states started negotiating again. Several rounds of discussions were held in the 80s. The result was still, a stalemate. In 1986, a farmer’s association from Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu moved the Supreme Court demanding the constitution of a tribunal. While this case was still pending, the two states continued many rounds of talks. This continued till April of 1990 and yet yielded no results.

The Nineties and beyond

The Supreme Court then directed the government headed by Prime Minister V P Singh to constitute a tribunal and refer all disputes to it. A three man tribunal was thus constituted on June 2nd 1990. The tribunal was headquartered at New Delhi and was to be headed by Justice Chittatosh Mookerjee.

The four states presented their demands to the tribunal as under

• Karnataka - claimed 465 TMC ft as its share
• Tamil Nadu - wants the flows to be ensured in accordance with the terms of the agreements of 1892 and 1924.
• Kerala - wants 99.8 TMC ft as its share
• Pondichery - claims 9.3 TMC ft

Soon after the tribunal was set up, Tamil Nadu demanded a mandatory injunction on Karnataka for the immediate release of water and other reliefs. This was dismissed by the tribunal. Tamil Nadu now went back to the Supreme Court which directed the tribunal to reconsider Tamil Nadu’s plea.

The tribunal reconsidered Tamil Nadu’s plea and gave an interim award on the 25th of June 1991. In coming up with this award, the tribunal calculated the average inflows into Tamil Nadu over a period of 10 years between 1980-81 and 1989-90. The extreme years were ignored for this calculation. The average worked out to 205 TMC which Karnataka had to ensure reached Tamil Nadu in a water year. The award also stipulated the weekly and monthly flows to be ensured by Karnataka for each month of the water year. The tribunal further directed Karnataka not to increase it irrigated land area.

Karnataka deemed this extremely inimical to its interests and issued an ordinance seeking to annul the tribunal’s award. The Supreme Court now stepped in at the President’s instance and denounced the Ordinance issued by Karnataka. It upheld the tribunal’s award which was subsequently gazetted by the Government of India on 11th December 1991.

Karnataka was thus forced to release the waters and widespread demonstrations broke out in parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu following this.

In the decade and a half that followed the announcement of the interim award, Karnataka has always released more than the 205 TMC ft announced by the tribunal in the interim award. Only during the years of 1995, 1998 and 2002, things reached a flashpoint when Karnataka, which was reeling under a severe drought due to a miserable failure of the monsoon, reduced the release of the waters by merely 10%. Tamil Nadu in a deplorable act of bad faith, raised a ruckus on each of these occasions.