Cauvery judgment: Is Tamil Nadu the winner or loser?
AIADMK is jubilant that instead of Karnataka, Cauvery Management Board will now release water to Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu's initial reaction to the Cauvery verdict was one of despondency. Lawyer and AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP Navneethakrishnan described it as “a setback to Tamil Nadu”.
About 2,100km away in Chennai, his party colleagues were poring over the fine print of the Supreme Court judgment. In a few hours, the consensus was that while the glass seems half empty, it will be more prudent to see it as half full.
Tamil Nadu's reading is that in the long run, it will stand to gain. On the face of it, Karnataka can gloat that it now has to release 14.75 TMC feet less. But Tamil Nadu's gain is that its neighbour will now be bound by a Cauvery Management Board that will ensure it follows the order in letter and spirit.
All these years, Karnataka would claim that its reservoirs are empty and that there is not sufficient water for its own needs. It cited these reasons to justify the lesser amount of water it used to release to Tamil Nadu.
The lower riparian state would end up knocking the doors of the Supreme court or pleading with the Karnataka government to release water on humanitarian grounds. This process would naturally lead to significant wastage of time for the farmers in the delta region.
The verdict takes the power to release water out of the hands of the Karnataka administration. The board, which has to be constituted within six weeks, will monitor the release on a monthly basis.
There was another reason why Tamil Nadu was smiling. Karnataka had argued that allocation to Tamil Nadu be cut by 60 TMC feet. The court did not accept that and reduced it only by 14.75 TMC feet. In the 2007 order of the Tribunal, the ground water had not been taken into account. If the 20 TMC feet of ground water, which the court reduced for calculation purposes to 10 TMC feet, exists, it is not a loss per se for Tamil Nadu.
The AIADMK is also jubilant over the fact that the court has taken away from Karnataka and all upper riparian states its sense of ownership over the rivers that originate in their territories. By declaring that rivers are a national resource, the three-judge bench has emphasised that every state through which a river flows has a right over it.
Tamil Nadu feels that this is an important aspect of the verdict because all along, it was made to feel like a beggar asking for water from Karnataka. Bengaluru also behaved as if it was doing Tamil Nadu a favour by releasing water.
But the Cauvery has always been a political issue as well.
On paper, Tamil Nadu's share was reduced by 14.75 TMC feet. This is being seen as arising out of Edappadi Palaniswami government's poor legal homework and arguments. The blame will be put squarely on it for its inability to ensure that its share of water granted by the Tribunal was not reduced.
How it is likely to play out in rural Tamil Nadu will determine the future of the EPS government. Its farming community has been in deep distress with the state witnessing the worst drought in over a century, last year. In such a scenario, reduced inflows from Karnataka will be seen as a political and legal failure.
At the agrarian level, the problem is more of mindset. The farmers from the delta feel that neither the state government nor the Centre cares for them. Even when they protested carrying the skulls and bones of farmers who had died a natural death or committed suicide because of their inability to repay agricultural debts last year, it did not get an audience from anyone powerful in New Delhi. It is this feeling of victimhood that the ruling party of Tamil Nadu will need to fear. The angry farm vote in the Cauvery delta should worry EPS, even if he tries to interpret the verdict as a half-triumph.
Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan, who is set to launch his political party in Ramanathapuram in south Tamil Nadu next week, has already started focusing on agricultural issues. He has called the reduction in quantity of water to Tamil Nadu “shocking” and the response to him on the ground will be the first visual manifestation of the mood in the farming community after the verdict.
The TTV Dhinakaran rebel faction of the AIADMK, too, is expected to sharpen its knives, pointing out that Jayalalithaa would have ensured against a legal setback of this kind for Tamil Nadu. The DMK would see an opening in the countryside and is likely to exploit the feeling of being let down among the farmers.
The Congress and the BJP, more focused on electoral pursuits in Karnataka, are not likely to pay much attention to Tamil Nadu's angst. In any case, neither is heavily invested politically in Tamil Nadu. The Congress that is fighting to retain Karnataka will be more happy to celebrate its success in getting more water for Karnataka, especially Bengaluru.