Cauvery row: Why Supreme Court deciding to give Karnataka more water is a blow for farmers
In its latest order in the Cauvery water sharing dispute, Supreme Court, in all its wisdom and knowledge, has decided to give Karnataka 14.75 TMC more water, citing Bangalore as reason. This is no longer about who is right and who is wrong but the life and livelihood of people of two states mired in controversy thanks to politicians who want to make most of the dispute.
For Karnataka
Considering Assembly elections are due in the state, this will be claimed as a victory by BJP, Congress and regional parties. In fact, this verdict in favour of Karnataka could not have come at a better time for political parties. They would be celebrating this verdict, ignoring the irony of not being willing to give water to a state while questioning why they are not getting water from another state.
Like the previous verdicts which were ignored the state and central governments, this too will have little to no impact on the actual day-to-day decisions in the state with respect to Cauvery. They would still release only as little water as possible to Tamil Nadu unless there is heavy rain and holding back water would harm the state in the form of floods.
For Tamil Nadu
As in Karnataka, this would change very little and have little impact on all fronts.
From a political point of view, the state government will accuse the Centre in general and BJP in particular, of betraying the people of the state, which is nothing new. There will be blame shifting and minor parties will engage is protests as usual.
With BJP and Congress being nowhere near the power centre of the state’s politics, one can hardly expect any voice of dissent against the verdict. Ahead of elections, the tide against them will only turn stronger.
From the people's point of view, farmers are the surest victims. This is true especially because Karnataka rarely ever gave the water allotted to Tamil Nadu, ensuring it was a poll issue.
If Karnataka government welcomes the verdict and releases the 404.25 TMC water without any further trouble, that itself would be a huge success and relief for farmers. However, this would be the perfect place to use the idiom "if wishes were horses".
Is there a solution?
The real solution, if there is one, will come only on the day the farmers of the two states become decision makers without any external political influence and engage in fruitful dialogue, and only when the same party is in power in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
For the farmers, it would be business as usual, except they would be struggling for their very livelihood with mounting loans, bad rains and lack of enough water instead of farming.