BANGALORE
SPECIAL
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2012
10
TUGO FW ATER The Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu is not an isolated one. Water has been the cause of umpteen conflicts across the world over the centuries. It remains a scarce commodity worth fighting and dying for. A look at some water feuds, past and present
Quality
over quantity
THE HISTORY A N D EVOLUTION O F W A T E R CONFLICTS 2500 BC MILITARY TOOL After a dispute over the ‘Gu’edena’ region, King Urlama diverts water from this region to boundary canals, drying up the boundary ditches to deprive Umma of water. His son Il cuts off the water supply to Girsu, a city in Umma ....................................... 1790 BC WATER CODE The Code of Hammurabi for the State of Sumer lists several laws pertaining to irrigation that address negligence of irrigation systems and water theft ....................................... 51 BC MILITARY TARGET Caesar attacks water supplies during siege of Uxellodunum by undermining one of the local springs and placing attackers near the other. Water shortage leads to the surrender of the Gauls ....................................... 1850s DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE In the US, residents attacked the New Hampshire dam that impounded water for factories downstream. They were unhappy over its effect on water levels ....................................... 1870s to 1881 DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE Recurrent friction and eventual violent conflicts over water rights in the vicinity of Tularosa, New Mexico, involving villagers, ranchers and farmers .......................................
Subir Ghosh ● BANGALORE
Water has a way of finding its own level. It can be a source of dispute, it can be a tool for coercion; water has its own way of sustaining and destroying life, nay lives. River valleys have been the cradle of many a civilisation around the world, and civilisation for its part too learnt to use water for its own good, and to exercise suzerainty over those who did not fall in line as well. The earliest known use of water as a military tool, not surprisingly, dates back to 2500 BC when a dispute over the Gu’edena region, just a flat field in Sumer (modern-day Iraq), was sown. Gu’edena was a fertile irrigated tract of land that lay between the kingdoms of Umma and Lagash. Urlama, king of Lagash from 2450 to 2400 BC, understood the importance of water quite well. He diverted water from this region to boundary canals, drying up boundary ditches to deprive Umma of water. His son Il too cut off the water supply to Girsu, a city in Umma. Water won the war. Civilisations that flourished along rivers, right from the Nile to the Indus, knew the importance of water. Hammurabi, the sixth king of Babylon, grew up in the Mesopotamian land, bound by the Euphrates and the Tigris. When he lay down his famous codes of law, Hammurabi could not have forgotten to include water use in it. In 1790 BC, the Code of Hammurabi for the State of Sumer listed several laws pertaining to irrigation that addressed negligence of irrigation systems and water theft. Water has remained either a source of conflict or a brazen military tool since then — be it the wars in Assyria circa 700 BC or the cutting off of Jerusalem’s water supply during the first Israel-Arab war of 1948. What has only changed since then is that water has become a scarcer commodity — it is worth fighting and dying for, it is a good reason either to go to war, or simply let public protests rage over. The Indian scenario South Asia is a contradiction of sorts. The Hin-
1947–1960s WATER WAR Similarly, partition left the Indus basin divided between India and Pakistan and disputes over irrigation water erupted. An agreement was reached in 1960 after 12 years of negotiations ....................................... 1991 DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE Chinese villages spar over new water diversion facilities. Conflicts over excessive water withdrawals and subsequent shortages from Zhang River worsened
Constitutional provisions The Indian constitution has three relevant provisions: entry 17 in the State List, entry 56 in the Union List, and Article 262. Entry 17 makes water a state subject, but is qualified by Entry 56 which says, “Regulation and development of inter-state rivers and river valleys to the extent to which such regulation and development
under the control of the Union is declared by Parliament by law to be expedient in the public interest.” Article 262 takes this further and grants Parliament the right to legislate over the matters in Entry 56, and also gives it primacy over the Supreme Court. It is, however, states that use and share waters. Tribunals and authorities haven’t always helped matters since, on a number occasions, individual states have refused to abide by such decisions. Orders of courts too have been ignored. In the end, it is the political compulsions and interests that reign supreme. Constitutional crises can often merge from such disputes and the stances of individual states. The Sarkaria Commission that had looked at Centre-state relations had devoted an entire chapter to the issue. The commission took cognisance of the fact that section 6 of the ISWD Act provided that “the Union government shall publish the decision of the Tribunal in the Official Gazette and the decision shall be final and binding on the parties to the dispute and shall be given effect by them.” The high-profile panel felt that the Union government could not enforce a tribunal award if a state government refused to implement the award. An amendment to this had been made in 1980 by inserting section 6A, which provided for an agency to implement a tribunal award. This too was not deemed sufficient since an agency cannot function without the cooperation of the states. The Sarkaria Commission suggested that a water tribunal’s award should have the same force and sanction behind it as an order or decree of the Supreme Court. The suggestion, of course, fell on deaf ears. It is surprising that all the while that virulent protests raged on in Karnataka, not many remembered the ISWD Act, which had been enacted primarily to protect the interests of a downstream state when water resources available in an upstream state are put to additional use. The time is ripe to take a relook at the Act, especially section 4 which provides dispute resolution process in the form of a tribunal.
The second biggest river in peninsular India originates in Maharashtra. Due to the inter-state nature of the river and the multiple parties concerned, disputes arose between Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh over sharing of the waters. The Centre constituted the Krishna Waters Disputes Tribunal in 1969 under the Inter State Water Disputes Act of 1956. The Bachawat commission gave its final award in 1973. It outlined the exact share of water for each state: Maharashtra: 560 TMC; Karnataka: 700 TMC; AP: 800 TMC
1. KRISHNA LENGTH BASIN AREA
303KM IN MAHA 480 KM IN KARNATAKA 1300 KM JOURNEY IN ANDHRA PRADESH 26.8% IN MAHA 43.8% IN KARNATAKA 29.4% IN ANDHRA PRADESH
1907 to 1913 DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE Pipeline of the Los Angeles Valley suffers bombings in an effort to prevent diversions of water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles ....................................... 1947 onwards WATER WAR Partition divided the Ganges River between Bangladesh and India. Construction of the Farakka barrage by India increases tension, however, short-term agreements settle disputes. A thirty-year treaty was signed in 1996 .......................................
du Kush-Himalayan region is reckoned to be one of the largest sources of freshwater, what with the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra all rising from points barely 300 km apart. The region is also highly populated and also includes vast arid and semi-arid tracts. Since water conflicts mostly occur because the demand for water resources and potable water extend far beyond the amount of water actually available, this region had its share of nasty water disputes. Many of these are transboundary; with all of India’s neighbours (Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh) fighting it out over the control of a number of rivers. China and its designs on the Brahmaputra/Tsangpo is a different ball game altogether. Much before rivers became a source of dispute between different sets of upper and lower riparian states, Parliament had enacted a law, the Inter-State Riverwater Disputes Act of 1956, to handle such potential conflicts. Three major disputes of the post-Independence era come to one’s mind: (i) the Krishna-Godavari dispute among Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha; (ii) the Cauvery dispute between Karnataka (old Mysore) and Tamil Nadu (the old Madras Presidency); (iii) the Ravi-Beas dispute between Punjab and Haryana Not all disputes have been settled amicably; most keep resurfacing as rainfall and water usage patterns change. One culminated in a happy ending a few years ago when the chief ministers of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh resolved their conflict after the Supreme Court’s intervention in the issue failed.
Maharashtra
1
3 KRISHNA
Andhra
Hogenakkal water dispute This is a conflict between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over the implementation of the Hogenakkal Integrated Drinking Water Project, whose foundation stone was laid in February 2008. The Rs 1,334 crore project envisages water supply to 40 lakh people in the fluorosis-affected Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts of Tamil Nadu
Kerala
4
MULLAIPERIYAR
Tamil Nadu
HOGENAKKAL
2
CAUVERY
T O P RIVER WATER DISPUTES
The sharing of waters of the river Cauvery has been the source of a serious conflict between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The genesis of this conflict rests in two controversial agreements—one signed in 1892 and another in 1924—between the erstwhile Madras Presidency and princely state of Mysore. Karnataka contends that it does not receive its due share of water from the river as Tamil Nadu. Karnataka claims that these agreements were skewed heavily in favour of the Madras Presidency, and has demanded a renegotiated settlement based on “equitable sharing of the waters”. Tamil Nadu pleads that it has already developed almost 3,000,000 acres (12,000 sq km) of land and as a result has come to depend heavily on the existing pattern of usage. Any change in this pattern, it says, will adversely affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in the state. Decades of negotiations between the parties bore no fruit. The central government constituted a tribunal in 1990 to look into the matter. The tribunal delivered its final verdict in February 2007. In its verdict, the tribunal allocated 419 billion ft³ (12 km³) of water annually to Tamil Nadu and 270 billion ft³ (7.6 km³) to Karnataka; 30 billion ft³ (0.8 km³) of Cauvery river water to Kerala and 7 billion ft³ (0.2 km³) to Puducherry. But the dispute appears not to have concluded, with all four states deciding to file review petitions seeking clarifications and possible renegotiation of the order
2. CAUVERY
BASIN AREA CONTRIBUTION
Want another example? Take the case of Colorado River flowing in the US and Mexico. A 1944 treaty allotted to Mexico a guaranteed quantity of water from the river. But the treaty had failed to look at the quality issue. In the late 1950s, due to rapid economic development and increased agricultural water use in the United States, the quality of water reaching Mexico came down to alarming levels. Mexico protested. In 1974, negotiations resulted in an international agreement that guaranteed Mexico water of the same quality as that being used in the United States, resolving the salinity issue
Krishna CRISIS
Salinity is becoming an issue, with the Krishna river basin nearing the upper limit constraining the salt export to the Sea. A minimum amount of water flow is needed for salt export to the sea. India should learn from the bad experiences of Murray-Darling and Colorado. Ignoring the salinity issue could have serious effects on the productivity of the region, besides posing environmental and l i l h
4
Mullaiperiyar Dam on the
Karnataka
3
Most of the river water disputes are over quantity, whereas an important issue of quality is seldom recognised and raised. Unplanned utilisation of water in the Australian MurrayDarling river basin had increased the salinity or TDS of water beyond safe limits. An authority was established for damagecontrol. It then as stipulated that the TDS limit should not exceed 500 mg/litre
42% IN KARNATAKA 54% IN TAMIL NADU 3.5% IN KERALA, BELOW 1% IN PONDY AROUND 53% FROM KARNATAKA 30-32% FROM TN 14-17% FROM KERALA, BELOW 1% IN PONDY
Periyar river is located in Thekkady, Idukki district of Kerala. It was constructed between 1887 and 1895 by the British to divert water eastwards to the Madras Presidency area (present-day Tamil Nadu). Though located in Kerala, the dam is controlled and operated under a period lease by Tamil Nadu. Although the Periyar river has a total catchment area of 5,398 sq km with 114 sq km in Tamil Nadu, the catchment area of the Mullaiperiyar dam lies entirely in Kerala. The control and safety of the dam and the validity and fairness of the lease agreement have been points of dispute. A 2006 SC judgment allowed TN to raise the level of the dam to 152 ft after strengthening it. In reply, Kerala declared the dam ‘endangered’ scheduled dam under the disputed Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2006. This act bypasses the judgment and it prescribes the level of water in 22 dams
2002 VIOLENCE OVER CAUVERY Violence over the allocation of the Cauvery River between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu erupted. Riots, property destruction, injuries and arrests were reported through September-October ....................................... 2002 DEVELOPMENT ISSUE Botswana’s president Festus Mogae sent troops to the Kalahari Desert to destroy wells and empty water sources of indigenous Khoisan (also known as Bushmen), ostensibly in an effort to remove them from their ancestral lands and assimilate them into modern society. Critics blame the government of taking away water rights in favour of mining interests and labelled the government’s actions a ‘siege’; Botswana is condemned by international observers ....................................... 2003–2007 CIVIL WAR The ongoing civil war in the Sudan included violence against water resources. In 2003, villagers from around Tina said that bombings had destroyed water wells. In Khasan Basao they alleged that water wells were poisoned. In 2004, wells in Darfur were intentionally contaminated as part of a strategy of harassment against displaced populations ....................................... 2007 DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE Thousands of Indian farmers breached security and stormed the area of Hirakud dam to protest allocation of water to industry. Minor injuries were reported during the conflict between the farmers and police ....................................... 2008 DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE China launched a political crackdown on Tibet. At least some observers have noted the importance of Tibet for the water resources of China, though the political complications between Tibet and China extend far beyond water. Tibet is referred to in some circles as the ‘world’s water tower’; the Tibetan plateau is home to vast reserves of glaciated water, the sources of 10 of the largest rivers in Asia, including the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Salween and Sutlej ....................................... 2009 DEVELOPMENT DISPUTE China claims a part of historical Tibet that is now under Indian control as part of the state of Arunachal Pradesh. To influence this territorial dispute, China tries to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank on the grounds that part of this loan was destined for water projects in the disputed area Sources: www.worldwater.org & Wikipedia