Detail was not ignored, nor were the lawyers; but they were a part of the larger system, not an end in themselves. Thus the agreement had an interesting feature -- the return flow of the Mekong in the monsoon flood to a large lake -- the Tonle Sap -- was assured at a minimum level. This showed a sensitivity to the historical rights of downstream people, not normally seen in the third world. The Mek-ong planners commended a feature of Sardar Sarovar planning, namely the use of econometric methodology to integrate the behaviour of millions of Asiatic peasantswith the latest engineering, control and system strategies.

The question of course is not just the structures, but their effectiveness. How does the environment be created so that the pressure is there for all the stakeholders to remain in the space where plus-plus games are played for all, rather than some players hijacking the agenda by promising all the `gains' to their constituents with losses to everybody else? The advantage of having a political adjustment mechanism is that all the players have to remain in the realistic space which is that of mutual benefit. In a discussion it becomes obvious that the loner is unrealistic. When I chaired the Cauvery Expert Group, it was suggested that we don't go to the field. We did not agree and travelled hundreds of kilometers in the Tanjore Delta, the gre-at rice bowl of India, also the Garden areas of Karnataka. We told the ryots that there was not enough water and what was there would have to be shared. This was in December-January and the peasants correctlywanted that they should have been told so in October when the reservoirs of the system peak, so that they could have made the correct decisions, but we were treated everywhere with affection and understanding.

Canal irrigation in India is developed for drought proofing, so its rules are simple. For example, assure 205 TMC of water. A rule based on annual flows but rivers don't flow in annual time, they flow in real time and water requirements vary depending on the season, the ground water possibilities, the crops sown and the efficiency with which the stress in the root zone is met. Our rules are crude like the by-now revilled cost-plus system of pricing. Remember in this the so-called `just' system of pricing the lower your costs, the more you suffer, presumably for being efficient. In the analog rules for canal irrigation, the farmers who use ground and surface water together, or are efficient in conveying water, applying it or selecting high-value added less-water intensive crops, get less canal water.Legal experts don't have the inclination for these niceties. In fact, even the seasonal variation to the annual rule in the Cauvery came as an uneasy afterthought and the Narmada rule for adjustment was added on. I wanted in a water-short year the high capacity pumps in the delta to be repaired, the anicuts to be desilted and, in the garden areas in Karnataka, water-saving devices to be applied and the lower level channels, very ancient ones, to be repaired. The same amount of water would go further. Adversity should be turned into advantage.

The perambulation is of the river as a whole. Justice for its development has still to be done. The fact that it has been delayed doesn't bother me that much, since progress has been there and even in the last few years we have built one of the finest canal systems going anywhere. Rajiv Gandhi didn't sanction the Narmada project because of politics. He grilled me for almost three hours on the rehabilitation, environmental and technological angles of the project and puthis signature after every question was answered. But when the so-called Independent Review reviles Nehru and says that the freedom movement compromised the Adivasis as backward Hindus, and our people support them, I worry. Some of these people will come next month as members of an international commission on large dams. China is represented on it and has made great progress on Three Gorges. In India their agenda will include the decommissioning of existing dams and projects.