In Tamil Nadu, the initial reactions to the Cauvery Tribunal’s Final Order seemed positive, but dissenting voices were soon heard. There is a degree of dissatisfaction in that state, though it is not very strong or widespread. In Karnataka, the response goes beyond dissatisfaction; there is a strong and fairly widespread feeling of injustice, led by opinion at the political level.

How does dissatisfaction arise in either state? It arises from a comparison of the state’s own projection of its requirement of Cauvery waters with the figure of allocation by the tribunal. However, the projected requirements of all the four parties to the dispute add up to much more than the availability of flows in the river. It follows that any kind of sharing, whether through agreement or through adjudication, will give each party less than the requirement that it had projected. Under the circumstances, dissatisfaction is inevitable. All that the parties can ask for is reasonable sharing. (They must also re-examine their projections of requirements and learn to live with less, but that point will not be argued here.)

How is a reasonable sharing to be arrived at? A negotiated settlement would doubtless be the best course. In this case, twenty years of talking, with and without central mediation, produced no agreement. If agreement is not possible, adjudication seems to be the only course available. There is no third option.

We must, of course, remember that there has been a strong sense of historical injustice in Karnataka; it is that sense that underlies and influences its response to the tribunal’s award. The view that the 1924 Agreement was an unfair agreement imposed by a more powerful Madras Presidency on a weaker Mysore State is firmly embedded in the Karnataka psyche. That is a debatable proposition, but granting that there had been injustice in the past, is that any longer relevant? The imbalance, if any, of past relations between Madras Presidency and Mysore State was altered by the construction of a number of dams and reservoirs by Mysore/Karnataka; control over Cauvery waters effectively passed into the hands of Karnataka. Besides, is there any imbalance now between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka? Both are states of the Indian Union. The tribunal was a judicial body before which both were equal. Neither could impose its views on the other or on the tribunal. What is the basis for a sense of grievance now?

... contd.