The Hogenakkal fires are being doused. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has put the project on hold until a popular government takes over in Karnataka. S.M. Krishna has hailed this “magnanimous gesture”, describing him as an elder statesman. The Karnataka bandh is being called off. Some sporadic violence may continue in both states, but things will probably settle down soon. It is nevertheless necessary to ask how and why this trouble happened, and how a recurrence can be prevented.

Whatever the merits of the Hogenakkal project, two things seem to be clear. First, it is said to be a drinking water project. Among water uses drinking water has the highest priority. The quantity of Cauvery waters involved in this project is very small — 1.4 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) — and it is to benefit certain drought-prone areas in Tamil Nadu. Second, Tamil Nadu says it is an approved project. The fact that Japanese funding is available for it seems to indicate so. Tamil Nadu also says that at a meeting in 1998 the project was cleared and that the two states agreed not to raise objections to each other’s drinking water projects. This seems to be borne out by a report in the media about the details of what happened in 1998.

Why then did the flare-up occur? It was clearly caused by Yeddiyurappa’s visit to Hogenakkal and his objections to the project, adding a dubious territorial dimension to it. He must bear the responsibility for starting all the trouble. The explanation that suggests itself is that in the context of the forthcoming elections he saw some political mileage in this. Perhaps he did not quite realise the forces that he was unleashing. It is a pity that his statement was not repudiated by the BJP leadership, considering particularly that it was under the auspices of the NDA government that the project is said to have been approved; but of course such repudiations do not happen in Indian politics.

... contd.