The reappearance of the crisis shows that only equitable sharing of the river’s waters combined with scientific water conservation and management measures and time-tested farmer-to-farmer initiatives can be the solution to the dispute.
IN AUGUST 2009, AS KARNATAKA, MUCH LIKE the rest of India, was coping with the worst monsoon in a century, a Tamil Nadu cadre Indian Administrative Service officer flew to Bengaluru from Chennai. The officer, in charge of Tamil Nadu’s Public Works Department, was acting as a courier for his Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi. His mission was to hand over a letter to Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa.
Karnataka Protocol officials received him at the airport and whisked him away to the Chief Minister’s residence, where Yeddyurappa was waiting for him. Multiple sources confirmed that Yeddyurappa did not read the letter but he told the officer that he was aware of its contents; he also gave him to understand that he had called at his residence an all-party meeting which he wanted the officer to attend. Yeddyurappa also informed him that bad things about Tamil Nadu would be said at the meeting. After the meeting, when the officer told him that it was not as bad as the Chief Minister had projected, Yeddyurappa remarked with a smile: “It was not all that bad. But wait till you see the MLAs.” The officer sat in on the Assembly session that day. The choicest abuses were hurled at Tamil Nadu, and speaker after speaker said no water should be released. No Minister, not even the Chief Minister, dared to differ.
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