Even as the Indian Ministry of Water Resources has been maintaining that it is inching closer and closer to implementing the first of the proposed 30 links under the grand programme of interlinking rivers (see Himal, Aug, Sept 2003), the Kerala Legislative Assembly showed just how weak this claim is by passing a resolution that called the linking of two rivers in the state with one in neighbouring Tamil Nadu as discriminatory and unconstitutional. The proposed link would divert waters from the Pamba and the Achankovil rivers of Kerala to the Vaippar river in Tamilnadu.
This move by a state in India to question the diversion of water to a neighbouring state mirrors the opposition voiced by Bangladesh to the Indian government's ambitious project. Bangladesh has officially protested what it has called "a unilateral move to appropriate transboundary waters". It is evident that once serious thought was given to the ramifications of the project from affected quarters, the voices of protest would not only increase in volume but would also be raised from different corners of the Subcontinent. The cavalier disregard for issues of equity and fairness in the distribution of water displayed by the creative thinkers who dreamt up this scheme in India has had its obvious consequences.
The architects of this fanciful scheme have been forced to go into trouble shooting mode since, unlike in the initial stages when the opposition was being voiced from civil society alone, the protests have now begun to emanate from within official institutions. On the international front, the crisis has been managed by exerting diplomatic pressure and Bangladesh has been advised to show restraint, as befits a smaller neighbour. But in this particular case the international dimension is more amenable to a forced solution than the domestic dimension is. If Bangladesh is eventually short changed that is a problem for the Bangladesh government to deal with, whereas if a state in India feels cheated it is likely to have more or less direct political repercussions. Besides, there really is no mechanism similar to diplomacy to iron out domestic discord.
It is, therefore, not entirely surprising that the Government of India has been conspicuously silent on the Kerala assembly resolution. Obviously the government at the Centre, at present, is not keen to be embroiled in a political tangle that may scuttle its desperate efforts to build consensus aimed at gaining the desired electoral edge for the general elections due next year. To make matters worse, that the legislative assembly of the most-literate state in the country has unequivocally condemned the project can only vindicate the stand of critics outside the arena of state institutions. This is the first point of intersection between the polity and civil society on this issue, and may well set a trend that accelerates in momentum with time.