BANGALORE - Last Saturday, several political and cultural pressure groups, which have thousands of muscular men on their rolls, enforced a suspension of normal life from dawn to dusk in the southern state of Karnataka.
Their action was a protest against Prime Minister 's order to the state to release about 250,000 liters, or 66,000 gallons, of water per second from the Kaveri River to the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. Karnataka does not wish to be so generous with precious fresh water and resents that the Indian government is coercing it to be so.
In the Karnataka state capital, Bangalore, most shops and offices remained shut Saturday. Some buses and cars were stoned by protesters. Thousands of people were unable to reach the airport or the train station until after dusk. The luxury hotel Taj West End closed its massive iron gates and requested that its guests not step out. The hotel also planted over its gates a yellow-and-red flag that is Karnataka's cultural symbol. It is a banner that has, in recent times, represented the fellowship of several jingoistic outfits that, while not offering candidates in elections, exert influence over the state's politics.
A 4-year-old girl who stood with her father behind the hotel's gates asked the security guards why the national flag was not on display. “So many different flags these days,†she said.
Waves of menacing men on motorbikes and cars passed in front of the gates, looked with contempt at the expensive hotel and screamed that Karnataka was great and anyone who stood in its way would be vanquished.
Around 5 in the evening, there was a sudden downpour over Bangalore, and it rained like a reprimand. For an hour, it appeared that the water dispute had been solved by a higher authority. Gangs of men who were patrolling the streets to ensure that the shutdown of the city was complete looked a bit sheepish, but many of them soon began to dance in the rain.
Only two of Karnataka's districts, which have received very little rainfall this monsoon season, are affected by the state's sharing of the Kaveri water with Tamil Nadu, but the dispute between the states has been a political issue for more than a century.
The river originates in Karnataka and flows into Tamil Nadu. Karnataka, through a system of dams, is in a position to control how much water will continue into Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu believes that even though it is downstream it has as much right to the river as Karnataka. The Indian government has tried to solve the dispute, but has largely failed.
Over the years, the river dispute has turned the two states into bitter foes. The issue has even developed into a battle of cultural supremacy between Tamil, which is spoken in Tamil Nadu, and Kannada, the language spoken by a majority in Karnataka. In the past, Tamil migrants in Bangalore have been attacked. Partisans of Karnataka have gone to the border to throw stones at Tamil Nadu. And every now and then, as is the case this month, the screening of Tamil films is banned in Karnataka.
A few years ago, Tamil and Kannada film stars confronted each other in a border village by staging a death fast. Kannada stars sat in Karnataka territory and lamented Tamil Nadu's demands for more water. Tamil stars sat in their state and demanded more water from the Kaveri. As usually happens with death fasts in India, nobody died.
The river dispute has also influenced the content of Tamil and Kannada films. About a decade ago the film “H2O†was released. A bilingual film, in both Tamil and Kannada, it was a story of two men in love with the same woman. The unambiguous metaphor of the film cast one suitor as Tamil Nadu and the other as Karnataka, and the woman was the river. Her character, not surprisingly, was called Kaveri.
The film boldly tried to educate the people of both the states that politicians were trying to create a rift between the two peaceful populations. There is a scene in which a villain releases gossip into the air, which transmogrifies into many tiny arrows that enter villagers' ears, turning friends who are walking together into sudden foes who start fighting. It was not at all intended to be a funny film.
To a large extent, politicians in both states have ensured that the issue remains alive and simmering and far from resolved. Prakash Belawadi, a filmmaker and journalist who has written extensively about the river dispute, told me: “Politicians cannot and do not want to resolve the issue. The dispute can be solved only by engineers and farmers who have a stake in the river.â€
As the dispute escalates, it is a reminder that in contemporary India, where regional political forces are more powerful than ever and even politicians affiliated with national parties do not always respect the notion of a central command, New Delhi's power to resolve tensions between states has steadily diminished.
Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.â€
