Hogenakkal issue: Time to love thy neighbour?

G V L Narasimha Rao

The laying of the foundation of the Rs1,334 crore Hogenakkal project—expected to provide drinking water to about three million people in Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts of Tamil Nadu—by the state’s chief minister M. Karunanidhi on 28 March has blown into a full-scale controversy involving the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

Karnataka is opposed to the project on the grounds that its share of the Cauvery waters will be affected and that the picturesque waterfall of Hogenakkal belongs to it, thereby making Tamil Nadu’s scheme illegal, a charge denied by the Karunanidhi regime.

Tamil Nadu says that the Hogenakkal project was approved in 1998, after it gave the go-ahead for use of the Cauvery waters for the Banagalore city in 1997 when Karnataka’s Deve Gowda was the prime minister. Karnataka is opposing the Hogenakkal project citing refusal of successive governments in Tamil Nadu to take up some irrigation and drinking water projects on the Cauvery river in the state.

Karnataka is currently in election mode with elections to the state assembly being scheduled in the month of May. In the midst of preparations for the poll, the row with Tamil Nadu is proving to be embarrassing for the Congress party, one of the principal contenders for power, as the ruling party of Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), is a coalition partner of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Centre. The DMK government in Tamil Nadu is also actually dependent on the Congress for its outside support. The DMK has been a troublesome ally for the Congress-led UPA even earlier with its now infamous “there is no Ram” affidavit in the Supreme Court on the Sethusamudram project.

The two neighbouring states are frequently in conflict, with the spirit of cooperation completely missing. The current conflict is reminiscent of the long-standing rift between the neighbouring states on the Cauvery water sharing issue. The verdict of the Cauveri Water Tribunal last February was resented in Karnataka as it is generally believed that the regional parties of Tamil Nadu wielded enormous power at the Centre and arm-twisted the ruling coalitions in New Delhi to get favourable decisions.

Water is a highly volatile and emotive issue. Water affects the livelihoods and quality of life of people and thus can stoke strong emotions. Usually, projects that are meant to provide drinking water tend to be less controversial on humanitarian considerations. But, many states have constructed irrigation projects under the pretext of drinking water projects. Various states such as Karnataka, Maharastra, and Tamil Nadu have been accused by their neighbours on this score.

Filmy connection
In the movie-crazy southern states, the line between politics and films is very thin. True to this tradition, film stars in both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have championed the interest their respective states.

Rajnikant, the super star of Tamil cinema, said: “I unequivocally condemn Karnataka for this reprehensible act of denying us what is rightfully ours.” He came strongly against senior Karnataka’s Congress party leader S.M. Krishna and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yediyurappa for opposing the project.

Rajnikant’s unusually aggressive statements are an eloquent statement of his political intent as rumours continue to float that he is contemplating the launch of a new political party in the near future. Even as Rajnikant cautioned Karnataka politicians against using the issue for narrow political gains during the ensuing assembly elections, he has made a strong political pitch for his own political launch as a crusader of Tamil rights.

The strident tone of Rajnikanth—Marathi by descent— surprised many as the matinee idol was born and brought up in Karnataka and worked as a bus conductor there before migrating to Chennai to star in Tamil films.

It is this Marathi connection of Rajnikant that has given critics of poor Amitabh Bachchan yet another opportunity to trade punches with him. In the recent weeks, Bachchan has become the favourite whipping boy for all and sundry for not doing enough to promote marathi manoos (typical Marathi man). Why should Amitabh do anything to promote Mumabai and marathi manoos? Has he done anything to damage, destroy or run down Mumbai or Mumbaikars? Still, the competitive chauvinism of the Shiv Sena and its break away outfit, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), seems to have no limits.

The peace in Karnataka appears fragile. Every time there is a dispute with Tamil Nadu, cinema houses screening Tamil films are attacked, cable operators are threatened and asked to block telecast of Tamil channels, and buses from Tamil Nadu are torched. Kannada film industry rues that non-Kannada films rule the roost in Bangalore and seriously jeopardize the Kannada film industry. Can you force non-Kannadigas to watch Kannada films? After all, the majority of Bangaloreans are non-Kannadigas, much like the majority of Mumbai’s residents are not Marathi.

With Bangalore threatening to turn out to be another Mumbai, there is a need for sparring states to settle matters amicably, lest the two of the country’s most progressive states set a bad example in neighbourly relations.

G.V.L. Narasimha Rao is a political analyst and managing director of Development and Research Services, a research consulting firm.

SOURCE: LIVE MINT
PHOTO: GOOGLE IMAGE

Karnataka, TN lock horn over Hogenekal

B D Narayankar

Bangalore: After waging a battle against Kerala on Mullaperiyar water issue, Tamil Nadu has locked horn with Karnataka over Rs 13-billion Hogenekal water supply project.

Pro-Kannada activists in Bangalore went on a rampage attacking cinema halls screening Tamil films amidst tearing down posters after TN chief minister M Karunanidhi declared the intention of going ahead with the project at any cost.

Karnataka contends that Hogenekal belongs to it and the project will affect its interests.

Kannada Rakshana Vedike (KRV) will be organizing a meeting of various pro-Kannada groups, Kannada writers, representatives of Dalit organisations on Tuesday to decide on steps to intensify the agitation, particularly in the Cauvery belt of Mysore, Chamarajnagar and Mandya districts. The organization also will pressure Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur to approach the Supreme Court against the project. “The project is detrimental to Karnataka’s interest,” spokesperson B Sanneerappa stated.

Among political parties in Karnataka, BJP has been the most vocal. Former chief minister B S Yediyurappa recebtly visited Hogenekal with other BJP members and said his party would oppose the project.

Meanwhile, in Hogenakkal village, situated 350 km from Chennai, flag-waving protestors of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) burnt effigies of Yediyurappa. They demanded the deployment of central paramilitary forces to “safeguard” their “interests”.

“The inflow of tourists - as important to our livelihood as the Cauvery water that descends here from the waterfalls - has seen a downturn due to the invasion by chauvinist (former) Karnataka chief minister (and his) attempt to usurp real estate rightfully belonging to Tamil Nadu,” said K. Rajesh, a VCK demonstrator.

“He (Yediyurappa) is trying to stop the water supply project that will quench parched throats in the districts of Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri. To safeguard our interests we demand deployment of central paramilitary forces here immediately. We will also stop all agent provocateurs coming here under disguise of tourists,” he added.

The foundation stone for the Rs.13.3 billion scheme, funded by Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC), was laid by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi Feb 26.

The Hogenakkal Water Supply and Fluorosis Mitigation Project is expected to cover 6,755 households in three municipal areas, 17 panchayats and 18 small towns, benefiting about three million people.

Safe drinking water would be provided from the waterfall to the fluoride-affected towns and villages in Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts bordering Karnataka.

Orissa Speaker resigns after sex row

Bhubaneshwar: Under mounting attack following sexual abuse charges levelled against him by a woman Assembly employee, Orissa Speaker Maheswar Mohanty resigned on Monday even as a key minister was sacked for allegedly instigating the woman to hurl the allegation.

The Speaker, against whom a case of sexual harassment has been registered following an FIR lodged with police by lady Assistant Marshal Gayatri Panda, gave his resignation to Deputy Speaker Prahallad Dora, official sources said.

In a related development, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik dismissed Information and Public Relations Minister Debashish Naik who had allegedly instigated Gayatri to hurl the charge against Mohanty.

The Speaker had said that the charge against him was part of a conspiracy in which influential people were involved.

The criminal case against Mohanty was registered on March 29, two days after the lady assembly employee lodged an FIR through a group of women activists accusing him of sexually harassing her.

Soon after reports about charges levelled by Panda appeared in the media on March 26, opposition parties mounted a campaign demanding Mohanty's resignation and a thorough and independent probe either by a High Court judge or by CBI.

The proposal given by the government and the Speaker of a probe by a House committee was rejected by a determined opposition, which also paralysed the assembly since last week.

Mohanty said on Monday that he wanted a unanimous decision of the assembly but unanimity was not possible and ''I resigned to protect the office of the Speaker''.

COURTESY: NDTV

BJP a pale copy of Congress!

Vir Sanghvi
I am filled with admiration for Prakash Karat. On Thursday, he addressed the CPM’s Jan Sangharsh rally in Lucknow, and outlined his party’s agenda for the future. The BJP was a communal party. The Congress was a bourgeois party. The CPM wanted, therefore, to be part of a Third Front. So far so good.Except that, according to The Hindu, Mr Karat went on to suggest that, “the CPM would have no truck with those parties which appeal to people on the basis of caste”. Not so good.If you do not align with the Congress, the BJP or any casteist party, then who can you possibly align with? In Lucknow, where Mr Karat made his impassioned address, the party in power, the BSP, is founded entirely on a casteist agenda. Its predecessor, the Samajwadi Party, which ruled UP till a year or so ago, was proud of its casteist appeal. (And Mr Karat, who presumably had not decided that caste was such a bad thing in those days, was quite happy to support the Samajwadi Party.)In neighbouring Bihar, elections are also decided largely on the basis of caste. Lalu Prasad’s supporters vote for him because he is a Yadav. And Nitish Kumar’s core support base is his own Kurmi community.So, no allies at all, in north India at least, for Mr Karat and his friends given his disapproval of casteism.Things are slightly different in the south. While casteism plays an important role, regionalism is supreme. The principal Opposition party in Andhra Pradesh is a regional grouping. In Karnataka, HD Deve Gowda’s version of the Janata Dal is state-specific. In Tamil Nadu, both the leading parties are regional players.Given how high-minded the CPM is, I doubt if it regards narrow regionalism as being morally superior to casteism. So, Mr Karat will have trouble finding members for his Third Front in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu or Andhra. And in Kerala, he’s stuck with the bourgeois Congress. How can you not admire a man who dares dream the impossible dream? A man who believes that he will create a Third Front — and then imposes conditions that make it impossible for him to admit any members at all?How can you not marvel at the starry-eyed idealism of the CPM? At that same rally, Subhashini Ali, a member of the party’s central committee, also declared (according to The Hindu) that, “Time is up for caste politics in UP.” To stand up in a city where the only question is whether Mulayam Singh Yadav can defeat Mayawati and still talk about the end of caste politics, is sweet and admirable. Of course, we all know what will happen. Mr Karat and his idealistic pals will keep up the rhetoric till the election results are in. Then, they will do a quick calculation and see if a non-Congress, non-BJP government is possible. At that stage, all the rhetoric about fighting casteism will be hastily chucked out of the window. Mr Karat will welcome Amar Singh to the CPM office. His colleagues will reach out to any casteist whose party has more than three seats. And, if the Third Front has the numbers, then the CPM will support it from outside. New rhetoric about the victory of socialism and the defeat of communalism and bourgeois capitalism will quickly be invented. But let’s be fair. Whatever my views on the CPM’s hypocrisy or the absurdity of its rhetoric, there’s no denying that it remains one of the few ideologically-based parties in Indian politics. The ideology may now be well past its sell-by-date, but it is an ideology nevertheless.Outside of the Left and the two big parties, there is an almost total absence of ideology. The smaller players are based on what political scientists like to call ‘identity’: caste, region, religion etc. And the Congress has always been, in Jawaharlal Nehru’s phrase, a banyan tree offering shelter to travellers who hold many different views. Rather than ideology it believes in pragmatism. Its current pro-poor stance is a political position rather than a deeply-felt ideology.Until recently, most of us would have argued that the BJP was also an identity-based party; it was the party of the Hindus. But over the last decade, the BJP has worked hard to move away from that positioning and, to a large extent, it has succeeded. In fact, it has now got to the stage where I sometimes wonder if the BJP has overdone the we-are-a-mainstream-party routine. Consider the issues that dominate politics today. And tell me if you think the BJP’s real position is very different from the Congress’s.Let’s take the Budget. As far as I can tell, the BJP’s principal opposition to the farm loan waiver is that it does not go far enough. “What will happen to those who have borrowed from moneylenders rather than banks?”, “How will they finish the procedure by the end of June?” And so on.There is no dispute on issues of principle, let alone economics.Then, there’s the nuclear deal. The BJP has tied itself up in so many knots on this issue that it is beginning to look more like a jalebi and less like a political party. But nobody in the know disputes that the deal is in accordance with the foreign policy that the NDA followed when it was in office. In fact, Strobe Talbott, who spent many hours negotiating with Jaswant Singh, says that the Vajpayee government would have been thrilled if it had got even half of what the Bush administration has now promised India. On the broader thrust of economic policy, there’s virtually no difference between the Congress and the BJP at all. Both parties believe in liberalisation. Both are committed to as much privatisation as they can get away with. Both regard globalisation as inevitable. Till AB Vajpayee became Prime Minister, you could have argued that the BJP took a hard line on Pakistan while the Congress was soft. But the NDA government changed that policy. It isn’t just Vajpayee who is regarded as a hero in Pakistan for his peace-making efforts. Many Pakistanis admire L.K. Advani for his praise of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.All that the Congress and the BJP differ on are matters of implementation and personality. The BJP may be out to get Naveen Chawla, who it sees as the Congress’s man. It might argue that the UPA has not done enough to fight terrorism while the ruling party might respond that some of the worst terrorist attacks (such as the raid on Parliament) occurred when the NDA was in office. And so on.But none of this amounts to much more than the normal bear-baiting between the government and the Opposition. On matters of principle and ideology, the differences are so small as to be minimal. All this demonstrates how far the BJP has sailed from its original moorings. There is a substantial lobby within the Sangh Parivar that argues that the BJP has lost its way and no longer stands for very much.The Sangh Parivar view of the world is symbolised by swadeshi economics, by a desire to rewrite the secularist version of Indian history and to reform the educational system, and by a deep-rooted suspicion of the forces of Westernisation and globalisation which strike at the heart of the Indian cultural tradition.I do not believe that this is a valid or reasonable view of the world. But, for better or worse, this is the vision that the BJP was founded on. If it moves away from these ideological foundations and adopts policies that are suspiciously similar to the Congress’s, then it risks seeming like a pale carbon copy of the real thing, distinguished only by a covert, communalist agenda that its leaders are anyway committed to denying in public.Nevertheless, the BJP leadership does not seem to be worried. So eager is the party to claim the ideological centre that Hindutva has become an empty and rarely used slogan, and the absence of a distinctive ideology is seen as a measure of electability.Is this the future of Indian politics? Are we heading towards a situation where there will be two ideologically-identical national parties, one anachronistic, communist behemoth and a host of identity-driven smaller parties?My guess is that we are. For all practical purposes, ideology is dead. Pragmatism and vote-getting are all that matters. This may or may not be a happy development – personally, I think it is a tragedy – but one thing is certain: whenever Mr Karat gives another of those rousing speeches about excluding communalists, capitalists, casteists, and nearly everyone else from his beloved Third Front, we will all admire his rhetoric. And we will know that it is an impossible dream.

COURTESY: THE MORUNG EXPRESS

PHOTO: GOOGLE IMAGES

If Modiism wins, Bharatiyata loses

TJS George
ARUN Jaitley, named Senapati of the BJP’s akshauhinis, has visited his troops. S M Krishna, appointed charioteer of the Congress armies, has inspected his field formations. The conches have finally sounded announcing the order of battle. Kurukshetra is all set. So who is planning what chakravyuhas? We can safely leave the Congress and JDS alone for the moment. They plan nothing new. One will be busy with self-destructive faction fights, the other with the nano technology of separating sub-castes from sub-sub-castes. It’s the BJP’s approach that bears implications for the future, because it has declared that it wants to repeat Gujarat in other states. Can it? Of the three basic factors that made Narendra Modi what he is in Gujarat, only the first applies to Karnataka - Congress factionalism. The second factor, not replicable elsewhere, is that it was Modi’s victory rather than the BJP’s. He actually kept the BJP and the RSS at bay by the strength of his personality, his ability to sway audiences and, importantly, the perception he has created that he is personally above corruption. In Karnataka there are BJP leaders who can match Modi’s arrogance, but not his oratory, and certainly not his image of corruptionlessness. Many of the BJP leaders who tasted power in Delhi and later in Karnataka proved to be not second to Congressmen in corruption. In effect, then, the BJP’s chief option in Karnataka is to try out the third and most important factor behind the Gujarat phenomenon, Hindutva extremism. This went so deep into people’s psyche in Gujarat that today communalism is no longer a discussed issue there. There’s nothing to discuss; it’s there, entrenched, embedded in the mind, solidified. A former IIM-Ahmedabad Professor, Shreekant Samprani, said blandly that “an overwhelming majority in Gujarat is unrepentant about 2002... are not even sorry for (the riot victims)”. Modi’s ultimate triumph is that he has succeeded in changing the thinking of the “overwhelming majority” of Gujarati voters. Profound as this change is, it won’t be easy to bring it about in other states. Firstly, the polarisation will have to be contrived over a fairly long period and violently when necessary. Secondly, the majority will have to be of a kind that will be unrepentant about violence while the minority should be willing to be ghettoised silently. Both these are virtually unthinkable in Karnataka, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, even Orissa. Their cultural histories and literary heritage do not tend to facilitate majority rigidification of the Gujarat kind. As for the minorities, there may be soft targets that can be easily hit for point-scoring. But the real targets, of the kind that Modi has marginalised in Gujarat, are too many, too assertive, and too organised to be simply beaten down. So when the BJP talks about repeating the Gujarat formula in other states, more is involved than winning or losing an election. We are talking about changing people and their minds, about changing the history and culture of India, about changing the meaning of India. We are talking about moving away from what has made us what we are - Sanatana Dharma. Which means: If Modiism wins, Bharatiyata loses.

COURTESY: THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS

PHOTO: GOOGLE IMAGES

Deve Gowda may emerge king-maker

B D Narayankar

KARNATAKA: Political pundits believe that the Karnataka Assembly polls will yet again throw up a fractured verdict given the entry of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) in the fray.

Psephologists contend that both parties lacked the potential of making inroads into Karnataka politics, but acknowledge that they would play the spoilsport by eating into the votes of national parties like BJP and Congress.

Will they not affect JDS’ prospects? Well, it all depends on SP leader S Bangarappa triumph in striking an alliance with JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda. However, Gowda has not responded to Bangarappa’s statement of a pre-poll alliance with JDS given the latter’s track record of founding new parties and merging with another and demerging when the association seized to lay golden eggs. Also no formal talks had been held as yet between the two parties in this regard.

However, the BJP, the Congress and JDS have sewed up different strategies to fight the battle. BJP is confident of winning the polls on exploiting the ‘betrayal card’ to the hilt.

A reluctant Congress, which is hit by internecine fighting, has decided to use the stability card, raising an ante against JDS-BJP coalition governance. S M Krishna is hardly suited to accept the political gauntlet. His chances of regaining lost ground in north Karnataka, the support of which is vital for any party wanting to come to power in Karnataka, are not very bright at all.
Krishna’s record of having let down north Karnataka badly during his tenure of the Chief Minister still remains etched firmly in the people’s memory in the region. Krishna reneged on his promise to implement the D.M. Nanjundappa committee report on the removal of regional imbalance; he came in the way of the early completion of Upper Tunga scheme which was vital for Northern Karnataka; and he dragged his feet on the question of taking up Kalasa Banduri naala designed as a project to meet the drinking water needs of North Karnataka.

Wily Deve Gowda is pretty confident that the election will throw up a fractured verdict. In the 224-member assembly neither the BJP nor the Congress can cross the 113-seat mark to form a government on their own. In the circumstances, the third most successful party at the elections will play a crucial role in government formation. Thus, Gowda hopes that even if he does not emerge the king he will be force himself into the position of king-maker.

Leaving no stones unturned

B D Narayankar

KARNATAKA: The only party which is effervescent about the upcoming assembly election in the state is probably the BJP. And it is not leaving any room for the opposition parties Congress and JDS to go one up against it.
Understanding the dynamics of coalition where numbers become a vital issue in forming a government, the BJP is not taking things easy and are in a bid to woo a sizeable Tamil population in Bangalore city and Kollar district by attempting to forge an alliance with J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK in the ensuing elections.
BJP sources told that the party was making sincere efforts to set aside some seats to AIADMK in areas where there was a sizeable Tamil population.
However, the exact framework of a possible poll tie up is not clear. Sources said while the Tamil vote won't be a deciding factor, it could help BJP in southern districts of Karnataka.
For sometime now, the BJP and AIADMK have been coming close on issues like controversial Sethusamudram project. In January, 2008 Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had met Jayalalithaa in Chennai and the meeting sparked rumours of a BJP-AIADMK alliance.
However, reports from Bangalore indicated that both parties would have an electoral understanding in Tamil Nadu for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

PHOTO: L K ADVANI AND J JAYALALITHAA

COURTESY: GOOGLE IMAGES