Dispute over the sharing of the Cauvery waters between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has become one of the most infamous examples of the inability of the Indian state to effectively mediate conflicts over water resources, says Leela Fernandes, professor, University of Washington, who has authored the book Governing Water in India: Inequality, Reform and the State.
The book chronicles tendencies towards centralisation and the Supreme Court’s interventions in resolving inter-State river water-sharing disputes of Tamil Nadu with neighbouring Karnataka and Kerala.
The author argued that the absence of the Central government action on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu water dispute prompted the Supreme Court to assert its own authority and compel the Centre to form the Cauvery Water Management Board. “Such interventions of the Supreme Court in the years after the tribunal award in themselves reflected a failure of the Central government’s regulatory state capacity,” argued Prof. Fernandes in her book published by the University of Washington Press recently.
