S.Narendra
(Former Information Adviser to PM, PIO of Govt of India,
and Official Spokesperson)
The hour hand on the clock in
the meeting room was closing towards 9 pm. Hesitatingly I passed on a chit to PM
Narasimha Rao : “Sir,my New Year party to media is about to start. Can I be
excused?’ The ever gracious Rao surprised the ministers and officials attending
the meeting with this remark: “Oh! Narendra, I am sorry....you come with me...No...
You wait here...I will get you the files”. And then he handed over to me a
thick bundle of files and said: “call me as soon as your party is over”. What happened
subsequently is history. Read on PRapport exclusive:
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| The Iron Lady of TN |
The year 1995
was about to end, with the Christmas and New Year holidays round the corner. A
stormy parliament session had ended without transacting much business, a
familiar experience (even now?!). Out of the blue, a political storm originating in Tamil Nadu, had hit the
government of P.V.Narasimha Rao. The Supreme Court was hearing a petition of
Tamil Nadu government to direct Karnataka government to release 11 tmc of
Kaveri water, as per the interim orders of the Kaveri Tribunal. Instead of
adjudicating the petition, the apex court issued an order directing the Prime Minister
to find a political solution, that too within a week, to the seasonal river
water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In a way, the apex court had hoisted
the politicians on their own petard, because politics had prevented a
settlement of the dispute.
This was an
unprecedented political tangle. The parliamentary elections were only a few
months away and Rao as the congress party president was casting his net wide
seeking poll allies. But suddenly he found himself between the blades of political
scissors. On the one side was a tempestuous political ally, AIDMK’s Jayalalithaa
as Tamil Nadu chief minister and on the other side was a potential ally from
Janata party, H.D.Devegowda of Karnataka.
A few months earlier, when he was an MP,
Devegowda had voted for Rao government
in a ‘No Confidence’ motion moved by BJP
in 1994. As a state leader, with a reputation
as a farmers’ champion, he wanted to appear as uncompromising as the iron lady
from Chennai.
Truant Rainfall: In a nutshell, the problem was this. Whenever
the North East monsoon (from September to December) plays truant, the two
states fight over the depleted water available in Kaveri. Tamil Nadu
historically has more acreage under Kaveri irrigation than Karnataka and
depends upon the abundance of Kaveri water as well as the North East monsoon.
This was one of those years when the
North East monsoon had been deficient, thus reducing the quantity of river water. And Karnataka had not
released 11 tmc of water to Tamil Nadu, claiming that the river water was barely adequate to
meet its own drinking water needs.
Midnight moves: Hectic parlays took place in PM’s house from
December 25 with the ministers and officials of the water resources and
agriculture ministries for assessing various options. In one such meeting that
lasted right up to mid-night, the PM expressed his displeasure over the facts presented
to him by the officials. According to the facts on paper, there should not be
any shortage of water for irrigating the crop acreage under cultivation in both
the states. Suddenly, he turned to me and said: “Narendra, find out from your
media friends what the problem on the ground is, and let me know in the morning”.
It was a tough
challenge. My media friends in both the states obliged and I could give their
assessment of the problem to Rao by 8 AM. The problem was that in both the
states the acreage under water intensive crops like sugarcane that requires
water for 18 months had substantially gone up and in Tamil Nadu in particular,
the Kaveri delta farmers were sowing 3 to 4 paddy crops in a year, irrespective of the
vagaries of the monsoon.
Big Rounds of Meetings: In response to PM’s invitation, the Tamil Nadu
chief minister arrived by a special place loaded with several suit cases and
her counterpart came by a commercial plane. The media visuals played up the
contrasting pictures. The prime minister met the two state leaders separately
several times to thrash out a compromise formula that does not antagonise
either of the contending parties. As the general election was near at hand, neither
of the state leaders wanted to be perceived as weak and to be giving up the
cause of their political constituencies.
The PM’s
meetings with the CMs were going round and round, even as the calendar had
moved to December 31st. Meanwhile,
both the chief ministers’ offices were leaking to the media their versions of
the parleys with PM that was
complicating the latter’s role. I came to know that the Karnataka CM was
planning a press conference. This news had travelled to Tamil Nadu side as well,
and they were planning a proper response after hearing the Karnataka salvo. I
immediately got in touch with the offices of the two CMs aides and informed them
that any discussions with the media of the likely formula for sharing of water
would make the PM’s decision to go against them. I also held out the threat
that if they went ahead, PM may go back to the court, reporting failure of negotiations
and put the problem back before the judiciary.
Diplomatic that Rao was, he authrorised me to convey to each side that
PM appreciated the particular state’s stand, and therefore, the final award
could be in its favour.
During the day
of the New Year eve, the PM had discussed with me the various formulas he had
suggested to the CMs and told me to give him a draft letter to the two CMs, along
with a one page background. Rao told me that he would have one last meeting
with the water ministry officials at 7 pm , after which he would hand over the
papers. That particular meeting dragged on right up to 9 p.m. At this point I
sent him a chit stating that my New Year party for media was to begin. The ever
gracious Narasimha Rao, got up and said: “Narendra I am sorry. You take the
files.”
Rao then took
me to the residential part of 7 Race Course road, went to his bed room and
brought out a huge bundle of files and said; “When does your party end’. I said: Sir, around 2 AM.
He said: Alright.
Call me around 3... After you have gone through the files.
Cold Shower in December Night! I used to host
a New Year eve parties for media friends in the lawns of my residence for
media, their families including children, diplomats and colleagues in the
government and ministers. About 800 invitations would be sent to attend the
party between 9 pm and 2 a.m. This was within the knowledge PM. On this
particular ‘Kaveri’ day I was late for my own party. The party lasted well past
2 a.m. I took a cold shower although it was a December night
and began studying the files. Promptly at 3 AM, the PM called me to find out my
progress in drafting the letter. I requested him to give me time until early
morning and Rao asked me to meet him at 6 am and have a cup of tea. As I was
fairly familiar with the subject, and the PM’s parleys, I prepared a rough hand
written draft and called my personal assistant Ravichandran to my residence
around 5 am for typing it on the computer. For some reason, the computer had
gone out of order and we rushed to my office in Shastri Bhavan.
Kaveri flows in Shastri Bhavan: Literally, we felt that Kaveri had come to the
gates of Shastri Bhavan. The entry to the building was barred with fire engines
that had pumped a huge quantity of water to douse a fire in the building. Power
had been switched off.
Accompanied by
Ravi, I rushed to PMs residence and
managed to get the letter and the background note typed. The prime minister had
obviously spent a sleepless night and was waiting for me. I said ‘Happy New
Year’ and presented the draft. The prime minister expressed his satisfaction and
told me that he would be having two more rounds of meetings with the chief
minsters.
At this point,
I suggested to him that his final letter of water allocation to be sent to the
concerned CMs should be faxed late in the night (January1st 1996), after the
CMs had boarded the aircraft for home. The prime minister smiled.
Those were the
days when Doordarshan and AIR ruled supreme and there were no mobile phones and
no noise channels either! The fastest and latest mode of communication was
through the trusted Fax.
By mid-day, I
had a copy of the PM’s letter of water allocation. The whole day the media was
bombarding me with calls to know the outcome of PM’s discussions with the CMs.
I got the news that the two CMs had boarded the
aircraft after 7 pm. The PM’s letter was faxed to them around 10 pm (when their
planes were about to land) and a little later I released the letter to media.
The media was unable to get the CMs’ reaction (that was bound to be
critical) to the award. We wanted the
award to be in media focus, not the adverse reaction of the quarrelling duo.
Much Ado: The award was a fair one, allocating 6 out of
11 tmc of water to Tamil Nadu. It
was somewhat funny that the award should have
involved such torturous and inconclusive negotiations. From the beginning it was clear that politically the
prime minister could not have allocated anything but a
little more than half of 11 tmc demanded by Tamil Nadu. As part of his award,
the prime minister set up a one-man committee
under Prof Y.K. Alagh to study the problem and come up with a feasible solution
to the dispute. He also decided to
convene later a meeting of the National Water Council that had not met for
decades to deliberate on unresolved inter-state river water disputes.
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| The Author (sunarendra@gmail.com) |
The year 1996
had dawned with a clear hint of what the next 12 months held. It was going to be politically turbulent,
with regional players dominating the national scene and a nation adrift in
troubled waters.
