Mullaperiyar row: After SC verdict to raise height, does Kerala have any options?

After a lull of nearly a year, politics and public anxiety over the Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala are back with the Supreme Court’s verdict on Wednesday, which mostly agreed with all the arguments of Tamil Nadu.

In its verdict, the apex court has said that there is no need for a new dam and its height can be raised to 142 feet - both critical points that Kerala had been opposing. The court also said that the amendment that the Kerala Assembly passed in 2008 to fix the height of the dam at 136 feet was not constitutional. Moreover, the court has also endorsed the order of the two member bench that said in 2006 that the height could even be raised to 152 feet after strengthening the dam. Now, if Kerala has any concerns over safety, it can go to a three-member expert committee that the apex court will appoint.

This is a completely lose-lose situation for Kerala, where the safety of the dam has been a serious political issue for a few years now. There is considerable anxiety, rage and emotions on the state’s sovereignty because the dam, which has been serving the water needs of Tamil Nadu for more than 100 years, is situated within the state.

The verdict is not entirely surprising because in April 2012, an empowered committee of the Supreme Court had given a categorical safety clearance to the 117-year-old dam even as the panic and fear of a possible dam-burst was still continuing in the state.

Now the options before Kerala are extremely limited - it can file a petition asking for review of the decision and raise safety concerns before the SC appointed committee. Other than that, there is practically nothing more.

However, the politics over the dam is unlikely to stop and is likely to only increase. Political parties are unanimous in condemning the decision and have even started pointing fingers at each other. While the ruling UDF (United Democratic Front) and Congress leaders said they will file a petition for review, the opposition leader VS Achuthanandan has said that the decision resulted from the failure of the government. A section of the media pointed fingers at the officials, who have been deputed to work with the expert committee. They said the officials failed in impressing upon the expert committee, while Tamil Nadu succeeded.

With all the legal routes more or less closed, the Mullaperiyar agitation committee, which has been staging a protest for more than 2500 days, asked the state to engage in political parleys with Tamil Nadu. However, this route is more or less closed because Tamil Nadu is not likely to relax what they wanted and what the SC had decreed - no new dam and raising the height to 142 feet.

Idukki district, where the dam is located, is on a boil now with emotions running high. Raising the height of the dam will reportedly inundate about seven square km of land with its flora and fauna besides fuelling the fear of the people living in its vicinity. The district was paralysed by a statewide hartal on Thursday. Angry protestors burned the effigy of Justice KT Thomas, who was part of the expert committee. They charged that he betrayed the interests of the state.

The verdict is a terrible setback for the influential Syrian Christian dominated Kerala Congress and its leaders such as PJ Joseph, who along with local agitators revived an apocalypse-fear in five districts of central Kerala about three years ago. They said that 30 lakh people living downstream were at the risk of being washed away by the water from a failing dam. They also said that studies by IITs in Roorkee and Delhi had told them that the dam had been weakened by the quakes in the region. Chief minister Oomen Chandy, however, tried to keep a safe distance from the hysteria.

Meanwhile, Keralites in Tamil Nadu welcomed the SC decision because they came under frequent physical attacks by nationalist groups. Many small traders and businessmen had reported loss of properties in such attacks. There was widespread jubilation in Tamil Nadu, while Jayalalithaa said she dedicated the victory to the people of the state.

The dam, built in Kerala, diverted water in an ingenious way to the otherwise dry southern districts of Tamil Nadu. The water from the dam has converted famine-prone barren land in at least five southern districts of Tamil Nadu into a flourishing agricultural belt.