Opinion: On the Cauvery, talks cannot replace a right

There is a photograph from this week that should embarrass every secretariat in Chennai: farmers buried up to their necks in Cauvery sand, asking for water that a court has already said is theirs.

The TVK government's instinct has been to prefer bilateral talks with Karnataka. Talks are not wrong in themselves. But when a Supreme Court judgment, a Management Authority and a Regulation Committee already exist, negotiation that bypasses them does not look like diplomacy. It looks like delay.

The numbers explain the anger. In the first seven weeks of this water year, Tamil Nadu received only a small fraction of its scheduled share. Mettur's customary June opening slipped. Kuruvai sowing waited on a sky and a sluice that would not open.

A government elected on the promise of administrative freshness cannot treat the delta as a seasonal press note. Farmers did not bury themselves in sand for symbolism alone; they did it because every other channel, petitions, resolutions, consultative meetings, had produced minutes, not water.

The opposition DMK has demanded that the state fight for its legal share and convene an all-party meeting. That demand deserves a hearing, not because opposition parties are suddenly the delta's oldest friends, but because a united Tamil Nadu position strengthens the state's hand in the Authority and, if needed, in court.

Periyar taught that dignity begins with refusing to beg for what is yours by right. The Cauvery is not a favour Karnataka grants in a good monsoon. It is a right settled by law. The sooner the government in Chennai acts on that simple truth, the sooner the farmers of Thanjavur can climb out of the sand.