Mullaperiyar Dam and the Threat

Russell Joy speaking at the seminar at Vazhakulam

I spent the weekend evening listening to a lecture on the threat posed to the state of Kerala by the Mullaperiyar dam. The speaker was Advocate Russell Joy, one who has been crusading for quite a while for the decommissioning of the dam. Recently he got a court order to maintain the water level in the dam at 139 feet instead of 142 as stubbornly demanded by Tamil Nadu.

What precisely are the problems caused by the dam? How did these problems arise? I was curious to know and was happy to listen to Advocate Joy who has become quite an authority on the subject because of the relentless research he has done.

First of all, the dam’s lifespan was 50 years, says the advocate. The engineer who designed it had declared that. The dam was repaired by Tamil Nadu and some support structures were added. Such a support is no guarantee whatever. The dam may give way at any time.

During the recent deluge that engulfed Kerala, Tamil Nadu disregarded the court injunction about the water level and allowed the water in the dam to rise to 145 feet. It was done just to “prove” to Kerala as well as others that the dam was strong enough to hold the water. Joy says that Tamil Nadu was terribly insensitive and callous to do that, however. In fact, the letter written by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in response to his Kerala counterpart’s request to lower the water level was a mockery of a people who were grappling with a catastrophe.

Secondly, the contract which awards the Mullaperiyar waters to Tamil Nadu is not legally tenable. It was a contract signed between the King of Travancore and the British government in the 19th century. Advocate Joy managed to get a copy of that contract with much difficulty and more luck. The contract was yet another instance of the typical British skulduggery. The Travancore King was dragooned into signing it. The real motive was not supplying water to areas of Tamil Nadu but plunder the wealth in the verdant forests of the area.

The day India became independent the Travancore King declared the contract invalid. All contracts signed between Indian kings and the British became automatically invalid when India became independent. Yet this one contract, the Mullaperiyar one, continued to be in force!

What is really incredible is that this contract was signed for 999 years while all other such contracts between the British and the Indian kings were signed for 99 years. In 1970 the Kerala government with uncommon magnanimity renewed that contract. Advocate Joy asserts bluntly that a few politicians of Kerala sold the people of their own state for personal aggrandisement. Many of these politicians received due benefits from the Tamil Nadu government in the form of land or resorts or money in exchange for the renewal of the Mullaperiyar contract. J Jayalalithaa herself had hinted about this once, he says.

Joy is fighting a case in the court all on his own. He wants an expert international team [international, because there are no such experts in India] to examine the safety of the dam. “This is a matter that involves the lives of millions of people,” he says. The flippancy with which both Kerala and Tamil Nadu governments have dealt with it so far is unpardonable. Joy is certain that an expert team will recommend nothing less than the decommissioning of the dam.