There is a punch dialogue in Cho's Mohammad-bin Tuglak. The public in protest against the imposition of Hindi will burn Post Offices. Tuglak would say,� These days, even letters are not coming through Post Offices. How can Hindi come through them?�

This should be the normal reaction to the halting of screening of Tamil films, smearing black paint on the buses from Tamil Nadu and attacking the Tamil sangam premises in Bengaluru on Monday. They were protesting against the TamilNadu Chief Minister's statement that the State Government would implement the Hogenakkal water scheme at all costs. Kannada Rakshana Vedike's President Narayan Gowda warned that the agitation would continue till the State Government dropped the proposal to build a dam at the 'disputed site.'

On top of this, a top Police official had wryly quipped that the Hogenakkal eruption is not unusual, but unseasonal. What he meant perhaps was that the Cauvery dispute would hot up normally during summer over the non-release of water by Karnataka..

This narrow, parochial outlook owes its origin to the formation of States on linguistic basis. This was a major mistake committed by the Nehru Government. Instead, the States should have been formed by straight lines as has been done in the US. Anyway, it is too late now to regret it.

All is not lost as yet. The first and foremost step the Union Government should take is to nationalise all rivers and form an impartial interstate commission to administer and regulate the river waters. This is the only way to protect the unity and integrity of India.