BANGALORE, Feb 12: India’s technology hub, Bangalore, was crippled on Monday by a 12-hour general strike that shut businesses and emptied streets as activists protested a court verdict over access to river water.

The dawn-to-dusk strike in the southern state of Karnataka was provoked by a ruling this month that awarded an increased share of water from the Cauvery river to the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

The city began to stir back to life near dusk as traffic returned and some shops and cafes reopened on a day when schools and colleges stayed shut, shopping malls, restaurants and movie halls closed and taxis, buses and trucks kept off the roads to protest the ruling.

About 19,000 police enforced orders banning large public assemblies and street protests during the strike in Bangalore, known as India’s Silicon Valley.

“We arrested about 800 protesters and released them after the strike,” said Bipin Gopalkrishna, a joint commissioner with the Bangalore police. “The strike was absolutely peaceful and there was no violence.” The sharing of river water is a highly emotive issue in India, where several regions are prone to droughts that hurt the livelihoods of farmers and other rural dwellers, who make up two-thirds of India’s 1.1 billion population.

“The strike was a massive success,” said Sanneerappan, a spokesman for the Karnataka Protection Forum that organised Monday’s protest. “This was a call for justice for the people of Karnataka, a message to New Delhi.” The waters of the Cauvery, which rises in Karnataka and flows into the Bay of Bengal through Tamil Nadu, have been an age-old source of irrigation.

The river also provides drinking water for the neighbouring states of Kerala and Pondicherry.

The Cauvery tribunal, set up in 1990, this month awarded Tamil Nadu more than half of the Cauvery’s water, and Karnataka just over a third, with the rest shared by the two other states.

The Karnataka Protection Forum has promised further protests in coming days, while former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, a local politician whose son is the state’s chief minister, has urged the federal government to step in.

Many companies, including leading software makers such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro and Aztechsoft declared a holiday Monday and gave their staff an extended weekend while government employees applied for mass leave, local newspapers reported.

Electric and water utilities, hospitals, pharmacies and the media were exempted from the strike.

Some airlines cancelled scheduled flights, said a spokesman for Bangalore airport, adding the police arrested some protesters who attempted to force their way into the facility.

Protest organisers said 3,000 activists were arrested trying to block trains.

“This is the first time in the 10 years I have lived in Bangalore that I have seen the city like this,” said Nirajan Chahwala, an accountant. “It’s akin to a self-imposed, peaceful curfew.” The water dispute dates back to 1892, when a colonial-era law forced the Maharaja-ruled Mysore – modern Karnataka state – not to use the Cauvery waters without Tamil Nadu's permission. The modern dispute began in 1974 when the agreement lapsed.—AFP