As a neighbour, Bangladesh has close ties to India. Gratefully, Bangladeshi citizens recognise the contributions of Indian government and its military arm in liberating the country from clutches of the marauding Pakistan Army in December 16th of 1971. Therefore, Dhaka expects a friendly behaviour from New Delhi. The joint declaration of the erstwhile Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi on 16 May of 1974 stipulates - "India would come to an amicable agreement regarding allocation of the Ganges waters before it was diverted through Farakka Barrage". Mujib's government was taken aback when New Delhi proposed that the barrage would be commissioned as a test-run. As a fait accompli, Bangladesh accepted the Indian decision without sharing waters from the Ganges. Nevertheless, this created enormous problems for low-riparian Bangladesh because non-implementing sharing of waters from 54 common rivers has been asymmetrically used by India to its advantage in depriving its neighbours of their due share of waters. Further, this has caused enormous ecological damage to Bangladesh as a result of shortage of waters particularly during lean period. Due to shortage of waters, a number of rivers in Bangladesh have been dried up.
Apparently, former President Ziaur Rahman was almost reluctant to cooperate in resolving water sharing issue which compelled Bangladesh to rise at international level to resolve water sharing with India. India had no other option but to come to an agreement with sharing of waters from the Ganges - an international river. During India's Janata Dal rule, Prime Minister Morarji Desai understood Bangladesh's difficulties and extended cooperation to resolve water problems. A five-year agreement, containing a guarantee clause on the sharing of the Ganges waters at Farakka, was signed in November of 1977.
The Ganges is about 2,510 kilometres long which rises in Nepal and flows through India in a south-easterly direction towards Bangladesh. It becomes Padma as soon as it enters Bangladesh forming a border between India and Bangladesh for 122 kilometres. In 1978, the two countries put forward a proposal and a counter-proposal for augmenting the flow of water during the lean period. Bangladesh held a view that the building of up-river storage dams in Nepal would increase the flows and generate energy to meet the needs of Bangladesh and India. On the other hand, India proposed to divert water from the Brahmaputra to the Ganges through a link canal across the Bangladesh territory. Unfortunately, both proposals were not acceptable to each other. According to Ashok Swain - professor at Uppsala University in Sweden - "It is important for Bangladesh to involve Nepal in the project since it would be more difficult for India to break a trilateral agreement than a bilateral one."
During Mr. Desai's state visit to Dhaka in 1979, both countries agreed to set up a joint river commission on the allocation of irrigation water from the Ganges for Bangladesh, apart from agreeing to set up a committee to consider Dhaka's proposal to include Nepal. Yet, successive governments in both countries have failed to pursue such serious proposal. Eventually, Bangladesh's former President Hussain Muhammad Ershad signed two memoranda-of-understanding (MoU) on the sharing of waters at Farakka while Bangladesh was assured that a long-term solution could be found after the expiry of five-year agreement signed with President Ziaur Rahman.
Nevertheless, signing of the 30-year treaty of sharing waters from the Ganges between Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart H. D. Deve Gowda in 1996 was a positive development, although the treaty lacked guarantee clause.
Currently, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted the River Linking Project to divert water from common rivers to Indian interior. Reportedly, this will resolve water problems of drought seasons in the northwest and southwest parts of India. New Delhi is also committed to implement the based on feasibility and this will divert waters from the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers to the west and south of India by creating artificial reservoirs. The main linkage would be between Ganges and Kaveri rivers. If the project is implemented, it will create devastating effect on the ecology of Bangladesh - confirmed by numerous environmental experts and activists.
As a low-riparian country, Bangladesh has the right to share waters from common rivers of international nature. Globally, a large number of examples in the cooperation between lower and upper riparian countries exists which could be a precedent in negotiating with India and Nepal to have joint venture projects for storage of water for irrigation and generating hydroelectricity - apart from driving out salinity in southern part of Bangladesh. Between 1954 and 1961, Kosi River agreements between India and Nepal comprised the constructions of barrages, head-works and other appurtenant works in Nepal. Such projects provide hydroelectricity, flood-control and irrigation benefits to both countries. All works were done by India, although Nepal is entitled to 50 per cent of hydroelectricity generated at any power-plants within 10-mile radius of a barrage site.
Similarly, India signed an agreement with Bhutan in 1974 to produce hydroelectricity on the Wangchhu River. Nepal has approximately 40,000 MW of feasible hydropower out of which Nepal is using reportedly 600 MW for hydropower. In 1964, the Columbia River Treaty was signed between Canada and United States. Being both upper and lower riparian countries, they concluded an agreement to build 15,500,000 acre-feet of usable storage in Canada for flood-control, and improved water-flow and hydroelectricity generation.
During their latest visits to Bangladesh in July 2014 and June 2015 respectfully, India's foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and Prime Minister Modi have assured Dhaka that New Delhi would be able to settle the Teesta and Feni rivers' water sharing issues with the help of the state governments of West Bengal and Tripura. Emphatically, Mr. Modi said: "Our Rivers should nurture our relationship, not become sources of discord. Water sharing is above all a human issue." Bangladeshi people are looking forward to see that it should not remain as rhetoric and wants to see in concrete term of the implementation of his words. If the Indian government does not act accordingly, Bangladesh should consider approaching the international community to resolve the water sharing issues.
Meanwhile, Dhaka should evolve an extensive watershed management program involving forestation, construction of sediment traps, speed-breakers in the catchments of the rivers such as Brahmaputra, Padma, Teesta, Gomti, and Jamuna while dredging of such rivers. A geological and hydrographical study should be undertaken to build up a barrage on the Padma near Hardings Bridge in Pabna and another one on the Gomti River for storage of waters. A separate fund for these projects could be opened to collect revenue, both internally and externally - similar to the construction of Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge by the Bangladeshi government.
The writer is a retired diplomat and a freelance writer based in the United States.
amjad.21@gmail.com
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