Mahmud ur Rahman Choudhury
The Bangladesh Today - February 16, 2009
Three important events have taken place in Bangladesh since I wrote
the commentary last Monday. These are: (1) The Indian external affairs
minister has visited Bangladesh barely a month after the AL government
took office, (2) Student agitations on various issues have again taken
a violent and destructive turn and (3) The Indians are going ahead
with the construction of the massive Tipaimukh barrage - all of these
events collectively impinge on us in more than one ways but the one
which directly affects our very ability to survive is the issue of
water-sharing of some 53 common rivers between India and Bangladesh.
By constructing Tipaimukh and other barrages, India is depriving us of
life-giving waters, drastically reducing our ability to survive and
therefore this is the issue needing immediate and continued public
attention and the subject of this commentary.
India has resumed construction of the Tipaimukh barrage on the Barack
river just a kilometer north of Jakiganj in Sylhet; the construction
work was stalled in March 2007 in the face of protests within and
outside India. The barrage when completed in 2012 is supposed to
provide 1500 megawatts of hydel power to the Indian state of Assam but
in return its going to bring about a major disaster for Bangladesh,
practically contributing to drying up of 350 km long Surma and 110 km
long Kushiara rivers which water most of the north-eastern regions of
Bangladesh. The Tipaimukh barrage is going to seriously affect not
only agriculture in large portions of Bangladesh, particularly in
winter, but is also going to bring about negative ecological, climatic
and environmental changes of vast areas in both Bangladesh and India.
It's not just this one Indian barrage that is a source of considerable
concern and trepidation in Bangladesh; in 1976 India put into
operation the Farraka barrage which more or less destroyed the
Ganges-Brahamaputra basin, most of which lies in the deltaic plains of
Bangladesh and in 1990 India also constructed a barrage along the
Teesta river thereby virtually making ineffective much of the Teesta
barrage project constructed down-stream in Bangladesh to support
irrigation and agriculture in the north-west region of the country.
What is even more worrying is that India has evolved plans to divert
waters, from the north of the country to its drought-prone southern
and eastern states, of some 53 river which flow from India to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh shares a common border with India in the west, north and
east and with Myanmar in the southeast. These borders cut across 57
rivers which discharge through Bangladesh into the Bay of Bengal in
the south. The upstream courses of these rivers traverse India, China,
Nepal and Bhutan. Trans-boundary flows, which enter Bangladesh from
remote catchments extending short distance to thousands of kilometers
upstream, are the important source of water resources. Among the
trans-boundary rivers, the ones most affected by Indian barrages and
their related systems of canals, reservoirs and irrigation schemes are
Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and Teesta. Although the Indian and
Bangladeshi governments have a water sharing agreement for the Ganges,
there are none for the other 53 rivers that cross the border. With the
Tipaimukh barrage now underway, India seems to be going ahead with its
mega-project of diverting river waters from its north to its south and
east, thereby putting Bangladesh's very survival at stake.
As to how the AL government is going to handle this issue of our
survival through water-sharing of common rivers between India and
Bangladesh is difficult to say because right now the government is
suffering from a sense of complacency and deja vu over "friendship"
with India forgetting the fact that India is a state with interests to
maintain and that Bangladesh too is a state with equally pressing
imperatives to survive as such. India is taking unilateral decisions
about matters which affect Bangladesh's core interests and if these
cannot be resolved bilaterally, Bangladesh must look at options of
going to multilateral forums such as the UN to get its right not only
recognized but also implemented. International laws dealing with
water-sharing of common rivers and sources are ambiguous, unclear and
contentious and so, Bangladesh ought to vigorously pursue these
matters, perhaps even garner international support for a change in
those laws dealing with water-sharing - this international dimension
is a crucial factor affecting the management of the trans-boundary
river systems. There is thus, no scope for Bangladesh to be deflected
from this core issue of water-sharing notwithstanding Indian deceitful
and diversionary insistence and propaganda on "terrorists and transit".
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