 IN THE past few days and weeks, a number of ministers of the Awami League-led government have come out with their tacit support for the controversial Indian plan for construction of dam/s on the river Barak at Tipaimukh in Assam, some 200 kilometres upstream of the Bangladesh border.
Not only have they harped on the now-clichéd Indian government's 'assurance' that it would not divert water from the dam/s, that the dam/s would not harm Bangladesh in any way and that Bangladesh stands to be benefited from the dam/s, one of them, the commerce minister, even claimed that 'those who are talking too much against construction of the dam are talking without knowing anything'. On Tuesday, the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the water resources ministry, Abdur Razzak, who will lead a team of parliamentarians and experts to Tipaimukh to inspect the controversial project and assess its possible effects on Bangladesh. His comments are not only unfortunate but irresponsible as well for they undermine the credibility of the team that he will lead before its inspection of the Tipaimukh project and subsequent findings and recommendations, on the basis of which the government will come up with a formal reaction to New Delhi about the planned dam/s. Also, Razzak apparently sought to make the controversy a partisan issue when he claimed that the project 'went ahead as per the discussion and the resolutions of a meeting of the Joint Rivers Commission in New Delhi in 2003', when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government was in power. They should take to their task free of any prejudice or misconception. Regrettably, the designated leader of the team, as his comments tend to indicate, seems to have been overcome by both prejudice and misconception. When the team leader is guided by prejudice and misconception, it is bound to influence other members of the team.
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