Transit in exchange for water: from Ganges 1996 to Teesta 2011
The legitimate fear is the government will not be able to protect and uphold vital interests of the country properly, extensively and scrupulously. The outcome will be that India will get almost everything that it wants but Bangladesh will get a few anecdotal, symbolic and token items in return, writes Omar Khasru
THE food for work programme started as a relief operation in 1975 and was designed to gradually evolve into a development-oriented undertaking. In the tortuous attempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, the catchphrase is 'land for peace' swap, the connotation being Israel would relinquish occupied land in exchange for peace with neighbouring Arab countries. In the ongoing India-Bangladesh colloquy and proposed deal, it has now turned into transit for Teesta water exchange through a convoluted and capricious churning of events.
That is just too bad. The quid-pro-quo of granting transit to India in exchange for fair share of Teesta water is seriously objectionable. The share of water is our inherent and fundamental right according to international laws and covenants, of which India and Bangladesh, like rest of the civilised world, are co-signatories. Transit is an immense favour that Bangladesh has the right to grant India or refuse. The two cannot be put in the same category and bargained for to reach a barter deal similar to land for peace in the Arab-Israeli context.
In all these years the two countries have signed only the ineffective, inadequate and unequal Ganges water-sharing treaty. Extrapolating the mathematical computation, at this rate it would take more than 2,700 years to sign agreements on all 54 common rivers, with India in the commanding position as the upper riparian country of controlling the water flow of each to Bangladesh.
The sole trump card and potent factor and favour that Bangladesh has to offer is transit. If we use up this lone trump card to get a deal on Teesta, what will we offer for the water sharing deals in the remaining 52 rivers? Why would India care to reach a just agreement in any one of these in the future?
What would prevent India, as the perennially unfair, unfeeling and uncaring, and supremely insensitive and inconsiderate neighbour, to perpetually deprive Bangladesh of fair share of water from these rivers, notwithstanding the placebo and sugar-coated full-of-hope talk of good days, good times and great relationship between the two neighbours by the current regime and staunchly pro-Awami lobby, intelligentsia and cronies.
The Indian yearning and quest for transit through Bangladesh is nothing new. The craving was there ever since the partition of the British-ruled South Asian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947. During 1947-71, when the current Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan) was a part of Pakistan, the clamour was largely muted because of the extremely antagonistic Indo-Pakistan relationship. The outcry got louder after the independence of Bangladesh.
The right of transit through Bangladesh to reach the Northeast Indian states has immense economic, military and strategic significance. The financial gains in terms of transport cost, time and distance factors would also be hefty. The Indian demand and desire for transit subsequently got to a cacophonous level and eventually reached a crescendo in the recent years.
Back in the mid-1990s, India pledged more Ganges water to flow into Bangladesh during dry season and lean period in exchange for gaining the right of transit to reach its North-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura (so-called seven sisters) from the rest of India. The 'transit for water' deal was a part of the Indian position at the beginning of the negotiations which led to the Farakka accord in late 1996 during the previous Awami League regime.
During the July 1996 Dhaka visit, the then Indian foreign secretary Salman Haider linked Ganges water-sharing with land access to the Northeast India. When asked about the link between transit and water sharing, Haider said, 'Transit occupies a pivotal consideration in our thinking.'
Earlier, during Khaleda Zia's 1991-96 government, India proposed that Bangladesh allow rail and road traffic rights, use of Chittagong port, and export of Bangladeshi natural gas to India in return for increased Ganges water flow to Bangladesh at Farakka. In 1994, a few new features were added to this proposal: supply of electricity to India from gas-operated power plants in Bangladesh and setting up of petroleum, chemical and fertiliser factories along the border within Bangladesh to supply Indian markets.
Export of natural gas was also not a fresh proposal. India had asked Bangladesh in 1980 to explore and consider the possibility. Even the mere suggestion of this incited such a backlash that the then president Ziaur Rahman was compelled to reject India's proposal outright.
The railway transit proposal was raised by New Delhi several times during the military rule of General HM Ershad (1982-1990). The World Bank customarily broached the subject during the feasibility study of the Jamuna Bridge (renamed as the Bangabandhu Bridge). Ershad refused to consider the proposal after careful consideration of the possible political fallout.
The transit for greater quantity of water scheme created an outcry in Bangladesh during the previous Hasina regime, most stridently from Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the opposition party back then also. The ruling coalition headed by Sheikh Hasina handled the matter rather gingerly and cautiously. In the course of the negotiations, the Indian side realised that the insistence on transit would be untenable, unattainable and futile.
The then Indian foreign minister IK Gujral, during his September 1996 Dhaka visit, stated that India was not pressing for transit in exchange of water. This was a departure from the previous stance as reiterated earlier by his foreign secretary. The minister perhaps realised that the 1996-2001 Awami League administration had a tiny majority and was not secure or strong enough to deliver transit. India did not want to cause discomfort or unease to a regime it regarded as more sympathetic and friendly than any other in recent times.
The inability to grant transit and other goodies perhaps partly explains the shoddy Ganges water sharing deal that turned out to be ineffective, inadequate and unequal. The evidence is that much of the river resembles a dry and sandy landmass during the lean period with Bangladesh never receiving the legitimate, justifiable or fair share of water. With guarantee or arbitration clauses missing in the treaty, there is very little Bangladesh can do to resolve the deprivation.
So what has changed? Why does the Awami League government now feel assured in offering transit in addition to the use of seaports with almost nothing substantial in return? The current Awami League regime, for one thing, has a big and brute majority in the parliament, whereas the major opposition party is in shambles. The regime feels powerful and confident enough to meet and deliver the age-old Indian demands. It is offering now what it did not feel comfortable with in 1996. It is complying with Indian wishes that it did not feel safe to comply with back then. India was just waiting for the right regime and the right situation.
The local Indian lobby, pliant politicians and partisan experts, foreign powers and their envoys, and multilateral donor agencies all started pushing hard and putting pressure for transit and assorted Indian desires. They presented rosy pictures of turning Bangladesh into Switzerland and Singapore, wiping off the yeoman trade imbalance, charging considerable transit fee from India to shower the country and its citizens with milk and honey, fulfilling all the country's needs and pushing the collective standard of living by a few notches.
Few members of the same transit promoting snake oil salesmen now proclaim that the pursuit of hefty transit fee is an uncivilised and uncouth gesture and Bangladesh at best should receive a token fee. Some advisors to the prime minister and others now are offering vague and intangible benefits in terms of jargons, such as connectivity, friendship, cooperation and togetherness. When some of them talk about the issue, they seem to represent the Indian point of view trying to spotlight long-term illusory and ambiguous gain for this country.
The legitimate fear is the government will not be able to protect and uphold vital interests of the country properly, extensively and scrupulously. The outcome will be that India will get almost everything that it wants but Bangladesh will get a few anecdotal, symbolic and token items in return. This genuine concern is based on past experiences and the ongoing fragile and bumbling bargaining attempts with big and powerful neighbour, with our acquiescent official representatives fawning and falling head over heels to appease the Indian side.
The Teesta deal, as we all know, was abandoned in the eleventh hour outwardly due to intransigent opposition of the newly crowned Pashchim Banga chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. She apparently was peeved that Bangladesh was offered whole of 48 per cent of the Teesta water on the basis of the measurement of the flow of water at Gojoldoba Point, 25 kilometres from Siliguri in North Bengal. She was hell-bent to spare no more than 25 per cent of the water. The latest news is that she and the opposition left front in Pashchim Banga are in total agreement not even to concede that paltry 25 per cent.
So if the offer of the long-sought-after longing for transit is unable to snare a fair deal of a single river, how can we get fair share of water from the 52 other common rivers? Once the trump card of transit is spent and gone from Bangladesh, India will lose both the enthusiasm and desire to arrive at deals to share the water of other rivers.
The future, like the present, looks bleak and hopeless. Bangladesh necessarily needs to be extremely stingy, slow, insightful and deliberate in granting even a part of transit (water, rail or land). The stiff asking price should be a fair share of Teesta water as the mere first instalment of emblematic down payment. The favour would be slowly and carefully expanded each time with the settlement of successive water-sharing arrangements that would both be acceptable and beneficial for Bangladesh.
If the transit facility is wholly surrendered now in an inequitable and fuzzy deal, with no guarantee or arbitration clauses and no veiled threat of cancelling it unless India lives up to its pledges and obligations, there will be nothing else to offer and no inclination on the part of India to delve into water sharing pacts with speed or sincerity. It will take forever to reach a comprehensive agreement on all fifty-plus rivers. By then these rivers will turn from canals into drains and eventually dry out. Desertification and salinity will prevail.
Unfortunately, it is likely that full-fledged transit will be offered in return for a hastily completed Teesta water sharing treaty that will excel in symbolism and sorely lack in substance. The ruling coterie will beat the public relations drums loud, claiming fair share of water, but the plight of Teesta bank people and farmers will be mired in uncertainty and deficiency with no way out. India's mission will be fully accomplished but this country will lose out yet again.
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/35249.html
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