Abstract

India and Bangladesh are, respectively, the upstream and the downstream riparian countries of the Ganges Teesta Brahmaputra Meghna river system. Bangladesh acts as the outlet of their water discharges. India has built a unique ring of dams and barrages along the border of the two countries on more than 50% of the 58 common rivers to let out the flood season water that she fails to accommodate and to stop flow the lean season water. Also, she has built dams on nearly all the tributaries of the Ganges. Bangladesh presented a plan to India on building reservoirs in Nepal to solve the water shortage problems and have other benefits. But India was adamant that she was not going to bring Nepal to solve the water problem. Rather, she prepared an accounting of Bangladesh’s water need based on the population and areas in the Ganges Padma, the Brahmaputra Jamuna, and the Surma Meghna River sub basins which would be subversive to the ecosystems if Bangladesh had accepted.

India went with her hegemonic attitude and deprived Bangladesh of her due share of the Ganges water just to build India’s #1 National Waterway for inland cruising. The loss of the surface water resources along with over extraction of the groundwater to overcome the need, has turned the north and northwester parts of Bangladesh water scarce triggering a domino effect on inland waterways, people’s livelihoods and nutritional intakes, transportation, water contamination, climate, and so on. Many distributaries have died and the depths in the main rivers have been shallowed causing widespread flooding as India releases the gates of dams and barrages being unable to accommodate the flood water. Bangladesh’s demoralized polarized politician’s trade off political gains with outsourcing of national resources since they lack the courage of raising the genuine case of upstream water piracy caused national sufferings to the international court of justice. Some intellectuals and diplomats support their activities for personal benefits. India’s united politicians use their words of water sharing as ploys to buy time to let Bangladesh’s rivers silted, in which case people in overpopulated Bangladesh will grab silted river beds and Bangladesh will not ask for water lest people’s residences will inundate. Nations, however powerful, should stop playing with water resources in the name of management to let it stay in the virgin state to save the planet from frequent anthropogenic disasters like climate change, flooding, etc.

Project site: The project site is Bangladesh located at 24°00’N and 90°00’E. The principal rivers of Bangladesh shown in are the Ganges (Padma in Bangladesh), the Brahmaputra (Jamuna in Bangladesh), the Teesta, and the Meghna. The Teesta is the major tributary of the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna’s headstreams are the Surma and the Kushyara generated by the bifurcation of the Indian Barak River. The Teesta flowing from Sikkim joins the Brahmaputra as a tributary. The Brahmaputra joins the Padma as a huge tributary. Also, the Meghna joins the Padma as another tributary by definition. Indian and Bangladesh are riparian countries of these rivers. For the survivability of the downstream Bangladesh ecosystem, the maintenance of a minimum dry season discharge is required in these rivers which can be assured by India.

Keywords: Hydropopwer; Green revolution; Political polarization; Transboundary rivers