FAcross the country for their beauty, but fearing their love would be forbidden, the river spirits Rangit and Rongnyu decide to leave the shadow of the Teesta Khangtse Glacier and flee to the plains. Led by the Parilbu Snake, Rongnyu soon made it to their rendezvous. The Tufto mountain bird, however, proved to be an unreliable guide, distracted by the colorful flowers and buzzing insects. Angered by the long, winding road, Rangit threatens to go home – but the lovers reconcile, Lepcha Legend Recordsnever be parted
Connected for millennia with the joys and sorrows of the people living on its banks, the Teesta River has also divided the two nations through which it passes.
This week, as Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed visited India, she made it clear that get a deal Teesta water sharing is central to his diplomacy. In public remarks, Hasina asked India to “show more generosity“In ongoing negotiations. Bangladesh and India managed to reach an agreement on the less-controversial Kushiyara running from Assam to Sylhet, but Teesta remained out of reach.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi since his election in 2014 has been promised Hasina he is committed to a deal. However, the Prime Minister’s resolve has run into a hard reality: In this, India’s national interest does not bode well for millions of Indians.
Read also: India and Bangladesh ink treaty to share water of Kushiyara river, Teesta pact stuck
division of rivers
Like much to do with India and Bangladesh, the conflict over Teesta is linked with Partition. From the late nineteenth century onwards, the British colonial authorities first considered diverting the Teesta and the Ganges to the Hooghly. silt out from the strategically important Kolkata Port. After independence, the government proceeded with the Farakka Barrage, a more complex project involving power generation and irrigation infrastructure, intended to catalyze development in West Bengal.
Fifty rivers flowed from India to East Pakistan—and the small country feared that the Farakka Barrage would become a blueprint for a complete blockage of its water resources. In response, Pakistan announced plans to build its own barrage under Farakka. The strained relations between India and Pakistan ensured that no serious effort was made to arrive at a sensible resource-sharing arrangement.
Even after Bangladesh’s independence, however, it proved difficult to reach a water-sharing agreement. Legal scholar Bikramjit Dey has noted that an interim agreement signed in 1975 lasted just 41 days. a five year deal In 1977 a UN brokerage gave Bangladesh an 80:20 share of dry-season flows, but the deal proved untenable.
Then, in 1979, Bangladesh completed work on its own barrage at Dalia, which was designed to irrigate half a million hectares of land. Five years later, Bangladesh opened a 4,500-km canal network carrying water from the Dalia Barrage to the country’s rice and maize fields. However, in a few years the canals dry up.
Across the border, India had completed another barrage at Gajoldoba in Jalpaiguri, supplying water to 228,000 hectares of agricultural land. Economist since 1996 Yoshiro Higano and Muhammad Fakrul Islam has observed, “Special control of Teesta water in dry season in Gjoldoba of India has rendered the Dalia Barrage useless.” In the monsoon, in contrast, the release of water from the overflowing barrage caused “flooding and shore erosion, causing severe suffering”.
Read also: Stop seeing Bangladesh as ‘East Pakistan’. The last 50 years are a missed opportunity
in turbulent waters
Since 1996, a framework has been drawn up to resolve the Ganga and Teesta water dispute: Ganga Water Treaty, signed in 1996 Hasina and Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, committed India to release water from Farakka to farmers in Bangladesh. In practice, political scientists Fahmida Akhtar has noted, the flow often falls below the minimum Bangladesh deserves in the dry months. Furthermore, the lack of a dispute resolution mechanism in the treaty made it ineffective.
The government of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made an agreement in 2010 draft agreement proposed Giving 40% of each flow to Bangladesh and India, with provision for arbitration of disputes by the International Court of Justice. For months, the then National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon worked to get West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s assent to the deal, securing her consent.
Then, for reasons that were never made public, Banerjee withdrew her name. Prime Minister Singh – whose government relied on the support of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) – was forced to walk out of the deal.
By some accounts, Banerjee believed that the deal would provide farmers in West Bengal about 8,000 cubic feet of water per second in critical dry months affecting agriculture in Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Dakshin Dinajpur, North Dinajpur and Darjeeling. loss will occur. Instead, West Bengal insisted on a 70:30 sharing of water in the driest months, from December to April.
Even though TMC leaders no longer have any influence over the central government, political factors remain standing in the way of the Teesta deal. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been working to expand its electoral presence in West Bengal, is reluctant to support a treaty that would harm farmers in the state. Moreover, the Modi government is reluctant to risk popular unrest in strategically sensitive regions such as Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and Darjeeling, which are crucial to the link between India and its northeast.
Meanwhile, the problem is getting worse every year on both sides of the border. Hydrologist Kalyan Rudra, who studied the issue for the West Bengal government on the Teesta issue in 2011, has found that the silt reduce storage capacity In existing barrages and dams. Water demand is also increasing—and that means there is more friction between India and Bangladesh.
Read also: Indians, Bangladeshis know similar incidents of 1971 differently. we need a common official history
facing increasing pressure
Bangladesh’s prime minister’s calls for action are becoming increasingly desperate. Elections are due in Bangladesh in 2023, and Hasina knows her close ties with India are giving ammunition to a increasingly aggressive protest, Since she took office, Hasina has eliminated jihadist threats, provided unprecedented counter-terrorism support and quelled anti-India insurgency. However, the Prime Minister’s failure to settle on Teesta has hurt Bangladesh’s farmers and weakened their hold.
Evidence of Hasina being forced to make concessions to India’s enemies is not difficult to find. Islamists backed by the ruling party are waging a harsh culture war – mobilization against women wearing western clothes on campus, and for alleged blasphemers. Bangladesh also demanded support from china A clear strategic concern for India is the water management projects on Teesta.
Experts say that apart from the treaty, there are things that India can do to ease the situation. Suggested by Gauri Nulkar-Oak that better management of water release from dams in Sikkim, for example, could provide more water for use in both West Bengal and Bangladesh. The two countries can also work to increase groundwater availability and rationalize the demand for agricultural water.
The real cost of a deal on Teesta in West Bengal would be for poor and marginal farmers – a cost to the Modi government to engage in and address. However, the cost of a hostile government and civil society in Bangladesh will far outweigh that burden.
The author is ThePrint’s National Security Editor. He tweeted @praveenswami. Thoughts are personal.