INDIA鈥橲 denial to convey minimum information on the 54 common rivers that it shares with Bangladesh and its arbitrarily obstructing water flow on numerous locations upstream with dams and barrages have all along exposed Bangladesh to devastating flooding. Such controls of dams and barrages upstream in contravention of the international laws have negatively affected the water flow of the rivers downstream, leaving an adverse impact on agriculture and fishing in Bangladesh. The situation also triggers droughts during the dry season when India holds water and waves of flooding during the monsoon season when India opens the stop gates. One such continued happening is the River Teesta which causes drought, gradually leading to the desertification of Bangladesh鈥檚 north, and almost routinely causes flooding as India controls the water flow of the river in the Brahmaputra basin with its Gazaldoba barrage upstream. Even in the latest spell of flooding, India鈥檚 reported release of water from its hydroelectric project at Dumboor in Tripura amidst a spell of extreme rainfall is said to have compounded the situation. India is also alleged not to have conveyed information on the release of water to Bangladesh authorities in time.
India shares with Bangladesh only information on water levels of eight common rivers, as the Joint River Commission that was set up in 1972 for common river management to mutual benefits says, keeping to the consensus reached at the third meeting of the commission after its beginning five decades ago. India has constructed more than a hundred structures on the Ganges alone without ever having cared to seek Bangladesh鈥檚 consent or to provide Bangladesh with information on the structures. India has not also shared information on the management of the stop gates on the Farakka Barrage, erected on the Ganges basin only 18 kilometres off Bangladesh despite having a sharing agreement on the water of the river since 1996. India is even additionally blamed for having regularly violated the agreement. International laws, which treat rivers as a resource that must be taken care of all along its course and must not be divided, could be a remedy as they are premised on an equitable, just and fair share of water and sediment in rivers. The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses prohibits any action by a country that can bear social and economic consequences for peoples and other states. But Bangladesh has yet to ratify the international convention, which experts say has happened because of subservient policies of successive governments which became highly capitualistic towards India during the authoritarian regime of the Awami League, which was overthrown through a student-mass uprising on August 5.
Bangladesh must, in such a situation, shore up issues of the sharing of information on common rivers with India. It must also ratify the international convention related to international watercourses paving the way for a legal remedy of the situation. It must also see whether Joint River Commission and Water Development Board officials have been negligent in carrying out the duty.