The Ganges Water Conflict And Regional Cooperation Issues – OpEdIndia-Bangladesh recent bilateral dispute over distribution of waters in the G...

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The Ganges Water Conflict And Regional Cooperation Issues – OpEd

India-Bangladesh recent bilateral dispute over distribution of waters in the Ganges River is a sensitive and complicated problem of long-historical, environmental, and political importance.


The 1996 Ganges Water Treaty is the source of conflict, as a two-nation treaty for managing sharing of water by the two neighboring nations. Although the treaty was first welcomed as a step towards cooperation, recent events and open sores indicate that the treaty doesn’t go as far as needed in dealing with the shifting needs and desires of the two countries. Bangladesh still grumbled about the insufficient Indian water in the dry season period, particularly when most needed, and the devastating impact on agriculture, livelihood, and the environment.

The 1996 agreement mandates dry season release of 35,000 cusecs at Farakka Barrage, but Bangladesh is protesting the length of such a rate of release and asking for more from India a raise in the level of guaranteed release to 40,000 cusecs. Dhaka’s charm is genuine need: the Ganges River supports Bangladesh, supporting irrigation, supporting fisheries, and giving drinking water, and supporting rickety ecosystems like the Sundarbans mangrove forest. Cutting back access to a reliable and adequate amount of water deepens droughts, empties agricultural crops, and incites salinity intrusion along the shores, triggering ginormous socio-economic agony. India, on the other hand, attributes internal state politics and local water requirements for not agreeing to open the treaty for renegotiation.

This is just one of the fine lines that India must tread in sharing transboundary water resources and yet be motivated by its very large and varied population. India’s action also mirrors the issue of transboundary water, where competitive national interests are hidden behind a drive to reach a reasonable compromise. Then again, consistent with the critics, India’s assertive actions and dominion over the Farakka Barrage are designed to obtain the upper hand in Bangladesh. They contend that no legally enforceable under a treaty minimum rate of flow of water has been left reserved and India thus enjoys wide margins of discretion to withhold river waters, even at the cost of the downstream users. Environmental destruction because of such skewed apportionment has been devastating.

Monsoon flood year and drought year dryness affected hundreds of millions of Bangladeshis and destroyed hundreds of millions of hectares of agriculture harvests and inflicted billions of dollars’ economic damages. Indian barrage release unpredictability, for instance, resulted in 2024 flood that destroyed home and infrastructure while simultaneously resulting in drought threatening human beings with food scarcity in Bangladesh. These cyclical water inflows are juxtaposed with attempts towards environmental equilibrium and are harmful to such a valuable an ecosystem as Sundarbans, a World Heritage Site of UNESCO. Siltation and salinity threaten biodiversity, fishery, and livelihood based upon such natural resources. Collapse of the 1996 treaty is met by the absence of a proper mechanism for dispute resolution.

Where imbalances exist, no effective forum of arbitration or mediation is available to resolve them, and Bangladesh has to most rely on diplomatic good faith rather than legally binding obligations. Imbalances sow seeds of doubt and resentment, and Bangladesh’s larger elites perceive the treaty as an emblem of hydro-hegemony—where India exercises disproportionate leverage over shared waters without adequate consultation and cooperation. This is just one of many South Asian hydro-political conflicts. The conflict over the Teesta River is similarly well-balanced and a dispute that represents suspicion and political savvy between the two nations.
SOURCE: https://www.eurasiareview.com/07102025-the-ganges-water-conflict-and-regional-cooperation-issues-oped/#google_vignette

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