An inclusive approach needed to resolve Teesta tangle

An inclusive approach is needed for an equitable resolution to the Teesta issue to keep the Bangladesh relationship amicable and help stabilise the region.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed last week a preference for India to implement the country’s Teesta River project in the midst of mounting uncertainty over a new water-sharing agreement between the two countries.

Any water-sharing agreement concerning the Teesta has to have Bengal’s concurrence (Representative Photo)

Her statement soothed frayed nerves in South Block, given that China is the other presumptive partner for the $1-billion development programme. Hasina had said on July 14 that she would give India ‘priority’, though her statement was not unequivocal. She also said that China had conducted a feasibility study and made an offer, while India had made an offer and would conduct a feasibility study. Eventually, she would plump for that was rational for Bangladesh. This is the obvious part.

Hasina also said, however, that India ‘holds back the Teesta’s waters’ and partnering with India made sense if Bangladesh wanted to realise its share of the river’s waters. Thus, while expressing preference for India, Hasina also flagged India’s responsibility to play fair in the sharing of waters.

We shall look at the trilateral and bilateral aspects of diplomatic relations later. Front and centre is the issue of sharing Teesta’s waters and notions of equity and need that are integral to a future water-sharing agreement.

These issues are complicated primarily by domestic priorities and politics. Hasina met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on her visit to India on June 21-22 this year, deciding, inter alia, that India would send a technical team to Bangladesh to study the management and conservation of Teesta waters ‘within’ Bangladesh.

To West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee this was a red rag, although no talks were held on the sharing of waters. Cut up at being cut out of discussions, Banerjee accused the Centre of ‘selling Bengal’ and of attempts to ‘snatch the livelihoods of the residents of Bengal’, just after the talks concluded. She also wrote to Modi on 24 June, expressing ‘deep anguish over keeping the state out of the ongoing talks with Dhaka, over the Teesta water-sharing agreement, and renewal of the Farakka Barrage Treaty’.

Any water-sharing agreement concerning the Teesta has to have Bengal’s concurrence. Both Bengal and Bangladesh have reasons to want a larger share of the river’s waters. The Teesta is the main source of irrigation for North Bengal. A diminished supply of water from this source will hit agriculture hard, as well as water-provisioning for other uses. The problem is compounded by the fact that the volume of water available from the Teesta has diminished over the years.

In 2011, the West Bengal government commissioned a hydrological study which concluded that giving Bangladesh a larger share of the Teesta’s waters would dry out North Bengal. At present, the Teesta’s waters irrigate 922,000 hectares of land in North Bengal and provide 67.6 MW of hydropower.

Since Independence and the Partition, East Pakistan and then Bangladesh have been demanding a greater share of the Teesta’s waters. In 1976, a joint river commission had allocated 42.5 per cent of the Teesta’s waters to India and 37.5% to Bangladesh, with 20% remaining unallocated.

Bangladesh says the quantity of water it receives is not enough for cultivation in the dry months in certain districts. But there the matter rests till now.

Banerjee is adamant that Bengal cannot forgo any more of the Teesta’s waters and has suggested, as an alternative, sharing the waters of the Torsa river, which also flows through Bengal and Sikkim before debouching in Bangladesh. But that idea has not gained any traction yet.

The difference in perspective between Bengal and the Centre is actually not purely a matter of political disagreement between two competing and adversarial parties. It is rooted in larger considerations. Geopolitics and diplomacy to a large extent guide dispensations in Delhi, while the compulsions of a much more regional character guide dispensations in the state. This is a structural problem.

First, Sheikh Hasina has been, by and large, a good diplomatic partner for India. In a situation where it has either hostile or ambivalent relations with neighbours both to the east and west and where there has been volatility and instability in the region, Bangladesh has been a steadfast ally.

Hasina’s long tenure this time around — 2009 onwards — has given Bangladesh political stability, which has delivered a period of unprecedented economic growth. This also helps the partnership stabilise the region. There are, to be sure, issues relating to a democratic deficit in Bangladesh, but that is hardly Delhi’s concern. Anyway, given the mounting democratic deficit in India, Delhi would hardly be in a position to point fingers, even if it were so minded.

Given this diplomatic balance, any dispensation in Delhi would obviously like to accommodate Dhaka, even if it were to entail a few sacrifices. In the current situation, in which Kolkata and Delhi are inimically positioned, it has obviously been tempting for the central government to keep Banerjee out of the loop.

Equally obviously, Banerjee can’t be expected to make sacrifices because it is not just a matter of nurturing political constituencies and acting out the adversarial relationship with the Bharatiya Janata Party, there are cogent arguments to protect the state’s developmental concerns and the livelihoods of a large number of people. Which ultimately means that India’s domestic tangles and imperatives place Bangladesh between a rock and a hard place.

Important as maintaining the relationship with Dhaka on an even keel is, it is also vital for Delhi to be alive to Beijing’s rapidly expanding footprint in the region — from Nepal and Bhutan, circuitously through Pakistan to Sri Lanka, China is sparing no energy and expense to draw India’s neighbours into its sphere of influence. And it has been conspicuously successful in establishing strategically salient relationships with all these countries.

Bangladesh remains more tethered to India, for the moment, but it is not as if Beijing has not managed to embrace Dhaka at all. China has invested heavily in energy, transport and industry. But most worrying for India will be the potential Chinese involvement in improving maritime connectivity and naval defence. Delhi cannot afford to be complacent.

If resolving the water-sharing agreement, both as a matter of equity and fairness and self-interest, is a crucial piece of the puzzle, whichever dispensation is in power in Delhi must move forward in lockstep with Bengal — and Sikkim, for that matter.

The Modi regime’s profoundly unilateralist anti-federalism cannot be the way forward. It is difficult to argue that Bengal must willy-nilly wedge itself into geopolitical jigsaws, without its voice being heard. A genuinely inclusive approach is needed for an equitable resolution to the Teesta issue to keep the Bangladesh relationship amicable and help stabilise the region.

Suhit K Sen is an independent journalist and researcher. The views expressed are personal