E-Kantipur

The uneasy undercurrents in the rivers crisscrossing South Asian countries are yet again being felt one after another. The latest one in the series is the Teesta treaty, which Bangladesh and India failed to sign recently.

Having promoted the water-sharing agenda as her government’s success beforehand, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had perhaps never expected that her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh would take it off his checklist before beginning his Dhaka-visit earlier this month.

But he did, as Bangladesh-bordering West Bengal’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee, reportedly unhappy over the draft of the treaty, did not join Singh’s entourage.

Although no specific reasons have been given, some sections of the Indian media reported that Indian officials wanted “groundwater that mixes with Teesta” to be counted in while working out the sharing formula.

“We have to know exactly how much water flows into Teesta, how much water is regenerated from the ground

water resources and how we can equitably divide

5 percent remaining water between the countries,” Indian Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was quoted as saying by livemint.com.

“Bangladesh is not talking about regenerated water, which they get from Teesta whereas we are considering it.”

So, at the end of the day there was no deal on Teesta. Even if both governments sought to downplay the failure, it has added yet another chapter of bilateral water sharing disputes between

the two countries that share more than 50 rivers.

The Teesta tangle has come up amid deepening disputes between India and Pakistan over the Indus river water-sharing.

India’s issue with China on Bramhaputra may appear not to have become so serious as yet. But the undercurrents suggest otherwise.

Beijing may have reassured Delhi that the hydropower projects it is building over the Yarlung Zangbo—the Tibetan name for Bramhaputra before it enters India—will not divert away

any water.

But many China-watchers in India will not so easily forget what Chinese leader Mao Zedong said on the Chinese south-north water transfer project. When first proposed in 1952, he had approved the scheme by saying “it was fine for the south to lend a little water.’

Beijing’s present posture continues to alarm Indian hawks.

Brahma Chelaney, a professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, recently wrote in the Financial Times, “Although there are water treaties in south and south east Asia, Beijing rejects the concept of water sharing arrangement. It is one of the only three countries that voted against the 1997 UN convention laying down rules on the shared resources of international

watercourses.”

The rejection by Beijing may have given New Delhi some reason to raise eyebrows. But then such rules on sharing of water resources have not been able to allay suspicions of signatory countries either—India’s smaller neighbours, you guessed it right.

The controversial Kosi and Gandak agreements Nepal signed with India have always dogged bilateral relations. With Pancheswor multi-purpose project under the Mahakali treaty still buried in a deep freezer, there is no sign of any progress in the much-hyped cross border water resources development.

Instead, water-related tensions in the region are on the rise with Indus, Bramhaputra and Teesta as the

latest entrants.

This is in line with increasing water disputes elsewhere in the world. In his book ‘Peak Water’, Alexander Bell cites 507 water-related disputes between countries from 1950 to 2000.

In South Asia, the list is bound to get longer as climate change intensifies its impacts on water resources.

Hydrologists and glaciologists say that as Himalayan glaciers melt rapidly because of global warming, downstream rivers will first see water levels rise drastically and in the long run, they will run dry.

Scientists are therefore predicting conflicts and tensions over freshwater resources.

Some studies have shown that few rivers in the region that were believed to be dependent on glaciers are actually snow or rain-fed. But even that finding is no relief as climatic changes are projected to alter rain and snowfall patterns.

Meteorologists have noticed that even though the total quantity of monsoon in recent years has not changed, their distribution variability has. Unlike in the past when the region saw a linear pattern of rainfall throughout the monsoon period, these days it often rains heavily in short spans of time; triggering landslides and floods. Quite often, the remaining period is unusually and quite painfully dry.

This imbalance, coupled by rapid population growth has impacted ground water, making it increasingly valuable. A recent NASA finding showed aquifers in northern India depleting alarmingly.

No wonder Indian officials reportedly factored in groundwater while calculating the sharing of Teesta river waters with Bangladesh.

India’s own national documents have admitted that it will soon be water-stressed. China has long done that.

So, brace up for more and more hardened positions over water-sharing in the region.

The era of water woes is here.

Khadka is a BBC journalist based in London

navin.khadka@gmail.com

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