India, Bangladesh face critical questions over sharing of Ganges River, as treaty talks loom

CNA

2 days ago

BANGKOK: The Ganges is a shape-shifting river of many names and sacred beginnings.
Born as a trickle in the Gangotri Glacier high in the Himalayas, it is known as the Bhagirathi.
As its holy threads descend and idle through the heart of India, it grows wider and absorbs the nation's soils and stories. It also takes on the name Ganga, the Sanskrit term widely used in the country for the river.
Then, as it approaches the Bay of Bengal, its waters flow into Bangladesh and take on a new identity - the Padma - enriching the fields and forests around the world's largest river delta.
As mighty as the 2,525 km river may be, and as important a role it plays in the lives of hundreds of millions of people, it remains shaped by politics and national interests.
Today, the Ganges faces severe alterations from the changing climate and increased demands of a growing regional population; threats to an ancient system snaking through a complicated contemporary landscape.
India and Bangladesh share the critical resource, decreed under a treaty forged close to three decades ago. It allocates water flows to each country, particularly during the critical dry season, using a dam built close to the international border.
But by the end of next year, that binding agreement is due to expire and is expected to be torn up and renegotiated amid the backdrop of pressing climate and geopolitical challenges.
Before the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty officially expires in December 2026, both sides were to form a joint technical committee this year, ahead of diplomatic-level negotiations.
Experts say the agreement is no longer fit for purpose and that a reworked treaty is urgently needed.
But delivering one that encompasses competing security, strategic and environmental interests of both nations and their communities could be extremely difficult.
Last month, Bangladesh became the first South Asian nation to join the United Nations Water Convention, a global legal and intergovernmental framework that helps states with shared water resources manage them peacefully and sustainably.
It is an indication that Dhaka is placing more emphasis on 'fair and equal water sharing', said Sonja Koeppel, the convention's secretary.
Ashok Swai, a professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden, noted that the Ganges is 'no longer just a transboundary watercourse'.
'It's a flashpoint in the growing securitisation of water in South Asia, where hydropolitics increasingly intersects with national identity, regional power struggles and domestic political calculations.'
Since 1996, when the Ganges Treaty was signed, the world has changed.
It came at an unprecedented time - India had a centrist coalition government in power, and Sheikh Hasina had just come to power in Bangladesh with a clear interest in improving bilateral ties, Swai said.
These days, 'the context has evolved considerably', said Uttam Sinha, senior fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi.
'Climate change, rising domestic water stress, growing demands from Indian states and shifting geopolitical dynamics - especially Bangladesh's closer ties with China - mean the treaty no longer fully reflects today's realities,' he said.
Critically also, the current agreement largely fails to contend with the changing climate, experts argued.
Under the existing treaty, water allocation is calculated based on dry season flow at the Farakka Barrage, inside India and about 10km from the Bangladesh border.
The goal is to share water fairly, especially when the flow is low, by regularly measuring and adjusting how much each side gets every 10 days. There are set formulas that shift depending on the recorded volumes.
'What has changed most in recent years is how unpredictable the flow has become. In the past, it varied only a little each year, but now the difficulties are much bigger,' said Malik Fida A Khan, executive director of the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) in Dhaka.
It now varies by 30 per cent compared to 13 per cent in the 1960s, he said, a factor that the treaty cannot properly account for.
The allocation formula is based on historical average flows from decades past, dating as far back as 1949.
'This creates a dangerous mismatch between legal commitments and hydrological realities,' Swai said.
A multitude of factors, especially reduced glacial flows, monsoon variability and extreme floods, are increasingly playing havoc with the river's natural functions. And more water is also being extracted upriver in India for agricultural and industrial use.
'In today's context, with increasing interannual variability and erratic flows, such fixed allocation systems can lead to disputes during low-flow years and under-serve both parties in times of crisis,' said Aparna Roy, the lead on climate change and energy at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy in New Delhi.
Himalayan glaciers, which feed the river, are retreating rapidly, with one-third of their volume expected to be lost by 2100 even if global warming is contained to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
'This will destabilise the seasonal water flow - initially increasing runoff but eventually leading to severe dry-season water stress,' Roy said.
More extreme rainfall events in the basin, more frequent flooding and drought periods are having severe impacts on regional agriculture, drinking water supplies and groundwater recharge.
Nearly 60 per cent of Bangladesh's population is exposed to high flood risk, the second highest rate of all the countries in the world, behind the Netherlands.
Rising sea levels and over-extraction have also increased salinity intrusion, leaving millions in coastal Bangladesh facing the prospect of drinking water with salinity levels above World Health Organization standards.
'These compound risks are no longer distant scenarios, they are manifesting now, with disproportionate impacts on the poor, women and subsistence farmers,' Roy said.
'The concerns are extremely serious, not only for water security, but also for food systems, migration and regional stability.'
WATER AS A SOURCE OF TENSION
In May, India and Pakistan were engaged in the exchange of missile and mortar strikes on each other's territory. A terrorist attack in the north Indian town of Pahalgam put the Indus River, shared by India and Pakistan, at the centre of the simmering tensions.
A principal point of strategic leverage between the neighbours was water. The two countries have a water-sharing treaty for the Indus, signed back in 1960. It effectively governs water access for about 300 million people.
But following the attack, India suspended the treaty, a move that Pakistan then labelled as an act of war.
The stoush not only raised fears of water scarcity in Pakistan, which heavily relies on the Indus for 80 per cent of its water supply, but also showed how water is poised to become a critical pillar of India's national security strategy, said Sinha.
By comparison, the Ganges contributes approximately 31 per cent of the water that flows into Bangladesh, with the Brahmaputra, which also runs through India, providing 54 per cent.
'India is clearly positioning water as both a diplomatic tool and a strategic asset,' said Sinha.
He argued that the Indian government's approach to water diplomacy is less idealistic than in the past, more rooted in national interest and increasingly shaped by security, climate and regional influence.
The country too is facing internal rising water challenges that could exacerbate socio-political tensions across states, he said.
The state governments of West Bengal and Bihar have been vocal about their own water needs, sourced from the Ganges.
It means that India will increasingly need to integrate water security into its strategic planning to protect both its territorial and developmental interests, according to Sinha.
At the same time, the Bangladesh government is navigating a period of flux, after the collapse of the government under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last August.
A political vacuum emerged and tensions with India rose, following sectarian attacks on Bangladesh's Hindu minority, arrests of religious leaders and failed attempts to extradite Hasina back to Bangladesh from India - where she claimed asylum - to face criminal charges.
India and Bangladesh share 54 transboundary rivers, yet have sharing agreements for only one - the Ganges.
It speaks to a lack of comprehensive, adaptive river governance across the region, which in a time of climate-induced water stress is likely to deepen mistrust and 'erode the already fragile foundations of transboundary cooperation', Swai said.
'Nationalistic politics in both India and Bangladesh have significantly undermined the ability to sustain long-term, equitable transboundary water agreements.
'Without urgent institutional innovation, climate change threatens to turn shared rivers into sources of sustained geopolitical friction,' he said.
And right now, he said, the India-Bangladesh water-sharing relationship is better understood as an example of power asymmetry than a model of cooperation.
Geopolitical calculations also weigh on both countries' actions around water.
China's activities on the upstream of the Brahmaputra, a transboundary river that flows through southwestern China, northeastern India and Bangladesh, loom large in regional water diplomacy.
China has recently started construction of the world's largest hydro-electric power dam close to the city of Nyingchi in the southeast of the autonomous region of Tibet.
The US$167 billion project will retain waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo, which eventually flows into the Brahmaputra. India has conveyed its concern over the impacts of the dam, which could take a decade to construct.
It has prompted further calls within India for the country to build its own dam in the state of Arunachal Pradesh to counter China's project, which could have further repercussions for Bangladesh, if water flow is further impacted by new river infrastructure.
Swai said that India and Bangladesh should work together, ideally with Nepal and Bhutan, to develop science-based governance architecture for the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin, to create a 'united front' in response to China's damming activities.
But there are signs that Dhaka has strategically aligned itself closer to Beijing in recent times.
Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh, visited China in March to meet President Xi Jinping and signed multiple agreements and memorandums of understanding across diverse sectors, including infrastructure.
Bangladesh also secured investment, loan and grant commitments worth US$2.1 billion, including for an exclusive Chinese Industrial Economic Zone and an agreement for zero tariffs on Bangladeshi goods until 2028.
India will need to navigate the realities of that 'growing' relationship, Sinha said, by managing not only geopolitics, but the concerns of its own riparian states internally too amid changing hydrological conditions.
CONVENTION MOMENTUM?
According to the United Nations Water Convention's Koeppel, there are many more examples around the world of shared rivers being tools for cooperation rather than conflict.
She cited the example of a recent transboundary agreement on Africa's Okavango Basin, shared by Angola, Namibia and Botswana, which now takes into account climate change following several rounds of negotiations assisted by the convention.
Bangladesh's accession to the water convention is a regional breakthrough, she said, that should help to promote shared goals on a critical issue.
She said she believed Bangladesh can become a 'champion for transboundary cooperation' and encourage other regional states to work better together.
'With water being so vital for life, for food, for agriculture, for energy, for ecosystems… even in difficult situations such as post war, transboundary agreements continue to exist and to work,' she told CNA.
Being a member to the convention will support Bangladesh in areas like the development of treaties, national water governance, capacity building for its officials, flood risk reduction, financing and tourism.
Given Bangladesh's challenges around water and climate change, the timing is prescient - it has taken several years for the country to accede.
South Asia is an acute hotspot at the confluence of water stress and climate change, characterised by rising temperatures, altered hydrology, increasing extreme weather, food insecurity risks and significant socio-economic vulnerabilities.
But it is not helped by a lack of partnership on transboundary water issues, Koeppel said.
'The continent, generally, is the least advanced on transboundary cooperation globally,' she said. 'Overall, there's a lack of cooperation. This is a pity.'
She expressed hope that other countries in the region will now also be motivated to join the convention, adding that the mechanism is far more useful and effective working on a regional scale.
CAN BOTH SIDES WIN FROM THIS?
A 'win-win' scenario is possible for both India and Bangladesh, if they can overcome tensions and develop an evolved treaty grounded in science, analysts said.
Right now, long-standing grievances are held in Bangladesh, where 'many view the treaty as structurally biased in India's favour', Swai the Uppsala University professor said.
There are perceptions, he argued, that water-sharing for the Ganges-Padma was an 'imposed arrangement rather than a negotiated partnership', given Bangladesh was still East Pakistan at the time the Farakka Barrage was commissioned in 1962, giving it no agency in the decision.
Gaps in trust and transparency apparent in the current river arrangement only worsen the tensions, he said, which can have flow-on impacts on regional peace, stability and economic growth.
A new 'living document' with clauses for real-time data sharing, designed for mutual benefit, would be a strategic boon to both build bilateral trust and reduce third-party influence in South Asia, Sinha said.
But political leadership on both sides will need to rise above populist nationalism and focus on shared survival and prosperity, Swai added.
Water security on one side of the border inevitably affects the other and arbitrary acts like building new dam infrastructure could erode trust.
New agreements with provisions for early warning systems and adapted to real-time hydrological and climate conditions, instead of 'reactive, bilateral bargaining' could foster better cooperation, he said.
'Water must be reframed not as a zero-sum security issue, but as a shared resource requiring adaptive, science-based management and political maturity,' Swai said.
'The cost of inaction will be steep - for both people and governments on either side of the border. The stakes are too high for the status quo to hold.'
Khan from the Dhaka-based CEGIS suggested codifying a minimum ecological flow at Hardinge Bridge, on the Bangladesh side of the border beyond the Farakka Barrage with penalty triggers and third-party auditing to protect river health and salinity control.
'In short, Farakka fixes the minimum; climate decides the frequency and severity of extremes — both must be tackled together,' he said.
The Bangladesh government has already shifted from treating climate change as a footnote to making it a core design parameter in water planning, he said, through its Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 and National Adaptation Plan, which explicitly aims to 'climateproof transboundary river management'.
New water projects in Bangladesh now routinely incorporate climate models. Designs for barrages, irrigation or flood control consider a range of future flow regimes, he added.
Built-in dispute resolution mechanisms and robust data-sharing within the Indus Treaty, despite the prevailing geopolitical tensions around it in recent times, is an example of a policy precedent that Ganges Treaty negotiations could look at, said Roy, of the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy in New Delhi.
She also cited the Mekong River Commission in Southeast Asia as an example of upstream and downstream states cooperating through joint monitoring and climate impact studies, despite not having a binding treaty.
She highlighted the benefits of joint river basin institutions with climate expertise and water sharing models that include navigation, disaster management, groundwater recharge and ecosystem services.
India has an opportunity to enhance its credibility as a climate leader in South Asia and globally, without jeopardising its own national goals, by being a responsible upstream actor in this case, she said.
'Climate is a shared existential threat and South Asia's best chance to turn water from a source of tension into a pillar of cooperation.