Sharing waters vs. sharing rivers: The 1996 Ganges Treaty

July 28th, 2014

Paula Hanasz, Australian National University, Australia

The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna mega-basin is the second largest hydraulic region in the world, and one of the most densely populated regions.1 Within this basin, fifty-four rivers cross the border between upstream India and downstream Bangladesh.2 Only one, however, is subject to a bilateral agreement between the two countries: the Ganges River.

The Ganges Treaty3 between India and Bangladesh is an agreement to share surface waters at the Farakka Barrage near their mutual border. But the treaty, which was signed in 1996, divides water flow without sharing the value and uses of the river between the two countries. It does not even take into consideration the uppermost riparian, Nepal, meaning that it takes neither a whole-of-basin approach to river management, nor does it factor in the effects of upstream use of the Ganges on water availability at the Farakka Barrage.

The Ganges Treaty illustrates that a legally binding agreement is not the same as meaningful cooperation between the parties. The treaty favours the hydro-hegemonic state (India) and solidifies the status quo. It does not create a community of interest in the shared management of the river and has left Bangladesh with numerous concerns and unresolved issues.

Why is the treaty a superficial agreement about dividing waters? Perhaps because it is a response to a quirk of history and geography rather than a mutual desire to share the benefits of and responsibilities for the river.

The main course of the Ganges River once ran through what is now known as the Hooghly River in India, but in the early 1500s shifted eastward toward the Bengal Delta in Bangladesh. Nonetheless, under the British Raj a port was established at the mouth of the Hooghly in Kolkata to transport goods to and from inland areas.4 India wanted to maintain the port, and in 1962 constructed a 2.25km long diversion, the Farakka Barrage, to redirect the Ganges’s flow into the moribund Hooghly during the dry season – thus sparing the Kolkata port from being obsolete, but at the cost of adverse downstream effects on the Ganges in Bangladesh.4

The Ganges Treaty is a water sharing agreement in its most primitive sense: it is solely an arrangement for the volumetric allocation of river flow in the dry season. It does not concern benefit sharing, nor does it purport to be a comprehensive river sharing and management treaty. Instead, the Ganges Treaty establishes India’s right to withdraw up to 40,000 cusescs of flow at the Farakka Barrage between 1 January and 31 May every year. If availability at Farakka falls below 70,000 cusecs, the flow will be divided equally between the two countries, while guaranteeing a minimum of 35,000 cusecs to each over alternating 10-day periods between 11 March and 10 May annually.3

A further problem with the water allocation is that it is based on averages from flows between 1949 and 1988. Since then, the dry season discharge of the Ganges at Farakka has declined due to increased upstream uses for agriculture and other purposes,5 and this has led on several occasions to Bangladesh not receiving the Treaty apportioned flow.6 By focusing exclusively on dividing water flow, the treaty has not taken into account how current and future uses further upstream are likely to affect availability at Farakka.

In light of these short-sighted features of the Ganges Treaty, it is interesting to note that it also espouses principles of international water law. Specifically, it refers to the ‘do no harm’ principle7 and focuses on water needs rather than water rights.8 This is noteworthy considering India is not a signatory to the 1997 UN Convention on Non-Navigational Uses Of International Watercourses due to reservations about certain clauses.1 The principle of ‘reasonable use’7 is also evoked. The Ganges Treaty ensures that “The waters released to Bangladesh…shall not be reduced below Farakka except for reasonable uses of waters, not exceeding 200 cusecs, by India”.3 However, this applies only to the short stretch of the Ganges within Indian territory between the Farakka Barrage and the Bangladeshi border. It is thus disingenuous because 35,000 to 45,000 cusecs can be extracted at Farakka by the state of West Bengal, whereas the 200 cusecs permissible for withdrawal below this point in practice only limits Indian farmers and domestic users without providing meaningful benefits to Bangladesh. This illustrates that merely including clauses about equitable utilisation of shared rivers is not the same as equitable river sharing.

The final feature of the Ganges Treaty of relevance here is the de facto lack of a conflict resolution mechanism.F1 The scope for dispute resolution provided in the Treaty is of very limited scope.1 The Joint Committee, comprised of an equal number of representatives from both countries and answerable to the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission, is responsible for ‘examining’ any difficulty arising out of the Treaty implementation.3 It therefore does not give the Joint Committee any powers for dispute resolution or recourse to mediation or arbitration. The requirement for the two countries to meet if the flow falls below 50,000 cusecs3 implies that a conflict or crisis worthy of extraordinary attention can only arise when river flow is limited or outside the averages of flows between 1949 and 1988.

Yet, the conflicts and crises between India and Bangladesh arising out of this Treaty are not limited to simply reduced flows below 50,000 cusecs. The issue of flooding is of particular concern to Bangladesh. As a deltaic floodplain, Bangladesh already faces even greater risk of flooding than drought. Because the Ganga Treaty allows India to withdraw a maximum of 40,000 cusecs irrespective of the overall flow of the river, when the flow reaches 2,000,000 cusecs – the point at which the river breaches its banks – there is no recourse in the Treaty for flood alleviation. The flood risk is compounded by the rapid rise in silt deposition rates occurring since the Farakka Barrage was erected.4

Because the current division of Ganges waters at Farakka does not address drought or flood mitigation, it arguably harms the agro-ecological and economic wellbeing of Bangladesh.9 The Treaty is also seen an unfair treatment meted out and the disregard shown to a smaller country by a ‘big brother’.2 A further point of contention is that Bangladesh has on numerous occasions proposed all three riparians – Nepal, India, Bangladesh – should work together because the diversion of the Ganges will affect water flow to Bangladesh during the dry season.2 Yet India, as the regional hydro-hegemon, prefers to maintain strictly bilateral relations with co-riparians. It is doubtful this status quo will change in the foreseeable future.9 These problematic issues have been left unaddressed by the Ganges Treaty and continue to fester between India and Bangladesh.

Appreciating the Ganges as not merely the flow of cusecs but rather a river with multiple values and as a multifaceted ecosystem requires a truly multilateral effort. And with a basin-wide approach, river-sharing – in the sense of creating mutual benefits – is more likely.

Nonetheless, the prevailing attitude in South Asia remains that even a sub-optimal bilateral treaty is better than none.10 It must be understood, however, that just because an agreement was negotiated it does not mean that underlying tensions have been resolved. Indeed, an uncritical acceptance of traditional forms of ‘cooperative’ arrangements, such as treaties, may in fact sustain the conflict the treaty was intended to transform.11

Lastly, any ‘water sharing’ agreement based on volumetric allocation of river flows in the absence of a basin-wide river management regime is bound to exacerbate underlying issues (such as historical grievances, unaddressed concerns over flooding, lack of data sharing, and a political relationship based on mutual mistrust) that can only be addressed from a place of a genuine community of interest and political will for ‘river sharing’, which take a positive sum approach rather than a zero-sum one.

Footnotes

F1. In contrast, India’s agreement with Nepal on the Mahakali River has a robust conflict resolution mechanism, illustrating that India does not have a policy of avoiding establishing conflict resolution mechanisms with its neighbours.

References

Tiwary, R., 2006, Conflicts over International Waters, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 17 (Apr. 29 – May 5, 2006). Singh, R., 2008, ‘Trans-boundary Water Politics and Conflicts in South Asia: Towards Water for Peace’, Centre for Democracy and Social Action, New Delhi. —-, 1996, Treaty Between The Government Of The People’s Republic Of Bangladesh And The Government Of The Republic Of India On Sharing Of The Ganges/Ganges Waters At Farakka, 1996. Thomas, K., 2012, ‘Water Under the Bridge? Int’l Resource Conflict and Post-Treaty Dynamics in South Asia’ in South Asia Journal, Issue 5 – July 2012, published on Jul 2, 2012, http://southasiajournal.net/2012/07/water-bridge-intl-resource-conflict-posttreaty-dynamics-south-asia/ [accessed 27 June 2014]. Mirza, M.Q., 2002, ‘The Ganges water-sharing treaty: risk analysis of the negotiated discharge’, International Journal of Water, Vol.2, No.1, pp.57-74. Khalequzzaman, Md., and Islam. Z., 2012, ‘Success and Failure of the Ganges Water-sharing Treaty’ on WRE Forum http://wreforum.org/khaleq/blog/5689 [Accessed 1 July 2014]. United Nations, 1997, Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. Wirsing, R., Jasparro, C., & Stoll, D.C., 2013, International Conflict Over Water Resources in Himalayan Asia, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Condon, E., Hillman, P., King, J., Lang, K., & Patz, A., 2009, ‘Resource Disputes in south Asia: Water Scarcity and the Potential for Interstate Conflict’, prepared for the Office of South Asia Analysis, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Workshop in International Public Affairs, 1 June 2009, Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, p. 10. Price, G., et al., 2014, Attitudes to Water in South Asia, Observer Research Foundation. Zeitoun, M., & Mirumachi, N., 2008, ‘Transboundary water interaction 1: reconsidering conflict and cooperation’ International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Vol. 8, Issue 4.

Paula Hanasz is a PhD candidate at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University and is currently an International Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi. Her thesis explores the water interactions between India, Nepal and Bhutan. Paula can be contacted at paula.hanasz@anu.edu.au.

The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here.