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The International Farakka Committee (IFC) has said that Indian leaders’ making centre-state negotiations on Ganges water a condition for extending the 30-year treaty with Bangladesh is alarming. The treaty will expire on December 11 next.
This stand runs the risk of creating a smokescreen similar to the one that led to India’s failure to sign a treaty on the Teesta in 2011 due to a stance taken by then West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The treaty had been agreed upon between Dhaka and New Delhi before the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka on September 6-7, 2011, IFC leaders said in a joint statement on Wednesday, September 9.
The IFC noted that Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has assured Bihar that its water requirements would be taken into consideration before any decision is made on renewing the Ganges treaty, according to reports published in the influential Indian dailies The Hindu and The Indian Express on September 2. His assurance followed a demand by the Bihar government to meet the state’s water requirements.
Earlier, the West Bengal government also wrote to New Delhi, saying it should first meet the demands of Kolkata Port and the Hooghly and Bhagirathi rivers. Sanjay Jha, former water resources minister of Bihar, raised the matter in the Rajya Sabha on August 6. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar gave a written reply on August 28.
Meanwhile, on August 21, Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told the news media that talks on extending the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty were continuing at the technical level, where taking a decision is nearly impossible. The Ganges water-sharing agreements of 1977 and 1996 were signed at the political level. The first was signed between Bangladesh Minister Rear Admiral Mahbub Ali Khan and Indian Minister Jagjivan Ram, while the second was signed between Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed and Indian Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda.
Informed sources said the Bangladesh government had sent a letter to the Indian government seeking an extension of the Ganges Treaty. But so far, no response has come from New Delhi.
The IFC leaders noted that the Ganges Treaty will expire in just three months. But before the talks have been finalised or elevated to the political level, a smokescreen is being created around the issue in India. This, they said, is a reminder of how the Teesta Treaty was stalled in 2011.
They urged Dhaka to pursue diplomatic moves with greater urgency, saying the issue requires more immediate attention than the recent successful bid for the United Nations presidency.
The signatories to the statement were IFC Chief Adviser Prof Jasim Uddin Ahmad; Syed Tipu Sultan, Chairman; Mohammad Hossain Khan, Secretary General, IFC New York; Mostafa Kamal Majumder, President; Mahbub Alam, General Secretary; and Rafiqul Islam Azad, Joint Secretary, IFC Bangladesh.