From: banerjee@hsc.usc.edu (Samit Banerjee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Ganga Water sharing (was Re: Victory in ....about India?)
Date: 25 Dec 1992 16:11:02 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: hsc.usc.edu

In article <Bzu7zC.8C1@news.udel.edu> khaleq@brahms.udel.edu (Mohame Khalequzzaman) writes:

>Bangladesh's proposal does not advocate to take water from any Indian state.
>They want to construct reservoir in the upstream areas in Nepal, which
>will simply collect water during rainy season and will use  during dry
>months.  The use of this water will also generate electricy.  

If that is true, why not build the reservoirs in India? Being a bigger
country, with more resources, India is better suited for the reservoirs than
Nepal. Also reservoirs built in india can generate electricity.

The problem as I understand it, is a deep BDeshi distrust of India and hence
the need to involve a third country. That is where the reasons behind
India's refusal to accept this proposal also lie. It is simply not ethical
to expect India to part with it's natural resources only because BD is
paranoid about her (India's) intentions and questions her ability to achieve
an equitable distribution of that water. 

[stuff deleted]

>Yes this is true.  But also true the fact that the building of the Farakka
>Barrage and diversion of water to "flush" Calcutta Port has not turned out to bea successful undetakig.  The problem of siltation is not solved, but has
>detereorated.  

The Calcutta port is no longer a issue. After Haldia was commissioned, the
importance of the Calcutta port has continued to decline and deteriorate.

>Jyoti Basu has admitted that the Farakka hasn't solved any
>problem that was originally intended for (most of the Indian scientists that
>I have met admitted to this fact; the reference of Jyoti Basu's assertion is
>an interview published in a Bangladeshi Newsweekly "Bichitra" last year).

I wouldn't take everything Jyoti Basu says at face value. Lot of it is pure
hype meant for a domestic electorate in order to point out the failings of the
Cong(i) government that conceived of the project.

>Now the reason for such a failure lies in  the lack of scientific feasibity
>of the project.  I don't think the Indian scientists didn't know that the
>Farakka wouldn't solve the problem of siltation on riverbeds.  They, especiall
>the geosientists, must have known that.  Their geoscience, by the way, is very
>good.  

That is not entirely correct. What the Geological Society of India who did
the survey for the project, did not take into account was the dimished
water flow in the Ganga. Whatever else they say now about the feasibility
of the project is merely to cover their behinds.

The reasons for the dimished water flow are an increase in population in UP/
Bihar/WB and a proliferation of small industries in these states which 
consume large amounts of water. If the Farakka Barrage did receive enough
water now as it did in the 1960's, then silting of the Calcutta port would 
have been avoided.

The problem lies in the fact that the people who conceived the project
did so using data from the 1960's. Any extrapolation to the 1980's did
not hold and of course the foresight to see this coming, was missing.

>Hypothetically speaking, if Bangladesh
>were a state of India, then under no circumstences India would plan to
>build the Farakka Barrage;. because there is no scientific reason or
>validity to such an unnecessary undertaking.

Lets just say that like so many things scientific, the barrage also
has it's political uses.  But when envisaged in the 1960's, it did have
some necessity. I think that in the back drop of Indo-BD friendship
in the future, the barrage will loose it's last remaining relevance.


[interesting scientific stuff deleted]


>I personally have brought up the question of Farakka at various International
>Geoscience conferences, where numerous Indian geoscientists participated. As 
>expected, never (I mean never) any Indian geoscientist questioned my views
>that the Farakka doesn't have much scientific validity and it is more of
>a political problem.  I invite any of my Indian geoscientist colleague to
>defy my view or conclusion..

Farakka is a barrage and not a dam. It's utility lies not in storing water
but in channeling water into other areas away from the main river. If the
Ganga had enough water when it reached the Indo-Gangetic basin, Farrakka
would have served it's primary purpose of feeding Calcutta port.
Why that did not happen, I explained earlier.


>The idea of a link canal for the Brahmaputra and the Ganges is the same old
>political trick.  We the Bangladeshis can't afford to be trapped in another
>political ambush.  Not only our dependence on India will increase, if India
>wants (which is not unlikely) can make our life extremely miserable by
>controlling the water resources that originate in India and then flow into Bangladesh.  Only solution is to convince the progressive people in India who will
>not find it fun to humiliate its neighbors.  Lets hope that they understand thatno one can live in complete peace if the neighbors are in trouble, especially
>when the trouble is their own make. We can only be happy together.

No matter how sympathetic an Indian may be, he cannot ignore the obvious
which is the fact that almost all rivers flow from India into BD and that
by the laws of physics, control of that water rests with India.
The responsible political leadership in Bangladesh will have to get
off it's "hate-India" platform and start trusting the Indian people and 
government. Without that element of trust, nothing can be achieved. 
And in a protracted river water conflict, it is BD people who will at the
receiving end.

Samit


-- 
Samit Banerjee,			    |  
University of Southern California   |  A man who smiles when things go wrong,
Internet: banerjee@scf.usc.edu      |  has found somebody to blame it on.
Bellnet : (213) 342-1401            |