Facts about this Plan to divert water from the Himalayan rivers (Granges and Brahmaputra) are still sketchy. However, little information that we can piece together from indirect sources and from data collected by knowledgeable professionals in this country reveal an alarming scenario for Bangladesh, once all linkages of rivers in India are completed. KL Rao (former Indian Irrigation Minister in the Nehru cabinet) had initially proposed, in 1972, a plan for developing a National Water Grid (for India) as an inter-basin water management option, through transfer of excess water from surplus regions to deficit regions. The plan envisaged two major linkages: Brahmaputra-Ganges link and Ganges-Cauvery link. India's National Perspective Plan of 1980 included a revised version of KL Rao's National Water Grid plan, while the National Water Development Authority (of India), formed in 1982, endorsed the proposal of "part by part interlinking of rivers". Although details are unavailable, it is understood that the water diversion or transfer plan by India envisages the construction of 30 link canals -- 14 in Himalayan rivers and 16 in Peninsular rivers. The linking component dealing with the Himalayan rivers includes the building of reservoirs, barrages and other structures to store and divert water from the Brahmaputra and the principal tributaries of the Ganges. Transfer of water will be achieved through canals linking the Brahmaputra (through Teesta, Atrai, Karatoya and Mahananda) with the Ganges above Patna as well as linking left bank tributaries of the Ganges with those on the right bank.

Assuming that this transfer will augment the Ganges flows in India, the surplus water will be used in the arid regions of Rajasthan and Gujrat on the west, and transferred by canals linking the Ganges with Subarnarekha and Mahanada rivers in Orissa --extending (by link canals) to Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery rivers in the Southeast. Contrary to popular belief, West Bengal is unlikely to complain about Ganges water withdrawal for transfer to Subarnarekha river (outside West Bengal) through a link canal, because the state (West Bengal) will be amply compensated by augmented Ganges flows above Farakka. The amount of water transfer within the Himalayan component will be around 14.8 million hectare meters, which is some 20 per cent of the wet season flows of the Brahmaputra and the left bank tributaries of the Ganges. India's central government has constituted a Task Force in December 2002 with the mandate to obtain agreement and smooth out disputes between states regarding water diversion. All feasibility studies on linkages are expected to be completed by December 2005, while six of them are believed to have been already completed. The target date for the completion of all the link canals and structures is end 2016!

The potential and cumulative negative impacts of these diversions on Bangladesh would be -- to put it even mildly -- disastrous. The very fact that the project details of this mega diversion plan of India is enshrouded in secrecy vindicates the apprehensions of Bangladesh of the negative impacts on the ecology and livelihood of our country. Bangladesh Foreign Office's expression of concern to the Indian government within the past few weeks, although belated, is the beginning point for a long and complicated diplomatic journey. No official response has possibly come yet, but early press reports indicated that the Indian government's advice to Bangladesh was "not to jump to conclusions". The nature of this type of response reminds us of another Indian response -- half a century ago. When Pakistan sent a note to India, demanding prior consultations, about the proposed Farakka Barrage on October 19, 1951, the Indian response (five months later) was that Pakistan's apprehensions regarding the negative impacts of Farakka were "purely hypothetical"!

Of the 54 cross border rivers coming from India, Bangladesh has got water sharing agreement only on one river -- the Ganges -- through the Ganges Water Treaty of 1996. There is none on the Brahmaputra, the major supplier of surface water for our country.

In the absence of any water sharing agreement for Brahmaputra, the implications of any unilateral upstream diversion of an unknown quantum of water to the Ganges basin are frightening. The decrease in the flow of Brahmaputra (Jamuna) within Bangladesh would adversely affect the flows of the distributaries in the North-Central hydrologic region. The amount of Jamuna water reaching the Ganges at Goalundo would also diminish, thus adversely affecting the distributaries of the South-Central hydrologic region. Similarly, the reduction of flows in Atrai, Karatoya and Teesta could spell disaster for the rainfall-deficit Northwestern hydrologic region. Wetland and groundwater recharge capacity would also decrease in the Brahmaputra Dependent Area. Other negative consequences of the upstream water diversion in Bangladesh include saline ingress through the lower Meghna, which could be as far as the haor basin of Sylhet, and shoal formation in the estuary. However, being starved of the natural in-stream flow, the single most important negative impact would be on the morphological 'health' of the river systems of Bangladesh.

The tasks before Bangladesh in meeting the challenges of natural calamities, triggered by human action from across the border, are formidable. Three approaches, separate but coordinated, could be thought of at this stage. The most important approach should be necessarily at the governmental level. Our Foreign Office, aided by the Water Ministry -- and by extension, our High Commission in New Delhi -- should demand full details about the inter-basin water transfer plan from India. The logic of this demand is that, in both the Ganges and Brahmaputra, being international watercourses, Bangladesh is a stakeholder, and therefore, it has the right to be consulted before any upstream intervention is done anywhere in these basins. The details and facts on the Indian diversion plan, once obtained by our government, should be fully disseminated within the country in order to create awareness among our people and mobilise public opinion on the issue with a unified voice. Bangladesh could invoke Articles VIII and IX of the Ganges Water Treaty (1996) to point out that, under these articles, both countries are committed to "cooperate with each other in finding a solution to the long term problem of augmenting the flows of the Ganges" and "conclude water sharing agreements with regard to common river (under the principle of 'no harm' to either party)." These two articles implicitly negate any unilateral action which might harm either country.

Conscious of the importance of international watercourses and transboundary basins, the United Nations prepared a universal framework in the form of the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. It took 30 years to be accomplished and is yet to come into force. Bangladesh has not ratified this convention, nor has India. Had Bangladesh ratified it, some of the clauses/articles contained in the Convention could have provided Bangladesh a moral ground to argue and advocate its interests vis-a-vis the Indian diversion plan. Under the 1997 UN Convention, integrated management of transboundary watercourses (through cooperation) has been emphasized through Article 3 (Watercourse agreements and rights and obligations), Article 7 (Obligations not to cause significant harm), Article 9 (Regular exchange of data and information), Article 12 (Notification concerning planned measures with possible adverse effects), Article 17 (Consultations and negotiations concerning planned measures) and Article 24 (Joint management mechanism among watercourse states).

Supplementing the efforts at the government level, two other approaches could be explored to face the challenge. One such approach could be the efforts of the professionals and knowledgeable civil society members in sensitising the people, investigating the adverse effects of the diversion plan on Bangladesh, disseminating the information and facts throughout the country as well as to provide and support the government with professional advice and data. This is the so-called Track 2 initiatives, which are also existent in India; and professionals from both riparian countries could exchange opinion and information on the issue with a view to facilitating governmental efforts in riparian cooperation under the "no harm principle". The other approach relates to the tasks for the media. They have a very active and well-articulated role to play. The media need to reflect the national concerns over the diversion plan in an objective and dispassionate manner in order to create mass awareness in the country. It could also endeavour to collaborate with environmental activists and groups in India (who had been so vocal against the Narmada Dam project), and in Europe and the USA -- like Greenpeace, and the International River Network, an affiliate organisation of Friends of the Earth International. The objective could be to mould a unified international voice against the social and environmental costs of such a grand water transfer scheme for all the riparian countries.

Even though the 1997 UN Convention has not yet come into force, on the subject of international rivers, the principle of "restricted sovereignty" -- which establishes that a country does not have the right to do as it pleases with the transboundary watercourses flowing through its territory -- has long been almost universally accepted. The exercise in trying to define sovereignty over transboundary watercourses is futile in the current globalised world, where sharing, cooperation and interdependence could provide the framework for meeting the needs of all riparians. The scheme to connect the Himalayan and Peninsular river networks into a single national water grid (through water transfer) without sharing information with the downstream water user demonstrates a kind of hegemonic demeanor of India in the water sector. Information sharing, both before and during the implementation of planned measures, under a fully transparent format must be the first confidence-building step in riparian cooperation. No one will disagree that sharing information is quintessential to prevent mistrust, misgivings and an erosion of good neighbourliness.

Dr Rasheed is Professor of Geography and Environment, University of Dhaka.