PRIME Minister Narendra Modi’s first challenge as he pursues his foreign policy vision during his third consecutive term at the office has come from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. This challenge seems to reflect two major trends in India’s external behaviours of late – ‘water nationalism’ and the growing ‘federalisation’ of foreign policy. These trends may well limit Modi’s power, or for that matter, the power of any Central or federal Government in Delhi, to conclude international treaties or agreements with foreign countries.
Following Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s highly successful visit, Banerjee has written a letter to the Prime Minister indicating that New Delhi should not reach any watersharing agreement with Bangladesh without taking into confidence the state Government led by her.
Unilateral deliberations
“I am writing this letter in the context of the recent visit of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. It seems that water-sharing issues relating to the Ganges and Teesta rivers may have been discussed during the meeting. Such unilateral deliberations and discussions without consultation and the opinion of the state Government is neither acceptable nor desirable,” Banerjee wrote.
“I came to understand that the Government of India is in the process of renewing the India-Bangladesh Farakka Treaty (1996), which is to expire in 2026. It is a treaty which delineates the sharing of water between Bangladesh and India and, as you are aware, has huge implications for the people of West Bengal”, she added, emphasising that the people of Bengal are “worst sufferers” of such treaties. In her letter, Banerjee, of course, noted how West Bengal shares a very close relationship with Bangladesh – geographically, culturally, and economically and how the state has cooperated with Dhaka on several issues in the past.
Joint milestones
“Agreement on the exchange of IndiaBangladesh enclaves, also known as the Chitmahals, IndoBangladesh railway line and bus services are some of the milestones of jointly working together with Bangladesh for the betterment of the economy in this region. However, water is very precious and is the lifeline of the people,” she wrote, adding, “We cannot compromise on such a sensitive issue.”
Incidentally, all the cooperative agreements between India and Bangladesh, including the sensitive exchange of enclaves in 2015, have taken place under the Modi Government only. And Banerjee did support all these measures. But, water sharing is proving to be a difficult issue.
It may be noted that the centuriesold water systems of the Indian subcontinent got fractured when the country was partitioned in 1947. As a result, many rivers became ‘shared rivers’, leading to differences among the countries in the region over the quantum of the shares.
The ‘shared rivers’ are increasingly becoming sovereign issues and manifesting as the phenomenon of ‘water nationalism’, with water becoming scarce for nearly two billion people of the subcontinent with each passing year. It is to be noted that Modi is not the first Prime Minister that Mamata Banerjee, as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, has fought over sharing water with Bangladesh. Despite her party, Trinamool Congress, being a component of the then-ruling UPA led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she scuttled efforts to share water.
Manmohan Singh, before his visit to Bangladesh in September 2011, had prepared, in consultation with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, a package of agreements to resolve many of their bilateral irritants. However, a week before Singh’s visit, Banerjee denounced the proposed water-sharing agreement. Her opposition made the whole trip effectively irrelevant, to both sides’ great embarrassment.
There have been other instances of Delhi’s power to deal with foreign countries being diluted because of the resistance of state or provincial governments, leading to what experts call the growing ‘federalisation’ of Indian foreign policy.
