Editorial
Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina on Tipaimukh
Win-win solution requires full disclosure by India
OPPOSITION leader Khaleda Zia has called on the Indian government to scrap its plans on the Tipaimukh dam. She thinks it will be a way for Delhi to follow through on the reassurances given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last week. The BNP leader seems to be prejudging the issue, especially when much remains to be seen as to how India and Bangladesh handle it. At the other end, there is a fair degree of suspicion that the Tipaimukh affair may have been underplayed within the ruling circles, an attitude that cannot have served the government well. When such factors are now juxtaposed with the call by Sheikh Hasina for national unity to ensure Bangladesh's interests vis-à-vis Tipaimukh, one is not quite sure what such unity should be based on. There is an element of obscurity that must be removed before any clear conclusions can be drawn from the prime ministerial call.
If Sheikh Hasina's emphasis on national unity is meant to strengthen Bangladesh's hand in negotiating with India on the issue, one cannot but support it. The Indian side has not come forth with any information or database regarding Tipaimukh despite its reassurances that Bangladesh's interests will not be affected. In other words, there are hardly any grounds, at this stage, for Dhaka to get down to talk the issue over with Delhi. Any such negotiation must be based on complete, unambiguous information on Tipaimukh supplied to the Bangladesh government by India. Unless that is done, not much headway can be made unilaterally on Dhaka's part. More worryingly, this present gap created by a lack of supply of information on the dam by India today threatens to affect negatively our relations with India. The positions adopted by the ruling party and the opposition illustrate these difficulties only too well. What is quite clear by now is that the opposition in Bangladesh, as symbolised by Begum Zia and her supporters, has been ratcheting up the issue. Add to that the pretty unsettling feeling that the Bangladesh government has not been forceful enough to demand full disclosure on Tipaimukh. That said, there are the imperatives here: Bangladesh cannot afford the gap of information on the matter and neither can it have the luxury of seeing such issues of national importance be exploited politically. Which only reinforces the demand that the government must go all out in its efforts to prise detailed information, indeed the full Tipaimukh blueprint, out of the Indians before it can adopt a negotiating position for itself. The truth today is that we simply cannot have a repeat of Farakka.
We understand that China plans to utilise the waters of upstream Brahmaputra through building dams, a step that will affect the lower riparian, in this case India. In similar fashion, India's insistence on Tipaimukh can only undermine the interests of lower riparian Bangladesh. The point here is that unilateral moves to exploit the water resources of a common basin in the end can only have negative repercussions for all in the sense that they may well lead to conflict and political instability. Such conditions can be avoided through all the countries in the region tapping the huge potential for cooperation available before them. A common endeavour to develop power, sustain ecology and tackle floods and the like will surely be a more pragmatic way of enhancing inter-state relations. Why not begin the process through Dhaka and Delhi coming to a mutually win-win deal on Tipaimukh?
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