ABSTRACT
The Ganga, Brahmaputra, Teesta and Barak—among about 50 other rivers that cross into Bangladesh from India—form an expansive fluvial system that spans the Bengal delta and north-eastern India. With the stroke of decolonization in 1947, this common water space became national territories and sensitive sites of exploitation for economic development within the borders of the postcolonial states of India and Bangladesh. The majority of existing literature reflect on India’s need of water, on the one hand, and the impact of India’s withdrawal of water on Bangladesh, on the other. This chapter suggests that in the context of increasing anthropogenic challenges, the nation-state’s territorial framework ceases to be a legitimate tool to address water-related issues between the two countries. Focusing on the impact of Farakka Barrage on different local spaces within India and Bangladesh, it argues that the failure to secure environmental well-being within each nation-state through the Partition and subsequent unsustainable development schemes calls for multi-local or translocal ecological perspective that overrides national paradigm.
