ABSTRACT
Much like the Nile, the Amazon, and other historically significant rivers, the Ganga has been a figurative life-giving artery for India and surrounding regions. The river has not only been a cultural pillar of the region, but also a primary economic driver, turning hydroelectric turbines and hydrating crops. In response to surmounting pressures from downstream states in the 1950s, India moved forward with plans to construct the Farakka Barrage in 1961, signalling what some thought was the beginning of a more equitable transboundary water-sharing agreement between present-day Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) and India. However, this was premature. After years of longstanding disputes, the same arguments are imbued with new salience when quotas are transgressed or water stresses emerge. As environmentalism consolidates itself as a mainstream framework to analyze ecological issues, poor management has been largely superseded by a focus on climate change stressors. This has caused a boomerang effect in both nations. For India, diminished water resources are seen as attributed to climate change, increasing the nation’s reliance on Ganga water training for crop irrigation. This has reduced river flow, forcing India to infringe on water agreements to maintain the Kolkata Port, one of the largest shipping ports in the world. Bangladesh, by contrast, has become focused on the interlinkages between water-related problems in western regions and climate change. However, this ignores the fact that Bangladesh, with relatively high water stress, is still subject to riparian agreements and upstream regulation in India. While climate change should certainly not be ignored at any scale, the climate lens has not improved transboundary water sharing. In fact, it is preventing the root causes of water stress from being prioritized and seen for what they are: poor management and poorly conceived sharing agreements, not climate induced stress. In chronological order, this paper will illustrate how domestic, regional, and international drivers are influencing how the climate change narrative takes shape and affects agreements and management practices around water resources. The case illustrates the dangerous way in which climate change discourse distracts riparian states from key factors that ultimately will result in a serious boomerang effect.
