Bangladesh-India relations: rivers, trade & connectivity
Bangladesh-India relations through rivers, trade and connectivity: treaties, transit corridors and the Teesta deadlock for BCS international affairs.
The Hydro-Diplomatic Spine
Bangladesh and India share 54 transboundary rivers, and water-sharing is the structural fault line of the relationship. The defining instrument is the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty signed on 12 December 1996 by Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and H.D. Deve Gowda. It governs flows at the Farakka Barrage (commissioned by India in 1975, 16.5 km upstream of the border) and runs for 30 years, expiring in 2026. Its formula guarantees Bangladesh a minimum share during the lean season (1 January-31 May): in 10-day cycles when flow at Farakka is 70,000 cusecs or less, the two sides share it equally; the treaty also embeds a guarantee clause ensuring Bangladesh roughly 35,000 cusecs in alternate ten-day periods of March-May. The Joint Rivers Commission (JRC), established in 1972 under the Indira-Mujib framework, is the standing technical body.
The Teesta Deadlock
The Teesta River is the unresolved sore. An interim sharing agreement was finalised for signature during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's September 2011 Dhaka visit, proposing roughly a 42.5% (India) to 37.5% (Bangladesh) split of dry-season flow, but West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee withdrew at the last moment, and the deal remains unsigned. Because water is a State subject interacting with the Union's treaty power under the Indian Constitution, the federal veto of a riparian State has blocked New Delhi. In 2024 China's offer to fund a Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project injected a strategic dimension, with India countering with its own technical team proposal.
Floods, Dams and the 2024 Inflection
Upstream Indian infrastructure repeatedly inflames sentiment. The August 2024 floods in eastern Bangladesh, which Dhaka linked to the opening of the Dumbur dam on the Gumti in Tripura, became a flashpoint amid the political transition after Sheikh Hasina's ouster on 5 August 2024. India maintained the release was automatic overflow, but the episode underscored the absence of a real-time data-sharing and flood-forecasting regime for most shared basins. A 2019 MoU on withdrawing 1.82 cusecs from the Feni River for Tripura's Sabroom town, and friction over the Tipaimukh project on the Barak, illustrate the same pattern: India's upstream position and Bangladesh's lower-riparian vulnerability.
High-Yield Retention
Memorise: Ganges Treaty 1996 (30 years, Farakka, expires 2026); JRC since 1972; 54 shared rivers; Teesta interim deal stalled 2011 by West Bengal; Feni MoU 2019. Examiners frame water as the test of whether 'connectivity gains' can offset 'resource grievances.' Note the 1977 Ganges Agreement (five-year) and the 1982/1985 MoUs preceded the 1996 treaty—the chronology is a favourite distractor.