Solutions to the unsettled transboundary river issues between Bangladesh and India would come through regional integration, particularly of South Asian countries, said politicians, researchers and campaigners at a discussion held in Dhaka recently.
At Professor Muzaffar Ahmed Chowdhury Auditorium in Dhaka University, a civic group Unity for Bangladesh organised the discussion on political solutions to India-intervened transboundary river water sharing.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s standing committee member Amir Khasru Chowdhury Mahmud said bilateral negotiations for the transboundary river water sharing were proved futile.
‘Bangladesh must engage Nepal,Bhutan and China, along with India, to search solutions to the challenges it has been facing,’ Amir said.
He added that Bangladesh-India relation needs to be redesigned while the neighbourhood should be developed on ‘mutual respect, mutual interest and non-interference to internal affairs’.
Recommending reform of Bangladesh’s foreign policy, writer and researcher Altaf Parvez said that rejuvenation of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation would bring solutions to not only transboundary river water sharing but also the challenges in market economy and regional security.
Citing 168 infrastructures on the upstream of 54 ‘officially recorded’ transboundary rivers shared by Bangladesh and India, River and Delta Research Centre chairman Mohammad Azaz warned that unilateral interventions on transboundary rivers for hydropower and water conversion would destabilise the security of the entire region.
Sheikh Rokon, secretary general of green campaigning organisation Riverine People, citing a study, said Bangladesh and India actually share at least 123 rivers.
He added, ‘The root cause behind the problematic river water sharing issue lies in the “unfair” demarcation of national boundaries during the 1947 partition.’
The discussion began with an essay presentation by independent researcher Afifa Razzaque Muna. She questioned Bangladesh’s failed political achievements amid several state wings including five departments that were deployed to solve the transboundary water sharing issue.
Chaired by Unity for Bangladesh spokesperson Manzur Moin, former adviser to caretaker government Hossain Zillur Rahman, Dhaka University’s department of oriental art teacher Dipti Rani Datta, and Communist Party of Bangladesh presidium member Abdullah Al Kafi Ratan also spoke.
0 Comments