Turmoil Over Water Diversion - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 130

History of the Conflict
The seeds of the Ganga dispute were sown when Indian sub-continent was parti-
tioned in 1947. Britain gave up its hold on India after presiding over the division of
the country into two independent States, India and Pakistan. Pakistan is comprised
of two Muslim majority areas, one on the east and the other on the west, separated
by a thousand miles of Indian Territory. The eastern part of Bengal, (hitherto known
as East Bengal), added with Sylhet of Assam, formed the eastern wing of Pakistan,
called East Pakistan. The division split the river systems in the western and the
eastern sectors. As the two sovereign countries began formulating their plans for
developing water resources of rivers flowing within their territories, disputes over
these waters inevitably surfaced in both.
As narrated in Chapter 6, experts from abroad and across India held that the only
resuscitation of the Bhagirathi-Hooghly was possible by the diversion of a part of
the discharge of the Ganga into it by construction of a barrage across it at Farakka.
This view dates as far back as 1853 when India was under the British colonial rule;
there was no second opinion. Investigations were made by the Government of India
after Independence in 1947, which also confirmed the need of a barrage at Farakka.
While drawing the map of divided India before 1947, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British
Civilian Officer, also suggested the location of the proposed barrage at Farakka
in the Muslim-majority district of Murshidabad in India, which was exchanged
with the Hindu-majority district of Khulna in East Pakistan. Thus, the charge of
B. M. Abbas in his topic, 'The Ganga Water Dispute' that the barrage at Farakka was
constructed without proper investigation is baseless. In fact, investigations spanned
over more than a century, when India and Pakistan was one country under the
British.
Basically, the dispute over the Ganga water arose from the geographical location
of Bangladesh which was East Bengal up to 1947 and East Pakistan thereafter until
1972 when it became Bangladesh. The 1947 Partition made East Pakistan a lower
riparian State in respect of the Ganga, though more than 90% of the catchment
area belongs to the upper riparian State, India. The dispute which did not exist,
nor could be imagined, in united India was thus a by-product of the Partition of
India. In 1972, Pakistan was compelled to give up its eastern wing and a new coun-
try, called Bangladesh emerged. Pakistan alleged that the British had neglected the
eastern part of Bengal in developing river-water resources for irrigation and flood
control. There was no observation station along the Ganga except at Hardinge Rail
Bridge over the Padma. The East Pakistan government, therefore, had to draw up
its own plan for developing water resources from the scratch after Independence
but any such plan by India or by East Pakistan involving the waters of the Ganga
was bound to interfere with the interest of either, or both the countries. This made
Pakistan object to India's plan of construction of a barrage at Farakka in 1951 after
reports appeared in newspapers. Similarly, Pakistan's plans of launching the Ganga-
Kapotaksha (the same as Kabodak, as the British pronounced it) Irrigation Project
in Kushtia and the Teesta Barrage Irrigation project in Rangpur were objected to
by India.