Bangladesh, India defies river laws

Valiant freedom fighter Engineer M Inamul Haque holds special expertise in river and water sectors. Currently, he is serving as the Chairman of Institute of Water & Environment. Apart from this, he is the former Director General of River Research Institute. On August 25) ‘Views Bangladesh’ team took his interview about international river law, river navigability, legal rights of river and Dumbur Dam.
The interview was taken by M A Khaleque and Girish Goiric.

Views Bangladesh: A week of torrential rain before August 20 flooded many parts of Bangladesh. Feni, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Cumilla, Sylhet and some districts have been submerged. The most discussed issue of this year’s flood is that the people of those regions who have never experienced floods before have been affected. After this flood the question has been raised about the extent to which the river laws of Bangladesh and India are obeyed.

Engineer M Inamul Haque: This time floods inundate vast swath of eastern part of Bangladesh. Mostly at 10-12 districts. It has been raining continuously for several days. The reason for this is that the speed with which the monsoon winds move from south to north is often obstructed. When obstructed, the winds condenses locally. Then the water in the air starts to flow. As a result, there is a lot of rain. If it moves, it doesn’t rain anymore. We have seen that most of the rainfall happened over Tripura. This rainfall moved from Tripura to Moulvibazar, and was supposed to from Moulvibazar to Sylhet. But it stayed here instead.

There is always heavy rainfall in Meghalaya, but it happened here instead of there. It is called a local depression, due to which the cloud cannot move forward, the water becomes heavy and falls down. This flood is due to heavy rainfall. There are various rivers in areas that have been flooded. All the flow of rivers came to Bangladesh. Therefore, extensive flooding took place in Bangladesh. There has been rain in Bangladesh too, but it rained more in India. The water flowed in Bangladesh resulting in a rumor that India has opened its dam gates. India’s flood waters have overwhelmed us. How will they do that? Not only the water came from the river, but also from the fields. Water came down from the mountain slopes too, but the rivers can be seen, so we said that they have flushed the river waters to us. Now the question is how much India and Bangladesh obey the river law?

A woman and her child wade through floodwaters in Feni, one of the worst-hit areas. [Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/AFP]

Both nations do not obey the river law at all. After the grand alliance government came to power in 2009, I urged to accept the international river law which was made by the United Nations in 1997. Even we held various movements regarding the issue. Let’s talk about the maritime boundary. We had a big issues with Myanmar and India, but now Bangladesh, India and Myanmar rspects the international law of maritime boundaries. That means we could go to international court and resolve the issue through court by ratifying, but neither India nor Bangladesh obeys the laws related to rivers.

Even if both countries followed the river law, it wouldn’t be that beneficial. Nothing can be done in case of heavy rainfall. Flooding will take place. It happens inside Bangladesh and also inside India. Floods occur frequently in Assam and in Bihar. During Durga Puja, when the monsoon recedes, a depression occurs in the month of Bhadra-Ashwin, before the month of Kartik. A heavy rainfall centered on Kolkata, Sundarbans and Khulna. If there is heavy rain, there will be a flood. Bangladesh is a low lying area. There will be flood in both monsoon and autumn seasons. If 15 times more water passes over the area of Bangladesh, there will be flooding.

We have a special bonding with floods. We used to learn to swimming when we were little. When we were young, our parents used to go to beel on rafts and used to catch various kinds of fishes. I used to tear water lilies and eat it. I still have that taste in my mouth but now young generation of our city knows nothing about this. And now half of Bangladesh has become a city. It has become half of the city due to establishments of lectricity and roads, and also the ponds and canals are all filled up and dried up. Our children do not know how to swim. They know nothing about rivers and flood. So they panic. The current generation is very afraid of this flood. As children we were not terrified, it was a joy.

Dumbur Dam. [Gokulam Seek IAS Academy]

Another thing is that the flood started from Feni. If one looks at the district on the map, one will see that there is a high place, this high place is in Parshuram and Fulgazi thanas. A little towards south is Chhagalnaiya thana. Feni Sadar is on one side. The people of Parashuram and Fulgazi thanas knows that there are hills on most of the places. India is located in the East and in the West. This towns are a low-lying area in the middle of the hills. Muhuri river is situated in the north. It enters the Mahuri river taking water from parts of southern India and then it enters through the lowlands and goes towards Sonagazi in the south. It causes a little flooding. Every year there is danger of flood in those areas. There is frequent flooding. There are three rivers in those regions, Siloniya, Muhuri and Kahua. Apart from that, various streams flows from the mountains on both sides. These three are the main rivers. There are embankments made of soil on both sides of these three rivers. These embankments can prevent minor floods. If there is a somewhat heavy flooding, the embankment may overflow, otherwise it may break and cause flooding in the Feni area. Now an unusual situation has arisen. There has been excessive flooding. A known person from Fulgazi said, Inam brother, my house has sunk. I said, it has rained so much, the house will sink. Why did this happen? I said, look, there are mountains to the west of your house, and also there are mountains to the east, then where will the water move? He said, Oh, you are right. In low-lying areas, there will be flooding if there is heavy rainfall. Minor floods occur every year.

Views Bangladesh: How is river filling and navigability crisis responsible for this flood?

Engineer M Inamul Haque: Both are separate questions. River filling is one question, navigability is another. The bottom of the river is filled because of what? Either humans may have filled the low-lying areas to fill the river. There are also some rivers, which carry silt. Many rivers have no silt. Especially the rivers which are stagnant, have little flow, they have no silt. Rivers that come from mountains have silt. Where there is sediment there is also erosion. It is a characteristic of rivers, siltation and erosion coexist. The rivers that come out of Tripura, has lots of silt. Although there is a lot of silt, the riverbed is filled to the point where not much is noticeable. Such as Muhuri River; But the river Gomti, known as the sorrow of Cumilla, carries a lot of silt. Flooding takes place every year. Now there are two dams on both sides. If one goes to Cumilla, one will see that there is a hill on the left side, but it is actually not a hill, it is a river embankment. Gomti river has become silted and the level has risen. So the dam is also high.

It is not only in our country, many rivers around the world becomes high from underneath. For example, the Mississippi River in America, rises and flows into the ocean. The high river bed is a problem. If the river bed is not high, the silt would have spread in all directions. Then the shores would be high and the river would be low. The flow of the river would have been different. For example, Buri flows from Muradnagar towards Nabinagar. That means Gomti river did not go through Daudkandi and flowed into Meghna, it used to go to that side of Buri river. Hence it is called Buri River. That river is closed now. A sluice gate has been installed. The Jamuna River also receives a lot of silt; But there is a dam over a large area.

The average distance of the dam from east to west is 12 km. But the main flow of the river is very small, maybe two or three kilometers; But, since there is a lot of space inside the river, there are branches, there are small canals, so the silt gets washed away. Or the carried sediment goes into the Bay of Bengal.

The most affected districts in Bangladesh included Feni, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Cumilla and Chittagong, where five major rivers were flowing above danger levels, the FFWC said. [AFP]

As a result chars are being created at the ocean. So as silt changes the character of the river, it is beneficial for us, but it can also cause floods at times. Those involved in river management, such as the Water Development Board, understand the river and take appropriate measures. The issue of navigation is also related to the river. If there is flow there will be navigation. If there is no flow, there will be no navigation. The flow of the river is important. During the rainy season, the flow in the rivers is above 25,000 km, in winter it comes down to 5,000 km. As a result, the navigation naturally decreases.

Views Bangladesh: A certain group of people thinks that the flooding is due to opening of Dumbur Dam gate, how true is it?

Engineer M Inamul Haque: Farakka Barrage is the biggest dam in the rivers that flows from India. After this is the Teesta Barrage. The rest of barrages aare small. When it rains, the Teesta barrage holds back as much water as it can. They don’t want to give us water. If it can’t hold it then the gates are opened. Now it is clear that Farakka barrage will opened. Because there has been a lot of rain upstream. So when these gates are opened, the water suddenly rises, the people of Teesta area are the biggest victims. Since we don’t have an agreement on the Teesta, it has created an anti-India sentiment in people’s minds. That if they open the gate we will be washed away. One response to this we have seen here is that the opening of Dumbur Dam has caused this flood. In this digital era, people there have uploaded various photos of Dumbur dam opening. But it takes 100 km for water to enter Bangladesh from Dumbur dam. It is upstream of Meghna River. It comes and enters through Cumilla. Dumbur dam is situated on Gomti River. And one-fifth of Gomti river area, twenty percent area is in India. But as the news has spread, fear, has crept into people’s minds. Rumors abound; But actually it is not true. The truth is that there has been so much rain in the Muhuri basin that the water has caused flooding in Feni district. Dambur dam or Gomti River is not related to Feni.

Views Bangladesh: The rainfall over the past few days has led to a ‘cloud explosion’ in Meghalaya, meteorologists say. What is the reason for such rain?

Engineer M Inamul Haque: It can be called cloud fall rather than cloud exploxion. In English it is called cloudburst. Cloudfall occurs in many cases, locally, in small areas. A recent example of this cloud falling happened in Haridwar, not Rishikesh. Where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were swept away by a sudden cloud fall; But it is a small area. Cloud bursts do not cover large areas. A cloud burst would cover a small area; But, the large area of rainfall here cannot be called a cloud burst.

Tista Barrage. [wikimedia]

Views Bangladesh: What steps should we take for river rights?

Engineer M Inamul Haque: River rights are our historical claim. People can no longer go down to bathe in Buriganga. The water has turned black. Just as people has the right to use Teesta river, so do the people on the banks of the Buriganga. It is their historical right. It has been there for ages infact for thousands of years. Who are International law has nothing to do with river portions. Using it with transparency is what the law says. The laws of the two countries state this right in such a way that if the people of the upstream areas use the water in such a way that the people of the downstream country are affected, it cannot be allowed to happen.

This is international law. If the people of the downstream country re affected due to the use of upstream country, compensation should be paid. So why am I going to talk about portions? I will talk about rights. I will talk about justice and demands. Teesta is taking water and we are suffering. We are facing a loss of about 5 thousand taka a year. I’ve said it over and over, no one else has.

However, a compromise was reached during the Ganges Water Treaty in 1977. India gave a guarantee that they will give water, but after the death of Ziaur Rahman, this water was stopped. We had an office, I also worked in that office, the job of this office was to find out about damages. Those documents are supposed to be still there in some store of the Water Development Board, but after 1990 there was no more talk about it; But there was document, for what? It is to tell them, look, we are suffering this much. Make a deal. Only by talking about compensation we can get a solution of justice. Compensation from them is not a matter of expectation, it is a matter of our right.