New Delhi, August 23
Lashing out at attempts in sections of social media in Bangladesh to blame India for floods in parts of the country, an expert on India's neighbourhood policies and cross-border issues has said New Delhi will not cause pain and anguish to the eastern neighbour and would, if required, provide assistance as it is first responder in a crisis.
Dr Sreeradha Datta, who is a Professor at Jindal School of International Affairs, said Tripura is facing a huge problem of floods and both India and Bangladesh have a system of data sharing about river flows as per existing protocols.
She said Bangladesh is a valued partner for India and the two governments can work together to address the actual challenge that the people are facing.
Prof Datta said that water is an emotive issue and there is a tendency to blame the upper riparian state for floods.
"This is a typical fallout of that rhetoric that Bangladesh is so prone to do and as I say water has been always an emotive issue, so, every time there is a flood in the lower riparian state, we have seen that the upper region gets faulted, all kinds of allegations come in," Prof Datta said.
"I am not saying Bangladesh has not been deeply affected but look at what has happened in Tripura. Last time I checked early in the day around 40,000 people in Tripura have been shifted to the relief camps and ...many have died. The dam they are talking about is around 120 km away and Tripura itself is so affected and entire state government and central machinery is trying to address that. It's a natural flow of water...I can't understand this reason that why would India deliberately do something like this, how is it in India's case, to cause pain and anguish to Bangladesh, especially at a time when they are facing so many challenges," she added.
There is an interim government in Bangladesh after Sheikh Haisna was deposed earlier this month following an agitation that saw violence.
Prof Datta said attempts are made to ramp up feelings and unnecessary reactions are being given on social media by people emotively without even thinking they are playing into and rationality is given a go-by in many instances.
"Every time, there is a kind of distraction you would use India. Every time, they do not look at their own internal problems. There is a system that India is constantly sharing information about weather changes...I am sure there has been exchange of data and whatever everything that is part of protocol in place so why that hasn't been considered? I am sure people who are knowledgable are probably not doing that as you are saying as social media are rife with some kind of allegations. I can't understand why India would do this, how does it benefit India, especially when India itself is struggling?" she asked.
Prof Datta said there could have been a statement from a member of the interim government of Bangladesh about how India can assist.
"In South Asia now, everybody accepts the position of India as a first responder. In many of these humanitarian disaster events, India is the first one to go in there with whatever capacity they have. I'm sure if required, India would definitely do that for Bangladesh. It's a close partner for us," she said.
"I hope again sensibility returns and rationality takes over and they would see. It's a time of crisis and not a blame game. Please see how both the governments can work together to address the actual challenge that the local people are facing at this point of time," she added.
Prof Datta has been director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, and her research interests include India's neighbourhood policies, regionalism and cross-border issues.
Earlier the day, Ministry of External Affairs said that concerns being expressed in Bangladesh that the current situation of flood in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by opening of the Dumbur dam upstream of the Gumti River in Tripura is "factually not correct".
"We would like to point out that the catchment areas of Gumti river that flows through India and Bangladesh have witnessed heaviest rains of this year over the last few days. The flood in Bangladesh is primarily due to waters from these large catchments downstream of the dam," the release said
It said the Dumbur dam is located quite far from the border - over 120 km upstream of Bangladesh.
"It is a low height (about 30m) dam that generates power that feeds into a grid and from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW power from Tripura. Along the about 120 Km river course we have three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2.
The release said that heavy rainfall has been continuing since August 21 in the whole of Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh. In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed.
Amarpur station is in part of a bilateral protocol under which we are transmitting realtime flood data to Bangladesh.
"Data showing rising trend has been supplied to Bangladesh upto 1500 hrs on August 21, 2024. At 1800 hrs, due to flooding, there was power outage leading to problems of communication. Still, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for urgent transmission of data," the release said.
"Floods on the common rivers between India and Bangladesh are a shared problem inflicting sufferings to people on both sides, and requires close mutual cooperation towards resolving them. As two countries sharing 54 common cross-border rivers, river water cooperation is an important part of our bilateral engagement. We remain committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions," it added.