At last, the ice on the Ganga has melted. India and Bangladesh seem to have resolved the highly sensitive political problem of sharing the waters of the Ganga in its lower reaches. On 12 December, the two countries signed a 30-year water-sharing treaty, taking advantage of new political equations in both New Delhi and Dhaka. In India, the United Front coalition came to power with the dovish I.K. Gujral as Foreign Minister, and in Bangladesh the purportedly "India-leaning" Awami League of Sheikh Hasina Wajed returned to govern after 21 years in the wilderness. The new treaty was the outcome of six months of shuttle diplomacy between Dhaka, New Delhi and Calcutta.
In the main, agreement was possible because of India´s backtracking on its insistence on the "transit for water" trade-off (see accompanying story). Bangladesh, meanwhile, proved capable of taking swift diplomatic advantage of the "Gujral Doctrine", in which India says it does not demand reciprocity on dealings with its smaller neighbours. Dhaka was in a hurry because it realised very well that the United Front government survives on borrowed time, at the convenience of the Congress party. A final breakthrough, in which Chief Minister Jyoti Basu of West Bengal seems to have played a central role, was achieved at the penultimate moment when Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina arrived in New Delhi on 10 December for the signing. Thus ended a protracted and often-acrimonious dialogue between the two countries, spanning almost two and half decades. The period saw the expiration of one five-year agreement and several short-term understandings.
On both sides of the Indo-Bangla border, reaction to the Decemuber accord has ranged from the euphoric to the condemnatory. Much of this response to the treaty was, of course, nothing more than obligatory political reaction. Such is the complexity of the water-sharing formulae in the treaty that the nay-sayers do not seem to know on what grounds to criticise the document. On the other hand, even the euphoric supporters can do nothing more than point to the treaty´s very signing as a positive exercise. And because it is so hard to say at the moment who has gained and who has not, each side was able to claim advantage for itself.
The verdict on who ´won´ and who ´lost´ may only be possible after careful study of the treaty document and the assumptions made therein regarding the volume of water (low during the lean season. All in all, the definitive word may not be out on the December accord until the upcoming dry season period of minimal flow, and then in the following years.