Bangladesh’s proposed role in the Mecca Defence Pact could broaden its diplomatic leverage on water security, while raising questions about regional tensions and obligations.
Sixty-seven-year-old Karim Hawlader from Kurigram wants to quit farming due to incessant losses and crop failures caused by prolonged drought during the dry season and excessive flooding during the monsoon. The Brahmaputra River, which was the source of life and livelihoods for the people of northwestern Bangladesh, has turned into a monster. The fast-flowing waters from the other side of the border erode and destroy crops at an increasingly intensified rate. The struggles and suffering of millions of people have rarely been factored into the wider geopolitical equation of water security and water sharing.
India, with its upstream flow, holds unilateral dominance over the 54 transboundary rivers it shares with Bangladesh. India has a substantial record of using water against its downstream riparian neighbours. After many diplomatic attempts, the 1996 Ganges Water Treaty (GWT) was adopted and developed under international pressure.
Though it has been the only water-sharing treaty between the two countries, Farhana Sultana, a prominent geographer and climate scientist, marked it as ‘fundamentally flawed’. This is because the treaty merely focused on allocating water based on historical data, particularly on “how much water would each country receive?” Rather, the treaty should have considered nature’s mood swings based on seasonal and spatial orientations (hydrological variability), how all other non-human elements of the riverine ecology balance each other in an integrated way or the minimum necessity of water for flora and fauna’s survival in the lower riparian areas.
Such a defective treaty, coupled with the fact that there are no other joint legal mechanisms to govern the rest of the cross-border rivers, except the Ganges, has further deepened the power asymmetry between Bangladesh and India. It enabled hydro coercion to play a threatening political role. India’s natural ability to exploit its geographic advantage has also threatened other downstream riparian neighbours, including Nepal and Bhutan.
The positive sign from Bangladesh’s signing of the recently drafted Mecca Defence Pact, a multilateral defence agreement co-initiated by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, has unquestionably left India disquieted about Bangladesh’s diplomatic proximity towards Pakistan and the other pact members. However, Bangladesh’s entry into such a security agreement, with a defence component that mirrors North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-like collective security pledges (Article 5), will be a remarkable shift, particularly in the context of Bangladesh-India’s post-independence friendly relations. Bangladesh’s position has remained more like ‘submissive’ than merely ‘as friends’ with India till the pre-July uprising period. Given the historical hydro-hegemonic role of India, the Mecca Defence Pact can help diversify the diplomatic tools available to Bangladesh to balance its decades-long powerlessness in encountering Indian ‘weaponised water’.
First, if Bangladesh steps forward to join the Mecca Pact officially, it should, first and foremost, address its core security threats as a downstream deltaic state. For instance, all forms of traditional armed conflict have been top priorities on the international security agenda, while ‘hydro coercion’ has remained a non-traditional security issue. However, in the case of Bangladesh since independence, hydro coercion has been one of the major security threats rather than any armed conflicts so far.
Therefore, if water weaponisation is not considered one of the major security concerns while having Pakistan and Bangladesh on board, the clauses of ‘collective defence’ risk unnecessarily burdening deltaic countries like Bangladesh with others’ security concerns. Though many argue that only agreeing can strengthen Bangladesh’s bargaining power against all forms of security threats, this type of negotiation before joining the pact will deter all neighbouring hydro powers in advance. However, it is also important to clarify that the Mecca Defence Pact is a defensive framework agreement and does not target any country or region as a threat.
Furthermore, entry into the defence pact provides Bangladesh with the capacity to negotiate with India from a position of strength and equality. Even though India may respond with adversarial actions such as more aggression at the border, intensified weaponisation of water and restriction of movement of goods, these counteractive measures potentially threaten the well-being of the masses in the short run. In this case, Bangladesh further needs to balance its posture with a commitment to continue cooperation with India, bilaterally and through its multilateral initiative, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
Second, the pact will be able to provide diplomatic and technical support to form and efficiently operate a multilateral water-sharing framework. As an example, Pakistan can provide technical support to operationalise a successful treaty such as the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in Bangladesh, replacing unjustified bilateral frameworks like the GWT and the institutional framework of Joint Rivers Commission (JRC).
To elaborate, without any third-party involvement, the JRC has been negotiating the ‘shares of river flows’, and it only finalised one Ganges treaty, leaving all other rivers ungoverned. Its river-by-river approach failed every time to reach consensus to finalise any additional water-sharing treaty. It, therefore, left the entire Bengal delta in India’s dominant hand. However, the commission is criticised for being fuelled by ‘the sentiments of the 1971 liberation war’ rather than by real scientific and political facts.
On the other hand, the IWT is a treaty that enables Pakistan to control over 80% of the water from the Western Rivers and India to control 80% of the water from the Eastern Rivers, and it has been governed by international law. The treaty has survived despite numerous armed conflicts and diplomatic tension between the two states due to its ‘divide rivers’ approach and involvement of the World Bank (WB) with a specific procedural role. At the same time, a separate international financial instrument, the Indus Development Fund, was established to finance the operational expenses of such a massive water management treaty. Recently, after the Pulwama attack in 2019, the Government of India wanted to suspend the treaty, but the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) had ordered that the treaty be restored.
Collaborating on a mutual security arrangement will be a good opportunity for Bangladesh to seek Pakistan’s support for water management in this case. In particular, Pakistan’s water management expertise includes necessary technical and diplomatic experience in cooperating to divide water with Indian counterparts, despite both parties’ arch rivalry on other issues.
Third, the pact will allow Bangladesh to diversify its hydro-diplomatic exchanges with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. As an elaboration, Pakistan and Bangladesh can cooperate to establish a lower-riparian joint commission, such as the Mekong River Commission in Southeast Asia, focusing on water security issues of the downstream countries. It will help them uphold their water justice and rights, given their natural and political disadvantage relative to other upstream countries in the Indus and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basins. Accordingly, other riverine South Asian countries will be welcomed to join based on their needs. In this case, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other ‘to be’ members of the Mecca Pact can play a mediating role.
However, a water-security-focused extension of the security arrangement can encourage other riverine Muslim countries to consider joining the Mecca Pact. However, it is worth mentioning that Bangladesh cannot have misplaced expectations on the Defence Pact. Instead, it should have limited obligations and safeguards against exposure to broader conflicts in the Middle East. In this phase of early development, Bangladesh should also consider its economic and regional geopolitical calculus before making any serious commitment.
About the writer: Syed Muntasir Ridwan is the Chief Executive Officer of Catalysing Sustainable Transformation (CaST) Network Limited. Umme Sayeda is a Corresponding Editor at The Climate Watch (TCW).
