Paddling Upstream: Transboundary Water Politics in South Asia

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Paddling Upstream: Transboundary Water Politics in South Asia

Major waterways in South Asia are at risk of overuse, but India and its neighbors face an uphill battle to broaden multilateral cooperation in response.

Analysis about South Asian geopolitics tends to gravitate toward the often-competitive ties between China and India. This tendency can be seen on many newsworthy issues, such as rival attempts to establish blue-water navies; competitive efforts to shape how the region’s roads, bridges, and ports are funded and built; and the omnipresent Pakistan issue. Such topics are undoubtedly important. But other practical, everyday policy concerns like water sharing and usage often receive less attention, are combined with larger security or border concerns, or are dealt with only when natural disasters occur. Yet water politics has far-reaching consequences for the prosperity and security of China, India, and other neighboring countries alike. And while this transboundary issue is integral to the national development policies of these countries, it is not analyzed enough or well enough understood.

A key flashpoint for water security in South Asia is the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) Basin, where these three major waterways merge with various tributaries. The basin is at risk according to a 2016 UN-commissioned study. As populations grow and economic activity expands, greater demand in countries that share the river will strain the existing water supply. Climate change has made it harder to predict changes in rainfall patterns or natural disasters and more challenging to manage these waterways responsibly, especially across borders. Unilateral actions taken by China and India have often stoked tensions, and the bilateral or trilateral agreements that Beijing and New Delhi have traditionally favored often have achieved limited results.

Though a lack of multilateral cooperation in the GBM Basin has hindered sustainable solutions in the past, regional policymakers are finding it increasingly hard to ignore the basin’s interconnected nature. Located downstream from China, India and its riparian neighbors should advocate for more basin-wide cooperation and dialogue. To overcome resistance to formal multilateralism, near-term cooperation could start with less sensitive areas like managing flooding by sharing forecasting data before later expanding to collaborating on navigation, electricity generation, and water quality. If successful, these types of less formal cooperation might eventually make countries more willing to consider an official multilateral forum, which (despite some limitations) could help them further build trust, resolve grievances, and manage shared waterways.

 

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Ambika Vishwanath is a geopolitical consultant and global strategy adviser with a special focus on the nexus between foreign policy, water security, and diplomacy. She is a nonresident fellow with the Agora Strategy Institute in Germany.

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