The demand to dismantle the Farakka Barrage has returned to the centre of a wider debate over the future of the Ganga, but activists gathered in Bhagalpur over the weekend made an important distinction: removing Farakka, they said, should not mean ending the sharing of Ganga waters with Bangladesh.
The two-day national public dialogue, organised by the Ganga Mukti Andolan on August 29 and 30 in Bhagalpur, brought together river activists, environmentalists, social workers and representatives of river-dependent communities from Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. Several senior activists also joined the discussions online.
The central position adopted at the meeting was that the Farakka Barrage should eventually be decommissioned, while the India-Bangladesh water-sharing arrangement should continue until the barrage is removed. Participants argued that the Farakka question cannot be separated from siltation, erosion, floods, declining fish populations, ecological damage, climate change and the livelihoods of communities dependent on the river.
The first day’s session, held at a hotel in Sujaganj, was chaired by Shahid Kamal of Muzaffarpur and conducted by Uday and Mahendra Yadav. Ram Sharan, national coordinator of the Ganga Mukti Andolan, welcomed participants from the four states.
Opening the discussion, senior social and cultural activist Uday said the movement’s opposition was not limited to Farakka and that it had consistently questioned dams and barrages because they interrupt the natural flow of rivers. With the existing India-Bangladesh Farakka water agreement due for review in December, he said the purpose of the dialogue was to deliberate on the issue and formulate a collective position.
The climate crisis and the prevailing development model also figured prominently in the discussions. Participants said environmental degradation could not be treated as a problem confined to one country or region. Referring to the recent devastation in Nepal, they linked extreme weather events to the wider consequences of global warming and argued that rivers and mountain ecosystems could not be controlled indefinitely for human convenience.
They also questioned the construction of large dams on mountain rivers in the name of power generation, pointing to their consequences for downstream populations, including floods, droughts, landslides and other ecological disruptions.
Mahendra Yadav, a river scientist active in the Kosi region, presented details of the Farakka Barrage and the India-Bangladesh water-sharing arrangement. He stressed that a river should be understood as one continuous ecological system rather than divided according to administrative boundaries.
Anil Prakash of the Ganga Mukti Andolan, Gautam Bandyopadhyay, convenor of the River Valley Forum, and river activist and writer Jaya Mitra joined the discussion online. They argued that blocking rivers damages not only their flow but also the biodiversity, livelihoods and civilisations that have developed around them.
Participants pointed out that around 1,200 large and small dams and barrages have been built on the Ganga and its tributaries from the Himalayas to the plains. Such interventions, they said, have disrupted natural flows and damaged aquatic habitats and migration routes.
The second day’s session was chaired by senior social worker and former Dean of Student Welfare of Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University, Dr Yogendra, and conducted by Uday. Activists said the impact of Farakka had to be viewed as part of the larger disruption of the Ganga basin.
Fisherfolk, farmers and people living in diara and chaura areas, they said, were among the worst affected. Silt accumulation has made several stretches of the river shallower and contributed to flooding and erosion.
Gautam Pal and Khidir Box, who came from Malda, spoke about large-scale erosion in the region and its impact on homes, farmland and livelihoods.
Jaya Mitra underlined what she described as a crucial distinction between the Farakka Barrage and the India-Bangladesh water-sharing agreement. Rivers existed before modern nation-states and political boundaries, she said, and their waters should not become instruments of nationalism or strategic confrontation.
“Water nationalism” was emerging as a new political phenomenon, she argued. Bangladesh has a legitimate claim to Ganga waters, just as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have claims within India, and so do Jharkhand and West Bengal, she said.
Environmentalist Ghanshyam said Nepal should be included in future discussions on the river. Any committee dealing with Farakka and the India-Bangladesh water arrangement, he said, should include all stakeholders dependent on the river.
Mahendra Yadav and Tapas Das presented the Vision Draft, which was unanimously adopted. Dr Ruchi Shri, Gautam, Khidir Box, Prasun Latant, Manoj Meeta, Rohit Kumar and Ujjwal Ghosh also contributed to the discussions. Tapas Das of the River Save-Life Save movement in Bengal, Ratna and Dr Yogendra spoke on various aspects of the river question.
Yogendra Sahni, Nirmal, Gautam Kumar, Naresh Singh, Rohit Kumar, Aniruddh, Kumar Krishnan, Mohammad Bakir and Manoj Meeta stressed the need to maintain uninterrupted river flows.
The resulting Bhagalpur Declaration revived the Ganga Mukti Andolan’s 1982 slogan: “Break Farakka, let rivers flow freely; uninterrupted Ganga, clean Ganga.” It also recalled the resolution on an uninterrupted Ganga adopted at an international seminar organised by the Bihar government on February 26, 2017.
The declaration called for an independent assessment of Farakka’s consequences. It noted concerns over silt accumulation upstream, flooding and erosion in Bihar, erosion downstream in West Bengal, the decline of smaller rivers and ecological changes in the Sundarbans caused by altered freshwater and sediment flows.
The decline of hilsa and other fish species, along with changes in aquatic organisms and plants, was cited as evidence of ecological stress.
Participants demanded that the government constitute a team to examine the decommissioning of Farakka. At the same time, they said alternative arrangements should be developed for urban populations and others dependent on the barrage.
The declaration also sought an independent review of the environmental consequences of the Damodar Valley Corporation project, a comprehensive assessment of dams on the Ganga, and a review of embankments and barrages on the Kosi and other rivers in Bihar.
It called for a shift away from profit-driven and corporate-oriented development towards climate- and environment-sensitive sustainable development.
On the water-sharing agreement, the declaration rejected any approach that would deny Bangladesh its share of the Ganga. Instead, it supported equitable sharing of river water from source to sea, based on actual availability and scientific assessment, particularly in view of climate change.
Until Farakka is dismantled, the existing water-sharing arrangement should continue, it said. The India-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission should include fishermen, farmers and other stakeholders from both countries, according to the declaration.
The declaration also raised the issue of equitable distribution of Ganga waters within India, arguing that Bihar faces a particular burden because water from its tributaries is used upstream while the state must also meet its own developmental needs.
Concluding the dialogue, Ram Sharan said river water should neither be used as a “water bomb” nor as an instrument of social polarisation. The meeting ended with a minute’s silence for those who lost their lives in the recent tragedy in Nepal.
The Bhagalpur dialogue thus sought to shift the Farakka debate beyond a narrow bilateral dispute. Its larger question was whether a river can continue to sustain people and ecosystems when its natural flow is repeatedly interrupted.
The message of the gathering was clear: Farakka may have to go, but the river’s water must remain a shared resource.
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*Independent journalist
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