Lives on the riverbank: Bihar’s unheard voices in the Farakka debate

By Kumar Krishnan* 

When river water enters a farmer’s field, it is called a flood; when the same river runs short in summer, it becomes a drought. This is the paradox of the Ganga in Bihar. Villages along its banks are battered year after year by floods and erosion, yet in summer the State faces shortages for irrigation, drinking water, navigation and fisheries. The Ganga cannot be understood merely in cubic feet per second. Its true balance sheet must be measured in farms, fish, soil, groundwater, villages and the lives of communities that depend on it.

This contradiction has gained renewed urgency as the 1996 India–Bangladesh Ganga Water Treaty approaches its 30-year review in December 2026. JD(U) working president and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Kumar Jha argues that the treaty should not be renewed in its current form. Instead, he calls for a scientific assessment of basin-wide water requirements up to 2050, with due weight to Bihar’s needs for agriculture, drinking water, industry, groundwater, fisheries and ecological sustainability.

But the proposal has triggered political disagreement. Buxar MP Sudhakar Singh recently described Jha’s statement as misleading, insisting that a subject as sensitive as the India–Bangladesh treaty demands careful study of history and official records. He also recalled that former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and former Water Resources Minister Jagdanand Singh had raised similar concerns about Bihar’s water rights. Singh’s sharper question is this: if Bihar has the Ganga, why is it unable to adequately use its waters? He notes that summer paddy once flourished in Bihar but gradually disappeared as water availability declined.

This contradiction must lie at the heart of any serious discussion on Farakka.

The Barrage and the River It Changed

The Farakka Barrage, operational since 1975, was designed to divert water through a 38‑km feeder canal into the Bhagirathi–Hooghly system to address siltation at the Kolkata port. But a river is not just water. It carries sediment, nutrients, fish and ecological processes. Any large intervention alters all of these.

For decades, communities in Bihar have reported sand deposition on farmland and displacement caused by erosion. Yet it would be scientifically untenable to attribute every flood or erosion event to Farakka alone. Himalayan inflows, monsoon rainfall, tributaries such as the Kosi, Gandak and Ghaghra, embankments, drainage systems, river morphology and climate change all play major roles. Acknowledging these factors, however, cannot become an excuse to avoid assessing Farakka’s impact.

What is needed is a comparative study of five decades of river discharge, sediment load, river-bed morphology, erosion patterns and agricultural land use. The question is not whether Farakka is the sole cause of Bihar’s distress, but what measurable changes can reasonably be attributed to it — and how those changes interact with other forces shaping the Ganga.

The River’s People Know Its Pain

A folk refrain captures the anxiety of fishing communities:

“Ganga ji mein mile na machhariya, Kena ke dinma jayte ho bhay...”

It may not be scientific evidence, but it is lived experience. Fisherfolk are often the first to notice changes in flow, water quality, fish migration and breeding grounds. When the river changes, their economy changes with it.

The Ganga is home to the endangered Gangetic dolphin and diverse aquatic species. The disruption of hilsa migration has long been associated with Farakka. Any future water policy must therefore ask not only how much water India should share with Bangladesh, but how much water — and what seasonal flow — the Ganga itself needs to remain ecologically alive.

This brings environmental flows into the debate. A river is not a pipeline. Its health cannot be determined by a single minimum discharge figure. Seasonal variations are essential for fish breeding, dolphin habitats, groundwater recharge, sediment movement and biodiversity.

Voices From the Riverbank

The Farakka debate has been kept alive by the Ganga Mukti Andolan, led by Anil Prakash since 1982. His demand for removing the barrage may be contested, but the environmental and social questions raised by the movement cannot be dismissed. The experiences of people such as Fakiyan Devi of Kahalgaon, Prof. Yogendra of Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University, and those raising erosion concerns in Khagaria and Munger — including Nagendra Singh Tyagi, Rakesh Kumar Mandal and Sanjay Kumar Poddar — deserve a place in the larger conversation.

When a field is eroded, a farmer loses economic security. When a house is swallowed by the river, a family’s social roots are uprooted.

Bihar’s Water Rights and the 1996 Treaty

Sudhakar Singh has highlighted a secretary-level meeting held on January 24, 1997, where Bihar officials objected to not being adequately consulted before the treaty was finalised. Central officials clarified that the treaty dealt only with water available at Farakka and did not restrict upper riparian States. They also indicated that water sharing among Ganga basin States should involve all eight basin States.

This record is significant. Bihar’s water rights cannot be viewed solely through the India–Bangladesh prism; they must be located within the larger geography of the Ganga basin.

Singh has demanded that Bihar be made a formal stakeholder in future negotiations. He has also called for reviewing water use by upper riparian States, determining basin-wide shares, reconsidering approvals for new projects, prioritising the Saptakoshi High Dam in Nepal, ensuring year-round navigable depth on National Waterway‑1 and scientifically managing sediment.

The Larger Question: Bihar’s Water Future

Jha looks toward 2050, seeking a scientific assessment of future requirements. Singh emphasises historical records and water rights. Their political differences should not obscure the larger imperative: Bihar needs a water strategy based on evidence, not rhetoric.

Bihar in 2050 will not be the Bihar of today. Population, urbanisation, agriculture, industry and drinking-water needs will grow. Climate change may make rainfall and river flows increasingly uncertain. It would be short-sighted to frame the next three decades of water policy on assumptions from the previous three.

The review of the 1996 treaty cannot remain merely an India–Bangladesh matter. Bihar, West Bengal and other basin States must have their requirements incorporated. Rivers flowing from Nepal and the ecological health of the entire basin must also be part of the conversation.

It is easy to turn Farakka into a Bihar-versus-West Bengal or India-versus-Bangladesh dispute. But the Ganga’s crisis is far larger. Kolkata and Haldia have their needs; West Bengal has its needs; Bangladesh depends on the river; Bihar needs water for farms, cities and industry. Above all, the Ganga itself has an ecological claim.

The answer cannot lie in one claimant’s victory. It must lie in balance.

A Reckoning Based on Evidence

What is needed is an independent, multidisciplinary assessment of Farakka’s long-term impact. Five decades of data on discharge, sediment, erosion, agriculture, fisheries, dolphins, groundwater and navigation should be placed in the public domain. The barrage’s operation, possibilities of redesign and alternative arrangements should be examined by independent experts. Farmers, fisherfolk and riverbank communities must have a meaningful place in decision-making.

Knowledge of a river does not reside only in laboratories. It resides in the farmer’s field, the fisherman’s boat, villages displaced by erosion and the declining number of fish in the river.

The real reckoning over Farakka is not simply about how much water it has delivered to whom. It is about what it has meant for the river’s flow, sediment, farms, fish, dolphins and river-dependent communities.

That reckoning must be based neither on sentiment nor political convenience, but on data and the testimony of those who live with the river.

Bihar needs water. Bangladesh needs water. West Bengal needs water. But the Ganga needs water too.

The first principle of the next generation of water policy must be that an adequate share of the river’s flow remains protected for its ecological survival. The survival of the Ganga is inseparable from the survival of the people, farms, fishermen, villages and civilisation that have grown around it.

The next chapter of Farakka should not be merely about dividing water. It should be about saving the river.

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*Independent journalist