Sharing of River Waters among India and its Neighbors in the 21st century: War or Peace?

Abstract The dawn of 21st century is a gloomy picture for future generations of India because of increasing water scarcity, which is often fabricating threats of water conflicts. Water is a critical shared resource, and its flow is not restricted to any political boundaries. This necessitates peaceful sharing of water resources both within and among countries. Sharing water is a complex task in most cases in the present era of water conflicts. India, which relished its past fame as water prosperous country, today is moving towards becoming a water stressed nation due to rapid population upsurges and unequal distribution. The demand for water has tripled at a time when the supply of water services is inefficient with socio-economic diversities. Poverty has already become a constant threat for the economy, and water should not add to it. The development policies in India including water resources tend to give primacy to economic cost, disregarding environmental and social cost. This has aggravated tensions further. Considering the existing water-sharing treaties and arrangement with neighbors and suggesting sustainable measures to prevent conflicts and tackle water scarcity is a big challenge for researchers and Indian policy makers today. This is mainly because along with India its neighbors also share the common problems of poverty, population rise, and water stress. A peaceful sharing thus becomes complex many times and hence conflicts in many cases become obvious phenomena. This paper thus intends to comprehend in conceptual terms the extent to which the prevalent water sharing among India and its neighbors is peaceful and whether the water scarcity and population rise in India intensifies the chances for water conflicts. In doing this, it tries to start by addressing the water problems. This paper has concentrated much on the Ganges-Brahmaputra Meghna Basins (GBB), which is the thirteenth largest river basin in the world, densely populated, and shared with a number of neighbors. The current debates opposing plans to link rivers of the Ganga basin and Brahmaputra Barak with water deficient regions such as western and southern India in order to handle drought and floods and water scarcity, in a broad sense, develops insecurities in the minds of rational people on the chances of water conflicts.