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Comment by kchoudhu | Hacker News Reader

My unease with India's river-related behavior is outlined in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11750933

India's relationships with its surrounding countries aren't exactly equitable and fair. Nepal and Bhutan have been reduced to servile client states; Bangladesh gets the short end of the stick with every new agreement. The less said about India's relationships with Pakistan and China, the better.

They're a big fish in a small pond. There's really no reason to believe that they'll do anything other than what is in their own best interests as far as this project is concerned.

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> India's relationships with its surrounding countries aren't exactly equitable and fair. Nepal and Bhutan have been reduced to servile client states; Bangladesh gets the short end of the stick with every new agreement. The less said about India's relationships with Pakistan and China, the better.

BS. Backup your arguments with facts. Which agreement India signed that made Nepal and Bhutan servile client states? Pakistan and China have illegally occupied lands in India. Not to mention Terrorism that emanates from Pakistani soil. You think India should keep quiet and allow the infiltration to continue?

> They're a big fish in a small pond. There's really no reason to believe that they'll do anything other than what is in their own best interests as far as this project is concerned.

Absolutely ridiculous statement. If we only did things in our best interests, we would have occupied Pakistan in the 1965 Indo-Pak war that was waged on us by Pakistan. The Indian army had captured Lahore (capital city of Pakistan) but we returned the captured city back to Pakistan after it surrendered. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahore_Front. We could have also taken advantage of the struggle for Bangladeshi freedom from Pakistan and instead of liberating Bangladesh just occupied it. We did not do that. Sorry to say but the price we have paid for being a good neighbor is terrorism, illegal land grabbing, illegal immigration and killing of our fishermen.

You know Bangladesh would not exist were it not for India's intervention, right? And when the Indian Army had occupied all of Bangladesh, it could have just stayed there, "temporarily". But it withdrew fairly quickly, and Bangladesh was born.

My point is: if India wanted to screw Bangladesh over, it had ample opportunity; but it chose not to.

In any case: large chunks of Bangladesh is projected to be underwater in the near future, so maybe extra water is not a good thing? ;-)

And as I've said elsewhere in this thread, most Bangladeshis are eternally grateful that India intervened when they did.

India's leadership has changed since then, however, and their actions in 1971 do not preclude a subsequent change of heart, or even crass indifference to what goes on downstream (which, honestly, is what I believe is happening now). A robust discussion and much diplomacy is in order between the two countries -- the possibility of which the Indian commentariat in this thread seems to be very eager to shut down.

I understand your concerns, and they are valid. However, none of us can predict the future; we can only use the past to fit patterns. For example: even during the worst periods of conflict between India and Pakistan, water continued to flow into Pakistan from India. Remember: Pakistan is mostly a desert without Indian water; and India did nothing. Relations between India and Bangladesh are quite friendly, so I have faith in a just resolution. Of course, Bangladesh must be vigilant.

yes, india withdrew the troops, not because of favour, mainly because of sheikh mujib's stubbornness.

well, in fact, bangladesh can also screw india in some sense, by helping the maoist separatists of the north-eastern part, but bangladesh never does that.

> by helping the maoist separatists of the north-eastern part, but bangladesh never does that.

A lot of the ULFA leaders were living in Bangladesh and got tacit support from the government of Khaleda Zia.

yes, still there are, but has nothing to do with "government support", governments on the both sides, are equally inept to handle corruption, crime and poverty.

> There's really no reason to believe that they'll do anything other than what is in their own best interests

This is true of every country, I don't really see what the point is here.

For example, one of the presidential candidates for the US is campaigning on the popular platform of getting a neighboring country to pay for a wall between itself and the US by threatening to withhold financial remittances to that country.

A Trump presidency is a hypothetical; India's Interlink project is apparently a reality. Putting that aside, Mexico is probably going to be okay if the wall gets built. Bangladesh will starve when water from the Ganges and/or Brahmaputra is "reduced".

The point is that this isn't a question of self-interest causing a small amount of inconvenience to a neighbor -- it's self-interest that could cause grievous, existential harm to a smaller country.

> India's Interlink project is apparently a reality

(I am Indian.) If you think a planned project from the Indian Government with vague assurances of work going to start "in a few days" is a reality, you need to think twice, or possibly several more times.

The project will most likely get bogged down among environmental concerns, Government red tape, and pressure from Bangladesh.

Heh. I've been wanting to say something about the actual probability of this project getting started for a while, but I seemed to have already attracted enough opprobrium throughout this thread without also implying that it simply can't happen for, er, logistical reasons.

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