Foreign Affairs Record-1981

548 Pages·2011·2.67 MB·English

1981
January
Volume No
XXVII NO 1
1995

CONTENTS

Foreign
Affairs
Record VOL XXVII No 1 1981
J anuary
CONTENTS
BANGLADESH
Review Meeting of Ganges Waters Agreement:
Speech by Rao Birendra. Singh 1
Bangladesh Minister's Speech at Review Meeting
of Ganges Waters Agreement 6

HOME AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Message on 20th
Anniversary of Belgrade Conference 13
President N. Sanjiva Reddy's Republic Day Message 14
India's Initiatives in Foreign Policy: A Review
by Minister of External Affairs P. V. Narasimha
Rao 15
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Inaugural
Address at International Seminar on Islam's
Contribution to Culture and Civilisation of the
World with Special Reference to India 18
ITALY
Indo-Italian Agreement on Avoidance of Double
Taxation 21
JAPAN
Japanese Grant Aid to India 22
MEXICO
President N. Sanjiva Reddy's Speech at Banquet
in Honour of Mexican President 22
Text of Mexican President's Speech 24
Programme of Cooperation Between India and
Mexico 26
Indo-Mexican Joint Communique 27

MOROCCO
India-Morocco Cultural and Scientific Agreement 30
NORWAY
Indo-Norwegian Agreement Signed 30
POLAND
Five-Year Indo-Polish Trade and Payments
Agreement Signed 31
SRI LANKA
Exchange of Radio and TV Programmes
Between India and Sri Lanka 32
UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
Indo-Soviet Joint Commission Meets: Shri Nara-
Simha Rao's Speech 33
Mr. I. V. Arkhipov's Speech 34
Minister of External Affairs P. V. Narasimha,
Rao's Speech at Dinner in Honour of Soviet
First Deputy Prime Minister Arkhipov 36
Press Note on Indo-USSR Joint Commission
Session 38
UNITED KINGDOM
Fourth Meeting of Indo-British Economic
Committee: Agreed Minutes Signed 39
NGLADESH YUGOSLAVIA INDIA ITALY JAPAN MEXICO MOROCCO NORWAY POLAND SRI
LANKA USA
Date :
Jan 01, 1981
Volume No
XXVII NO 1
1995
BANGLADESH
Review Meeting of Ganges Waters Agreement: Speech by Rao Birendra Singh
Following is the text of the speech by Rao Birendra Singh,
minister (Agriculture, Rural Reconstruction and Irrigation) at
the Review Meeting of Ganges Waters Agreement held at New Delhi
on Jan 07, 1981:

Your Excellency, I have great pleasure in welcoming you and the
members of your Delegation to this Second Inter-Governmental
meeting for the First Review of the Indo-Bangladesh Agreement on
sharing of the Ganga Waters at Farina and Augmenting its flows. I
hope your stay will be fruitful, pleasant and comfortable.

Excellency, in the earlier round of the Review talks held in
Dacca last November, it was agreed that each side would submit
reports on Parts A and B of the 1977 Agreement. The two sides
accordingly furnished to each other these reports on the 19th
December, 1980. Apart from considering these reports, in our
present round of talks, we have to decide the dates for the third
and final round of Ministerial discussions. AS the Indian
delegation repeatedly emphasised in the last round of talks, it
is incumbent on us to bring the review to a conclusion as early
as possible.

In our Review Report, we have taken great care to be strictly
objective and have attempted to furnish all the relevant data to
enable a proper assessment to be made by the two Governments on
the working, impact, implementation and progress of the
arrangements contained in the Agreement. We have demonstrated how
Indian interests have grievously suffered by the operation of
Part A of the Agreement while adverse effects in Bangladesh have
at worst been marginal. We have also demonstrated the factors
responsible for the failure to implement the provisions of Part B
of the Agreement.

Permit me, Your Excellency, to deal briefly with the approach
reflected in Part A of the Bangladesh Report.
BANGLADESH REPORT
The Bangladesh Report on Part A dwells at some length on the so-
called historical rights of Bangladesh to the Ganga waters and an
assertion of the right to so called natural flows. In fact,
continuance of historical flow amounts to a total denial of
beneficial development and the principle of equitable sharing of
waters for beneficial uses enshrined in international practice.
Assertion of a right to so-called natural flows amounts to
claiming a veto on the rights of the upper riparian to a
reasonable and equitable share of the waters of e common rivers.
Its acceptance would obstruct the rights of other riparians to
implement development plans designed to u e the water resources
of the basin, thus perpetuating economic stagnation, accentuating
human suffering and impeding progress to which, I am afraid,
India cannot agree.
India, in any view, is by far the major riparian country for the
Ganga waters; in terms of catchment area - 99 per cent,
population - 94 per cent, and area dependent on waters - 94.5 per
cent. India is thus entitled to an equitable and proponderant
share of the Ganga waters taking into account relevant factors
such as the geography and hydrology of the basin, economic needs,
population, availability of other resources, avoidance of waste,
past use, current needs and the comparative cost of alternative
means and other factors. There can be absolutely no obligation to
leave intact the existing quantum of flows.

INDIA'S CASE
For 90 per cent of its length -1,925 km - the main channel of the
Ganga
<pg-1>
flows through India, with its principal tributaries it flows
through 8,000 kin of Indian territory with a catchment area in
India of 777,000 sq km. The geographical area in India dependent
on the Ganga is 211 million acres (84 million ha) with a
population of over 250 million. In 1971 more than 40 per cent of
the country's total population and cultivable area of 1.50
million acres in the basin and large areas elsewhere were
dependent on the Ganga waters. Com pared with this, the length in
Bangladesh is a mere 141 kin (excluding the common boundary of
112 km.) The total length of the Ganga and tributaries in
Bangladesh is hardly 173 km, the area in Bangladesh is hardly 0.7
per cent of that in India. The area is blessed with heavy
rainfall avid has the possibility of being served by the
Brahmaputra and the Meghna. The relative rights and needs of
India and Bangladesh on the Ganga waters could well be imagined
by any objective and well accepted criteria

In fact, the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna is one large international
drainage basin of which Ganga is just one part. Instead of
perpetuating shortages of the Ganga flows, our attempt has been
to optimise the development of the flow in the Ganga, Brahmaputra
and Meghna as available to India. and Bangladesh for meeting the
needs of both countries. It was in this context, that the
Agreement af 1977 was entered into by India in a spirit of
goodwill and cooperation at great sacrifices of her legitimate
interests and rights and in the expectation that it would be
possible to evolve with the cooperation of Bangladesh a scheme
for the cooperative development of the abundant water resources
in the region available to the two countries to meet the
requirements of both countries in full measure.

We are disappointed at the sweeping assertions made in the
Bangladesh document without any supporting data. For example, it
has been alleged that salinity in the Khulna, area in Bangladesh
had a direct relationship to the flows at Hardinge Bridge. It has
been stated that Gorai flows had been affected causing problems,
without indicating the basis on which an assessment has been
made. It is said that agricultural production has gone down
without analysis of the causes, the trend of these activities in
the rest of Bangladesh and the importance of various other
relevant factors etc.

The data available to us clearly demonstrates that the salinity
in the south-west region, in and around Khulna, is affected by
local runoff and monsoon rainfall and is independent of the
discharges flowing in the Ganga. Even otherwise, it is well known
that waters with electrical conductivity of 5,000 microhms or
more are being used in various parts of the world for irrigation
particularly paddy, with or without suitable agronomic practices.
There is massive evidence based on officially published data in
Bangladesh that the performance in the agricultural, fisheries
and other sectors in the areas in Bangladesh claimed to be
dependent upon Padma waters since the operation of the Farina
barrage has been in line with the trend of these sectors in the
rest of Bangladesh and has been even better in certain respects.
It flows from it that the monetary values assigned by Bangladesh
of the losses suffered in these sectors due to the withdrawals of
water by India at Farina are without any factual basis and hence
misleading. It is quite clear that no adverse effects were in
fact caused at all in Bangladesh as a result of the withdrawals
at Farina.
It is our considered opinion that no useful purpose would be
served by entering into such extravagant claims and extraordinary
charges in the report, totally unsupported by data, that the
withdrawals at Farina have given rise to increased incidence of
hypertension, have resulted in change in rainfall pattern,
temperature change and wind movement and have led to the monsoon
behaving in an erratic fashion.
PRESERVATION OF CALCUTTA PORT
We are also disappointed to note that the Bangladesh document by
innuendo casts doubts on the very purpose of the Farina, Barrage
project. I should draw the attention of your Excellency to the
comprehensive data supplied to the Bangladesh side ever since
1960 including clarifications. Whatever additional information
they had needed at every stage was also furnished. Your
Excellency would recall that in 1974
<pg-2>
the results of the latest studies made were also furnished to
Bangladesh side. We are surprised to note that long after the
Farakka Barrage has been commissioned and has been in operation
for the last five years and has shown positive results subject to
the limitation of flows made available to it, it is being
suggested that a ship canal should be constructed and that the
Damodar Valley complex which has been constructed and has been in
operation for decades now should be abandoned. We have explained
to the Bangladesh side on many occasions the respective
complementary roles of Calcutta and Haldia ports and why the
Calcutta Port needs preservation and improvement.

References have been made in the Bangladesh report to studies
stated to have been made by Ippen and Wicker (1972) and Siddiqui
(1976) which have however not been made available. As your
Excellency is aware that over a period of more than 100 years
several experts of international repute and committees and
commissions went into the problem of Calcutta Port. It was their
unanimous opinion that the provision of adequate head water
supply was the only way to permanently and purposefully solve the
problem of Calcutta Port. The commissioning of this project was
the most purposeful measure towards the preservation of Calcutta
Port, which has been deteriorating since the turn of the century.
If only 40,000 cusecs are made available as per the design
requirements the trend of improvements would be stabilised and
accelerated and the heavy investments made on the project would
be justified. In my view of the matter, Bangladesh accepted the
Farina Barrage scheme as far back as in 1973 and 1974 (when the
two Prime Ministers met). Also the 1977 agreement is based on the
operation of Farina project. There is, therefore, no point in
suggesting alternatives at this stage.
An implication has been made that in the year 1980 drought in the
Ganga basin was not very severe as seen from the conditions in
Bangladesh. Excellency, I can only state that in 1980 the
severest drought known recently in India occurred and food
production dropped sharply from over 130 million tons to 109
million tons. We are however very glad that in Bangladesh the
drought intensity was not so severe.
I must also point out that ' the areas shown as being dependent
on, Ganga waters in Bangladesh show a striking increase over
earlier data supplied by Bangladesh itself. During the
augmentation discussions in 1974 and 1975 a major part of
Faridpur, Rajshahi, Pabna districts and the complete districts of
Harisal and Patuakhali had been shown by Bangladesh to be
dependent on the Brahmaputra waters. We now suddenly find that
these figure amongst areas shown as being dependent on Ganga
waters. According to the assessment made by India, the areas in
Bangladesh dependent on Ganga waters are far too less, being of
the order of less than 1 million ha.
The Bangladesh Report on Part A dwells at some length on events
preceding the 19,77 Agreement. As this clearly lies outside the
purview of the present review 1 shall not enter into a discussion
on these matters particularly since the Bangladesh arguments have
already been refuted in the past.

Excellency, I am constrained to point out that the Bangladesh
Report on Review of the Implementation of Part 'B' of the
Agreement is not a review as such but basically a detailed
elaboration and justification of the Bangladesh proposal and
outright rejection and condemnation of the Indian proposal. This
goes against both the letter and the spirit of the 1977
Agreement. Article IX of the Agreement clearly implied that
instead of rejecting each other's proposals on prima-facie
grounds, as had been the trend of the earlier discussions of the
JRC, the JRC which is an expert body would underake a techno-
economic study of the proposals with a view to recommending the
most feasible and economical schemes. This basic understanding
incorporated in Article IX of the Agreement is totally belied in
the report on part 'B' submitted by Bangladesh.
Instead of unilaterally asserting the merits of their proposals
and denouncing ours, we had expected Bangladesh Government to
join us in bringing out the respective merits and demerits of the
two proposals through the studies which the JRC was required to
undertake as also agreed upon in the 14th meeting of the JRC. If
<pg-3>
there were indeed any validity in the unilateral appreciation of
their own proposals and criticism of our proposal the Bangladesh
Government should have agreed to have those facts established in
the process of the study. The fact that the Bangladesh Government
have decided not to allow the merits and demerits of the two
proposals to be brought out by techno-economic studies but to
merely assert them unilaterally would only go to show that the
arguments produced by them would not have stood up to scrutiny in
a body like the MC.
BASIN APPROACH UNTENABLE
Bangladesh has raised several objections against the Indian
proposals: that India is diverting Brahmaputra waters into Ganga
which is another basin without regard to the requirements of
Brahmaputra waters in its own basin aggregating to 1,80,000
cusecs in Bangladesh: that the link canal runs against the
direction of the natural flows: that it cuts Bangladesh into two:
that the catchment areas of Dihang dam is in China, that the
problem of water logging would occur: and that one million
population would be affected along with over two lakh acres of
land. India has on various occasions made clear that the basin
approach is neither in conformity with 1977 Agreement nor with
international practice and even if basin approach were accepted
for the sake of argument, Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna constitutes a
single international drainage basin and hence there is no
question of diversion of water from one basin to the other, The
requirement of Bangladesh of 1,80,000 cusecs of Brahmaputra
waters in large quantities. The link canal proposed by India runs
along the contour as is the case with most of the big canals in
the world. The canal does not divide Bangladesh into two but it
connects with various river systems and provides much needed
communication line through navigation. The fact that large part
of the catchment area of Dihang dam is in China has no relevance
because the Dihang dam including its reservoir would be located
entirely in India. There should be no problem of water logging
because Bangladesh is a country of perennial rivers and the canal
can be lined if necessary to prevent any water logging. The
sacrifices of India in terms of acquisition of land and
displacement of homesteads is far greater, considering that the
length in India is twice as much and that large areas would go
under submergence under the proposed reservoirs. The objections
raised against the construction of reservoirs such as seismicety
and silt lack the correct appreciation. The Indian side had all
along stressed that with the modern technology it should be
possible to design, implement and operate the large reservoirs as
contemplated in the Himalayan region.
The Brahmaputra basin is in no way different from the Ganga basin
in Himalayan region where Bangladesh itself has proposed large
reservoirs. India has carried out detailed explorations and
investigations which have confirmed the earlier assessment that
Dihang, Subansiri and Tipaimukh dams could be built up to the
heights contemplated in the Indian proposal. The unfortunate
part, however, has been that Bangladesh has not come forward to
study the data on scientific and rational basis to discuss the
scheme and then come to its conclusions.

The Bangladesh Report on Part 'B' has also confirmed what we have
always suspected and frequently brought up in the previous
meetings of the JRC, namely that the Bangladesh Government had no
intention right from the beginning to proceed with these studies
and make any efforts to find a solution to the long-term problem
of augmentation. Some of the major arguments given in their
report leave no doubt on this score. First, the report makes the
extraordinary point that the Indian proposal for link canal is
outside the scope of the Farina Agreement on the ground that the
Agreement relates to the flows of the Ganges and not to the flows
of the Brahmaputra.
Therefore, it is argued, that the scheme relating to the transfer
of the Brahmaputra waters through a link canal is outside the
scope of the Agreement. We find this argument surprising because
it is nowhere mentioned in the 1977 Agreement that the
augmentation of the Ganga Waters should be through Ganga waters
only. It is clear from article IX,' that the two countries could
submit any proposal which would have to be studied by the MC
without attaching
<pg-4>
inter-se priority among them. It was also well known that the
Indian proposal would be for the link canal. Therefore, the
arguments given in the report that Indian proposal is outside the
scope of the Agreement has come as a great surprise to us.

PREJUDICED APPROACH
Secondly, instead of agreeing to undertaking a study of our
proposal, the Bangladesh side has adopted the persistent approach
of rejecting it on prima-facie basis both through public
statements of its eminent leaders and senior officials as well as
in informal discussions in the JRC. This approach has found its
fullest possible expression in the report submitted by
Bangladesh. This again shows that the Bangladesh Government had
no intention right from the beginning to study our proposal even
though, according to the Agreement, the proposals submitted by
both the countries were to be studied scientifically.

Thirdly, it is stated in the Bangladesh report that the solution
to the problem like augmenting flows of an international river,
"cannot possibly be found within a short time of 3 or 5 years or
even in a decade", that a "time-bound solution to the problems of
this nature is not possible", that one should not expect the
completion of mandate on such a complex issue within 3 years,
when "the conclusion of the present Agreement took more than a
quarter of a century". This clearly shows that right from the
beginning, Bangladesh had no intention to abide by the three year
time limit laid down for the completion of the work of the JRC.
Beyond this, it also indicates that Bangladesh would like the
discussions on this issue to go on indefinitely.
Excellency, will not these facts lead any impartial observers to
question whether Bangladesh intended to observe the terms of part
(B) of the Agreement in good faith? The Bangladesh report amounts
to an admission of the fact that Bangladesh never seriously
intended to even examine the proposals submitted by India and
that it had no intention, in any case, of arriving at any jointly
agreed solution within the period of three years laid down in the
Agreement. We must draw the conclusions which follow inevitably
from this fact.
LONG-TERM SOLUTION
Finally, the Bangladesh report on Part 'B' states that the Indian
proposal is "untenable for the purpose of ensuring the share of
Bangladesh in respect of the flows of the Ganges." Surely this
was not the purpose behind article IX of the Agreement. There is
no such implication in the provisions of the Agreement relating
to longterm arrangements; on the other hand the basic purpose of
the long-term arrangements is as stated in the Preamble of the
Agreement viz. to ensure an optimum utilisation by the two
countries of the water resources of their region and for
augmenting the flows.

The Bangladesh report repeatedly harps on the theme of the so-
called basin approach to the development of the water resources
of the region. It is brought out in India's report on Part M'
that during the course of the negotiations on the Ganga waters,
India had, outright rejected this so-called basin approach. The
Bangladesh side seeking to revive this approach now is to go
against the letter and spirit of the 1977 Agreement.
The main thrust of the 1977 Agreement is to solve this problem
bilaterally by the two countries. The task of recommending the
most feasible and economical schemes for the solution of the
long-term problem of the augmentation was entrusted to the JRC
which is a bilateral institution. Bangladesh unfortunately right
from the beginning started to dilute and alter this bilateral
approach and made this an excuse for preventing the JRC from even
commencing with the study of the proposals.
It has been stated in the Bangladesh report that the Joint Rivers
Commission has done very useful work during the last three years
and should therefore be given a fresh mandate to continue its
exercise with a view to evolving a satisfactory long-term
solution of the augmentation of the Ganga Waters. We fail to
understand how the JRC can claim to have done any useful work
when it in fact, was prevented by the Bangladesh side from even
undertaking a study of the
<pg-5>
two proposals. Moreover, given the basic approach reflected in
the Bangladesh report on part (B) we do not see any purpose being
served by asking the JRC to continue with the exercise.
Bangladesh has prima facie rejected India's proposal and in its
report has unilaterally condemned it, going to the extent of
saying that it is untenable, unnecessary and outside the scope of
the Agreement. The Bangladesh side has also taken the position
that the completion of the work of JRC on a matter like this may
take decades and no time bound commitment can be given. Given
this basic attitude of Bangladesh, any decision to ask JRC to
continue with this work on augmentation can only result in
endless discussions for decades of the long-term problem of
augmentation without there ever being any hope for finding a
solution.
On the other hand, our problems are most pressing and urgent. We
can hardly afford to waste time and engage in such a futile open-
ended discussion. This inescapable reality must be fully
reflected in the final Review Report.

IDENTIFYING DIFFERENCES