Water Resource Governance between India and Bangladesh under Pressure: The Teesta Basin and the Future of Bilateral Hydro-politics

Pietro Secchi - October, 10 2026

Introduction

India–Bangladesh relations over water resources have historically been governed through a pragmatic but structurally asymmetric bilateral framework, based on selective agreements, technical coordination, and recurring diplomatic negotiations. Rather than developing an integrated governance architecture for the entire Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) basin, the two countries have established river-specific agreements designed to manage seasonal tensions and preserve operational stability.

For several decades, this approach proved relatively resilient. The 1996 Ganges Water Treaty institutionalised procedures for sharing water resources during the dry season around the Farakka Barrage and reduced the risk of recurring bilateral crises over downstream flows. More broadly, water diplomacy between New Delhi and Dhaka developed within a regional context characterised by relatively stable hydrological regimes, limited infrastructure density, and the low geopolitical salience of shared river systems.

This context is now changing. Climate variability is increasing hydrological uncertainty across Himalayan river systems. The rapid expansion of dams, barrages, and hydropower infrastructure is altering the relationship between upstream control and downstream dependence. At the same time, transboundary river governance is becoming increasingly intertwined with domestic political fragmentation, border securitisation, and broader geopolitical competition in South Asia.

These pressures converge particularly clearly in the Teesta basin. Although considerably smaller than the Ganges and Brahmaputra systems, the river has nevertheless emerged as the most sensitive unresolved water dispute between India and Bangladesh — a dispute defined by the intersection of climate volatility, infrastructure expansion, and domestic political constraints that the existing bilateral framework was not designed to manage.

This report examines how these structural pressures are transforming the operational logic of water politics between India and Bangladesh and what governance adaptations they require. The Teesta basin provides the principal analytical lens, but the argument extends beyond the individual river: the central question is whether the bilateral water-resource governance architecture can evolve rapidly enough to remain functional under conditions of increasing hydrological unpredictability and intensifying geopolitical competition.

Section I — The Current Water-Resource Governance Framework

India–Bangladesh water relations have taken shape, since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, through a succession of bilateral negotiations and agreements. The current framework reflects this trajectory: rather than being organised around a single structure covering the entire Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) basin, it is based on a series of distinct instruments developed over time to address different issues concerning shared waters and supported by both technical and diplomatic forms of consultation.

This architecture reflected two structural realities that have never been fully resolved. The first is geographical asymmetry: India occupies an upstream position relative to most of the transboundary rivers that flow into Bangladesh, while most of Bangladesh’s surface water originates outside its territory. The second is hydrological seasonality: the GBM system is characterised by strong monsoonal cycles, recurring floods, and marked dry-season variability, making water-resource management highly sensitive to short-term climatic fluctuations. Taken together, these conditions have created a system in which operational stability — rather than institutional integration — has become the primary objective of bilateral cooperation.

The first structured mechanism for managing this relationship was the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC), established in 1972. Although lacking enforcement powers, the JRC has provided a stable bureaucratic interface for the exchange of hydrological data and technical consultation, reducing the likelihood that localised disputes would escalate into broader political crises. Its significance was primarily procedural: it institutionalised a channel of communication at a time when bilateral relations were still taking shape.

The main source of tension during this early period was the Farakka Barrage, constructed by India on the Ganges near the border to divert water towards the Hooghly River and improve navigation to the port of Calcutta. During the dry season, reduced downstream flows generated persistent concerns in Bangladesh regarding water availability for irrigation, saltwater intrusion, and agricultural stability. Managing the consequences of Farakka dominated bilateral water diplomacy for much of the following two decades, culminating in the 1996 Ganges Water Treaty.

The treaty introduced a structured mechanism for water sharing during the dry season, from January to May, based on ten-day measurements of flows at Farakka, together with formalised joint monitoring procedures. Its principal contribution was institutional rather than distributive: it created a predictable framework for managing seasonal water allocation under conditions of structural asymmetry, reducing the risk of recurring escalation over Ganges flows. For Bangladesh, it provided a degree of institutionalised predictability that had previously been absent; for India, it provided a manageable framework while preserving a certain degree of operational flexibility.

However, the treaty’s limitations were equally significant. It remained confined to the Ganges system, leaving the governance of the other 53 shared rivers to ad hoc technical exchanges and periodic negotiations. No basin-wide governance framework emerged. The JRC continued to operate without enforcement powers. And the underlying structural asymmetry between upstream control and downstream dependence was managed rather than resolved.

A governance system therefore emerged that functioned adequately under certain conditions: relative stability in seasonal hydrology, limited upstream infrastructure development, and low geopolitical salience of shared river systems. The Teesta — for which no binding agreement has ever been reached despite prolonged negotiations — emerged as the clearest indicator of the structural limitations of this framework. As these underlying conditions have gradually changed, the constraints embedded in this selective, bilateral, and primarily procedural architecture have become increasingly significant.

Section II — The Teesta as an Emerging Hydro-Strategic Fault Line

Although significantly smaller than the Ganges and Brahmaputra, the Teesta has become the most strategically relevant unresolved water dispute between India and Bangladesh. Its importance lies less in the absolute volume of water involved than in the concentration of several structural pressures within a relatively limited basin: increasing climate variability, upstream infrastructure development, agricultural and irrigation insecurity, domestic political fragmentation, and growing geopolitical competition.

The Teesta originates in the Indian state of Sikkim, flows through North Bengal, and enters Bangladesh before reaching the Brahmaputra. Its downstream section supports one of the most important agricultural regions in northern Bangladesh, where the Teesta Barrage Project was developed to provide irrigation to approximately 750,000 hectares. Consequently, variations in dry-season flows have direct implications for agricultural production, rural economic stability, and food security.

The central problem has increasingly shifted from the distribution of a relatively predictable resource to the governance of hydrological uncertainty. Dry-season flows in the Teesta have become increasingly difficult to predict, with their variability reflecting a combination of upstream abstraction and regulation, changing climatic conditions, and broader alterations in the river’s hydrological regime. This has made the traditional logic of negotiating fixed allocations increasingly difficult to sustain.

Upstream Infrastructure and Hydrological Control

The expansion of infrastructure in the upper Teesta basin has further altered the balance between upstream control and downstream dependence. In Sikkim, more than twenty hydropower projects are either operational, under construction, or planned across the Teesta system and its tributaries. Projects such as Teesta III and Teesta V form part of a broader strategy aimed at expanding hydropower generation while strengthening connectivity and infrastructure in India’s Northeast.

The strategic significance of this infrastructure extends beyond energy production. The Teesta basin lies within a broader geographical environment shaped by India’s concerns regarding connectivity and territorial security in the Northeast, including the vulnerability of the Siliguri Corridor. Water infrastructure therefore operates simultaneously as an economic asset and as part of a wider strategic landscape.

The October 2023 glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), which severely damaged the Teesta III hydropower project and downstream infrastructure, further demonstrated the interaction between infrastructure development and increasing hydrological uncertainty. The event highlighted not only the vulnerability of existing infrastructure but also the implications of reconstruction, resilience, and flood-management strategies for downstream water governance.

Federal Constraints and the Domestic Politics of Water

The Teesta dispute also illustrates the limits of a purely intergovernmental approach to transboundary water negotiations. In 2011, a draft agreement on the sharing of Teesta waters was expected to be concluded during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka. The agreement was ultimately blocked by the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, who opposed the proposed allocation.

The episode demonstrated that India’s federal structure can directly constrain the implementation of agreements negotiated at the central level. Irrigation requirements and agricultural interests in North Bengal create domestic distributive effects that can make concessions to Bangladesh politically difficult. State-level political considerations can therefore override or constrain the preferences of the Union government, even where a bilateral agreement is considered strategically desirable at the national level.

The Teesta consequently represents not simply a bilateral dispute between two states, but a multi-level governance problem in which national foreign policy, state-level political interests, agricultural constituencies, and downstream water insecurity interact.

The Emerging Geopolitical Dimension

The strategic significance of the Teesta has also expanded as water infrastructure has become increasingly embedded in wider geopolitical competition. In northern Bangladesh, the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project (TRCMRP) has been proposed as a large-scale initiative combining flood control, irrigation modernisation, riverbank protection, and erosion management.

Chinese involvement in feasibility studies and infrastructure proposals has attracted particular attention in India. The project has therefore acquired significance beyond its immediate water-management objectives, especially given the strategic importance of northern Bangladesh and India’s broader concerns regarding the security of the Siliguri Corridor.

From mid-2026, Chinese engagement moved beyond an exploratory phase. Bangladesh formally requested Chinese cooperation in May 2026, while Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Beijing in June 2026 was followed by an agreement to deepen cooperation and accelerate the feasibility study. At this stage, however, implementation remained at the planning and feasibility level rather than having entered the construction phase.

The geopolitical significance of this development is reinforced by the broader role of China in Himalayan water infrastructure. Chinese hydropower development on the Yarlung Tsangpo — the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra — has contributed to Indian concerns regarding cumulative upstream infrastructure and the increasing strategic importance of water flows across the Himalayan region.

The result is a triangular dynamic in which the Teesta is no longer governed exclusively through the India–Bangladesh bilateral relationship. Bangladesh’s search for alternative sources of infrastructure financing and technical cooperation intersects with India’s security concerns and China’s expanding regional economic and infrastructural presence.

The Teesta as a Structural Fault Line

The significance of the Teesta therefore lies in the interaction of several pressures rather than in any single dispute. Climate variability increases uncertainty over available flows; infrastructure development strengthens upstream control; domestic political fragmentation constrains bilateral agreements; and geopolitical competition raises the strategic costs associated with external involvement.

The Teesta consequently provides a particularly clear case through which to examine whether the existing India–Bangladesh water-governance architecture can adapt to a substantially more complex operating environment. The issue is no longer simply how much water should be allocated between upstream and downstream users, but how bilateral institutions can manage uncertainty, infrastructure interdependence, domestic political constraints, and geopolitical competition simultaneously.

Section III — The Drivers of the Hydro-Political Transition

The operating environment in which India–Bangladesh water relations are situated is undergoing a significant transformation. The bilateral mechanisms developed over the past fifty years were calibrated to a specific combination of conditions: relatively stable seasonal hydrology, limited upstream infrastructure density, and the low geopolitical salience of shared river systems. Each of these conditions is now simultaneously under pressure. This section examines the structural factors underlying this transition.

Climate Variability and Hydrological Uncertainty

The most significant long-term pressure on regional hydropolitics is the increasing instability of Himalayan hydrological systems. Glaciers in the eastern Himalayas have undergone persistent retreat over recent decades, increasing uncertainty regarding dry-season flows across the wider GBM basin. At the same time, monsoon patterns have become more irregular — delayed rainfall cycles, concentrated precipitation events, and greater intra-seasonal variability are affecting both agricultural planning and reservoir management across the region.

The operational relevance of these trends extends beyond the hydrological dimension alone. Seasonal flow regimes have historically constituted the basic assumptions upon which bilateral water-sharing mechanisms were designed. As the predictability of these regimes declines, agreements calibrated to relatively stable flow conditions lose operational reliability — particularly during prolonged periods of low flows, when disputes over resource allocation are more likely to emerge.

Extreme weather events add a further layer of institutional pressure. The glacial lake outburst flood that occurred in Sikkim in October 2023 — already examined specifically in relation to the Teesta basin — illustrates a broader dynamic: Himalayan corridors characterised by high infrastructure density are increasingly exposed to cascading environmental shocks that existing coordination mechanisms were not designed to absorb. The governance implication is not simply that more extreme events will occur, but that bilateral frameworks built around predictable seasonal rhythms will face increasing difficulties in maintaining their operational credibility under conditions of sudden and severe hydrological disruption.

Infrastructure Expansion and Asymmetric Operational Interdependence

The expansion of hydraulic infrastructure along Himalayan river systems is altering the logic of transboundary water resource governance in ways that go beyond straightforward upstream–downstream competition over resources. Dams, barrages, and hydropower facilities do not merely capture water; they regulate the timing, predictability, and political salience of transboundary flows. As infrastructure density increases, operational decisions — dam releases, sediment management, and seasonal regulation — increasingly shape downstream conditions in Bangladesh, irrespective of what is formally established by bilateral agreements.

On the Indian side, this dynamic is driven by the combination of energy security priorities and strategic consolidation in the north-eastern corridor examined in Section II. The broader point, however, is systemic: as a growing number of facilities become operational simultaneously across different river systems, their cumulative effect on downstream flow governance in Bangladesh intensifies, even in the absence of any single large-scale intervention.

Bangladesh's infrastructural response has historically been more defensive and distribution-oriented, centred on the Teesta Barrage system and its associated irrigation networks. In recent years, however, Dhaka has moved towards a more integrated approach to basin management, combining irrigation modernisation, flood mitigation, and river management interventions. This reflects an increasing recognition that downstream vulnerability is determined not only by water scarcity but also by operational variability upstream — and that adapting to the latter requires more sophisticated governance mechanisms than static resource-sharing arrangements.

The result is a condition of asymmetric operational interdependence: upstream control over the timing and volume of flows increasingly shapes downstream perceptions of risk and reliability, while downstream states lack equivalent leverage over the decisions that most directly affect them. Managing this asymmetry — rather than simply negotiating water volumes — is becoming the principal governance challenge in the basin.

Domestic Political Realignment and Constraints on Bilateral Diplomacy

Transboundary water resource governance in South Asia is not determined exclusively by interstate bargaining. Federal structures, irrigation dependencies, electoral incentives, and the securitisation of border governance increasingly shape and constrain what is politically feasible through bilateral agreements on both sides of the border.

In India, the structural constraint has historically been concentrated in West Bengal. As established in Section II, the failure of the proposed 2011 Teesta agreement demonstrated how state-level political interests can directly prevail over the negotiating positions of the central government. What has changed recently is the political configuration at the state level. The 2026 West Bengal elections resulted in a BJP victory, producing, for the first time, political alignment between the Union government and the principal upstream state. This removes one layer of institutional friction from India's internal coordination on transboundary water resource issues.

Whether this will translate into greater negotiating flexibility towards Bangladesh remains uncertain. The underlying constraints — irrigation demand, agricultural dependence, and perceptions of dry-season scarcity in northern West Bengal — have not changed as a result of the electoral outcome. Local political incentives continue to constrain the scope for significant distributive concessions, and any state government, regardless of party affiliation, faces structural pressure to prioritise upstream water security. The post-election period has also witnessed localised episodes of political violence in several districts, reflecting the intensity of the territorial competition that characterises West Bengal politics and adding a further layer of short-term volatility to an otherwise structurally significant transition.

At the national level, the discourse surrounding border governance has become more explicitly securitised, with increasing emphasis on irregular migration, demographic pressures, and border management in districts adjacent to Bangladesh. This framing tends to place water-sharing issues within a broader security narrative, reducing political space for cooperative approaches and making it more difficult to justify bilateral concessions domestically.

In Bangladesh, domestic constraints are equally significant. In irrigation-dependent northern districts, perceptions of declining dry-season flows generate sustained political pressure and periodically reinforce calls for a tougher negotiating position towards India. Water scarcity intersects with issues of agricultural vulnerability, regional inequality, and political legitimacy, constraining Dhaka's room for manoeuvre just as these factors constrain New Delhi's.

Bangladesh's Normative Strategy and the Limits of Internationalisation

Alongside bilateral negotiations, Bangladesh has increasingly sought to situate transboundary water resource governance within broader international normative frameworks. The most significant step in this direction was Dhaka's accession to the UNECE Water Convention in 2025 — a framework grounded in the principles of equitable water use, environmental protection, and mandatory information sharing among its parties.

The strategic logic behind this move is clear. By aligning itself with internationally recognised governance norms, Bangladesh seeks to reframe its bilateral asymmetry with India not simply as a competition for resources between unequal riparian partners, but as an issue of compliance with established principles of international water law. This repositioning serves two functions: it strengthens Bangladesh's normative position in multilateral forums and introduces a form of indirect reputational pressure on India — even in the absence of direct legal obligations towards non-party states.

The practical constraints, however, are equally significant. The UNECE Convention does not impose obligations on states that have not joined it, and India has shown no intention of doing so. New Delhi has historically maintained a strong preference for strictly bilateral river governance frameworks, grounded in concerns over sovereignty and strategic autonomy — concerns that, if anything, are intensifying in the current geopolitical context. As of August 2026, this tension has taken a more concrete form in the context of the renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty: Bangladesh is seeking a binding “guarantee clause” in the new agreement and has indicated its willingness to raise the issue in international forums if bilateral negotiations fail to make progress, while India has reiterated that renewal discussions will proceed exclusively through existing bilateral mechanisms, including the JRC. Bangladesh's normative position is therefore beginning to emerge as an explicit negotiating lever, although its concrete effect on India's negotiating position remains, for the time being, limited.

Bangladesh's normative strategy should therefore be understood as a long-term diplomatic positioning strategy rather than as an immediately operational instrument. Its value lies less in its capacity to generate direct leverage over India than in gradually shaping the international context in which bilateral negotiations take place — and in signalling to external partners, including multilateral institutions engaged in climate-related issues, that Dhaka is a credible and reform-oriented actor in transboundary water resource governance.

The 2026 Transition of the Ganges Water Treaty

The 1996 Ganges Water Treaty reaches the end of its thirty-year framework in 2026, coinciding with the political realignment in West Bengal and a broader phase of strategic repositioning in the region. The convergence of these developments creates what could be the most significant institutional turning point in India–Bangladesh water relations since the treaty's original signing.

The treaty's principal contribution over three decades has been procedural in nature: it has provided predictable rules for resource allocation, joint monitoring mechanisms, and a framework for managing seasonal disputes, reducing the risk of escalation over Ganges flows. Its value has consisted less in resolving the underlying asymmetry between upstream control and downstream dependence than in institutionalising a set of expectations upon which both parties could base their planning.

These conditions have changed. Increasing climate variability has altered the reliability of seasonal flows. Growing upstream infrastructure density has introduced new variables into flow regimes. And the political environment surrounding the treaty's renewal is considerably more complex than it was at the time of its original signing. Allocation mechanisms designed around relatively stable historical values are becoming more difficult to operationalise in practice — particularly during prolonged periods of low flows, when the treaty's procedural architecture is most necessary and most exposed to being tested.

The renewal process therefore represents more than a technical renegotiation. It constitutes a structural stress test for the bilateral water resource governance framework itself: an opportunity to assess whether existing institutions can be modernised to accommodate greater hydrological uncertainty and more complex infrastructural interdependence, or whether they will simply be extended with minimal modifications under conditions for which they were not designed. The outcome will shape not only the future of the Ganges regime, but also the broader political environment in which unresolved disputes such as the Teesta issue are managed.

Section IV — Strategic Scenarios (2026–2035)

The future trajectory of India–Bangladesh hydropolitics will be shaped by the interaction of four structural factors identified in the preceding sections: accelerating climate variability, the expansion of hydraulic infrastructure, domestic political realignment, and intensifying geopolitical competition along the eastern Himalayan corridor. These pressures are not sequential — they are simultaneous and mutually reinforcing. The principal governance challenge therefore no longer concerns only the allocation of water resources, but the management of cumulative uncertainty under conditions of growing infrastructural interdependence.

The following scenarios are not forecasts. They are analytically coherent trajectories derived from different assumptions about how the main drivers will interact over the 2026–2035 horizon. Each scenario entails a distinct institutional logic, a different distribution of risks, and a different set of observable indicators. Taken together, they define the strategic space within which India–Bangladesh water resource governance will operate.

Scenario 1 — Managed Adaptation and Institutional Continuity

Under this trajectory, both governments preserve the functional core of the existing bilateral framework through incremental adjustments rather than structural reform. The 2026 renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty proceeds, but produces only limited modernisation — stronger technical coordination, modest improvements in hydrological monitoring and seasonal consultation mechanisms — without altering the fundamental architecture of resource allocation.

The Teesta dispute remains formally unresolved. Political alignment between New Delhi and West Bengal reduces some of the institutional frictions within India, but underlying constraints — irrigation demand, agricultural dependence, and local concerns over water security — continue to limit the scope for substantive concessions towards Bangladesh. Bilateral river management increasingly relies on informal coordination and crisis-response mechanisms rather than on a binding agreement.

Meanwhile, climate variability and upstream infrastructure expansion continue to increase operational pressure across the basin. Severe dry-season scarcity events and irregular flows periodically place existing coordination mechanisms under considerable strain, but both governments continue to prioritise crisis containment over confrontation. Chinese involvement in Bangladesh's river-management initiatives remains limited in scope but geopolitically significant, reinforcing Indian concerns regarding infrastructure competition along the eastern Himalayan corridor without, however, crossing the threshold that would trigger a fundamental shift in bilateral dynamics.

The defining characteristic of this scenario is not stability, but a narrowing of the space for action. Bilateral water resource governance becomes progressively more technocratic, reactive, and crisis-management oriented. Cooperation survives, but in an increasingly constrained form, focused on risk management rather than institutional development. The framework remains functional — until a sufficiently severe hydrological shock, or the accumulation of a series of smaller shocks, exposes the limits created by the absence of reform.

Early Indicators

• Limited renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty without adaptive provisions

• Continued absence of a formal Teesta agreement

• Incremental expansion of technical coordination mechanisms

• Persistent but contained Chinese involvement in Bangladesh's infrastructure

• Increasing frequency of crisis-management interventions

Scenario 2 — Adaptive Bilateralism and Selective Modernisation

Under a more cooperative trajectory, both governments come to recognise — not simultaneously and not without resistance — that unmanaged hydrological instability is becoming strategically unsustainable. Rather than pursuing comprehensive basin-level integration, for which neither side has the political capacity or willingness to commit, India and Bangladesh move towards selective modernisation of bilateral governance, centred on adaptive management and operational resilience.

The renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty incorporates more substantial reforms than initially anticipated: strengthened hydrological monitoring, seasonal review mechanisms, and adaptive resource-allocation provisions allowing adjustments under anomalous flow conditions. On the Teesta, parallel negotiations produce limited but meaningful progress — flexible flow thresholds, jointly verified allocation arrangements, and emergency coordination protocols linked to climate-related disruptions — without requiring the politically costly distributive commitments that have blocked an agreement since 2011.

Several favourable conditions make this scenario possible. Political alignment between the Union government and West Bengal improves India's internal coordination capacity, reducing the frictions that have historically constrained New Delhi's negotiating flexibility. Bangladesh, for its part, selectively reduces the political visibility of Chinese participation in strategically sensitive river-management projects, providing India with sufficient reassurance to engage more openly in water resource governance. For New Delhi, greater flexibility on the Teesta also serves a broader strategic objective: limiting geopolitical competition in a corridor regarded as sensitive and strengthening the role of India-led regional cooperation vis-à-vis Chinese-funded infrastructure alternatives.

The outcome is not a transformation of regional hydropolitics, but a partial modernisation of existing bilateral mechanisms. Cooperation remains selective and constrained by domestic political pressures on both sides of the border. The governance framework nevertheless becomes more adaptive and responsive to climatic dynamics, reducing the likelihood that future hydrological shocks will escalate into broader diplomatic crises.

Early Indicators

• Incorporation of adaptive provisions into the renewed Ganges Water Treaty

• Formalisation of joint hydrological monitoring across multiple river systems

• Limited operational agreement on the Teesta — flow thresholds or emergency protocols

• Strengthened coordination on flood management

• Reduced political resistance within West Bengal to bilateral water-resource concessions

Scenario 3 — Hydropolitical Fragmentation and Strategic Securitisation

Under a more negative trajectory, the cumulative weight of climatic disruptions, infrastructure competition, and political securitisation progressively erodes the effectiveness of bilateral water resource governance. Formal institutions survive, but operational trust deteriorates and river management becomes increasingly embedded within broader geopolitical competition rather than remaining confined to technical cooperation.

The deterioration is not triggered by a single event, but by a cumulative process. A succession of severe dry-season scarcity episodes, floods, or glacial lake outburst events exposes the limitations of existing coordination mechanisms. Delayed communications, opaque management of releases, and recurring disputes over seasonal flows intensify downstream insecurity in Bangladesh, where Indian upstream operational decisions are increasingly perceived not as ordinary hydrological management but as a form of strategic pressure. On the Indian side, the perception of being held responsible for environmental variability reinforces a defensive approach to bilateral water resource governance.

Negotiations on both the Teesta and the renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty become more politically contentious. The treaty renewal produces only a minimal extension — technically valid but institutionally hollow — while the Teesta dispute becomes progressively securitised within broader political debates concerning border management, irregular migration, and regional strategic vulnerability. The language of water diplomacy shifts from resource allocation and cooperation towards sovereignty and security.

Chinese participation in infrastructure initiatives in Bangladesh connected to the Teesta corridor expands beyond the planning stage. This development — more than any single diplomatic failure — fundamentally alters India's strategic calculus. New Delhi adopts a more defensive posture across the bilateral relationship; technical cooperation mechanisms, including the Joint Rivers Commission, become more limited and politically constrained; and the space for adaptive governance narrows precisely when hydrological conditions would require greater flexibility.

The principal risk under this scenario is not armed conflict or an abrupt breakdown in bilateral relations. It is something more insidious: the progressive erosion of predictability, institutional trust, and crisis-management capacity precisely when all three become increasingly necessary. A governance framework that was already operating at the margins of its design parameters loses its remaining adaptive capacity, leaving both states more exposed to the hydrological volatility it was originally designed to manage.

Early Indicators

• Minimal or delayed renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty

• Repeated and unresolved disputes over dry-season flows

• Expansion of Chinese involvement in infrastructure beyond the planning stage

• Increasing securitisation of India–Bangladesh relations concerning borders and water resources

• Declining operational effectiveness of the Joint Rivers Commission

Interactions Between the Scenarios and the Critical Variable

The three scenarios are not equally likely, nor are they necessarily incompatible over time. Elements of Scenarios 1 and 2 may coexist during an initial phase of cautious adaptability, with the trajectory subsequently evolving depending on the resolution of key variables. The most important of these is the outcome of the 2026 renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty: a substantially modernised agreement would create institutional momentum towards Scenario 2, while a minimal extension would consolidate the logic of Scenario 1 and increase vulnerability to Scenario 3 in the presence of future hydrological stress.

The second critical variable is the speed and scale of Chinese involvement in Bangladesh's infrastructure. As long as this involvement remains exploratory and is politically managed by Dhaka, it functions as a background pressure — relevant to India's strategic calculations, but not decisive. If it were to expand materially along the Teesta corridor, it would alter the strategic environment in ways that would make sustaining cooperative governance significantly more difficult.

The window for meaningful institutional adaptation is therefore not indefinite. Climate variability will continue to intensify regardless of diplomatic outcomes. The governance question is whether bilateral frameworks can be modernised during a period of relative stability, or whether reform will become possible only after a more serious institutional failure.

Section V — Conclusions and Policy Implications

The analysis developed in this report leads to one overarching conclusion: the central challenge facing India–Bangladesh hydropolitics is no longer the allocation of water volumes between two riparian states, but the governance of hydrological uncertainty under conditions of growing infrastructural interdependence, domestic political constraints, and intensifying geopolitical competition. The bilateral framework inherited from the 1990s was designed for a different operating environment. Adapting it — selectively, incrementally, but deliberately — constitutes the principal governance task of the coming decade.

Several implications follow from this argument.

From Resource Allocation to Adaptive Governance

Existing bilateral agreements, including the 1996 Ganges Water Treaty, were calibrated to relatively stable seasonal reference values. As climate variability increases and the predictability of these reference values consequently deteriorates, fixed allocation mechanisms become progressively less reliable — not because the agreements were poorly designed, but because the hydrological conditions for which they were conceived are changing. Future governance frameworks will need to incorporate adaptive provisions, seasonal review mechanisms, and jointly verified flow thresholds capable of responding to fluctuations in flow conditions. The 2026 treaty renewal represents the immediate opportunity to initiate this transition; allowing it to produce only a minimal extension would mean postponing a necessary adaptation under conditions that are likely to become more challenging.

Operational Coordination as Strategic Infrastructure

As hydraulic facilities proliferate along the Himalayan corridor, the reliability of operational governance mechanisms — hydrological data sharing, dam-release protocols, flood forecasting, and early-warning systems — becomes strategically important alongside the content of formal agreements. Under conditions of growing climatic volatility, a bilateral relationship characterised by strong operational coordination but lacking a Teesta agreement is considerably more stable than one equipped with a formal agreement but marked by deteriorating technical communication. Investing in the former does not constitute a substitute for the latter, but it is a prerequisite for it. Both governments have an interest in treating operational infrastructure as a shared strategic asset rather than as an instrument of domestic management with incidental transboundary effects.

The Federal Dimension Cannot Be Circumvented

The Teesta dispute has demonstrated, over more than a decade, that negotiations over transboundary rivers in India cannot be treated as matters falling exclusively within the competence of the central government. Political alignment between West Bengal and New Delhi following the 2026 elections removes one layer of institutional friction, but does not resolve the underlying distributive constraints that have prevented an agreement since 2011. Any durable bilateral agreement on the Teesta will require political consensus at the state level — not merely the absence of opposition at that level. This implies that New Delhi's negotiating strategy must incorporate domestic coalition-building as an explicit component, rather than treating state-level cooperation as a variable to be managed after an agreement has been reached at the central level.

Bangladesh's Normative Strategy Requires a Bilateral Complement

Dhaka's accession to the UNECE Water Convention provides Bangladesh with a credible position in international debates on transboundary water resource governance and climate adaptation. Its practical leverage vis-à-vis India, however, remains limited as long as New Delhi does not participate in the same normative framework. Bangladesh's most effective use of this positioning is therefore indirect: as a signal to multilateral institutions and climate-financing mechanisms that the country is a reform-oriented partner, and as a basis for building broader international coalitions around the principles — if not the specific instruments — of equitable transboundary governance. Normative positioning and bilateral negotiation should be pursued in parallel, not as alternatives.

The 2026–2030 Window Will Not Remain Open Indefinitely

The convergence of the Ganges Water Treaty transition, political realignment in West Bengal, and growing geopolitical competition along the eastern Himalayan corridor creates a limited but concrete opportunity for selective institutional modernisation. This window has a specific logic: BJP alignment between the central and state governments reduces the costs of domestic coordination; treaty renewal provides a formal opportunity for renegotiation; and Chinese involvement in infrastructure along the Teesta corridor has not yet reached a scale sufficient to fundamentally alter India's strategic calculus. All three conditions are liable to change. Failure to advance meaningful governance reform during this period would not indefinitely prevent cooperation, but it would increase its future cost — and reduce the resilience of both states in the face of hydrological shocks that, according to current trajectories, are likely to intensify.

Conclusion

The future of India–Bangladesh water relations will be determined less by the resolution of any single dispute than by the capacity of both states to adapt existing governance structures to a fundamentally more volatile hydropolitical environment. Throughout this report, the Teesta basin has served as the principal analytical lens — not because it represents the largest shared river system, but because it concentrates, within a single corridor, all the structural pressures transforming regional water resource governance: climate instability, upstream operational control, federal political constraints, and geopolitical competition.

What the Teesta reveals above all is that the current bilateral framework is approaching the limits of its adaptive capacity. It was constructed for a world characterised by relatively predictable seasonal flows, limited infrastructure density, and contained geopolitical interests. That world is progressively disappearing. The question facing both governments is not whether to reform transboundary water resource governance, but whether to do so deliberately — during a period of relative institutional stability — or reactively, after the framework has failed under conditions it was never designed to address.

The answer to this question will shape the resilience of India–Bangladesh relations over a decade in which Himalayan hydrology, regional geopolitics, and domestic politics will all be simultaneously in motion.

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