Do you think that India should sign a treaty with China on water sharing of Brahmaputra River, similar to what she did with Nepal and other neighbouring states? (2011, 20 Marks)
India has a water instrument with almost every neighbour: the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan (1960), the Kosi (1954), Gandak (1959) and Mahakali (1996) agreements with Nepal, the Ganga Waters Treaty with Bangladesh (1996, expiring in December 2026) and hydropower agreements with Bhutan from Chukha (1974) onward. With China, the upper riparian of the Brahmaputra, it has only data memoranda, and those have lapsed. India should seek a binding agreement, but not one modelled on its Nepal treaties.
Why India needs a treaty
- A lower riparian without an agreement has no legal standing, only appeals. China launched the roughly 60 GW Medog (Motuo) cascade on the Great Bend in July 2025 with no duty to notify or consult India.
- Data has proved political: China withheld flood-season data during Doklam (2017); the Sutlej memorandum lapsed in 2020 and the Brahmaputra one in 2023. China’s August 2025 promise of emergency data on “humanitarian considerations” is a favour, not an obligation, and the 25th Special Representatives round (August 2026) only agreed to keep discussing renewal.
- A treaty would turn norms into rights: the duties of notification, consultation and data exchange that the UN Watercourses Convention (1997, in force 2014) codifies.
Why the Nepal model does not fit
| Criterion | Nepal treaties | Brahmaputra with China |
|---|---|---|
| India’s position | Lower riparian, but stronger | Lower riparian, weaker |
| Who builds | India finances and runs barrages | China builds on its own soil |
| Purpose | Flood control, irrigation, power for India | Restraint on China |
| India’s leverage | Money and market | Little within the water sector |
- The Nepal and Bhutan instruments were project bargains in which India supplied capital and bought the power; with China, India has nothing to offer in the water sector itself. Even in Nepal the Kosi and Gandak deals are remembered as unequal, and the Mahakali treaty’s Pancheshwar dam remains unbuilt three decades on.
- In the hydro-hegemony framework of Mark Zeitoun and Jeroen Warner (2006), outcomes in asymmetric basins follow power more than law: India was the hegemon in its South Asian treaties and is the weaker party here.
- China’s record is uniform. It voted against the 1997 Convention, has no allocation treaty with any lower riparian, stays outside the 1995 Mekong Agreement while sharing data with the Mekong River Commission, and its agreements with Kazakhstan and Russia are cooperation frameworks. Its practice resembles the Harmon doctrine of absolute territorial sovereignty; Brahma Chellaney (Water: Asia’s New Battleground, 2011) reads Tibet’s rivers as a lever of Chinese power.
- A sharing treaty could backfire: negotiated from weakness, it might legitimise upstream regulation and fix unfavourable quantities. Since most of the Brahmaputra’s flow is generated below the Great Bend, volume is not India’s main problem.
- India’s double riparian position constrains it: the no-harm rule it would press on China is the one Bangladesh and Pakistan press on India, and holding the Indus treaty in abeyance since April 2025 weakens its credibility.
What India should seek instead
- A binding data and notification agreement: year-round data, prior notice of major projects, joint dam-safety and flood-warning protocols, and the Expert Level Mechanism (2006) upgraded into a standing commission.
- Linkage within the boundary dialogue and the wider thaw, where China wants trade and stability.
- A trilateral frame with Bangladesh, the third riparian, which raises the reputational cost to China.
- Internal balancing: the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project’s storage as a buffer, built with Adi community consent, and better flood forecasting.
Conclusion
India should pursue a treaty with China, but a procedural rather than allocative one. The Nepal precedent rests on Indian strength and money; on the Brahmaputra India lacks both, so its goal must be enforceable transparency, built by making cooperation worth China’s while.