by Jayanta Gupta
Kolkata: There is clear and present danger of a wall of water gushing down from Tibet into East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh as in 2000, flooding the entire Brahmaputra plains till Assam and taking a heavy toll on life and property. According to experts who spoke at a seminar on resolution of disputes with China in Kolkata recently, India needs to take up the matter seriously with her northern neighbour.
"There seems to be a fixation in India on proposals to divert the waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo (as the Brahmaputra is known in Tibet) by China. Immediately after the waters of the Brahmaputra turned turbid in November, 2017, there was talk of a China hand. Later, when it was established that the phenomenon was due to an earthquake measuring 6.4 in Tibet on November 18 (followed by five other earthquakes in the next 32 hours), India began to relax. There was no concern about the fact that three natural lakes have formed in Tibet due to the landslides caused by the earthquakes. The situation is highly unstable and the debris damming the lakes may give way any day, bringing down a wall of water into India. This is what had led to the flooding of Pasighat and other parts of Arunachal and Assam in 2000," Nimmi Kurian, associate professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and faculty advisor, India China Institute, The New School, New York, said.
According to her, India and China have a data sharing agreement. Under this agreement, India pays China Rs 82 lakh every year for hydrological data from three stations in Tibet. After the Doklam standoff, China refused to share this data, citing 'technical' considerations. China shares hydrological data with Bangladesh though.
"India regularly shares hydrological data with Pakistan and Bangladesh for free. The question that arises is whether it is the responsibility of the upper riparian state to share information with those further downstream. Even before 2000, there was no warning of an unstable natural lake. Why isn't India taking up this issue with China? We need to broaden the water debate with China. Even Chinese scientists have pointed to the presence of heavy metals and pollutants in the waters of Yarlung Tsangpo. There are also concerns regarding the so-called 'run of the river' power projects by China that are likely to turn into storage dams," Kurian said during the seminar organized by the Centre for Eastern and North Eastern Regional Studies Kolkata (CENERS-K).
According to Claude Arpi, an expert on Sino-India ties, Tibet and holder of the Field Marshal K M Cariappa Chair of Excellence from the United Service Institution of India, Tibet is extremely seismic and fragile.
"It is also Asia's water tank. India and Bangladesh need this water, hence this concern about diverting and damming of the Yarlung Tsangpo at the great bend. China still harbours plans to divert the Brahmaputra and make it flow into the Yellow River to make the Gobi Desert green," he said.