The confluence of the Rangeet and Teesta rivers, in Darjeeling’s Teesta Bazaar. The Teesta is on the right. t the top of the Himalayas in Sikkim, from the waters of the Khangse and Zemu glaciers that feed the Tso Lhamo lake in a high plateau just north-east of the mighty Kanchenjunga, the Teesta springs to life. The river winds its way down, from the mountains gathering along its course streams, large and small; and its most significant tributary — the Rangeet river — at a sacred confluence in Darjeeling’s Teesta Bazaar, before crossing an international border in Mekhligunj in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district, where it enters Bangladesh, meets the Brahmaputra, and flows into the Bay of Bengal. From source to mouth, the Teesta is approximately 414 kilometres, of which 150-odd are in Sikkim, 123 in West Bengal, and the remaining 140 or so, in Bangladesh. If India-Bangladesh ties in the 20th century were defined by conflict over sharing the waters of the Ganga, today the Teesta has become its powerful leitmotif.Before 1787, when a deluge in Rangpur broke river banks and altered the river’s course, the Teesta was the main river of the northern regions of present-day Bangladesh. Even today, it is the country’s fourth largest transboundary river for irrigation and fishing activities. According to available data, the river’s floodplain today covers an area of 2,750 square kilometres in Bangladesh. Its catchment area supports 8.5 percent of its population — roughly 10 million people — and 14 percent of crop production. Over one lakh hectares of land across five districts are severely impacted by upstream withdrawals of the Teesta’s waters in India and face acute shortages during the dry season. Bangladesh wants 50 percent of the river’s water supply, especially in the months between December and May annually, while India claims a share of 55 percent.So far, only one agreement on sharing Ganga waters exists — signed in 1996 — and that is up for renewal in 2026. India accepted the status of the Ganga as an international river only in 1970, and the Ganges Water Treaty was a product of 25 years of negotiations that finally recognised Bangladesh’s rights as a lower riparian state and set up a procedure to manage Ganga waters to ensure Bangladesh got an equitable share during the dry season. But just as Bangladesh’s farmers are held hostage by the vagaries of the monsoon, of flooding, drought and famine, so too the Teesta water-sharing agreement, waiting to be signed since 2011, has fallen prey to the unpredictabilities of central and state level politics in India.
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