Environment and Ecology Research 1(3): 85-128, 2013 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/eer.2013.010301 Upstream Water Piracy, the Strongest Weapon of Cornering a Downstream Nation Miah Muhammad Adel Interdisciplinary Sciences Research Center, Department of Chemistry & Physics, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, 1200 North University Drive, Pine Bluff, AR 71601, P. O. Box 4941 *Corresponding Author: adelm@uapb.edu Copyright © 2013 Horizon Research Publishing All rights reserved. Abstract The article reviews about 100 meetings between India and her counterparts Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh’s consenting, for her least survivability to avoid the worst Indian cornering by the unilateral water piracy, to India’s right to the Ganges water piracy by the Farakka Barrage over the Ganges to establish the No. 1 waterway across India. Sources of information have been published articles and news in electronic and print media, site visitations, experts’ interviews, field work, travel accounts, research institutions and government offices. The Bangladesh’s courteous consent to a 41-day test-run of the barrage in April 1975 ended in Indian unilateral piracy that continued until 1977 when a 5-year consent to piracy was signed after raising the issue to the UN General Assembly that prompted Indian dailies heinous comments against Bangladesh. Later, in two memoranda of understanding the piracy right was granted in 1982 and 1985. Unilateral water piracy continued 1988 through 1996 toward the end of which the consent to a 30-year piracy right was signed. Indian water piracy by other dams and barrages upstream of the Farakka is on the rise causing the ever-decreasing Ganges discharge through Bangladesh that has resulted in the world’s worst ecocide. The UN should consider water pirates committing multiple crimes of ecosystem water deprivation, drinking water poisoning, climate change, and global environmental change, and subject them to international sanction, and look for downstream ecosystem damages of any degree by the upstream water management in the criminal investigation. Keywords Ganges basin, Farake Barrage, water piracy, Bangladesh, India, piracy right, memoranda of understanding, test-run, ecosystem, human rights 1. Introduction 1.1. Water Piracy and Water Piracy Right India and Bangladesh have 58 common international rivers. The major ones are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Surma-Meghna, the Teesta, and the Atrai. These are shown in Figs. 1 and 2. About 50% of the international rivers have one or more constructions at the upstream for water piracy which has been defined as the upstream withdrawals of water from the downstream ecosystem harming it to any degree. The upstream country can compel the downstream country which, for her least survivability and out of fear of being cornered through unilateral water piracy, consent to the upstream country’s conditions of water division. In south Asia, India has set up an instance in which she being the upstream riparian country locked her own water in reservoirs to create a fake water shortage in the Hooghly river system to pirate downstream Bangladesh’s ecosystem’s water from the unconnected Ganges river system. Also, in other common rivers, she set up dams, regulators, groyens, etc. to deprive the downstream Bangladesh of her due share. The downstream country Bangladesh is cornered to the extent of ecocide in the Ganges basin if no consent is given to water piracy. In other river basins, she pirates water unilaterally without paying attention to Bangladesh’s repeated complaints. India never gives serious consideration Bangladesh’s water rights. The Indian-built constructions at the upstream for piracy in the Indo-Bangladesh common rivers are marked in red Fig. 2. In the scenario of the forced water withdrawals without recognizing the downstream water rights, “piracy” in lieu of “diversion” or “withdrawal” and words like “right to piracy” or “piracy right” have been thought to be the most wisely chosen and the most appropriate terms with the least sensitivity for using in this article. 1.2. The Downstream Dilapidated Ecosystem in Bangladesh An ecosystem cannot survive with just about 40% of its founding and sustaining water requirements. Due to the piracy of the elixir water, many elements of the biotic system have been extinct and the rest are endangered. The ecocide effects in the Ganges basin include the loss of the surface