Thousands in Dhaka stage protest against water aggression by India

DHAKA, Bangladesh: Thousands of Bangladeshis under the banner of Islami Andolan Bangladesh, one of the top religious political parties in the country of 170 million people, on Saturday held a grand rally and brought out a giant procession in the capital Dhaka in protest against decades-long water aggression by India, affecting millions and putting an adverse impact on the environment.

The speakers at the rally strongly condemned India for constructing embankments on 53 common rivers, terming that it is a violation of international river law, resulting in an alarming loss of navigability of Bangladeshi rivers, causing frequent devastating floods and other natural disasters.

The protesters demanded the government to immediately hold effective dialogue with India to resolve the long-pending common river water sharing issue. The speakers also urged the authorities to stop conspiracies to remove religious and moral lessons from the textbooks at primary and secondary levels of education and repeal alcohol rules that violate Islam.

Addressing the grand rally, the leader of the party and one of the noted spiritual leaders, Mufti Syed Muhammad Rezaul Karim (Pir Saheb Charmonai), said Bangladesh is a riverine country and most of the economy depends on rivers. “But the government’s wrong policies and India’s water aggression have been destroying the livelihoods and ecological balance for a long time,” Karim said. He called on the people of Bangladesh to build a strong mass resistance against India’s water aggression and anti-people activities of the ruling Awami League government.

Underlining Bangladesh’s foreign policy, especially towards India as “knee-jerk,” Pir Sahheb Karim added that India is destroying the livelihoods of millions of Bangladeshis, sometimes by making huge croplands as deserts and sometimes by flooding. “There used to be 24,000 kilometers of waterways in Bangladesh and that is now down to 4,000 kilometers only.

“Almost 158 rivers have dried up due to negligence,” Karim said, adding that India has blocked the major water flows, including the 54 joint rivers. He also accused India of destroying the food security by blocking water at time and destroying crops and killing people by releasing water during the monsoons.

Meanwhile, speakers also said that the ruling Awami League government has been sitting in power for more than a decade ignoring the public opinion. “It has established a reign of terror by taking away the right to vote, killing and suppressing dissent, and committing unlimited plunder in the name of development.” They alleged that to destroy the young generation of the country, the government was providing liquor licenses and removing religious and moral lessons from the textbooks. “The people are living in fear of famine and the government has celebrated the end of the loot by showing development,” said one of the speakers.