The extensive and long term flood situation in Assam, the north-eastern state of India and neighboring Bangladesh, has no precedence in recent years. In both places of Bangladesh and Assam, all the flood affected people said that they had not seen such bad conditions in many years. For the past one month on the vast stretch of Assam, many wild animals such as rhinoceros and elephants from the Kaziranga sanctuary are also displaced.
But is China responsible for such unprecedented floods in the basin of Brahmaputra in Assam and Jamuna in Bangladesh (name of Brahmaputra after entering Bangladesh)?
This question aroused because of India’s direct complaint that China had not given any hydrological data to India of Brahmaputra River breaking the tradition of many years. It is a reasonable reason to think that as there was no advance information about how much water was coming from the Brahmaputra in the monsoon this year, the flood situation has gone beyond control. This flood water of Assam went downstream and flooded again the districts like Kurigram-Dinajpur of Bangladesh.
According to a bilateral agreement signed in 2006, China gives India (Hydrological Data) information about the flow of Brahmaputra and the river Satadru in the monsoon season every year. These two rivers originated in China, later they have entered India. Brahmaputra again flows from India to Bangladesh, and Satadru flows from India to Pakistan.
According to the agreement, China has to report to India about the amount of water of Brahmaputra and Satadru River. These two countries had a meeting on this agreement in the June of Last year and it was also renewed at that time.
Raveesh Kumar, the new spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs of India said, ‘Surprisingly this year China did not give any information or data. However, they are supposed to provide data regularly in this season-even during floods they are supposed to share information on a daily basis.
However, Raveesh Kumar did not want to tie any relationship of it with the military conflict between China and India in the controversial Doklam valley on the border of India-China-Bhutan. Rather, he said, 'Maybe they were not able to provide data due to technical reasons.'
But many observers think that through this comment, ministry of external affairs wants to blame China indirectly for the horrific flood of Assam. At the same time they are trying to convey the message to neighboring Bangladesh that- don’t misunderstand us; because of China's non-cooperation, the situation has gone out of our hands; because they did not tell us about the information of the amount of water flowing through the Brahmaputra.
In fact there is no agreement between Bangladesh China on the exchange of the hydrological data information and Dhaka is fully dependent on the information provided by Delhi.
However, though India is indicating to China for floods, a group of experts believe that it is not right to blame fully China for it, because in Assam, the record number of monsoon rains also happened.
Quoted the information given by India's Meteorological Department, Hydrology expert Meenakshi Bora of the University of Guwahati told the Bangla Tribune, "It is visible from the government's information that from June 1 to August 16, the rainfall was excessive than normal in the five districts of Assam. These districts are Chirang, Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, North Cachar Hills and Karimganj. Especially in Chirang district, more than one and a half times than the normal, rainfall has been occurred in this season - and undoubtedly it is a major reason behind unprecedented floods in the state.
As a result there are still questions about whether China has any role behind the horrific floods of this year in Assam and Bangladesh or did they have any intention behind not sharing data information. But it is clear that Indian government is trying to indicate Beijing for this.
