Connecting the drops: Mridula Ramesh writes on India, China and the mighty Brahmaputra

It was round and black with a tiny trilobite embedded in its smoothness. To the devout, this fossil is a physical manifestation of Vishnu, preserver of the universe.
Discovered in the Kali Gandaki riverbed in Mustang, Nepal, the ammonite fossils have a story to tell (they have plenty, actually; whales may have evolved in the subcontinent, for example, but we’ll leave that for another day). The fossils come from a time before the Himalayas existed, before Gondwanaland broke apart; a time when what is now Mustang lay in the Tethys Sea.
As the Indian Plate pushed against the Eurasian Plate, the Himalaya (the singular is the correct usage) rose, fragmenting and swallowing the Tethys Sea, and dramatically altering the climate. The world before was a hothouse with no ice caps. The collision cooled the planet by exposing and then weathering vast areas of land. Given our emissions trajectory, we may soon live in a hothouse again.
As the Himalaya rose, they blocked the cold, dry winds from the north, even as they forced the warm, monsoonal winds to rise and release their moisture, causing rain to fall over a far broader area than it otherwise would have.
 The Himalayan rivers gorged on the monsoonal rainfall that fell on the southern Himalayan slopes, becoming the behemoths they are today. In the interplay of sun, sea, mountain and wind, water resources were decided.
As humans arrived, our stories began to mark certain spots as sacred. Mount Kailash in present-day Tibet, the source of three great rivers (the Brahmaputra, Indus and Karnali), began to be worshipped as Shiva’s inviolate home. Rivers became goddesses.
The 8th century CE Buddhist saint Padmasambhava’s journey through the Himalaya highlights sacred sites that should be experienced as is. If we parse these stories for their inner meanings, their messages are profound. Respect rivers and leave some places alone since their importance extends well beyond their immediate neighbourhood.
Over time, kingdoms became countries, with borders decided by defensible barriers (a mountain, a river, a sea). Downstream regions grew rich from the silt flowing in across their borders (think of China, or the Chola kingdom). Combined with flat geography, this allowed for large-scale cultivation, which generated wealth and power. But then, colonisers introduced dams. For the first time, upstream countries, so long the underdogs, had the power to control rivers. With this, borders were redrawn with river origins in mind. Many of Asia’s main rivers originate in Tibet. If this were a game of Go, capturing Tibet would be like capturing a corner. Was that why China, with an eye on its dry North, acted as it did?
Colonial rulers introduced another change that profoundly shaped our geography: tax schemes that pushed farmers towards cash crops, and came packaged alongside a truly dangerous idea: that technology can always improve water supply, so one needn’t worry too much about use.
It’s an idea now so embedded in our minds that we are no longer even aware of it. And so we continue to use canals and borewells to grow water-hungry crops in dry areas, such as paddy in the Punjab, both in India and Pakistan.
In Bangladesh, the share of boro rice (which is grown in the dry season) in total rice production has risen from about 16% in 1970 to 53% in 2020. This out-of-sync-with-water farming is happening in China too. China’s north is much drier than its south. But, a 2023 study found that Northern China’s agricultural water use grew by an astounding 5.9 km3 of water — the equivalent of 2.3 million Olympic-sized swimming pools — annually, between 2003 and 2018. Much, much faster than water use in agriculture in the wetter south.
This increase is notable given that China has always been concerned about its dry north. Mao reportedly said: “There’s plenty of water in the south, not much water in the north. If at all possible, borrowing some water would be good.” And so, China did. In 2002, it began work on the South-North Water Transfer Project. This has three main branches, two of which, the east and central, went online in 2013 and 2014, transferring water from the south to the north. Research shows that Northern China relies on and benefits from this transfer. But it is the largest, as-yet-unbuilt, western branch that we now explore.
This branch transfers water from the Yangtze’s western tributaries to the Yellow River. Some of this transfer would occur in Tibet, and the Indian subcontinent worries that water may be diverted from the Brahmaputra. Some have rejected this idea, adding that even if such a diversion did occur, the Tibetan Brahmaputra being a mere sliver next to the Arunachal Brahmaputra, it would have little impact.
But is that right? The Brahmaputra draws water from Tibet, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Although the river runs longest in Tibet, the dry land contributes little to its flow (7%, per one estimate). But Tibet becomes much wetter as the Tsangpo turns south, and it contributes to the river’s other tributaries as well. And so, another study placed Tibet’s contribution at 23%. This is roughly tiny Bhutan’s water contribution to the river. But it is India’s wet Northeast — especially Arunachal — that makes the river the giant it is.
That makes the rising chatter on this issue worrying. Google News retrieved just two items for “China claims Arunachal Pradesh” between 2000 and 2005. This rose to 152 items between 2005 and 2010. Five years later, it rose to 2,210, and to 26,700 in the five years after that. Since 2020, Google News returned 103,000 hits for this search term. This rising chatter runs parallel to growing Chinese investment in the subcontinent. A port here, an airport there, roads and hydro projects everywhere.
Analysis by the think tank Gateway House shows that, between 2005 and 2016, China’s share of foreign direct investment into Nepal rose from 9% to 42% even as India’s share fell from 52% to 13%. This includes China’s investment to tap Nepali hydropower. But India is also moving. It recently signed a large hydropower purchase agreement, and was about to conclude a tripartite agreement whereby Nepal was to sell electricity through an Indian grid to power-starved Bangladesh. The agreement was an embodiment of a subcontinental truth: water ties us together.
But a week, as they say, is a long time in politics. Within a week of the signing date, Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was overthrown, leaving the agreement’s fate uncertain. The agreement was important, because even under Hasina, there were unresolved water issues between India and Bangladesh.
The Teesta originates in North Sikkim and runs through northern West Bengal, before entering Bangladesh. To draw Bangladesh into a closer embrace, the government of India wanted to settle how to share the Teesta’s waters in the dry season. But West Bengal, thinking of summer drinking water for its northern cities, refused to play ball. Crudely put, state interests can work like body odour coming in the way of a tight hug. The agreement fell through, leaving room for another to swoop in.
China could do so by funding a billion-dollar project on the Teesta, one that will bring it close to the Siliguri Corridor, the chicken’s-neck passage that connects the Northeast of India with the rest of the country.
The goal of constructing a road close to Doklam in Bhutan, according to China expert Lt Gen (Retd) SL Narasimhan, who has spent substantial time on the India-China border, was to exert pressure on the other side of the neck. The Chumbi Valley and, more recently, a portion of northern Bhutan, are the subject of a border dispute between Tibet and Bhutan. China is effectively telling Bhutan: “Give us the west, and we’ll lay off the northeast of your country.”
What might happen when China’s fingers come together on both sides of the chicken’s neck?
To avoid this, India must keep its neighbours in good humour by using water ties to bind rather than strangle. In Bhutan, the bond runs deep, militarily, politically and culturally. Buying hydropower at handsome prices is the icing on the cake. But in Bangladesh, recent political events have exposed tensions. During the intense flooding last week, a minister in the interim government blamed India for the flooding, prompting India’s ministry of external affairs to set the record straight.
“The geography tilts towards India, and you can’t change geography,” Lt Gen Narasimhan told me. But if anyone were going to try, it would be China.
Just before entering India, the Brahmaputra drops by a couple of kilometres. This is where China allegedly wants to build a super-dam three times the size of its Three Gorges (which is currently one of the largest in the world). India worries that the proposed dam would make a powerful weapon. The dam could hold back, or worse still divert, water to the north, some observers say.
During Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s surprise visit to Tibet in 2021, his first stop was Nyingchi in Medog County, where this project would be located, Lt Gen Narasimhan says. The North China Plain, after all, depends on water transfers and wants more. But such a move in the dry season would leave the cities of Northeast India and Bangladesh’s boro crop parched. Especially in a hotter climate.
On the other hand, if the dam releases more water than it ought or, more realistically, is overcome by torrential rainfall or damaged by an earthquake, the ensuing downstream flooding would be deadly. I say “more realistically” because the climate is changing, making intense rainfall far more common.
In the medium to long term, as the glaciers melt and lean season flows dwindle further, our dependence on monsoonal rains will rise. How will transfers work then? Even as India contemplates another giant dam to counter the Chinese dam, I wonder if we should also play another game. The western world has leveraged the power of a good story, well told.
Standing in Pemako, known as the entrance to paradise, with fossils strewn around and the Brahmaputra just entering India, are we simply failing to be inspired?
(Mridula Ramesh is a climate-tech investor and author of The Climate Solution and Watershed)