Displacing the Conflict: Environmental Destruction in Bangladesh and Ethnic Conflict in India

Abstract Recently, a substantial amount of research has been devoted to establishing that environmental destruction itself may be the cause of conflict. Conflicts may arise directly due to scarcity of resources caused by environmental destruction, and can also be the potential consequence of environmentally forced population migration. India and Bangladesh are in a long-standing dispute over the sharing of the waters of the River Ganges. Since 1975, India has been diverting most of the dry-season flow of the river to one of her internal rivers, before it reaches Bangladesh. At Farakka, this has affected agricultural and industrial production, disrupted domestic water supply, fishing and navigation, and changed the hydraulic character of the rivers and the ecology of the Delta in…