Upreti, Trilochan, International Watercourses Law and Its Application ...

242 / International Watercourses Law and Its Application in South Asia Prospects and Problems of Nepalese Water Resources / 243so that at least friendship and influence survive.Ultimately, these will remain our best weapons inthe Himalayan kingdom. We cannot afford toblunt them through the antics of busybodieswhose phoney idealism or cynical calculationthreatens to spoil the climate for areconciliation." 184Hence, as a regional power, India should not continue to expectreciprocity in every agreement (as, for example, in theprovision of the Peace and Friendship Treaty 1950), which herweak neighbour cannot sustain. If this arrangement were madeapplicable in Nepal, and if 3% of Indians were allowed to doso, then the population with Indian origin in Nepal would bethe majority. But if the same percentage of Nepalese were toassimilate into India's one billion population, it would not makeany difference to them, because 600,000 people (3% of 20million) would not make a noticeable impact on one billion.Since the right of access to and from the sea is already settledas a customary rule of international law, this right should beprovided unhindered and without demands for concessionsfrom Nepal. A huge country with large resources such as Indiashould not ask for complete reciprocity from a weak andvulnerable neighbour such as Nepal, but rather, shouldcooperate wholeheartedly. In other words, while India itself adeveloping country it should nonetheless cooperate with itseven less-developed neighbour.India, since she is a regional power and has a strategic position(in particular because every drop of water from Tibet, whetherit passes through Bhutan and India or through Nepal and India,drains into the ocean via Bangladesh), has a greaterresponsibility to create an environment for broader regional cooperation,as a result of which the whole region would be184 S.K. Datta-Ray, "Living with Nepal: Must Busybodies Queer thePitch?" in the Statesman weekly, 17 India, February (1990), p. 11.converted into a developed and prosperous part of the world.Simultaneously, the other nations also need to move forward,resolving each and every issue in the changing context, in orderto meet the wider objectives of such co-operation. If thesearrangements could be made, the resources, technology andskill of the world would undoubtedly become available to thesegovernments. 185The facts suggest that in terms of water per unit of land, theGanges-Brahmaputra-Meghana basin is second only to theAmazon. Unique stores of flora and fauna, and endangeredspecies are found in the only Sundarbans (the largest mangroveforest in the world). The attainment of India’s aspiration tobecome a member of the Security Council of the UN alsohinges on how much she can reconcile every state’s interest in abalanced way. Third party involvement was recommended inIWC finance, technology and manpower transfer to developingcountries, as in the case of the Indus Waters Treaty 1960. 186India must accept this reality now and forget the intransigentpattern of bilateralism.4.14 Conditions for Funding Imposed by theWorld Bank and the Other DonorsThe implementation of water projects is a costly business,involving huge amounts of money with a long gestation period.The WB has been financing transboundary water projects since1949 (El Salvador’s RioLempa Hydroelectric Project), thenagain in Rhodesia in 1956, where there was no riparian dispute.On the other hand, the Bank refused to finance the BhakraNangal Project in India in 1949, the Lower Sind Barrage in185 Supra note 34, p. 130.186 A. K. Biswas, “Indus Water Treaty: The Negotiation Process” (1992)in 17 WI, p. 209.