Political Impact of Climate Change: The Case of Bangladesh

Dr. M. Shahrukh Shahnawaz

Writer is a lawyer, 

Member of the Environmental Committee of the Sindh High Court Bar Association Karachi,

&

The Faculty of Department of International Relations, University of Karachi

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The interim government of Bangladesh under Muhammad Yunus, after the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid by the student protest, is facing its first challenge, which is the death, devastation, and destruction caused by the recent floods, as nearly 300,000 people are taking refuge in emergency shelters, while the student leader in the cabinet accused India of deliberately releasing water from dams. 

The fall of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid is also a stark reminder that economic growth and development do not ensure political stability if human rights are being trampled. According to the Human Rights Watch, in 2023, ahead of the 2024 general elections, the authorities started making mass arrests of opposition members and using excessive force against protestors.  

Amnesty International reported that the government intensified its crackdown on the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly ahead of elections, including abusing the Digital Security Act and other legislation to target journalists and human rights defenders, subjecting them to arbitrary detention and torture, and not being held accountable for enforced disappearances and custodial deaths. 

However, the present interim government can face the same fate as the government of the father of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, whose government was unable to respond to the destruction caused by the 1970 Bhola Cyclone, followed by 1974 famine, eventually leading to the declaration of emergency by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman government, followed by his assination, and a long military rule.   

The 1970 Bhola Cyclone led to the 1971 Pakistani Civil War, between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, which later turned into the 1971 Pakistan-India War, and saw the fall of Dhaka and East Pakistan, and the emergence of Bangladesh. The people of East Pakistan had many grievances from the government of West Pakistan especially the fishermen community of the East Pakistan, whose rights and plight were raised and shared by the great Faiz Ahmad Faiz, in his movie Jago Hua Savera (1959), based on the Bengali novel Padma Nadir Majhi, by Manik Bandopadhyay, which is a 1936 novel, depicted the plight of the Bengali fishermen residing on the banks of Padma river during the British colonial rule. The Bengal region paid heavy attention to British colonialism during the 1943 Bengal Famine, which killed around three million people and was a manmade disaster, primarily driven by the war policy of the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Bangladesh has learned from its previous historical and political experiences pertaining to floods, famines, and cyclones, and made history when the Supreme Court of Bangladesh declared all its rivers a living entity in 2019, contributing to the development of the rights of rivers. 

Both India and Bangladesh fear China’s construction of dams in Tibet along a bend in the river, in the vicinity of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, known as the Brahmaputra River in India. For India, this project could trigger flash floods or create water scarcity, or give China strategic leverage over India on border disputes in the Himalayan mountains, while Bangladesh claims that it is more adversely affected than India, as the Brahmaputra River is important for sustaining Bangladesh’s livelihood and agriculture, especially in the dry season, potentially and possibly causing displacement. 

Both India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and signed the Ganga Waters Treaty in December 1996, announced in 2024 that both sides had started technical negotiations to renew it. Before the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid toppled in August 2024, climate change caused the displacement of coastal communities, adversely affected farmers and the agriculture sector, and caused the death of farmers due to lightning. These and other environment-related causes have contributed to the uprising against the government, which has been overshadowed by student protests. The government took some remarkable steps, such as building resilient homes and providing job opportunities for climate refugees, but this was not enough.   

Bangladesh has suffered and survived many environmental disasters since British colonial rule. Its story and struggle provide lessons and warnings to other South Asian countries to seriously threaten the environment, as it has serious political implications.   The challenges for the present interim government of Bangladesh are immense, but the first one pertains to environmental disasters, exacerbated by climate change, and unless it is ready and willing to accept the environmental threat as a reality, it might end up facing the same fate as the first government of Bangladesh did in 1975.  

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