“Water resources are both an asset and a source of conflict in South Asia.” Examine this statement giving examples.

Introduction

South Asia's three great river systems — the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra — rise in a common Himalayan and Tibetan reservoir and cross five national borders before the sea. That single geographical fact makes water simultaneously the region's most productive shared asset and its most persistent source of friction.

Water as an asset

• Food security. The Indus and Ganga basins support the irrigated agriculture that feeds well over a billion people; India's Green Revolution rested on canal and tubewell command areas.
• Energy. Nepal's and Bhutan's hydropower exports are a pillar of their economies; Bhutan's Chukha, Tala and Mangdechhu projects supply India and finance Bhutan's budget.
• Navigation and trade. The India–Bangladesh Protocol on Inland Water Transit revives the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna waterways.
• Ecology and livelihoods. The Sundarbans, the Gangetic dolphin and delta fisheries depend on sustained freshwater and sediment flows.

Water as a source of conflict

• International. The Indus Waters Treaty (1960) has survived three wars but is under strain, with Pakistan contesting the Kishanganga and Ratle designs and India placing the treaty in abeyance in 2025. The Teesta sharing agreement remains unsigned because of West Bengal's objections, and the Farakka Barrage shaped decades of India–Bangladesh negotiation before the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996.
• Upstream asymmetry. China's dam building on the Yarlung Tsangpo, including the Medog mega-project, worries both India and Bangladesh; there is no basin-wide treaty, only data-sharing MoUs.
• Internal. Federating units quarrel as sharply as states: the Cauvery, Krishna, Ravi-Beas and Mahadayi cases show how inter-state water disputes persist despite tribunals under the 1956 Act.

Why pressure is rising

Per capita availability in India has fallen below the 1,700 cubic metre water-stress threshold; glacial retreat will raise then reduce dry-season flows; and Himalayan hydropower siting in seismically active, GLOF-prone valleys adds a disaster dimension.

Conclusion

The evidence supports both halves of the statement, but the record is more cooperative than alarmist "water wars" predictions suggest — no South Asian war has been fought over water, and the Indus and Ganga treaties have outlasted severe political hostility. The decisive variable is institutional: basin-level, data-transparent, climate-adjusted arrangements can keep water an asset; their absence will keep it a grievance.