Examine the major issues of dispute between India and Bangladesh and give suggestions for improving bilateral relations.

Major disputes

• Teesta water sharing is the most named river dispute: a draft allocation has repeatedly stalled on India’s federal politics, especially West Bengal’s irrigation and ecological concerns, while Dhaka treats delay as a trust deficit.
• Other waters — Ganga (Farakka treaty 1996 is the success story), Kushiyara, Feni, and fears around upstream projects such as Tipaimukh — keep the Joint Rivers Commission busy without a basin-wide settlement.
• Border management: fencing, cattle trade, smuggling, and deaths of civilians at the International Border remain a human-security dispute even after coordinated patrols.
• Migration, the National Register of Citizens in Assam, and the Citizenship Amendment Act are read in Dhaka as identity pressure on Muslims of East Bengali origin; New Delhi reads the same files as domestic citizenship and illegal-migration control.
• Trade is lopsided toward Indian exports; non-tariff barriers, port delays, and limited Bangladeshi market access in India feed a commercial grievance.
• Security leftovers — Northeast insurgent sanctuaries, later largely squeezed — and China’s growing infrastructure and defence footprint in Bangladesh are strategic disputes by another name.
• The 2024 political change in Dhaka after Sheikh Hasina’s exit added a new layer: minority safety, the future of defence and connectivity pacts, and the politics of refuge in India.

What is not a dispute

• The 2015 Land Boundary Agreement and exchange of enclaves, maritime delimitation after the 2014 award, and electricity trade are settled or working files and should not be dumped into the dispute list.

Suggestions

• Close an interim Teesta formula with a West Bengal–Union–Dhaka table, plus data sharing and a dry-season augmentation project, rather than waiting for a perfect basin treaty.
• Professionalise the border: more coordinated patrols, cameras, joint investigation of firing, and border haats so cattle and petty trade leave the lethal grey zone.
• Keep citizenship law and NRC as India’s domestic process, but run a quiet diplomatic track so Dhaka is not surprised into anti-India populism.
• Rebalance trade with easier access for Bangladeshi garments and agro-goods, faster Integrated Check Posts, and rupee–taka settlement where useful.
• Protect 1971-era people-to-people capital: visas, students, power grid, rail (Akhaura–Agartala), and IMT/BBIN transit even when governments change.
• Compete with extra-regional influence by being the reliable first responder on disaster, energy, and currency support, not by vetoing Dhaka’s other friendships.