On the surface, the arrests of activist Touhidur Rahman “Babu” and college lecturer Ali Reza Biswas in early March, 2026 appeared to be a local dispute over industrial runoff in Bogura, Bangladesh. But as the Phuljor River continues to flow black with toxic waste from SR Chemical Industries, the detention of these environmental defenders has exposed a much more volatile reality: in Bangladesh, the death of a river is increasingly the spark for violent conflict.

Across the delta, from the besieged indigenous territories of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to the industrial corridors of Gazipur, water is no longer just a resource; it is a flashpoint for conflict. As the nation grapples with the biological death of 81 major rivers, experts warn that the loss of hydrological integrity is acting as a “multiplier of instability,” threatening to undo decades of fragile peace and ignite large-scale civil unrest.    

In a landmark lecture at the Defence Services Command and Staff College (DSCSC) in early March, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the prominent environmental lawyer and former adviser, reframed the river crisis as a primary threat to national security. “When we speak of climate change and dying rivers, we are not just talking about sweet water turning salty,” she told an audience of military top brass. “We are talking about the surrender of sovereignty, the loss of national territory, and the erasure of communities.”

Hasan warned that a projected one-meter sea-level rise would submerge 21 coastal districts, displacing millions. For a nation where around 65% of the population relies on freshwater fisheries for protein, the collapse of these rivers is not merely an ecological tragedy; it is an existential threat. She argued that the cascading crises of crop failures and water scarcity, combined with mass migration, means that, in her words, “instability will become the norm.”

Ethnic Cleansing via Encroachment: The Case of the Mro

The connection between environmental degradation and violent conflict is perhaps most visible in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. In the Lama Upazila region of Bandarban, the indigenous Mro community is currently locked in a desperate struggle against Lama Rubber Industries Ltd.

Since 2022, the company, allegedly supported by private security and local political cadres, has led the encroachment of 3,500 acres of ancestral land. On February 22, 2025, Ringrong Mro, an indigenous environmental defender, was arrested without a warrant, a move UN experts have condemned as part of a “pattern of land grabbing and human rights abuses.”

The CHT has a decades-long history of ethnic conflict, which began with the 1962 construction of the Kaptai Dam that displaced 100,000 Jumma people. Today, the use of water contamination and the setting of fires on farming land by industrial encroachers are being viewed as tactics of displacement that violate the 1997 Peace Accord.   

“Encroachment is a tool of war,” says one protest organizer in the CHT, speaking to Peace News Network (PNN) on the condition of anonymity. “When they poison our streams and grab our riverbanks, they are not just building factories; they are erasing our existence.”

While ethnic conflict burns in the hills, a different kind of conflict is brewing in the “Jele” (fishing) villages surrounding the Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ). In these areas, 96% of residents report that the fish population has decreased due to untreated industrial waste.

The death of the rivers has created a vacuum of economic security that is being filled by “political patronage networks.” Displaced fishermen, left with no viable income, are increasingly recruited as “political cadres” or “muscle power” for the very influential actors who orchestrate river encroachment.

Historical data from the northern districts suggests a clear nexus between environmental stress, such as monga (seasonal hunger), and radicalization. As the Buriganga and Turag rivers hit 0.0 mg/L of dissolved oxygen, the millions of people who once lived off their flow are becoming a demographic “tinderbox” for political mobilization and violence.

The threat of violent conflict is not limited by Bangladesh’s borders. With 90% of the country’s water originating in China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, transboundary water justice has become the centerpiece of Bangladesh’s regional diplomacy.

The Farakka Barrage has already “dried up many rivers” in the Barind region, according to Mohammad Ejaz, the DNCC administrator. The upcoming 2026 expiration of the 30-year Ganga Water Treaty is viewed with extreme trepidation. If a climate-resilient, equitable sharing agreement is not reached, the resulting water scarcity could trigger nationalist fervor and cross-border tensions that many fear could escalate into kinetic conflict.   

Adviser Hasan has called for “water justice” under the UN Water Convention, stressing that “upstream-downstream interdependence is now more evident than ever.” The Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) grouping is currently attempting to use “environmental peacebuilding,” collaborative ecological restoration, to reduce these wider political tensions, Hasan said.  

In 2019, the High Court of Bangladesh declared all rivers “legal persons” with the National River Conservation Commission (NRCC) as their guardian. However, legal experts now call this a “juridical mirage.” The NRCC, they say, remains largely “toothless,” lacking the magistrates and budget to challenge the powerful industrial groups that fund the country’s political machinery.

Despite this, there are signs of a shift toward “Nature-based Solutions for Peace.” The administration of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has initiated the Blue Network project. Supported by a US$370 million World Bank loan, the initiative aims to restore 21 canals in Dhaka and the five surrounding rivers.

Crucially, the Metro Dhaka Water Security and Resilience Program (D-WATER) includes a Socially Responsible Encroachment Management Framework. This framework prohibits forced evictions and promotes “community co-management” to prevent the kind of local violence that has historically stalled restoration efforts.

As the sun sets over the toxic froth of the Shitalakshya River in Narayanganj, the air is thick with the smell of sulfur and the tension of a community on the edge. The Environment Minister, Abdul Awal Mintoo, has pledged to re-excavate nearly 20,000 kilometers of waterways as part of a “National Green Mission.”

But for activists like Sharif Jamil, the Buriganga riverkeeper, the clock is ticking. Jamil, who has survived kidnapping threats for his work, remains one of the few who still drives himself to remote pollution points to document the slow death of the delta.    

“If the water is not there,” Jamil often says, “there is no question of peace.”    

The battle for Bangladesh’s rivers is no longer just about conservation; it is the front line of a national effort to prevent violent conflict. If the rivers are allowed to die, the social fabric they once stitched together will likely tear with them, leaving a landscape defined not by water, but by the fire of conflict.

Investigative Dataset: The Geography of Risk (Chitra, 2026)

Keywords: Bangladesh, rivers, hydrological, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, water, pollution, environmental, dams