It is a mistake to view water justice as a zero-sum game, because from a strategic perspective, hydro-coercion is self-defeating for India. A water-stressed, ecologically fragile Bangladesh is a source of regional instability. The cascading effects of environmental degradation, including mass migration, state fragility, and economic shocks, do not respect national borders. Furthermore, the regional power dynamic is shifting, as China's aggressive dam-building on the upper Brahmaputra creates a cascading hierarchy in which India itself is vulnerable to upstream control. If India continues to adopt a coercive posture towards its downstream neighbour, it weakens its own moral and legal standing when challenging Chinese unilateralism. True regional stability requires cooperative precedents rather than coercive ones.

Beyond the immediate concerns of water flow, the health of the India–Bangladesh relationship is foundational to broader regional prosperity across the energy, trade, and transportation sectors. Bangladesh provides critical transit and transhipment facilities that connect India's northeastern states to its mainland, while India is a major source of the electricity and consumer goods that fuel our economy. These sectors are deeply interdependent, yet this interdependence is poisoned by the mistrust generated by hydro-coercion. When water is used as a diplomatic lever, it creates a climate of uncertainty that hinders long-term investment in regional connectivity and energy grids. For instance, the vision of a seamless South Asian power pool, where hydroelectricity from Nepal and Bhutan flows through India to Bangladesh, cannot be realised if the participating nations remain locked in hydro-political disputes. Stable, neighbourly relations are not a luxury but a prerequisite for the economic integration that could lift millions out of poverty across the entire basin.