The Voice of Water: Industry versus Life

Critical narrative about a development project in the RMG sector in Bangladesh

“Ecological transition”? New catchword, new checkbox in public policies and donors’ strategies. But what lies behind this word? What is really envisioned, and what do we want to achieve: deeply transform our economic and industrial models or only mitigate their most visible deleterious effects? Greenwashing or paradigm shift?

This tension can be depicted through the critical analysis of projects funded by financial institutions in Bangladesh in the RMG sector. Our aim is to show that “modernizing factories” does not challenge an economic model focused on fast fashion. On the contrary, it strengthens global overproduction and overconsumption, with structural ecological negative impacts more massive than those mitigated by these projects. Let’s take a credit line of several million dollars that is aimed at supporting textile factories for investments that would improve their environmental and social performance. Presented as a "success," it has indeed allowed the modernization of factories, the installation of solar panels, the construction of wastewater treatment substations, and the setting up of nurseries and ambulances. It also helped enhance the oversized place of the RMG sector in the national economy, leaving no space for a sensible diversification that would make it more robust and resilient. However, this sector, which is also a driver of exports, is based on a logic of mass production that saturates the global market and undermines both ecosystems and the local economy.

Let’s shift our focus and listen to a river, neighboring those factories, a silent witness of the agony of territories and the suffering of communities that depend on them.

"I am the Buriganga River. Like you, I am a child of this planet. I was born from the pure flowing waters of the Great Mountain, long before your roads, your ports, and your factories. Well before your credit lines and investment plans. For millennia, I dug my way to the Great Sea, thus connecting the highest lands to the deepest waters. For centuries, my rich waters have fed the rice fields, irrigated the orchards, watered abundant wildlife, and carried boats loaded with fruits and jute. In the meanders of my shores, fishermen were spinning nets and weavers were spinning the Jamdani muslin that made the renown of Bengal. Humans lived through me, with me, not against me. And this symbiosis made me a river of life.

Dhaka Buriganga River in 1825 – unknown author

Then came industry, in the name of development and progress. In just a few decades, the textile factories were like stones thrown into my bed; they created a destructive shock wave that has never stopped amplifying since. The world was crying out for cheap clothes, and my shores became a vast production chain dedicated to feeding this bulimia, to satisfying the whims of consumers located thousands of miles away. The authorities, supported by international donors, started to talk about «growth» and «competitiveness,» and factories grew bigger, larger, and more dangerous. In 2013, a new shock wave among humans this time! The fire at Rana Plaza opened some eyes to the working conditions in these places of modern slavery. Never again... New standards have been developed, and the credit line project seemed like a blessing to implement them: brand new fire safety equipment, solar panels on rooftops, and new decontamination machines. You can shut your eyes again and sleep quietly; the watcher of capitalism has regained control, and production has taken off again. But the figures won’t tell what I see.

The solar panels sparkle, and yet in my depths the light no longer reaches: the dark waters smother life. The treatment substations are too few and often overcrowded: too many chemicals, too many heavy metals, and too much contaminated sludge still end up in my silt. Aquatic animals are becoming scarcer, and the remaining ones flee the current, moving closer to the banks in desperate search of oxygen. Only the valiant Soccer Fish resists, this non-endemic and invasive species capable of living in very little oxygenated water. The fishermen abandon their old lines and go to work... in textile factories. Oh, irony of fate. On the outskirts, everyone holds their breath while waiting for the monsoon that will only dilute the pollutants but which will nevertheless make this agony more bearable for 3 months. My water is now the symptom of industrial disease. I have become a river of death.

Buriganga, Saha Ghat in 2020 – Author: Kamrul Islam

And in the meantime, the humans of the cities are gargling: I hear that this project is a success. A success, really? The environmental standard implemented in a factory does not compensate for the thousands of tons of clothing that, as soon as they are produced, begin the journey of overconsumption that will lead them very quickly to end their lives, heavily piled up in a South American desert. Each sewn dress, each assembled polo extends the logic that kills me. This "greening" never questions the industrial monoculture that has replaced the economic diversity of my shores. The clean energies installed still feed the same machine: produce more, faster, and cheaper.

In fine speeches, you talk about climate, carbon, and energy efficiency, and you forget water. The very first silent victim, but the vital source of everything, the matrix where you tirelessly extract and discharge, and which ends up saturated. Indeed, a factory that meets environmental and social standards still consumes millions of liters of fresh water for dyeing and washing. And every liter discharged, even filtered, carries the chemical traces of its industrial journey... Ah, the memory of water!

If water is silent, other silences are even more deafening, those of institutions and men. The financial institutions with their loans and their performance indicators. The Central Bank distributes the financial resources. The factory owners know that exports now depend on environmental audits. The workers, from all over the country, who exchanged the harsh life in open fields for the regular wages of the sewing lines that cage and exhaust them. And the fishermen suffer the loss of their traditional activity and, to survive, take usurer loans throughout the year, which they can repay during the short monsoon season, when the fish finally return. Because yes, fish brings more value-added than textiles! But to whom?

Now, even before having assessed the effects and outcomes of the first phase of this credit line, you are already considering a phase 2: more modernized factories, more jobs, more production, and more waste. But what will happen if the only path to development remains textile monoculture? The old trades and jobs are disappearing. The economy is weakening, artificially driven by a single sector: a slowdown in foreign orders, and the whole country can collapse. The genuine ecological transition is neither optimization, nor the cult of performance… but rather resilience, robustness, restoration, and protection of the life that inhabits us and shelters us.

I, the River, am the most honest, the most objective indicator. I am your reality check: my flora is dying, my fauna is declining, my banks are crumbling, and my groundwater tables are depleting. We do not vote, we do not write reports, and yet our fate tells the truth of the transition: without living water, no society is viable.

In the end, I don’t want to come off as the old grumpy guy who doesn’t like change. Evolution is the very foundation and scheme of life. I saw civilizations adapt to my floods and droughts. I saw creativity, innovation, art, solidarity, sharing, and spirituality in understanding the living. I know it is possible. The transition cannot be reduced to greening the machine that is destroying me. It cannot be reduced to doing the same thing in a “better” way. It requires rethinking priorities, reinventing indicators, restoring resilience to territories, and finally placing living ecosystems at the heart of decisions.

My dearest wish is only to be heard. O humans, you are the only key. You alone have the magic power to change the world. Hear my prayer and listen carefully to the voice of Water, for it is the wisdom that will open your hearts and expand your consciousness. It is the healing serum that will repair the living bonds.

So why not a phase 2 after all! But let it start by taking care of me, the River, not as a simple receptacle, but as a living actor of development.”