- China’s plans to construct a 60,000 megawatt dam on its aspect of the Brahmaputra has renewed the Indian authorities’s curiosity in constructing its personal mega dam, the Siang Higher Multipurpose Undertaking (SUMP) in Arunachal Pradesh.
- Residents affected by the SUMP are resolute of their opposition.
- With out clear details about the Chinese language dam, hypothesis about its impacts downstream is rife.
- Consultants warn that mitigation methods needs to be pushed by transparency and data-sharing, not rhetoric.
On a chilly February morning, the residents of Parong village in Arunachal Pradesh climbed up a hillslope and gathered within the village’s massive group corridor. An air of warning stuffed the room – the Further District Commissioner from the close by Pangin village could be holding a gathering on a problem thought of to be of nationwide significance, with the potential to sink their properties: constructing an 11,200-megawatt hydropower challenge.
When ADC Gamtum Padu lastly arrived, he had an surprising message. “I wish to inform all of you, on behalf of the administration, that we’re sorry,” he stated. After months of antagonising the residents for opposing the dam, the administration now got here with folded arms. “We wish to take heed to you,” he stated. It was the primary time the federal government initiated a proper dialogue with households affected by the Siang Higher Multipurpose Undertaking (SUMP), a hydroelectric and storage dam to be constructed on the Siang river – the a part of the Brahmaputra river that passes by way of Arunachal Pradesh.
Since February, authorities officers have held two extra conferences with affected events, hoping to slowly construct consensus with a view to make the dam a actuality. The proposed challenge would submerge greater than 25 villages, together with Yingkiyong, the headquarters of the Higher Siang district. The proposal to construct the dam has been met with months’ lengthy protests from native residents, who say displacement is unacceptable.
“It was good that the federal government determined to talk with us. That is what we now have wished from the beginning,” stated Tarok Siram, a gao bura, a village chief and a authorities functionary in command of managing regulation and order points in Parong.
The challenge gained prominence when China introduced its plans to construct a 60,000 megawatt dam on its aspect of the Brahmaputra, earlier than it enters India. Together with the information of this improvement got here issues in regards to the weaponisation of water, and the need to organize a plan of defence.
Caught between rhetoric and conjecture, nationwide safety and the power transition, are the communities residing within the Siang valley who stand to be displaced. “How does displacing us serve the nationwide curiosity?,” requested Gegong Jijong, president of the Siang Indigenous Farmers Discussion board (SIFF) – a bunch representing affected households. “If this dam is a matter of nationwide curiosity, why doesn’t the federal government kind a treaty with China? We’re not anti dam, however we’re being requested to surrender our conventional lands, our livelihoods. If we depart our land, the place will we go?”
Dam for a dam
On December 25, 2024, Xinhua, the official state information company of China said the Chinese language authorities had authorised plans to construct a 60,000 megawatt dam in Medog county, which, when constructed, will exchange the Three Gorges Dam because the world’s largest to this point.
The Three Gorges Dam, additionally positioned in China and with a capability to generate 20,000 MW of power, led to the displacement of 1.4 million individuals, based on news reports. Constructed throughout the Yangtze river, the dam’s size, at over 2000 metres, is equal to that of a low altitude mountain. Its peak towers at 607 toes (182 metres). Because it was constructed, the Three Gorges Dam has been linked with increased landslide occurrence within the area, and even reported to have altered the Earth’s rotation by a few microseconds.
The Medog dam is prone to be constructed simply after the Brahmaputra – known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in China – takes a pointy bend and turns south, crossing the world’s deepest gorges earlier than flowing into India. The Chinese language authorities calls it a “inexperienced challenge aimed toward selling low-carbon improvement.” A statement in Xinhua stated the dam could be of “nice significance to advancing the nation’s technique for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” and to deal with local weather change. China has been below world strain to transition away from coal – its greatest supply of energy – to cleaner gasoline sources.
The sheer scale of the challenge, nevertheless, has raised doubts in regards to the Chinese language authorities’s skill to hold out building with out inflicting critical environmental injury and worsening catastrophe dangers. “No matter what sort of dam it’s, it’s sure to have an effect downstream,” Y. Nithiyanandam, Professor and Head of the Geospatial Analysis Program at Takshashila Establishment, informed Mongabay India. “It’s an ecologically delicate space that’s vulnerable to each flash floods and earthquakes.”
The thought is to leverage the water’s power after it makes a steep descent by way of the gorge. A 60,000 MW dam in a seismically energetic zone, nevertheless, is an engineering feat by no means tried earlier than. The Chinese language authorities claims the Medog challenge will likely be a run-of-the-river dam with no drastic impacts to water circulation. “China will proceed to take care of communication with international locations on the decrease reaches by way of current channels, and step up cooperation on catastrophe prevention and aid for the advantage of the individuals by the river,” China’s international secretary stated in a statement.
Within the absence of any clear details about the Medog dam’s design, issues about its affect downstream to India and Bangladesh have emerged, with quite a lot of outcomes on the desk – from the river drying up significantly to the potential for a strategic deluge unleashed by China. India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs shared its apprehensions with the Chinese language authorities on December 30, 2024.
The uncertainty of how the Chinese language dam might affect India has propped the concept of the Siang mega dam up, which Indian officers say will reasonable upstream floods and drought by appearing as a storage system. What might undermine these efforts, nevertheless, is a quickly altering local weather and an energetic seismic zone, say specialists.
Stalled pre-feasibility report
The proposal to arrange a mega dam on the Siang river first got here up in 2017, when the Niti Aayog – the Indian authorities’s premier suppose tank – instructed disposing of two smaller dams that had been deliberate on the river, in favour of a giant dam within the valley’s higher reaches. Doing so would scale back challenge prices by 25% and entice an funding of Rs. 80,000 crores, a press assertion from the chief minister’s workplace on the time, said.
The proposal drew opposition from residents virtually instantly, however the concept of establishing the mega dam has continued. In December 2022, the NHPC, the general public sector firm setting up the dam, ready a draft Pre-Feasibility Report (PFR) primarily based on three potential websites for the megadam – one in Dita Dime, one other in Ugeng, and a 3rd in Parong.
“Parong is essentially the most preferable as a result of it will result in the least submergence area-wise in comparison with the opposite two areas, and it’s technically appropriate as a result of just one powerhouse must be constructed, saving prices,” stated an official with the NHPC, on the situation of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk with the media on file. “Constructing it in Parong would additionally save the Superior Touchdown Floor in-built Tuting, which serves as defence infrastructure for the federal government.”
The location of the proposed Siang dam is in certainly one of India’s most biodiverse areas. A latest expedition into the Siang valley found greater than 1500 completely different species of birds, vegetation, animals and bugs, lots of them new to science.
If in-built Parong, the dam would have a storage capability of 9.2 billion cubic meters – reportedly virtually double the capability of the Medog dam – with a wall that’s 250 meters excessive. It could be India’s highest capability dam when it comes to electrical energy era. Whereas the precise space topic to submergence isn’t identified, 27 villages within the Siang and Higher Siang districts are prone to be fully submerged, with 43 villages affected in complete, based on SIFF. Most residing within the submergence zone, working into tens of hundreds of hectares, are farmers who domesticate crops like orange, black cardamom, and rice on ancestral forest land.
Residents of Parong haven’t allowed the NHPC to conduct exploratory drilling surveys within the space – the final step of the PFR – and have persistently protested the NHPC’s presence within the villages. “We all know that if the PFR occurs right here, the challenge will come by way of,” stated Dubit Siram, a resident of Parong and a member of SIFF. “If the PFR reveals a beneficial outcome, the federal government will do no matter it must make the challenge a actuality. This is the reason we gained’t enable the PFR.”
This concern isn’t completely unfounded – in latest occasions, initiatives dubbed to be of nationwide significance have sailed by way of clearance processes regardless of poor high quality affect assessments or opposition from native communities. The central authorities lately launched exemptions for “strategic” linear initiatives, reminiscent of roads and railways, that fall inside 100 kilometres from worldwide borders, saying they do not need to apply for forest clearance.
Constructing consensus
Till lately, protests in opposition to the Siang dam had been met with excessive handedness from the state authorities. In July 2024, two anti-dam activists – Ebo Mili and Dungge Apang – had been detained by the police when the then Union Energy Minister M.L. Khattar visited the state. The 2 deliberate to submit a memorandum to Khattar demanding a moratorium on massive dam initiatives within the state.
Later, in December 2024, Siang’s District Collector, P.N. Thungon, despatched a letter to Parong’s residents threatening to deploy central armed forces with a view to full the PFR train. When protests continued, with residents marching to the district headquarter, the district administration suspended the protesting gao buros of seven affected villages. Different measures, reminiscent of ordering the return of arms used for looking – a ritual that holds a lot significance for the Adi group – additionally angered residents, who considered such orders as an overreach. “The order to return looking arms was given solely to the protesting villages. We’re handled as criminals, and the federal government’s response to our peaceable protests is certainly one of distrust,” stated Elung Tapak, a resident and orange farmer.
Within the face of the residents’ decision, the administration is now taking one other strategy – participating in dialogue. The state authorities has offered the SIFF with a memorandum promising that “all preparatory works for the SUMP could be carried out in session with challenge affected households.”
Within the February assembly, which Mongabay India attended, officers from the district administration, NHPC, and state police took turns explaining the challenge’s advantages and promised to listen to the issues of affected residents. The suspended gao buros got again their jobs. “There’s no assure that the challenge will come by way of after the PFR. If it does, you’ll have the chance to voice your issues throughout the public session section of the atmosphere clearance course of,” stated Superintendent of Police J. Ok. Lego.
Extra unusually, the federal government can also be routing sure developmental actions by way of the NHPC. This consists of establishing roads and upgrading hospitals and colleges within the district. “We bought a mandate from the Prime Minister’s Workplace to do public outreach and welfare work, and we got Rs. 300 crores from the Ministry of Jal Shakti to hold it out. It isn’t Company Social Duty,” the NHPC official stated. “If individuals see improvement right here, we hope they may settle for the dam.”
Residents view the NHPC’s exercise with suspicion, and as a covert method of constructing consensus in favour of the dam. Incomes the belief of these impacted by the challenge gained’t be straightforward. “This assembly is going down far too late. We made plenty of submissions to the administration, and in return we had been talked right down to, handed present trigger notices, and threatened with CRPF deployment,” stated Okiang Gao, president of the Parong Youth Affiliation, throughout the assembly in February. “The system failed us. Don’t we now have a proper to defend what’s ours?”
Discerning the impacts of dam constructing
Hypothesis that the Chinese language will weaponise water is rife. “They may use their dam as a water bomb in opposition to us,” P.N. Thungon, Siang’s District Collector, informed Mongabay India, including, “The Chinese language dam will divert 70% of the Brahmaputra’s water away. The Siang Multipurpose Undertaking will defend the individuals by amassing the remaining 30% of water and supplying it downstream. The Siang dam is being proposed for the protection and safety of the individuals.”
Thungon’s notions of a “water bomb” had been generally echoed by officers within the district administration, state authorities, the NHPC, and even affected residents. For residents who stand to be displaced, the imminence of the Chinese language dam places them between a rock and a tough place.
Simplistic narratives of the river’s water circulation dynamics – and China’s purported manipulation of the river – are extra dangerous than useful within the context of catastrophe mitigation, specialists informed Mongabay India. “We don’t truly discover proof of such a factor occurring, the place instantly water is launched with out prior info, resulting in a flash flood state of affairs downstream,” stated Sayanangshu Modak, a doctoral researcher at The College of Arizona’s Faculty of Geography, Improvement, and Atmosphere. Modak co-authored a paper with pure useful resource economist of the Observer Analysis Basis, Nilanjan Ghosh, evaluating well-liked rhetoric round Chinese language “water hegemony” with accessible information.
The analysis discovered that hyperbolic statements about China’s affect over the Brahmaputra overshadowed cases of cooperation between India and China in occasions of catastrophe. The Brahmaputra has lengthy been a supply of political pressure and competitors between India and China, students note. The race to construct dams within the higher reaches of the river could possibly be an try to say territorial management and rights over the water. Satellite tv for pc imagery from the Takshashila Geospatial Lab reveals that settlements and army camps have already been constructed within the areas surrounding the Nice Bend, signalling intent to go forward with the Medog dam.
Extra worryingly, with out arduous information, the rhetoric could possibly be distorting possible impacts downstream. Modak and Ghosh discover that whereas impacts of the Medog dam on sediment and water circulation in Arunachal Pradesh can’t be dominated out, a lot of the sediment within the Brahmaputra is generated properly inside India’s borders, the place precipitation is 12 occasions larger than within the rain shadow area of Tibet the place the river originates. Sediment performs the very important position of distributing riparian soils and replenishing downstream riverine islands.
Equally, the paper observes that the entire annual outflow of the Yarlung river from China is about 31 billion cubic metres, whereas the annual circulation of the Brahmaputra at Bahadurabad (a gauging station a lot additional downstream in Bangladesh) is roughly 606 BCM. The paper argues that India’s personal catastrophe mitigation efforts needs to be pushed by information, and never rhetoric. “India’s concern needs to be to trace hydro-meteorological occasions within the 320 km stretch between Nuxia, the ultimate hydrological station from the place India receives flood-period information, and Tuting, the primary hydrological station inside Indian territory. Sadly, there isn’t any accessible information for this rain-rich section of the river journey,” the paper says.
An current Memorandum of Understanding mandates information sharing from three hydrological stations in China with India, capturing rainfall and water discharge. However this settlement doesn’t cowl the essential stretch of the river that passes by way of the Nice Bend, earlier than it enters India, and the place the local weather is most unstable. Sharing hydrological information good points much more significance in mild of how catastrophe susceptible this area is, Nithiyanandam stated. The Yarlung Tsangpo basin has 5 completely different climatic zones, making it particularly ecologically fragile.
“During the last decade, the Yarlung Tsangpo has seen some 600 flash floods and over 100 earthquakes. The river is fed by glacier soften and rainfall, each of that are seeing altering patterns as a result of local weather change and will worsen impacts downstream,” he stated, including, “What we’re witnessing here’s a dam which might maintain any affect, triggered naturally or artificially, from the next slope. If the Medog dam comes up, India’s preparations needs to be geared in direction of decreasing the quantum and velocity of water because it flows downstream.”
Based on Modak and Ghosh, the extra imminent risk isn’t of China “turning off the faucet” to the Brahmaputra, however that of dam failure. The latest reminiscence of a flash flood in Sikkim, which destroyed its greatest dam, continues to be contemporary within the Siang valley. The query of who advantages from constructing massive dams within the Himalayas looms over each initiatives.
“We’re not anti-national. We don’t wish to see our ancestral lands drowned,” stated Tarok Siram, the gao buro. “If this dam must be constructed within the identify of nationwide safety, let it’s executed some place else. For now, we’re open to peaceable dialogue with the federal government.”
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Editor’s Word: This story was up to date on April 19, 2025, to appropriate a factual inaccuracy.
Banner picture: An aerial view of Parong village alongside the Siang river in western Arunachal Pradesh. Picture by Hagen Desa.
