Protests Intensify in Arunachal Pradesh Against Siang Upper Multipurpose Project

Bengaluru: “If we have to die we will die but we will protest against the dam,” says Kut Ejing in a video note. Ejing is the Gram Panchayat chairman of the village of Ramku in Geku, Upper Siang district in Arunachal Pradesh. 

Emotions are on a high, and protests are intensifying against the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, a nearly 12-gigawatt hydropower dam that is proposed to be built on the Siang river that flows through China and into the Upper Siang district in the northern part of Arunachal. The Siang later joins with other tributaries to form the Brahmaputra in Assam.

The recent protests in the Siang region began after the state directed last week that central and state armed forces would be deployed to implement the Project. Many rights and civic bodies in the area have written to officials regarding the overreach, which also includes several rights and legal violations such as of the Forest Right Act 2006. Villagers from across the districts of Siang, Upper Siang and East Siang, who will be affected by the project, also wrote to state and central officials that they would “not tolerate any attempts to coerce or force our consent regarding the dam”. Their main concerns revolve around displacement and the loss of agricultural lands and homes, the environmental impacts of the nearly 12 GW dam – which will be the biggest in India, if it is built – which is to be located in a seismically active area. 

On December 15, villagers including from Reiw and Geku arrived at the village of Parong to take part in a peaceful march against the project. On December 16, protests continued in the village of Geku, local sources told The Wire.

However, Ojing Tasing, state cabinet minister of rural development and panchayati raj, co-operation and transport, and Member of the Legislative Assembly from Pangin constituency in Siang district told The Wire that it was not true that all project-affected villagers are against the project. 

“At least 60% of the project-affected people have welcomed the Project,” he said. He added that extracting hydropower was only a by-product of the proposed project and that the main aim of the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project was “national security”, as such a dam would help regulate the flow of the Siang after China builds its 60-GW dam upstream of the river, ensure that the river has water through the year, and control floods.

Deployment of armed forces a “violation” of rights say locals

On December 9, the state government deployed Central Armed Police Forces “to implement” the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project”. The communication by the home secretary of Arunachal Pradesh also listed that state armed forces would be deployed in villages including Geku, Parong and Pasighat in the districts of Siang, Upper Siang and East Siang, where people will be affected by the project. 

Thousands of villagers have since been taking out peaceful protest marches in these areas. On December 15, villagers from Reiw, Geku and Boleng arrived at the village of Parong to take part in a peaceful march. 

On December 16, protests continued in Geku, where villagers also gathered at their local community hall to partake in it, Ebo Mili, a lawyer and environmental and human rights activist who was at Geku on the day told The Wire. 

Locals have several concerns regarding the construction of the dam and the way it is being pushed ahead. On December 10, the Itanagar-based North East Human Rights (NEHR) wrote to the state CM and other officials, raising concerns regarding how this order violates human rights. 

“This directive [by the state to deploy armed forces] not only raises questions about the transparency and ethics of the project but also represents a gross violation of both international and national laws safeguarding the rights of Indigenous Peoples,” the letter, accessed by The Wire, noted.

The letter said that the deployment of armed forces would constitute a violation of both the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP: its Article 32(2) states that indigenous people have the right to free, prior, and informed consent before approval of projects affecting their lands or territories), and of the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions. The NEHR’s letter quotes that the deployment is a violation of Article 15 of Convention 169 of the ILO, which states that indigenous people must actively participate in the planning and implementation of projects affecting their lands and resources.

India, however, has not ratified this particular Convention of the ILO. India has ratified only 47 conventions and 1 protocol of the ILO so far. And while India voted in favour of the UNDRIP in 2007, the Declaration is still a legally non-binding resolution. 

However, the deployment of armed forces in the Siang region also violates several national laws, the NEHR letter added. These include the Forest Rights Act 2006, the Environmental Protection Act 1986 and the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, all of which require that consent of the affected people (and in the case of the FRA, the consent of the village council or gram sabha) is a requisite before initiating a project. 

The NEHR has demanded, among others, that the deployment orders for armed forces in relation to the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project be immediately withdrawn, and free, prior and informed consent be obtained from the affected communities.

‘Will not tolerate attempts to coerce us’: Villagers

On December 10, villagers belonging to the Siang districts including East and Upper Siang also formally recorded their opposition to the proposed 12,500 megawatt Upper Siang Multipurpose Project in a letter sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs, and several officials of the government of Arunachal Pradesh (the chief minister, chief secretary, home minister and home secretary). 

In the letter, accessed by The Wire, villagers have opposed – in very strong terms – what they call “illegal activities” pertaining to deploying armed forces in the Siang area to conduct a “Pre-Feasibility Survey” and the construction of the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project. 

This is being done “under the guise of National Security”, they wrote. They have also accused the deputy commissioner of Siang of “misusing the signatures of Gram Sabha to qualify consent for the dam project” and thereby violating the Forest Rights Act of 2006. 

“We challenge the claims made by the pro-dam lobby that the majority of Siang project-affected people support the dam,” the villagers wrote in the letter. “If this is indeed the case, we request that a referendum be conducted, including involvement of a foreign third party as a witness signatory, wherein only the project-affected votes will be counted and decided. Furthermore, we demand that any decision regarding the deployment of armed forces (CAPF) in the Siang region be made with the consent of the majority of project-affected families. We will not tolerate any attempts to coerce or force our consent regarding the dam.”

The villagers have also demanded that all paramilitary and military forces be immediately withdrawn from the Siang region. Local sources told The Wire that the deployment has not occurred yet.

“We are peacefully protesting and willing to talk to the government but the CAPF should be withdrawn. It is unconstitutional and unethical to forcefully conduct PFR [Pre-Feasibility Report for the Project] against the will of the land owners and concerned people,” Bhanu Tatak, legal advisor to the Siang Indigenous Farmer’s Forum (SIFF), told The Wire.

Brewing protests and concerns: The Siang Upper Multipurpose Project

In 2022, the government-owned NHPC Limited was given the responsibility to develop a Detailed Project Report and a Pre-Feasibility Report for the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, first officially proposed by the NITI Aayog according to The Hindu.

The Arunachal Times reported in 2017 that the then CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant, had said that the state would also benefit economically from the power generated by the Project, then listed at Rs. 2,400 crores per year. The Project was also among the “other notable programmes that need to be completed” (along with the Ken-Betwa river linking project which scientists and conservationists have also opposed as a “disastrous” scheme) as per the NITI Aayog’s document titled “Strategy for New India @ 75” released in 2018.

As per some estimates quoted by Business Standard, the latest version of the Project would generate nearly 12,000 MW of electricity and would cost Rs 1 trillion to implement. 

Also read: New Research Raises Fresh Doubts About India’s River Linking Plans

However, local communities say they have been raising their concerns against the project for more than a decade now. In 2014, the SIFF filed a public interest litigation in the Itanagar permanent bench of the Gauhati high court regarding the potential Siang Project. The court disposed of the petition ruling that the state government should consult local communities who would be affected by the project. However, locals unexpectedly discovered that surveys were being conducted in the wee hours of a December morning in 2022. The video footage of this was accessed by The Wire.

Since then, elderly women in Parong village have been guarding the area in their village taking turns, Mili told The Wire. Subsequently, the SIFF also submitted a letter to the UN Responsible South Asia Business and Human Rights Forum saying that the NHPC was “forcefully conducting survey activities during the night”. In August this year, hundreds of villagers took part in a peaceful protest at Ditte Dime, one of the three proposed sites of the Project, reported The Hindu. On October 5, another protest took place at Geku, a village in Upper Siang, The Arunachal Times reported. 

According to the Annual Report 2023-24 of NHPC Ltd, the PFRs for the project considering three sites – Uggeng (11,600 MW), Ditte Dime (11,200 MW) and Parong (11,200 MW) – have already been prepared by the NHPC and submitted to the Ministry of Jal Shakti in December 2022. However, a technical committee constituted by the Indian government suggested that further geological investigations were required to decide on the project site (among the three potential locations), and it recommended that drilling work be undertaken at all the three sites as suggested by the Geological Survey of India. Though the NHPC received a letter of award for drilling work for all three sites in May 2023 “the work could not be started due to law and order issue in the project site area”. 

One of the main reasons that the Indian government is pushing for the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project is to counter China’s gigantic 60 GW Motong hydropower station on the Yarlung Tsangpo (what the Siang is called in China where it arises), in the Tibet Autonomous Region. According to some estimates, the completion of this dam could result in an 80% decrease in water flow to India, through the Siang. In October this year, the union government even put the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project on fast-track to counter this threat, as per the Deccan Chronicle. 

Ojing Tasing, state cabinet minister of rural development and panchayati raj, co-operation and transport – and incidentally, Member of the Legislative Assembly from Pangin constituency in Siang district – told The Wire that the main aim of the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project was “national security”, as such a dam would help regulate the flow of the Siang after China builds its 60GW dam upstream of the river. It would also help prevent floods, such as the one that occurred in June 2000 in the Siang Valley, thus protecting people, Tasing said.

Though the Indian government has said that the dam has to be built for “national security”, China has already constructed three operational dams upstream of the Siang river (the Yarlung Tsangpo in China), the letter from Siang’s villagers to state officials on December 10 this year noted. Despite  this, there  have  been “no  disturbances  to  the  flow  of  the  Siang  river  into Arunachal,” the letter argued, because of “the regulatory nature of the Hydrological Data Sharing Treaty MOU [Memorandum of Understanding]” between India and China.

As per the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, India entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2002 with China for five years under the “provision of hydrological information on Yaluzangbu/Brahmaputra River during flood season” provided by China to India. As per this arrangement, China would provide hydrological information (such as water Level, discharge and rainfall) to Indian authorities on a regular basis during the monsoon season (from May 15 to October 15 every year). It has been renewed in 2008, 2013 and 2018. Though the MoU expired in June last year, the MoU is in the process of “renewal through diplomatic channels”, per the Ministry. However, this is not a water sharing, but a data sharing agreement, Tasing told The Wire, repeating the need for the Project so as to ensure water flow in the Siang after China builds its humongous dam. Moreover, the water of the Siang, though coffee-brown in summer, used to be turquoise in winter, Tasing told The Wire. 

“However, now it is brown all the time, due to turbidity,” he said, alluding to the impacts of China’s dam construction activities upstream. 

He added that extracting hydropower was only a by-product of the proposed project and that the main aim was national security and safety of the people living downstream of the Siang.

The villagers’ letter to the state on December 10 had also stated that even if China constructed the 60 GW dam and the entire water of the river were to be diverted – which they said is “highly unlikely” – 70% of the waters within Siang at Arunachal are replenished by its tributaries such as the Yamne, Simang and Siyom. Their letter also highlighted that the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project is to be located in a seismically active zone. 

“[The] Siang region’s land comprises loose sedimentary rocks (the weakest rocks in geology) and is situated in a seismic zone V, rendering the feasibility of dams invalid in any sense,” the letter said.

All of northeast India falls under Seismic Zone V, the most seismically active region in India, as per the National Centre for Seismology under Ministry of Earth Sciences. This is one of the many concerns about the Project, Ebo Mili, lawyer and activist told The Wire. However, the immediate biggest threat is not only displacement of people (the Project will submerge lands and homes belonging to the Adi tribal community in the area, as per Scroll), but also the threat of a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood – such as the one that occurred in Teesta River last year in Sikkim – Mili said. According to him, there are several glacial lakes, including some flagged as “Category A” – of most risk of GLOFs – across the three districts of Siang, Upper Siang and East Siang. 

A study in 2020 found that there are 94 glacial lakes in Upper Siang district alone, across a total of 4.1 square kilometres.

“The government did conduct a study on the glacial lakes, but it was funded by the dam developers, so I do not think it will contain the true facts,” Mili said. 

To be or not to be

Tasing, a BJP MLA, insists that it is not true that all project-affected villagers are against the project. 

“At least 60% of the project-affected people have welcomed the Project,” he told The Wire over a call on December 17. “Certain people from outside the district are engaging in the protests,” he said. When asked who these “people from outside” are, he said he couldn’t tell this reporter. Tasing, incidentally, used to lead anti-dam protests. The Hindu quoted a SIFF memorandum which said that he “forgot the cause” when he was elected to power.

On December 15, talking to the media, Tasing had said that the “anti-dam people” are few in number, but the majority were quiet. “So the world thinks that the entire village is against the dam,” he had said. “I can show you documents to show how many people from which villages have signed and given us permission.”

“I heard what the minister said…This is a lie that everyone has accepted the dam,” said Ejing, gram panchayat chairman of Ramku village in Siang district’s Geku, who won the post on a BJP ticket. The stands of people like Ejing, even across party lines, is very clear: they will not allow a dam that will submerge their lands and destroy their agricultural fields. 

“I may be with the BJP but I still oppose the dam,” Ejing said in a video press note. “With submergence there will only be losses and losses…we won’t have places to stay, areas to farm…These government people have not kept any meeting with the locals about the dam, one meeting that they did hold, they did not permit anyone to speak.”

He added that locals would “not allow” the central forces in the area. 

“We have not done anything for them to send central forces. We are protesting only for our lands. We cannot lose our lands. Till our last breath, we will continue to protest. Even if we lose our lives in the process, our lands shouldn’t be lost.”