In the last week of October, India deployed more than 2,500 security personnel, including central armed forces, in Arunachal Pradesh, a China-bordering state in the eastern Himalayas, where Beijing claims around 90,000 square kilometers of territory.

This happened close on the heels of a top official of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, which guards the China-India border, saying that face-offs are happening between Indian and Chinese forces “at several locations in Arunachal and it still continues.”

The enhanced force mobilization in Arunachal had nothing to do with the border tension, though.

While alleged Chinese incursions into Indian territories have been triggering concerns among Arunachal’s civil society groups for quite a few months, another part of the state that also borders China is heating up over opposition from locals to a mega hydropower project that India sees as critical to counter China’s control over a major transboundary river.

Locals belonging to the Adi and Galo tribes had called for a peaceful shutdown on October 23 to protest the administration’s decision to move ahead with the mega dam on the river Siang despite local opposition.

However, with police using tear gas to disperse the protesters, the demonstration turned violent in several places. A police station, some government offices, and the residences of several leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the BJP heads coalition governments at the center and in Arunachal Pradesh — were vandalized. The authorities have slapped a series of police cases against key protest organizers.

The dam at the heart of the ongoing protests is the Upper Siang Multipurpose Storage Project, an 11,200-MW hydropower and water-storage project that India plans to build on the Siang River in Arunachal’s Upper Siang district.

The Siang River originates in China’s Tibet region, where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo. Beijing is building a giant 60,000-MW hydropower project on this same river at Medog, just before it enters Arunachal Pradesh, where it is known as the Siang. The river then flows through Assam as the Brahmaputra and crosses into Bangladesh before emptying its waters into the Bay of Bengal.

Arunachali resistance to the Siang hydropower project is not new; objections to the project have been raised for over four years.

In recent months, the federal and state governments and BJP leaders have repeatedly highlighted the project as one of national interest, as it would help regulate water flow in the Siang River.

Yet, the protests have now flared up right at a time when border skirmishes with Chinese forces are triggering border security concerns. This has left Arunachal Pradesh, India’s easternmost state, faced with multidimensional security challenges.

The Indian authorities have presented the Siang project as important not only from the perspective of water and energy security and flood moderation but also as a strategic response to China’s upstream hydropower ambitions. The government has maintained that decisions would be taken only after assessing the project’s feasibility.

However, members of the local Adi indigenous group have been opposing the project over the potential submergence of ancestral land, displacement, and environmental risks. Instances of dam breaches due to glacial lake outburst floods, such as the one in Sikkim in 2023, which had a catastrophic impact, intensified their anxieties.

The latest trigger was the beginning of the pre-feasibility report (PFR) survey. In September, the Arunachal Pradesh Cabinet approved a high-level committee to coordinate survey-related activities and facilitate engagement with residents. Headed by Rural Development Minister Ojing Tasing, it included two local BJP legislators, Alo Libang and Oni Panyang.

The pre-feasibility survey assesses technical feasibility, hydrology, geology, and broad impacts. If the report deems the project feasible, the government will then have to initiate steps for preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR), environmental and forest clearances, social impact assessment, and public hearings.

The Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum and other local organizations have objected to pre-feasibility survey activities, which include drilling. They demand prior and informed consent from the locals even for initiating pre-feasibility activities. They estimate that 27 villages could be completely submerged if the dam is constructed, with many displaced.

For members of the Adi tribal group, ancestral land, farming, river-dependent livelihoods, and traditional relationships with the Siang are inseparable. That is why they oppose relocating and letting go of their ancestral land. Even their cosmology and belief systems are linked with their land, forests, and rivers, they say. A mega-dam would irreversibly alter their landscape, economy, and cultural continuity. Besides, the region itself is ecologically and geologically fragile.

“The deployment of security personnel to facilitate surveys has deepened mistrust rather than resolved these concerns,” alleged Ebo Mili, an Adi lawyer, who is one of the most prominent faces of the protests. The police have slapped him with multiple charges of violence and conspiracy related to the protests.

On October 13, protesters submitted a memorandum-cum-ultimatum to the administration, expressing concerns over alleged administrative and police excesses against villagers protesting against the PFR activities.

Unsatisfied with the administrative response, several groups, including the Adi Baane Kebang United (ABKU), the Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum (SIFF) youth wing, Siang Upper Multipurpose Project Affected Area Youth Association, and Adi Galo Welfare Society, called a 12-hour shutdown across the districts of Siang, Upper Siang and East Siang on October 23, when violence erupted at many places.

The residence of local legislator Oni Panyang, who was entrusted with coordinating PFR activities, was vandalized, while some police vehicles and government offices were torched. More police cases and arrests under anti-terror laws followed. As of October 30, tension prevails in the villages around the dam’s possible location.

Whether the project is an appropriate response to the Chinese dam will likely continue to be debated. Many of the locals don’t want any dams. They want Siang to be left undisturbed. They say the Chinese project would not hamper Siang water flow much, as the river’s main source of water comes downstream of the proposed Chinese dam.

However, another question is also becoming important: whether a project justified partly on national security grounds can proceed without the confidence and meaningful participation of the communities expected to bear its costs.