Tensions escalated in Arunachal Pradesh’s Siang district on Thursday after the Central Armed Police Forces were deployed near the site of the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project.

The personnel were deployed to ensure that a survey for India’s largest hydroelectric power project on the river Siang could be carried out, a senior police official told Scroll. Residents of the region told Scroll that the personnel have been deployed in Boleng, Beging and Geku in the Siang Valley.

The Siang river flows into Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet, and is the main tributary of the Brahmaputra. The river is the site of the proposed 11,000 MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, touted to be India’s largest dam.

Since Tuesday, videos and photographs have emerged showing tents and the movement of security forces.

On Thursday, protests and arguments broke out between officials and residents of the Beging village in Siang district after the personnel were deployed.

“Central forces have been deployed at Geku in Upper Siang,” Tajom Ejing, a resident of Geku village in Upper Siang district, told Scroll. “All the dam-affected people in the area are protesting against the forceful armed personnel deployment. The mega dam should not be constructed over the Siang river.”

Residents of the region have been opposing the project for several years. Members of the Adi tribe, who live in the Siang basin, claim that the project poses a threat to their lands and their way of life.

Efforts to carry out pre-feasibility surveys ahead of the project have been foiled earlier.

The Adi Students’ Union, which represents the interests of the Adi tribe, also condemned the deployment, calling it a “draconian activity”.

“We are deeply disturbed by the recent forceful deployment of armed forces in Beging, a proposed area for PFR [pre-feasibility report] activity, despite significant protests from affected landowners,” Jirbo Jamoh, president of the Adi Students’ Union, said. “This heavy-handed approach is unjust and undermines the voices of those who will bear the brunt of these decisions.”

He urged the state government to engage in “constructive dialogue with the affected families”, listen to their concerns and “work collectively towards a solution that acknowledges their rights and perspectives”.

The plans for the deployment of the Central Armed Police Forces first came to light in December after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in Arunachal Pradesh issued directions to turn an abandoned and broken school in Riew village in Siang district into a camp for them.

A letter dated December 6 and signed by the deputy commissioner of Siang district had said that the forces were being sent to ensure that the survey could be carried out in the face of resistance from the residents.

Another letter, on December 9, sent by the state home department to the deputy commissioner of three districts – Siang, Upper Siang and East Siang – said that nine companies of central armed forces along with state forces and women police would be deployed “to implement the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project”.

Following this, residents in villages along the Siang had taken out several protests against the possible deployment of the central forces.

A ‘national security’ project

The Siang Upper Multipurpose project was first proposed in 2017 by Niti Aayog, a public policy think-tank of the Union government.

The dam was meant to counter the threat posed by Chinese hydropower projects being developed on the Yarlung Tsangpo river upstream, according to an Indian inter-ministerial technical committee report of 2022, seen by Scroll.

The Brahmaputra or Siang is known as Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet, where it originates.

Chief Minister Pema Khandu has defended the dam as a way to protect the Adi tribes from a massive 60,000 MW Chinese dam that is, however, yet to be built.

Khandu claimed that the Chinese government, which is not signatory to the international water conventions, “intends to divert water from the multiple water reservoirs to be created under the project to dry regions of Tibet and elsewhere”, leading to a fall in the volume of water in the Siang.

The Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, he said, has been proposed by the Union government to maintain the natural flow of water in the river all year round and “flood modulation” in case of a drastic water release by China.

However, residents of the area are sceptical about the government’s claim and fearful of losing their ancestral land and way of life. In a statement, representatives of the villages had pointed out: “The Siang region’s land comprises loose sedimentary rocks and is situated in a [fragile] seismic zone, rendering the feasibility of dams invalid in any sense.”

The Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum, a collective of agriculturists from the Adi community that has been heading protests, estimates that 40 villages along the Siang river – in Siang and Upper Siang districts – would be affected because of the proposed dam.

Also read: ‘Are we militants?’ In Arunachal Pradesh, anger over plan to send armed forces for mega dam survey