- Protests over the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP) dam in Arunachal Pradesh have escalated into violence, arrests and a heavy security deployment.
- The state calls the dam a safeguard against China’s upstream hydropower project, while residents fear losing their land and the river.
- Protest groups say they will not meet the chief minister for negotiations until those detained are released.
On the morning of October 23, men and women sat outside the closed shops of Yingkiong’s main market in Upper Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh, talking about ordinary things, even though life in the Siang valley has been anything but. The market was deserted on account of a bandh, following weeks of unrest over the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP). Armed personnel in fatigues roamed the streets, and by the afternoon, the internet had been shut down in the entire district.
“It feels as if they are deploying armed forces against us by force; like fighting an enemy on the border,” said Katin Burang, 44, a paddy and orange farmer from Gosang, a village near Yingkiong, who was at the market that day. “That is the change.”
Hundreds of police personnel and paramilitary forces were deployed to the region since September 14, when residents called for a halt to all pre-feasibility studies (PFR) towards the SUMP – a massive hydroelectric and flood-control dam projected to generate roughly 11,200 MW of power.
In early October, tensions escalated when four protesters were detained under the Arunachal Pradesh Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2014. After a protest march demanding their release turned violent on October 23 – ending in damages to two MLAs’ homes and the office of the project developer, the NHPC, being set on fire – the crackdown intensified.
The police has filed at least eight cases and arrested 26 people in connection to the violence. Search warrants were sought from the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Pasighat against youth leaders Otul Jerang, and Tajong Talom, their lawyer Sunny Tayeng, as well as Tongam Rina, the deputy editor of a news publication — The Arunachal Times. The Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists and the Arunachal Press Club, in a joint statement, called the move against Rina as “deeply disturbing and a serious threat to press freedom, raising grave concerns over the possible misuse of investigative powers to intimidate journalists reporting on contentious public issues.”
Ebo Mili, a legal advisor to the Siang Indigenous Farmers Forum Youth Wing and a human rights activist, along with youth leader Jerang, also surrendered to the police and said he hopes that it would encourage protesting youths to stay peaceful.
A central demand from residents and agitating groups is the release of those detained by the police. “We cannot hold peace talks at gunpoint,” said Opek Taku, from the village of Geku, and a former Anchal Samiti (a local self-government) member.
A dam for ‘national security’
Although the SUMP has been touted as a project of national importance with security implications – on account of China’s plans to build its own hydropower project upstream of the Siang, local tribal Adi residents have resisted all efforts to allow its progress. The dam is likely to affect 27 villages in one of India’s most biodiverse regions.
The state government has justified the project by saying it is the “answer” to the Chinese dam upstream, and it will protect the region in case China releases a “water bomb” against India.
Groups such as the Adi Bane Kebang United (ABKU), SUMP Affected Area Youth Association (SAAYA), Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum Youth Wing (SIFFYW), and the Adi Galo Welfare Society have banded together to lead protests against the project.
A Chinese water bomb “can only happen from their dam breaking, an earthquake, from a war missile, or the cement concrete eroding after 100 years,” said Thomas Borang, the former president of the ABKU in a press conference last month. “Won’t it cause double the damage if we build an 11,000 Megawatt dam of our own? Why should we accept this risk?” he added.
Both dams (in China and in Arunachal Pradesh) are planned in a highly siesmic zone, carrying a very high risk of damage from earthquakes.
Opposition to the SUMP sharpened in late 2024 when the state moved to deploy central armed police to back NHPC’s survey teams. In September this year, village residents and security forces clashed in Geku – one of the villages likely to be completely submerged – during a visit by Chief Minister Pema Khandu.
Since then, rallies demanding the release of those detained and the scrapping of the project’s pre-feasibility studies have been raised in the capital Itanagar and even New Delhi, where protesters were detained outside the Arunachal Bhawan. Clashes between protesters and security forces in Arunachal Pradesh have resulted in injuries to both sides.
On November 3, the chief minister’s office wrote to the agitating organisations proposing a meeting in Itanagar between November 5 and 7 to discuss issues related to the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project.
It was the second such invitation in a month, and it came after a public appeal by the chief minister, who said “Bandhs, blockades and attacks bring no solutions and only make our own people suffer.”
SAAYA’s general secretary Geni Nangkar told Mongabay-India that the association would not attend the chief minister’s meeting as long as those detained under APUAPA and arrested in other cases were not released. “Our final decision is that until our demands are fulfilled, we will not meet the CM,” he said.
The legal adviser and spokesperson of SIFF, Tagori Mize, said the release of those detained was not just a matter for the courts. “It is in the government’s power, the honourable CM’s power,” he said. “If he wants, they could walk out tonight. There has to be political will.” He said that SIFF’s position is to seek the release of those detained first.
The detention cases went to an advisory board under the APUAPA, headed by a retired High Court judge, on October 30, but no decision was taken. Mize said that a writ petition relating to the case in the High Court would be heard on November 10.
Security forces up
The heavy deployment of police and military forces to conduct the pre-feasibility report study has drawn criticism from the SIFF and other Adi organisations, whose demands include the withdrawal of central forces.
The PFR entails digging a small rig to a depth of 30 or 40 meters, and sending samples to a laboratory to assess the viability of the project in that area. Three sites in the Siang valley are currently being considered for the SUMP reservoir.
Khandu’s open letter promised that no decision on construction would happen without “detailed and extensive public consultations and public consent, as is also legally mandated”. He had earlier also promised to reduce security deployment on October 13, but this has not happened.
Upper Siang deputy commissioner Ashok Tajo told Mongabay-India that seven companies of security forces were in the district till October 22. By November 3, after violence broke out in Dite Dime, that number had gone up to “around 10 to 12 companies,” he said. The forces, he added, were there to protect the equipment for the PFR.
India’s Ministry of Home Affairs also reportedly sent 250 personnel from the Rapid Action Force of the Central Reserve Police Force to Pasighat following the vandalism and arson there.
Since mid-2025, the state government has announced it signed Memorandums of Understanding with at least two dozen villages and hamlets in the Siang and Upper Siang districts, with households in several villages signing in instalments. In some, such as Janbo, Ramsing and Likor, about half the households had signed, according to a government official. A copy of one of the MoUs seen by Mongabay-India says cooperation with the PFR “shall not, by itself be considered, as an agreement… for construction of the SUMP”. The consent form attached says signatories give their “irrevocable consent”, “only and only for the purpose of PFR studies”.
Tagori Mize of the SIFF said that as per the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, consent comes through a public notification, a social impact assessment, and public hearing, and that the law has no provision for MoUs for a PFR. “A provision for MoUs for a PFR? I have never heard of one,” he said.
A 300-kilometre march by the Adi Galo Welfare Society, one of the organisers of the October 23 bandh, is currently underway to demand the release of those detained, talks before any construction, the revocation of suspension orders, and the withdrawal of central forces.
Besides the MoUs, the government has also launched a livelihood scheme for the 27 affected villages, which Tajo described as a direct benefit transfer to families, funded by the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti. Since September, 322 households had received about ₹8.05 crores, he said. Tajo maintains that the disbursements are not related to the PFR activities, but the residents are skeptical.
Burang, a resident of Gosang village alleged that signatures were secured by circumventing the traditional village council, called the kebang, whose majority decision binds everyone. He also alleged that residents were offered ₹2.5 lakhs to sign the MoU, but Mongabay-India could not independently verify this claim.
When asked, Tajo said he would “definitely” look into allegations of falsely acquired signatures. “All these schemes are meant for every household of those affected villages, not only for selected people,” he said.
Residents unwilling to move out of ancestral land
According to Tajo, little happens in the villages beyond a few orchards and wet-rice farming. With better education and “a handsome compensation”, people could “move to greener pastures,” he said.
But residents expressed strong ties to their lands and the river.
Opek Taku, 60, recalled how as a child, the currents of the Siang would carry him and his friends out towards a small river island and drop them back on the sand. “From November to February the river is sky blue. From June to October, it is the colour of mud. In the days of jhum cultivation, it told people when to clear the forest and when to plant paddy.”
Taku added that the Siang valley is fertile, growing various rice varieties with high yields. “Even bananas, oranges, and tea grow well here,” he said.
Kishon Tekseng, an adventurer with an eco-tourism business in Simong village, likens the Siang river to the Zambezi in Africa, a river known among rafters for its rapids. “All we hear is ‘national interest, national interest’,” he said. “When the citizens here are being removed forever, how is that national interest?”
Tekseng has helped villages around Simong set up homestays that now host researchers, birders, adventure seekers, and casual travellers to the Siang valley.
Another resident of Geku village, who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals, said that no amount of compensation would motivate residents to leave their ancestral lands. “Even if the money is in crores, our people will spend it on fancy cars and expensive mobile phones. They will have to buy land in new places, and build their houses and lives all over again. That money will be exhausted,” he said.
“In the village everyone lives by doing this work, farming,” said Taku’s wife Otik. “If this Siang dam is built, what work will be left?”Although women have traditionally lacked land rights over ancestral lands, she said they do not want to lose it.
Women have also been at the front of the protests, often facing police at the barricades. On October 23, at least four women had to receive medical attention when protesters clashed with police at Dite Dime.
“We will live here, and we will die here,” Otik said. “Our Adi women are strong. They are not afraid of anyone.”
Read more: Assembly ban imposed in Upper Siang, protesters detained under UAPA
Banner image: Katin Burang, a paddy and orange farmer, in the deserted Yingkiong market. Image by Ranju Dodum.
