समाचार Samāchār · India · 26 October 2026

Siang dam protests turn violent in Pasighat as the Centre flies in the RAF

Arson followed a bandh against the 11,200 MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project. Chief Minister Pema Khandu says nothing will be decided before the studies and without consent.

India’s largest planned hydro project has met its hardest test on the ground. A 12-hour bandh across the Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh on 23 October ended in violence in Pasighat that night. Protesters set fire to an NHPC office and police vehicles and damaged a police station. The homes of state BJP president Kaling Moyong and two MLAs were ransacked. Police reported injuries among security personnel. The Union Home Ministry has sent two companies of the Rapid Action Force from Navi Mumbai on an IAF aircraft.

The project is the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, run by NHPC. It is planned at 11,200 MW with 9.2 billion cubic metres of live storage. The state presents it as a buffer against China’s 60,000 MW project at Medog on the Yarlung Tsangpo, which could cut winter flows or release water suddenly. The groups behind the bandh include the Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum and Adi Bane Kebang United. They want the pre-feasibility surveys halted, detained activists released and central forces withdrawn. Many in the Adi community fear losing ancestral land, villages and forests.

Both sides have taken steps toward calm. On 24 October advocate Ebo Mili and youth leader Otul Jerang surrendered at Pasighat police station and urged peaceful protest. Chief Minister Pema Khandu met legislators and community groups on Sunday. He said the pre-feasibility report is only a technical assessment. Social and environmental impact studies and a detailed project report must follow. He said the project cannot be forced on people without their consent.

The national interest here has two halves. Water security against an upstream dam is one. The trust of the people who live on the river is the other. Neither holds without the other. A project of this size takes a decade to build and needs the valley with it for all of that decade. This week is अनुभव Anubhav. The way forward is open data on submergence, rehabilitation designed with the Adi community and a timeline that respects the studies.

What a founder takes from it: Large infrastructure is now won on consent as much as on engineering. India’s strategic projects will move faster when the people of the valley are partners from the first survey.