Damning the Brahmaputra: India, China and a looming water row

“How can a government bring in paramilitary and use brute force on its own people just because they don’t want a dam?” asks Bhanu Tatak, a legal advisor to Siang Indigenous Farmers Forum, the organisation that led the villagers to protest and stall a study on the feasibility of building a hydroelectric project on Siang, as the Yarlung Tsangpo – the longest river of Tibet Autonomous Region – is called after it runs across the disputed boundary between China and India and enters Arunachal Pradesh, before flowing into Assam as Brahmaputra.

Tatak is irked by the Arunachal Pradesh government’s move to deploy central paramilitary forces to contain the protest by the tribal people, who fear that the dams the government is planning to build to harness the hydropower potential of the state and to meet the energy demand of the rest of the country will end up disrupting their way of life, posing a threat to their livelihood and disturbing the fragile ecology of the Himalayas.

The fears of local tribal people and environmentalists are not misplaced. Chief Minister Pema Khandu, however, insists that the dam proposed to be built on Siang was conceived not only to generate electricity but also to deal with the consequences of the mega hydropower project China is planning to construct on Yarlung Tsangpo just close to its disputed boundary with India. “What if China suddenly releases excess water from the dam during monsoon?” asks Khandu.

New Delhi’s concerns over Beijing’s plans on Yarlung Tsangpo grew last week. China’s state news agency Xinhua quoted from an official statement to report on December 25 that President Xi Jinping’s government approved the proposed construction of the hydropower plant in the lower reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo in the communist country’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The $137 billion project will be built at Medog County of Tibet near China’s disputed boundary with India. It is likely to be constructed where the Yarlung Tsangpo makes a huge U-turn before flowing into Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in northeastern India, as Siang and Brahmaputra respectively. It is expected to produce three times more energy than the colossal Three Gorges Dam built on the Yangtze river in central China with an installed capacity of 22500 MW power.

Beijing officially conceived the project in November 2020 – a few months after an aggressive move by China’s People’s Liberation Army to push its de-facto boundary with India westward and the counter-deployment by the Indian Army resulted in a military stand-off in eastern Ladakh. The formal approval to the project was announced just two months after the two sides completed the process of mutual withdrawal of frontline troops from along the Line of Actual Control and thus completed the first step towards resolving the stand-off.

China in the past built run-of-the-mill hydropower projects in the middle and upper reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo, without obstructing flow of water into India. But the mega project it now plans to build near Medog County in Tibet Autonomous Region may bring down the water level in Siang and Brahmaputra in India, and consequently in Jamuna and Meghna in Bangladesh.

If Khandu is worried about China releasing excess water during monsoon season and causing devastating flood in northeastern India, his counterpart in Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, is concerned over Brahmaputra or ‘Burha Luit’ – the lifeline for his state – turning dry in lean seasons.

“We will have to depend on rains in Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh for water flow. But if Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh do not get enough rain, then Brahmaputra will completely dry up,” says Sarma, the chief minister of Assam.

In addition to the risk of widespread devastation that an earthquake in and around the site of the proposed dam on Yarlung Tsangpo can trigger, New Delhi is also worried over the possibility of Beijing weaponising the power to control the flow of water during conflicts.

China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh have not signed the United Nations Convention on Non-Navigable Uses of Watercourses. China and India also do not have any bilateral treaty for sharing transboundary water resources. “This is a major impediment to shared governance or confidence building measures in the Brahmaputra river basin,” Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, an independent researcher on transboundary rivers, says.

The Centre a few years back wrote to the state governments of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to speed up building hydropower or irrigation projects to maximise the use of water of Brahmaputra to avoid any disadvantage for India in any future negotiation with China for a water-sharing agreement. But, as the recent protests in Arunachal Pradesh show, it is easier said than done in India, unlike in China.

Rahman, however, says that the race by China and India to build dams on Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet and Siang and other tributaries in Arunachal Pradesh is going to have disastrous consequences for the overall eastern Himalayas and the many communities living along it. Instead of imitating China, India, being a middle riparian state in the Brahmaputra river basin, can take a more responsible approach. “India must not build another mega-dam in response to a mega-dam by China. Such a response will only deteriorate the sensitive ecology of the Himalayas,” he adds.

Tatak, the legal advisor to the protesters in Arunachal Pradesh, wonders if India and China can resolve a four-and-a-half-year-long military stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh through dialogue and diplomacy, why the two nations cannot sign a water sharing treaty protecting the rights and interests of both the nations. “India should try for a diplomatic solution with China, instead of using its paramilitary forces on its own people to make them stop protesting against the construction of a dam just to counter another dam," says Tatak.