The growing rate of movement of hydroelectric impetus by India along its northern and north-eastern borders has precipitated a whirl-wind of humanitarian, environmental, and geopolitical concerns. Although hydropower is often sold as clean, renewable, and at the centre of the energy transformation in India, the modes of hydro-power generation, its magnitude and geological position begs more questions than the generation of electricity. To the inhabitants of river basins of the Brahmaputra and Indus, and even to the neighbours of India, whose Pakistan, the dam-building frenzy of India is increasingly seen as a form of coercion, the one which can destabilize unstable ecosystems and fragile political equilibrium. What would have been a collaborative regional framework of partaking rivers is transforming into a competitive, zero-sum game, one that critics argue, goes far too far into the weaponization of water.

The Himalayan frontier of India in the north eastern part depicts the most vivid example. The hydro strategy of India has seen the huge discrepancies in the strategy when mega-projects have been constructed like the 2000 MW Subansiri Lower, with its 125-meter dam, and the tremendous cost increase when compared with the costs of 6,285 crore in 2002 and far more than 26,000 crore in 2014. Located in the very seismic area, the project has had landslides, structure security issues and systematic opposition by the local communities who fear a massive flooding, in case of the tectonic movements. The Subansiri project is, however, just the start. The intended 1650 MW Upper Subansiri,........

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