Anti-dam protests intensify in Assam

(Dec. 28, 2011) Anti-dam protests intensify in India’s north-eastern Assam State. An Assam police crackdown on protests against hydro electric dam projects in the Himalayas was countered on Monday by a general strike in Sibsagar and Dibrugarh districts.
Violence has flared after police action against thousands of protesters blocking a major road to protest the construction of mega dams in the seismically sensitive Himalayan region. Scores were wounded on Monday, when police moved in to break up protests in Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts. The protesters are mainly opposed to the Lower Subansiri hydro-electric project in Lakhimpur on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. Built on a tributary of the Brahmaputra river, it will be the biggest such dam in India and is expected to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity after its completion in 2012.
The police moved in on the protesters, after they refused to clear a highway linking Assam with Arunachal Pradesh. The state government has banned gatherings of more than five people in one place. However, the All India Students Union and 26 organizations representing various ethnic groups in the state have vowed to continue their fight against this and other planned dams. Jesuit Father Walter Fernandes, who directs the North Eastern Social Research Centre in Guwahati, said the protest was supported by an alliance of groups belonging to various religions and ideologies. He said the government plans to build 49 other hydro-electric dams in the region over the next decade, nearly one third of them in Arunachal Pradesh. The priest said the protests began after farmers living downstream began to experience water shortages and other problems over the past few years.