ABSTRACT
Following the 2003 launch of the 50,000MW initiative by the Government of India, a programme for developing the hydropower potential primarily through large dams in the Himalayas, the debate on large dams erupted again in public discourse. It has followed the narrative from the previous decade, of destructive dams resisted valiantly by small communities. In parallel, academic interest in large dams has also revived. Some have taken a social movements perspective (Arora 2008; Arora & Kipgen 2012, etc.), while others have examined the topic from an environmental governance perspective (Sinclair & Diduck 2000; Choudhury 2014, Erlewein 2013, etc.). Very little, however, has been written about local-level resource politics (McDuie Ra 2011). This chapter attempts to address this gap by examining the experience of a small community in the Siang belt. The response of the community to the promise of hydropower development is understood against its historical experience of ‘development’, and its present marginality in the state politics. The findings suggest that communities are not always victims of large development projects, and that contestations need not be interpreted every time as resistance.
