New Delhi: Right beside a river, about 15 women lie in a line on a long wooden platform, its frames wrought of bamboo and wood. The image has a certain morbidity to it: it looks like they are lying on funeral pyres, waiting to be burnt. There are several such ‘pyres’ around, with living, breathing people laying on them. Many other women and men sit, stand, even lie down in the shallow water; others stand close by, their arms tied to wooden crosses over five feet tall. Everyone gathered around have been raising a hard-hitting slogan together:“Give us justice or kill us,” they shout, in the video published by Down To Earth on July 16. “We will not put up with the destruction of our Ken river.”Several such videos of a chita andolan or ‘pyre protest’ and a ‘noose satyagraha’ in northern Madhya Pradesh have drawn attention on social media over the past few months. Some protesters are also on a hunger strike. In the early hours of Sunday, the Madhya Pradesh Police forcibly removed these protesters.Those on hunger strike were administered by a team of doctors, while others were “dropped back to their homes“. this is an under-construction bridge, and due to the rains, the river’s water level has risen. Therefore, the area was not considered safe, so they were moved from the site.” The police claimed that the area was “not safe” for the protesters because it was under construction, and because the river water levels had risen.But who are the protesters, and what are they protesting about? And why does a river figure in this? The Wire breaks it down for you.Who, what and where?People – men and women from indigenous communities, and farmers – living along the Ken river in northern Madhya Pradesh have turned to unusual means of protests.This video by Down To Earth from Chhattarpur’s Palkoha village on the banks of the Ken river shows villagers lying down on a wooden platform made from small logs, fashioned in the likeness of funeral pyres. Some have their wrists tied to a makeshift wooden cross erected in the water near the banks of the river. Another image shows women standing in a line under a wooden frame that supports cloth nooses – nooses that the women have worn loosely around their necks.Some like Divya Ahirwar are smearing mud on their faces, reported PeekTV. “Tribals here are entirely dependent on jal jangal jameen [water, forests, land] for their survival,” she told PeekTV. “But they are being taken away from this, torn away from their villages.”The first of these protests began a few months ago, in early April. Villagers discontinued protests on April 16 after authorities promised that their demands would be looked into. But villagers, including the residents of Kupi in Chhattarpur district, restarted their protests on July 3 because of lack of action.People at the protest site are also on hunger strikes. Social activist Amit Bhatnagar, who has been spearheading the protest along the river Ken, has completed 12 days of his indefinite hunger strike as of Saturday (July 18).today marks the 11th day of social activist Amit Bhatnagar’s hunger strike. he has lost over 6 kg while standing with Adivasi families in Bundelkhand resisting the Ken–Betwa Link Project by staging a ‘Fansi Satyagraha.’these communities have lost their homes, forests and… pic.twitter.com/hz4P3CXCrs— Prashant Pundir (@kafkasbluebug) July 17, 2026“Cases have been slapped on 250 people but still these people are here, protesting,” Bhatnagar said in a public Facebook live he published on July 16. “How long will we fear these false cases? We will protest here, give our lives … we will also fight this in court. Big corruption and atrocities have been committed.”Bhatnagar and the people of the Panna and Chhattarpur districts of northern Madhya Pradesh are protesting against India’s first ever river-interlinking project which will connect the Ken and Betwa rivers in the northern region of the state.What is the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project?The Ken-Betwa river interlinking project, according to the government, is primarily aimed at addressing the drinking water shortage in the water-stressed Bundelkhand region, which comprises 13 districts in northern Madhya Pradesh and southern Uttar Pradesh. The project is expected to bring drinking water to about 62 lakh people, generate 103 megawatts of hydropower, 27 megawatts of solar power, and irrigate some 10.62 lakh hectares of land – every year.It involves constructing a 230-km long canal that will carry water from the Ken river in Madhya Pradesh to the Betwa river in Uttar Pradesh. Several dams such as the Daudhan will also be built over the Ken for this purpose.In December 2021, the Union cabinet approved the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project, at a total outlay of Rs 44,605 crore. In February 2022, the Ministry of Jal Shakti constituted a Steering Committee and the Ken Betwa Link Project Authority under the Ministry’s National Water Development Agency to implement the project.On December 25, 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the interlinking of rivers a “mahaabhiyaan” (great campaign), as he laid the foundation stone for the Daudhan dam in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh.But why are people protesting a project that none other than the prime minister laid the foundation for, and called “historic”?Modi during the foundation-laying ceremony for the Ken Betwa River Linking National Project. Photo: Screenshot from official livestream.Why are people protesting?People in the Chhattarpur and Panna districts are currently resisting the Ken-Betwa project for two main reasons: the project in its entirety will submerge ancestral lands, and displace people from their homes.The construction of the Daudhan dam as part of the Ken-Betwa project is estimated to submerge eight villages. But the dam will also result in the submergence of large parts of the Panna Tiger Reserve. To compensate for this, authorities have decided to expand the Reserve. This will in turn result in 16 villages having to be relocated to another area.An official from the Ken Betwa Link Project Authority told Frontline in 2023 that the Daudhan dam will displace 5,228 families in Chhatarpur district and 1,400 families in Panna district due to land submergence and dam-related land acquisition.The residents of many of these villages have been demanding fair compensation ever since the project was mooted and subsequently cleared by the Union cabinet in 2021. Seventy-year-old Amna Ahirwal of Sukwaha village in Chhattarpur district had told The Wire in July 2021 that people would start protesting if they were not adequately compensated for their lands. Many also do not want to leave their ancestral homes.In all, 24 villages are now expected to be affected by the river interlinking project. In Palkoha village in Chhattarpur district, demolitions were going on in the first week of July, according to a news report by DTE. Peoples’ homes were demolished because the administration wanted people to move away from living on the banks of the Ken river, and relocate them to a ‘safer’ place. Villagers, however, have said that they were being forcibly evicted from their homes.Protesters say that families displaced by the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project and its linked projects have not received fair compensation or proper rehabilitation despite losing their lands and homes.Per a report by the Times of India, others including Bhatnagar (who is currently on a hunger strike) have alleged that affected families were not given details of gram sabha proceedings. He also said that the protesters had been ignored by the administration and were being denied even regular medical check-ups.Protesters agitate against the river interlinking project in Chhattarpur. Photo: PTI.Other controversies surround the projectScience challenges the very concept of riverlinking. The concept is based on bad science, scientists say.River interlinking projects are based on the assumption that there are “water-surplus” and “water-deficit” basins, and that diverting water from the water-surplus area into the water-deficit one is very efficient because it addresses two things: diverting the excess water that ‘goes to waste’ in the water-surplus basin, using this water instead to fill up the water-deficit basin.Ecohydrologist Jagdish Krishnaswamy has told The Wire that this concept of “water-surplus” and “water-deficit” basins is itself flawed, and that no water ever goes to waste in natural systems.Riverlinking can alter rainfall patterns and dry up rivers. A study in 2023 – authored by scientists from IIT Bombay and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (under the Ministry of Earth Sciences), and published in one of the most well-known global scientific peer-reviewed journals, Nature Communications – suggests that river interlinking could alter the Indian summer rains and dry rivers in some seasons.The project will also negatively impact the Panna Tiger Reserve in several ways. The Daudhan Dam is expected to submerge over 10% of this tiger habitat: it will submerge 5,578 hectares of forest inside the Reserve, of which 4,206.05 hectares is in the core area and 1,372.42 hectares is in the buffer zone, per a report by Frontline.At least 23 lakh trees in the Reserve will be submerged in the process. Experts told The Wire in 2021 that these forests here are a “hydrological asset” in the other-wise drought stricken land: they help sequester water, making groundwater available in the area.Tiger biologist Raghu Chundawat had told The Wire in 2021 that the project will result in tiger habitats becoming fragmented: Panna’s tiger population will be cut off from tigers in the surrounding areas. Chundawat has called the decision to go ahead with the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project a “political” one taken ignoring numerous aspects including tiger habitat protection. He warned that Bundelkhand “will suffer for decades to come.”