Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh): The sturdy trucks covered with waterproof canvas become visible much before the entry point to Pasighat, the administrative headquarters of Arunachal Pradesh’s East Siang district.One of the heavyset vehicles comes to a stop in front of a local eatery. A group of security personnel disembark. A jawan goes inside and glances at the menu. A few seconds later, he returns towards the truck. Before leaving, he tells this reporter that he did not find anything to his liking. He is from Rajasthan’s Alwar and is visiting Pasighat for the first time, he says.Moments later, the truck moves forward. The grim-faced jawans keep an alert eye on the road. In the background, the green mountains have a permanent cover of clouds which look like cotton.The consistent movement of vehicles ferrying personnel from the central forces makes up for an unlikely sight in Pasighat, a picturesque town situated on the banks of the Siang river.As one enters the town, there are more things which hint towards the fact that business is not going on as usual.There is a charred car in the middle of an otherwise clean road, with ashes and shards of broken glasses scattered all around it. In another corner of the town, a group of armed men guard the locked office of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), its window panes shattered and walls blackened with soot.The NHPC office. Photo: Deep Mukherjee.The NHPC office has remained closed since the evening of October 23, when a protest against the proposed 11,200 MW dam as part of the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP) turned violent and a mob torched a NHPC office in Pasighat.Ever since the incident, large number of security personnel including Rapid Action Force (RAF) companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have remained stationed in Pasighat, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Arunachal Pradesh has arrested and detained several anti-dam activists, leading to criticism from the opposition Congress, rights group and the public, who recently held a massive protest in state capital Itanagar.In response, the saffron party has accused the Congress of engineering the protests.Broken windows of the NHPC office. Photo: Deep Mukherjee.‘If anti-dam movement continues, BJP could lose power’However, the pushback against the proposed dam is not restricted to activists and opposition parties. Even senior BJP leaders are appealing to the government to discontinue the project.Sitting at his home in Yabgo village near Pasighat, Oyem Dai proudly recalls his long association with the BJP.Now in his sixties, Dai, a well-known senior BJP leader from the region, says that he has previously served as the district president of the party in East Siang and also contested the 2009 Arunachal Pradesh assembly elections on the party’s ticket.Oyem Dai. Photo: Deep Mukherjee.“My association with the BJP goes back to a time when the party had no presence in Arunachal Pradesh. Me along with other leaders such as Union minister Kiren Rijiju would go from village to village to garner support for the party, there was nobody to greet us. I am a staunch loyalist of the BJP. I want the Narendra Modi government in the centre and the Khandu government in Arunachal Pradesh to stay in power. But I am worried that if this movement against the dam continues, then there is a chance that the BJP government could lose power in the state,” Dai told The Wire.Dai, who belongs to the Adi tribe – the community spearheading the protests against the proposed dam – says that despite the risk of being “misunderstood”, he has appealed to chief minister Pema Khandu to not go ahead with the proposed dam project.Also read: ‘Let Ane Siang Flow’: Why the BJP Govt Faces Anger in Arunachal Pradesh“For thousands of years the Adi community has lived on the banks of Siang. We worship the river as our mother, just as Hindus worship the Ganga. We don’t want to stay at some other place as refugees, which will definitely happen if the dam is built. If we send more police force to suppress the public, there could also be a civil war. That’s why I am appealing to the honourable chief minister to stop this,” said Dai.Dai further added that opposition parties like the Congress shouldn’t take advantage and politicise the situation by going to villages and campaigning against the state government.“If this had been about politics, why would a BJP loyalist like me speak against it? I have been a part of the BJP for decades. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced his retirement from politics at a ceremony in Mumbai, I was present even then,” said Dai.A bridge over the Siang river in Pasighat. Photo: Deep Mukherjee.‘Our land will be submerged, risk of earthquakes’The senior BJP leader, who has made multiple appeals to chief minister Pema Khandu, also expressed concern over the environmental impact of the proposed dam and appealed for the release of the protesters who have been arrested or detained.“If a dam is built on Siang, our land will be submerged. If by chance an earthquake happens, there could be great damage. Today, mothers and fathers are crying. There are police forces, ITBP [Indo-Tibetan Border Police], CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force], IRBn [India Reserve Battalion] deployed. People are feeling tortured mentally. That’s why my request to Khandu sahab is that this deployment should be ended and those who have been arrested are released,” said Dai.Dai cited the donyi-polo (sun and moon) tradition of nature worship prevalent among the Adi community – the tribe that makes up most of the population in the Siang valley districts – to emphasise that the river is deeply ingrained in the history and the traditions of the community.The Siang river in Pasighat. Photo: Deep Mukherjee.Interestingly, this fear of the loss of cultural heritage expressed by a senior BJP leader such as Dai, finds an echo in the statements of the saffron party’s arch rival Congress.“The government has proposed the project without consulting the local indigenous people. Many villages will be submerged along with their historical places, horticulture gardens and these people won’t have any other place to stay as the region is mountainous. They will become refugees in their own lands. But the government is not listening,” Arunachal Pradesh Congress president Bosiram Siram told The Wire.Fear of displacement and refugee crisisDuring The Wire’s visit to Pasighat, one of the main concerns voiced by people across different backgrounds and political parties – a senior BJP leader such as Dai, the Congress and locals – was the fear that the loss of land to the catchment area of the proposed dam will lead to displacement of people, creating a refugee crisis.“When the Kaptai dam was built in Bangladesh [then East Pakistan], a massive number of refugees came to India. If a dam on Siang is built, where will the people whose lands are submerged go? Nobody would give them land. These people will become modern-age refugees,” said Dogam Agu, a private contractor from the Galo community.The refugees had entered India through open borders after erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) commissioned the Kaptai Dam in 1962, leading to massive displacement of these minority communities. Refugees from communities such as the Chakma and Hajong were allowed to be settled in Arunachal (by the Union government in phases between 1964 and 1969 in three districts of the border state. The refugees were settled at a time when Arunachal Pradesh was attached to Assam as North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA).Arunachal Pradesh minister reversed his stand citing ‘national security’Ojing Tasing, senior BJP leader and incumbent panchayati raj and rural development minister of Arunachal Pradesh is one of the most vocal supporters of the proposed mega dam.However, Tasing himself was once the chairman of the Siang People’s Forum (SPF) and was leading the protest against a proposed project by Jaypee Arunachal power Limited (JAPL), a unit of Jaypee Associates, to execute a 2,700 MW hydroelectric project on the Siang river.Back then, a Congress government was in power and the late Dorjee Khandu was the chief minister. Pema Khandu, the incumbent chief minister in Arunachal Pradesh’s BJP government is the son of Dorjee Khandu, who passed away in a helicopter crash in 2011.“No dams on river Siang at the cost of our extinction shall ever come up and we pledge that we shall fight to the finish for our pride, honour and survival,” SPF chairman Tasing had said in a joint Press conference in December 2010, PTI had reported at the time.But in 2026, Tasing, who is now a minister and also a member of Adi community and the incumbent BJP MLA from Pangin constituency in Siang district, completely reversed his position.The Siang river in Pasighat. Photo: Deep Mukherjee.While in 2010 Tasing took the agitation route in protest of a 2,700 MW hydroelectric project, in 2026, despite the opposition of his own Adi community, he is vociferously supporting the construction of a dam for a hydroelectric project of 11,200 MW – more than four times the previous project he opposed.When asked about the reason for his change of heart, Tasing told The Wire, “At that time, when we participated in that movement it was an issue of hydropower and not about national security. But with the passing of time, we felt that what we had done then was the right thing to do at that time but it’s not the right thing to do at present. China is building a dam with a capacity of 60,000 MW and once it is completed, it will be able to divert 40,000 billion cubic metre water of Siang to the Xinjiang province which will result in 40-50% water of Siang being lost.”Tasing added that to counter China on this, the construction of the proposed dam on Siang is necessary.“No representative of the Union government or minister comes here saying that this project is of national importance for the safety and security of our country. Nobody is saying this. It is only the Arunachal Pradesh CM and ministers who are saying this,” said Arunachal Pradesh Congress chief Siram, reacting to Tasing’s claims about the link between the proposed dam and national security.