00:00This corner of India, wedged between China, Bhutan, and Myanmar, is the front line in a water war between two Asian superpowers.
00:09Beijing and Delhi have plans for massive rival dams on a river that courses from a Tibetan glacier through both countries.
00:16On the Indian side, residents here in Parang village are pushing back, saying Delhi's dam would destroy their way of life.
00:24When India's largest hydropower company moved surveying equipment here last May, villagers vandalized machinery, demolished a nearby bridge, and ransacked police huts guarding the operation.
00:36Odoni Palopabin runs a grocery here.
00:41If the dam is constructed, how will we earn our livelihoods? So we will not allow the dam to be constructed.
00:47If the dam is built, the soil will be washed away. We produce our crops on this soil.
00:56We grow cardamom, rice, jackfruit, and pear on this land.
01:00We use the produce to earn money, which helps us to provide education for our children and support our family.
01:06So we will not allow the construction of this dam.
01:08India has been rushing to fast-track its dam since China announced its plans in December for a megadam in Tibet.
01:17That would be built in a border county just before the water crosses into India.
01:22New Delhi worries that means that its longtime strategic rival could weaponize its control of the river,
01:27and says a megadam of its own will mitigate risks.
01:30India's dam would be a reserve of water in dry seasons,
01:33and a reservoir to hold back any sudden excess from China.
01:36The state's chief minister has called the Chinese project an existential threat.
01:41But for the villagers of Parang, the dam project poses a threat to their way of life,
01:45as they live off paddy, orange, and sweet lime farms in the mist-shrouded hills and valleys nourished by the river.
01:52Two sources familiar with the matter say at least 16 villages are likely to be lost to the storage area of the dam,
01:58directly affecting an estimated 10,000 people.
02:01Community leaders say more than 100,000 people will be impacted overall.
02:05Tago Jamo is an anti-dam activist.
02:10He told Reuters if the dam is built, the farmlands will be washed away.
02:14This river is part of our culture and civilization, he says.
02:20The villagers have set up makeshift watchposts on regional roads to deny access to workers of state-owned hydropower firm NHPC.
02:28That has forced security personnel to trek miles, often under cover of night, to reach a prospective site of the dam.
02:34India has a history of activist movements against large dams, which have sometimes slowed these projects by years or forced them to scale down.
02:42Even if India's dam gets the go-ahead, it could take a decade to build after breaking ground, according to four of the sources.
02:49This means the project would likely be completed after China's project,
02:53which Beijing expects to start generating power by the early to mid-2030s.
02:57Thank you for finding a love.
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