In December 2020, reports of China’s plan to construct the world’s largest hydroelectric dam in Medog, just 30 kilometres from the Indian border, triggered a familiar pattern in New Delhi: alarm, media soundbites, and hurried statements of concern.
The dam, slated to generate an unprecedented 60 GW of power on the Yarlung Tsangpo (which becomes the Siang and eventually the Brahmaputra), is now widely seen as a potential tool of coercion capable of manipulating flow, causing flash floods downstream, or even being used as a “water bomb.”
India’s anxieties aren’t misplaced. As Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu warned, the Medog dam poses both environmental and geopolitical risks. The Northeast, already vulnerable to climate shocks and state neglect, could find itself on the frontline of a new kind of warfare.
But while India rightly flags China’s upstream leverage as dangerous, its own record downstream tells a different story. Over the past few years, New Delhi has resorted to using the Indus Waters Treaty as political leverage against Pakistan. It has repeatedly threatened to “maximise” its use of western rivers, delayed release of flow data, and in 2023 abruptly cut off water from the Chenab and Ravi as a show of strategic assertiveness.
These acts, framed as strength by nationalist media, may offer momentary political satisfaction. But they come at a long-term cost both ethical and strategic.