The Human Cost of India’s Ken-Betwa Project

(Photo by International Rivers via Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)

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The Chita Andolan is a movement based in Madhya Pradesh, in central India, which began in early July. Protesters have staged mock hangings and funeral pyres, stood neck-deep in river water, and launched hunger strikes. These harrowing actions are meant to signal what they say could follow if their demands are not met. India’s half-a-century-long tradition of “development” at the cost of people’s livelihood expects tens of thousands to sacrifice their lands, cultural ties and livelihood for the necessary cost of progress. 

The specific project in this case is the Ken-Betwa Link. The project, launched in December 2024, is designed to tackle chronic water scarcity in the drought-prone Bundelkhand region by transferring water from a water surplus area to a water deficit one. The project authority also claims that it would expand irrigation to more than 1million hectares. This would supply drinking water to approximately 6.2 million people and produce hydropower and solar energy. 

Independent reporting and research has noted that if the promised water reaches the intended farms, more reliable irrigation will increase crop production, lead to fewer losses during droughts, and give up to 700,000 farmers a more stable source of income. Higher agricultural output would support livestock farming, agro-processing, storage, transport, and agricultural-supply businesses. It would also create new jobs during construction, temporarily reducing the need for seasonal work, while increased agricultural activity and local employment could help reduce seasonal migration from the region in the longer term. That is, if the claims by the project are realized.

Historical Injustices

Despite its promised economic and social benefits, the Ken Betwa project has faced growing resistance from villagers who argue that displacement and loss of land should not be treated as the necessary cost of development.

Their distrust of the state is rooted in history. Colonial governments declared forests as state property and restricted Adivasi cultivation, grazing, and access to traditional lands. After Independence, dams, mines, industries, and protected areas continued to be imposed across Adivasi territories, frequently without recognising customary land rights or providing adequate compensation. India’s Forest Rights Act itself acknowledges this as a “historical injustice.” 

For many communities threatened by Ken Betwa, the present struggle looks less like an isolated development dispute than another chapter in a much longer history of dispossession.

The Ongoing Dispossession of Land

Understanding the current resistance requires some context. Indian society contains thousands of hereditary, largely endogamous social groups known as castes, historically associated with occupation and social status. Scheduled Castes, commonly called Dalits, include communities historically subjected to untouchability and exclusion, while Other Backward Classes (OBCs) are communities officially recognized as socially or educationally disadvantaged. 

Although untouchability was abolished under Article 17 of the Constitution, discrimination against Dalits remains widespread, particularly in rural India.

Adivasis, however, should not simply be understood as the lowest caste. The term refers broadly to Indigenous communities legally classified as Scheduled Tribes, many of whom have distinct cultural institutions and relationships with land and forests that developed partly outside the conventional caste hierarchy. Adivasi communities affected by the project include Gonds and Kols, among others.

Broken Promises of the Past

Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, farmers, and activists have resisted major dam projects before. One of the best-known examples is the Narmada Bachao Andolan, or Save the Narmada Movement, which mobilized against the Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada River in western India. Construction began in 1987 with the support of a $200 USD million World Bank loan, but affected communities protested the project’s displacement, environmental damage, inadequate compensation, and failures in resettlement.

Years of resistance helped push India to cancel the remaining World Bank loan in 1993. Construction was temporarily halted in 1995, before resuming in stages after the Court offered some limited concessions to affected families. However, the Court ultimately ruled that, while displacement could sever people from their land and communities, it could still be justified for major development projects provided those displaced were properly rehabilitated. The Sardar Sarovar project was officially completed in 2017.

Yet the problems protesters had warned about did not disappear. Thousands of families continued to face displacement and inadequate rehabilitation, while cash compensation often replaced land-for-land resettlement, leaving families to find replacement farmland on the open market. Parts of the irrigation network and rehabilitation programme also remained incomplete years later.

Meanwhile, diminished downstream flows increased salinity intrusion in sections of the lower Narmada, damaging fisheries, agriculture, and some drinking water sources. The project failed to eliminate water scarcity, one of its major ambitions, while the region continues to experience destructive floods and occasional droughts.

Change of Narrative

The Narmada Bachao Andolan failed to protect tens of thousands of families from bearing the brunt of the “cost of development”, but it changed the debate around large development projects in India. 

It forced questions of displacement, Adivasi land rights, environmental damage, and rehabilitation into national and international discussion. It challenged the centuries-old notion that the displacement of poorer rural communities is the unavoidable price of development. Decades after the Save the Narmada Movement, many of the same questions remain for the Ken-Betwa project.

A huge part of the erasure of affected people’s voices from the mainstream narrative is the distinction between “investors” and “beggars.” Medha Patkar, one of the leaders of the protests against the Sardar Sarovar Project, said in 2009: “They’re not treated as investors but treated as beggars for rehabilitation, which is the saddest part.”

This pattern repeated over and over again. Patkar raises the question: If a group of people give up their lands, livelihood, and cultural ties, for a project is that not a massive investment in its? Why is it that people with capital are respected, while those sacrificing everything they have are reduced to begging? From a material perspective, the families are investing far more into these projects than any government or corporate backer.

Is the Ken-Betwa Project Just Another One of Them?

Sardar Sarovar is far from the only example. In Polavaram, most affected families still await rehabilitation after 17 years; in Tehri, compensation and replacement land never came; in Pong, disputes over promised farmland continue more than 50 years later; and in Omkareshwar, displaced families were still fighting for suitable replacement farmland years after courts ordered the state to honour its land-for-land policy. 

These cases help explain resistance to Ken-Betwa: communities being asked to sacrifice land and livelihoods for development have heard similar promises before.

Similar to other projects mentioned, as part of the Ken-Betwa project, the proposed Daudhan reservoir will affect ten villages. These villages will face relocation because land is being added to the Panna Tiger Reserve to make up for habitat submerged by the reservoir. Communities are losing houses, agricultural fields, forests, grazing areas, water sources, cultural sites, and established village networks. Interestingly, the tigers have been compensated for their loss of territory before all the affected people have been.

What are the Protesters Demanding?

The Ken-Betwa Project’s Phase I is officially estimated to require about 11,984 hectares of land, including approximately 6,017 hectares of forest land and 5,967 hectares of non-forest land (including agricultural and revenue land). 

In exchange for the loss of thousands of hectares, the project’s original rehabilitation plan proposed a maximum of 919 hectares of replacement farmland, limited to 648 Scheduled Tribe and 271 Scheduled Caste households. Even this land had not been secured: the authorities planned to purchase it from private landowners, while most other affected families were expected to accept cash rather than replacement agricultural land. 

The project is trying to weasel its way out of fair compensation by a mixture of misrepresenting the protesters in the media, vague promises, and a divide-and-conquer tactic by offering different communities different levels of compensation.

In response, these are some of the protesters’ demands:

1. Give every displaced family three acres of cultivable replacement land.
2. Increase the rehabilitation payment from ₹12.5 lakh to ₹25 lakh.
3. Extend the eligibility cut-off to 2026 and include adults left off earlier lists.
4. Conduct transparent surveys and recognise every genuinely affected household.
5. Pay full compensation for land, homes, crops and trees before eviction.
6. Provide properly serviced replacement villages with housing, water, electricity, schools and healthcare.
7. Investigate alleged corruption and irregularities in compensation distribution.
8. Give equivalent rehabilitation to families displaced by nearby water projects.
9. Stop demolitions and forced displacement until rehabilitation is complete.
10. Publicly examine the project’s social and environmental costs and ensure all work follows the law.

What is the Situation Now?

Since the July protests, the conflict has only entrenched itself. The main protest camp was cleared by the police on July 19th. However, the government was pushed to accept that hundreds of families have been affected and omitted from the rehabilitation list. A new survey included an additional 638 families in Chhatarpur alone, raising the total to 3,718. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has also promised investigations into compensation, surveys, and local government proceedings.

In August, more re-surveys took place, which also included the controversial medical age tests in order to find out which adult qualified for separate rehabilitation payments. The government claims that the vast majority of families affected have now received compensation, reporting more than ₹590 crore in rehabilitation payments. In contrast, residents continue to say that families are excluded from official lists, payments are incomplete, and demolitions proceed rehabilitation. 

The Chita Andolan restarted in September, accompanied by symbolic hangings, soil, and water protests. Meanwhile, construction of the Daudhan Dam and the wider Ken Betwa project continue, leaving the central contradiction unresolved: authorities report rehabilitation nearing completion, while repeatedly discovering people who were never counted in the first place.

Edited by Khushi Mehta and Isaac Code