Environmental Justice in Arunachal Pradesh: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge and Community Resilience

The erasure of indigenous communities and their lived experiences is of grave concern. Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh is home to the Idu Mishmis. This research draws upon review of detailed public civil rights reports, newspaper articles, government statements and proposals and the social media accounts in Arunachal alongwith in-depth interviews with activists, journalists, academics and frontline community members to gather their perspectives and experiences of coping with climate injustices and dispossession.

This study explores the intricate relationship between disaster risk reduction, indigenous knowledge and environmental justice. It explores the government policies for indigenous communities to enhance their resilience to recurring floods and other disasters, especially in remote, far-flung geographies. The Mishmis are resisting the construction of two dams in Dibang valley across Brahmaputra and its tributaries by National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC). The Mishmis have developed collective forms of resistance that are shaped through knowledge, power and decision-making within the communities through photo-elicitation and policy analysis. The concept of a place attachment and stewardship both create vulnerability as well as reconfigure the relationship Mishmis have with the place, as it witnesses change through these construction of mega dams, conservation of forest land, leading to dispossession and displacement. Collective action and agency through formal organizations and networks such as IMCLS and AIMSU enable negotiations with government agencies for compensation, advocating for tribal rights and resistance against the mega dams.

This study highlights the role of social media as an advocacy tool for young activists from Arunachal, as well as national non-governmental organizations. It describes the tensions between an indigenous community as they either resist or give in to the tactics of dispossession and the limits of collective action and agency that they can assert to participate in these decisions of constructing mega-dams that directly impact them in the larger national interest.