Environmental Movements in Manipur: Dams, Deforestation, and Resistance

Manipur is one of India’s most biodiverse states, with hills, valleys, and freshwater wetlands that have shaped the lives of its indigenous communities for centuries. Yet over the past four decades, large hydroelectric dams, road networks, and oil exploration have placed this ecology under severe strain. In response, fishing communities, farmers, and tribal organisations have built some of the most determined grassroots environmental movements in the Northeast. This post examines three major flashpoints – the Tipaimukh Dam, the Loktak Lake crisis, and the Mapithel Dam – alongside the wider struggles against deforestation and resource extraction.

Why Manipur’s ecology is worth fighting for
The Tipaimukh Dam: a project that united critics
What is at stake ecologically
A protest that crossed borders
Loktak Lake: the “dam of sorrows”
How a barrage changed everything
Evictions and the fishers’ resistance
The Mapithel Dam: four decades of dissent
Consent that was never sought
MDAVO and the long negotiation
Filling the reservoir under protest
Deforestation, oil, and the push for sustainable development
Oil exploration and consent
Toward a different model
A common thread of resistance

Why Manipur’s ecology is worth fighting for

Manipur’s environment is not just scenery. It is the material basis of survival and cultural identity for communities such as the Meitei, the Tangkhul Naga, and the Kuki. Fishing in wetlands, farming in valleys, and gathering from forests are tightly woven into how people live and define themselves. When a development project submerges land or blocks a river, it threatens livelihoods and a way of life at the same time.

This is why environmental conflicts here are rarely “just” about trees or water. They sit at the intersection of ecology, indigenous rights, and questions about who gets to decide how land is used. The recurring complaint across nearly every movement is the same: projects were pushed forward without the genuine, prior, and informed consent of the people who would bear the costs.

The Tipaimukh Dam: a project that united critics

The proposed Tipaimukh Multipurpose Hydroelectric Project sits on the Barak River near Tipaimukh in Pherzawl district. Approved formally in 1999, it envisions a roughly 163-metre-high dam designed to generate around 1,500 MW of power while also moderating floods downstream. On paper it is a flagship energy project. On the ground, it has become one of the most contested schemes in the state.

What is at stake ecologically

The 2007 Environmental Impact Assessment projected that the reservoir would submerge around 291.5 square kilometres, with the bulk of that land lying in Manipur and a smaller portion in Mizoram. A large share of this is reserved forest. Activists point out that the Tipaimukh region is home to threatened species and that flooding such a vast area would do irreversible damage to a fragile ecosystem.

There is also a serious safety concern. The dam site lies in a high seismic zone, and academics from Manipur University have warned that the area is capable of producing earthquakes of magnitude 7 or higher, raising the danger of a catastrophic dam failure over the long term. Civil society bodies and student groups, including the Hmar Students’ Association, have argued that the project would threaten biodiversity and indigenous rights.

A protest that crossed borders

What makes Tipaimukh distinctive is how far the opposition spread. Within Manipur, academics, politicians, students, and civil society organisations came together to demand that work be halted, even calling strikes that brought Imphal to a standstill. Beyond India’s borders, the project provoked alarm in Bangladesh, where experts feared the dam would dry up the Surma and Kushiara rivers downstream.

This shared anxiety produced a rare cross-border environmental campaign. Scholars have described it using the idea of the “environmentalism of the poor,” tracing how resistance moved from local protests all the way to a petition submitted to the United Nations. Despite the dam receiving environmental clearance in 2008, sustained opposition and unresolved downstream concerns have kept the project stalled for years.

Loktak Lake: the “dam of sorrows”

If Tipaimukh is a battle over a project not yet built, Loktak Lake is a cautionary tale about one that was. Loktak is the largest freshwater lake in the Northeast, famous for its phumdis – floating masses of vegetation, soil, and organic matter that drift across the water. It is a designated Ramsar wetland of international importance and home to the endangered Sangai deer. Generations of Meitei fishers have lived on and around it.

How a barrage changed everything

The trouble began in 1983, when the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation commissioned the Loktak Hydroelectric Power Project. A structure called the Ithai Barrage was built across the Manipur River, the lake’s only outflow. The IUCN notes that this single project completely changed the lake’s ecological and hydrological character, turning a dynamic wetland into a stagnant artificial reservoir.

The consequences were severe. The barrage blocked the natural passage of migratory fish coming upstream from the Chindwin-Irrawaddy river system, causing fish catches to collapse. It also kept water levels permanently high, submerging thousands of hectares of farmland and degrading the phumdis on which both wildlife and fishers depend. The lake’s decline was so marked that it was placed on the Montreux Record – a list of Ramsar wetlands facing serious ecological threat – in 1993. Local communities came to call the structure a “dam of sorrows.”

Evictions and the fishers’ resistance

Matters worsened with the Manipur Loktak Lake (Protection) Act of 2006, which restricted dwellings on the phumdis and labelled the people living there as “occupiers.” In late 2011, the Loktak Development Authority began burning and clearing huts in the name of a “lake cleanup,” and over 700 families were evicted from their floating homes.

The displaced fishers organised under the All Loktak Lake Area Fishermen’s Union, Manipur (ALLAFUM). Their central demands have been consistent: repeal the 2006 Act and decommission the Ithai Barrage to restore the wetland’s natural rhythm. Notably, the criticism is not confined to activists. In August 2017, the then Chief Minister urged the Prime Minister to consider decommissioning the Ithai Barrage as a permanent solution to recurring floods.

Yet the pressures keep mounting. Proposals for ring roads, an inland waterways project, and an eco-tourism scheme with resorts have all raised fresh fears that the lake’s fishing commons will be eroded further in the name of “development.”

The Mapithel Dam: four decades of dissent

The Mapithel Dam, part of the Thoubal Multipurpose Hydroelectric Project, stands on the Thoubal River in Ukhrul district. Its story is one of prolonged resistance against a project the affected communities say was forced upon them.

According to community accounts, no free, prior, and informed consent was obtained from those to be displaced, and the procedures under India’s land acquisition law were not properly followed. Soil-test teams reportedly entered fields without owners’ permission and were chased away, meaning the comprehensive survey needed to properly conceptualise the project never fully took place. After the project was approved in 1980 and the scale of submergence became clear, resistance began to grow.

MDAVO and the long negotiation

In 1990, villages within the submergence zone formed the Mapithel Dam Affected Villages Organisation (MDAVO), which spearheaded petitions and agitations. Sustained pressure forced the Manipur government to negotiate, and on 19 June 1993 a Memorandum of Agreement was signed setting out rehabilitation, resettlement, and compensation terms. The agreement promised that resettlement would be completed within two years.

That promise went largely unfulfilled, fuelling decades of further protest. The dam site became a heavily militarised zone, with armed forces deployed to enable construction – something MDAVO condemned as a violation of indigenous peoples’ rights. The organisation also accused the state of using “divide and rule” tactics among affected communities, who span the Tangkhul Naga, Kuki, and Meitei populations.

Filling the reservoir under protest

The conflict came to a head when the Irrigation and Flood Control Department began blocking the Thoubal River from January 2015 to fill the reservoir. Upstream, agricultural land, grazing grounds, and forest areas of villages such as Chadong were submerged. Downstream, the river dried up, and water leaks in the freshly filled dam forced families in villages like Tumukhong and Itham to abandon their homes for higher ground out of fear the dam might break. Critics highlighted that this was happening without a proper downstream impact assessment in place.

Deforestation, oil, and the push for sustainable development

Manipur’s environmental struggles extend well beyond individual dams. The state’s forests – which cover a large majority of its geographical area – face pressure from roads, railways, pipelines, and other infrastructure tied to broader connectivity policies. Activists warn that the Tipaimukh project alone threatens to destroy tens of thousands of hectares of forest land, while rampant logging in the same region continues largely unchecked.

Resource extraction has added a new front to these movements. Oil companies began exploration surveys in villages in Imphal West from around May 2017 despite community objections. Local organisations have raised concerns about threats to groundwater and soil quality, and have pushed for stricter monitoring of companies operating in the region. The underlying theme echoes the dam disputes: a demand to be consulted before, not after, decisions are made about indigenous land.

Toward a different model

Resistance in Manipur is not simply about saying “no” to development. Many activists argue for a model where energy and infrastructure are pursued with genuine community participation and respect for land rights. At the official level too, there are gestures in this direction – the state government has launched community-focused conservation efforts, including a recent initiative emphasising the role of women in forest protection. Whether such programmes meaningfully address the grievances raised by displaced and affected communities remains an open question.

A common thread of resistance

Across Tipaimukh, Loktak, and Mapithel, the same pattern repeats. Large projects are framed as engines of progress, while the communities most affected are sidelined in the planning. In each case, ordinary people – fishers, farmers, students – have organised, petitioned, litigated, and protested, sometimes for decades. Their movements raise a difficult and enduring question for any democracy: how do you weigh the promise of electricity and flood control against the certain loss of forests, fisheries, and homes?

These struggles also show that environmental activism in Manipur is inseparable from the politics of indigenous rights and consent. The dams may be made of concrete, but the resistance is built on a claim about who has the right to decide the future of a shared landscape.

What do you think? Should large hydroelectric projects be allowed to proceed when the communities most affected have not given their consent? And is it possible to design “development” in ecologically fragile regions like Manipur in a way that genuinely protects both livelihoods and biodiversity?

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Table of Contents

Why Manipur’s ecology is worth fighting for 🔗

The Tipaimukh Dam: a project that united critics 🔗

What is at stake ecologically 🔗

A protest that crossed borders 🔗

Loktak Lake: the “dam of sorrows” 🔗

How a barrage changed everything 🔗

Evictions and the fishers’ resistance 🔗

The Mapithel Dam: four decades of dissent 🔗

Consent that was never sought 🔗

MDAVO and the long negotiation 🔗

Filling the reservoir under protest 🔗

Deforestation, oil, and the push for sustainable development 🔗

Oil exploration and consent 🔗

Toward a different model 🔗

A common thread of resistance 🔗