In central India’s Madhya Pradesh, Indigenous women from forest communities are leading protests against the Ken-Betwa river linking project, which aims to address water shortages and generate hydropower.
While the government says it will bring development, villagers argue it is far too little for their ancestral land and livelihoods.
Many face displacement. Local women have turned their protest into a powerful ritual, even staging symbolic funeral pyres to express that the project feels like a death sentence.