Visibilising hydro-social injustice in Manipur, India

Since independence in 1947, the politics of water infrastructure have loomed large in India. A seven-decade ethos linking development to national progress, likening dams to ‘modern temples’ in India’s ever-increasing quest for development, has come at a terrible cost to many marginalised communities. Disrupted Flows is one such story, focusing on a once-thriving riparian community that has been flooded, fragmented, and forced off their land in the name of development.

In the mid-1970s, the Manipur government proposed the Thoubal Multipurpose Project, damming the region's longest river, flooding more than 2,000 hectares of land, directly affecting 22 villages, and destroying livelihoods, identity, and generations of traditional practises.

This website showcases the visual diaries and audio recordings created by the communities devastated by the project’s Mapithel Dam. It illustrates their struggle to navigate their changing world and their place in it.

Combining insights from rights-based journalism, visual politics, and the politics of listening, Disrupted Flows interrogates the loss and damage experienced by communities disrupted and displaced in the name of development and explores how their story can be told through collaborative journalism practice for global audiences.