The aim of this magazine is to connect the communities of Hindu Kush, Himalaya, Karakorum and Pamir by providing them a common accessible platform for production and dissemination of knowledge.
Indigenous Torwali people’s resistance to harmful hydropower in Swat Pakistan
By Zubair Torwali
“We are a nation.” For most people, this phrase is an abstract political expression. For us—the Torwali people of upper Swat—it is a lived reality rooted not in institutions but in land, river, language and memory. Our identity is inseparable from the mountains we inhabit, the rivers we revere, the pastures we traverse, and the ancestral customs we continue to practice. There is no evidence of any community predating us in this region. Our customary systems of governance, our inherited environmental knowledge, and our linguistic heritage all testify to our ancient presence in these valleys.
Even today, those who migrated to Karachi, Hyderabad, or Rawalpindi still call this region watan—a word far deeper than “homeland.” A Torwali proverb conveys this precisely: tu watan ge ke bedu, watana ke wad—your body may reside elsewhere, but your heart belongs to the homeland. This sense of belonging is not metaphorical. It is tangible, geographic, ecological. We have named every cliff, pond, ravine, rock, and stream in Torwali. Our language—Indo-Aryan yet infused with pre-Aryan and Gandharan layers—has evolved in direct conversation with this landscape. Our poetry draws metaphors from rivers, snowfields, alpine flowers, high cliffs, and cedar forests. One of our poets calls the valley “precious, pure in its air and water,” whose “heaven-sent bounty reigns over all beauty.”
This intimacy with the land is not nostalgia. It is the fouandation of our way of life. Our ancient dheemi system for sharing forests and communal lands still functions today. Our water-sharing methods—Jay Yaab, and in Gurnal, Derel, Menekhal—remain active in villages such as Puran Gam and Bhim Garhi. Our seasonal agricultural calendar, derived from the teachings of Bahadar Kaga, continues to guide farmers. These systems are not remnants; they are living, functional examples of Indigenous governance that predate the modern state.
It is this rootedness—this deep, embodied relationship with land—that makes our rivers sacred. Not in a symbolic sense, but in an existential one. When we lose a river, we lose more than water; we lose history, identity, imagination, and livelihood.
This is exactly what happened to the Daral River in Bahrain in the Swat Valley.
There was a time when standing on the Daral bridge in June or July felt like standing beside a river in paradise. The icy spray refreshed the skin; the air carried the scent of glaciers; our fields and orchards thrived on its water. Children learned to swim in its pools; women fetched water from its sweet springs; elders walked beside it with pride. The river was a living presence in our daily lives. To us, it was the manifestation of the goddess Dara, a divine gift whose flow connected our present to our ancestors.
Then came the hydropower project.
The “electricity crisis” was used as justification. Reports were drafted in distant offices; promises were made; jobs were offered; illusions of “development” were shown. Despite strong resistance from the community, the project was imposed. Profit—not electricity—was the real priority, as is often the case in such schemes. The Asian Development Bank eventually withdrew due to our protests, but by then the government had already deployed its colonial-era tactics: inflaming old disputes, dividing communities into factions, and reducing a collective cultural struggle into an administrative file.
Today, the Daral is a lesson written in water. The powerhouse opens and closes the river’s flow at will, leaving long stretches of riverbed dry. Mosquitoes breed along its banks even in late autumn. When the powerhouse tunnel fills with water, sudden releases have nearly drowned children; only the courage and quick reflexes of local boys—who grew up swimming in the old Daral—prevented tragedy.
That loss has become a warning to us. Once a river is turned into a machine, everything connected to it—culture, ecology, economy, identity—begins to unravel.
It is against this backdrop that the people of upper Swat now resist the Madyan Hydropower Project.
The 207 MW project is one among at least eighteen schemes planned between Madyan and Kalam. Three of them—Madyan, Asrit-Kedam, and Kalam-Asrit—together claim 675 MW. Add dozens of feeder projects on Daral, Gurnai, Kedam, Mankiyal, Gabral and Utror, and the entire river system is at risk of being carved into tunnels. While these projects appear to belong to provincial or private entities, the real decision-making power lies with global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Among these, the Madyan project has been declared a priority.
PEDO and the provincial environmental authorities attempted to push the project through in July 2023 with a “public hearing” held inside a hotel in Madyan. The people of Bahrain and surrounding areas attended in large numbers; the pain of the Daral project was still fresh. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency issued an NOC anyway.
This is when the Save River Swat Movement—Darya-e Swat Bachau Tehreek—stepped in. In July 2024, it formally launched a resistance that has continued for fifteen months with remarkable strength, discipline, and community unity. This movement made a strategic decision: instead of fighting only local officials, it directly engaged the financier. From August 2024 onward, we initiated formal complaints with the World Bank, demanding a review under its own safeguards.
The past 15 months have been consumed by hundreds of letters to the Bank, meetings in Peshawar and Islamabad, online sessions with Bank staff, and extensive dialogue with PEDO under the district administration’s watch. We have informed other international institutions, including UN entities. On the ground, village jirgas have been held from Madyan to Kalam. A massive demonstration took place on 23 August 2024 in Bahrain; youth marched again a month later. Press conferences in Swat and Islamabad brought national attention. Media campaigns were launched; articles were written; even children sent letters to the Prime Minister. The movement has also approached the High Court and prepares further litigation.
What is most extraordinary is that this resistance has earned global attention. For the first time, international organizations are closely monitoring a hydropower conflict in northern Pakistan. The World Bank has commissioned a rare study to determine whether the Torwali qualify as an Indigenous people under its policies. This will be the first such official evaluation in the region.
Yet despite this new visibility, the core issue remains the same: consent. Hydropower may be framed as “clean energy,” but the question is not megawatts—it is rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is clear: projects cannot be imposed without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Token hearings, rushed procedures, documents in inaccessible languages, and bureaucratic coercion are not consent; they are extensions of colonial extraction.
We have made our position clear: no project that violates our rights to life, land, language, and culture is acceptable. Development cannot mean destruction. Real development strengthens local communities, protects ecosystems, and aligns with climate realities. What is being pushed here does none of these things.
To us, a river is not a “resource.” It is a relative, a sacred trust, a living memory. To dam it without our consent is to dispossess us of ourselves.
For fifteen months, the people of upper Swat have halted this project through peaceful, disciplined, and informed resistance. Whether we ultimately succeed is uncertain. But this movement has already achieved something larger: it has reawakened the understanding that environmental justice and Indigenous rights are inseparable; that rivers have rights because communities have identities; and that development must be accountable to those who bear its consequences.
Allama Iqbal once wrote that barren lands are never beyond hope. “A drop of dew,” he said, “is enough to make this soil fertile again.” The resistance of the Torwali people is that drop of dew—a sign that dignity, unity, and courage can still transform the fate of a valley.
And as long as the Swat River flows, this movement will continue to defend it.
