The proliferation of hydroelectric projects across the Himalaya leads to the transformation of a wide range of mountain landscapes. While the displacement concerns and environmental impacts involved in the creation of these projects are often recognized (Dharmadhikary 2008), the developmental gains they offer to governments frequently take priority. Amid the environment-versus-development debates that emerge in public and governmental realms, seemingly marginal arguments about the effect such projects have on personal, cultural, and religious terrains have a tendency to be overlooked. In this chapter, I argue that attention to these latter terrains reveal the subjective implications of dam building. I also argue that when such projects are implemented in seemingly ‘remote’ (Hussain 2015; Tsing 2005) sections of the Himalaya, attention to these subjectivities reveals competing desires for and against the wider project of modernity.

The case study that orients this discussion revolves around a suite of subjective domains ignited by a hydroelectric project known as the Tehri Dam in the Garhwal Himalaya of India's Uttarakhand State. Tehri was a mammoth dam that took decades to construct. It resulted in a final product that, depending on the eyes of the beholder, is viewed as an engineering triumph, an environmental monstrosity, or an affront to regionally important lifeways. In my examination of the dam's implementation, I first focus on the controversies that arose as it was being developed. This is followed by an examination of how people adapt in the aftermath of the dam's completion.

The data from which this discussion draws combines engagement with published literature and the insights obtained while doing ethnographic research in the Garhwal Himalaya.