Months ago, in my article “Kashmir’s Hydropower Paradox: Power Rich, People Poor,” I argued that the tragedy of Jammu & Kashmir’s hydropower sector was not technical but political. A region capable of generating enormous energy remained chronically power-deficit because it did not control the value generated from its own rivers.
Recent political statements emerging from Kashmir have only reinforced that argument.
The latest exchange between so-called mainstream political parties over the handing over of hydropower projects to NHPC Limited has exposed something that Kashmiris have known for decades but political elites are only now publicly admitting: the hydropower regime imposed on Jammu & Kashmir has been structurally unequal from the beginning.
What makes the present debate politically significant is not merely the criticism of NHPC agreements. It is the fact that mainstream political actors, many of whom once defended these arrangements or remained silent about them, are now publicly acknowledging that Kashmir has never exercised meaningful control over the economic value generated by its rivers.
For years, any criticism of the hydropower structure in Jammu & Kashmir was dismissed as emotional rhetoric or ideological opposition to development. The argument presented to the people was simple: large hydropower projects would modernize the region, boost infrastructure and integrate Kashmir into a larger national growth story. But decades later, the promises of prosperity remain largely absent from the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Kashmir today continues to face severe electricity shortages during winter months. Industries struggle with unreliable power supply. Small businesses are forced to absorb rising costs. Families endure long hours of power cuts precisely at a time when energy needs are at their highest. Yet this is happening in a region that possesses one of the largest hydropower potentials in South Asia.
That contradiction cannot be explained away as a technical failure or administrative inefficiency. It reflects a deeper political and economic arrangement in which the resource exists locally, but the control and long-term financial benefits remain centralized elsewhere.
The rivers flow through Kashmir. The dams are built on Kashmiri land. Electricity is generated from Kashmiri waters. But the larger share of profits, pricing authority and institutional control lies outside the region. What Kashmir receives in return is a limited free-power allocation and the burden of purchasing electricity at significant cost despite producing it in abundance.
No genuinely equitable federal structure would consider such an arrangement sustainable or just. In economic terms, it resembles a classic extraction model in which a resource-rich periphery generates value that is largely consumed elsewhere while the producing region itself remains dependent.
This is precisely why the current political blame game appears both revealing and deeply ironic.
One political dispensation signed agreements. Another defended them as necessary compromises. Others allowed them to continue without serious attempts at renegotiation or structural reform. Today, almost every party claims that Kashmir deserves greater control over its hydropower resources and a fairer share of the returns.
Yet the reality is that despite changes in governments, alliances and political slogans, the outcome remained remarkably consistent: Kashmir’s hydropower sector stayed under external operational and financial dominance.
The politics changed. The dependency did not.
The most troubling aspect of this history is that the people of Jammu & Kashmir were repeatedly told that these projects represented development and progress. But development cannot be measured merely by the number of megawatts generated or the size of infrastructure projects. Real development must be judged by whether local populations gain long-term economic security, institutional ownership and decision-making power over their own resources.
If a region rich in water resources continues to suffer energy insecurity while external agencies retain control over revenue-generating infrastructure for decades, then serious questions must be asked about the model itself.
Many hydropower projects in Jammu & Kashmir were initially justified under Build–Own–Operate–Transfer arrangements. The understanding was that after recovering investments and operational costs, the projects would eventually return to the region. However, several projects crossed their cost recovery thresholds years ago, yet the centralized structure continued with little meaningful change.
What was introduced as a temporary framework slowly evolved into a system of prolonged external control.
This is why the present debate matters beyond partisan accusations. It has reopened a much larger question about ownership, governance and economic justice in Jammu & Kashmir.
Who controls Kashmir’s natural resources? Who decides how they are used? And most importantly, who benefits from them?
These questions are no longer confined to hydropower alone. They are increasingly connected to broader anxieties about land, infrastructure, water and economic autonomy in the region.
A more just and sustainable framework would require substantial increases in free-power allocation, clear timelines for project transfers, local ownership participation, and guaranteed energy security for the people of Jammu & Kashmir. It would also require political honesty from parties that now criticize policies they once enabled, defended or failed to challenge.
Ordinary Kashmiris have long understood a reality that political elites are only now beginning to publicly acknowledge: the region generates enormous wealth through its rivers, yet the people living beside those rivers remain economically marginalized from the benefits.
That, perhaps, is the central tragedy of Kashmir’s hydropower story. The rivers never stopped flowing through Kashmir. Only the power flowed elsewhere.
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