Standing knee-deep in the Ken River, with mud smeared on her face to symbolize a connection to land her family has farmed for more than a century, Bitti Bai Kondar is among hundreds of tribal residents voicing anger over an $87 billion government project to link India's rivers.
The mother of four adult sons, who are all protesting with her, has watched as rising water from work on the project has flooded her village. But the protesters say they'd rather die than leave their ancestral home without better compensation.
"The government is taking our land and water without giving us another place to live," said Kondar, who is among scores of women who have shown their defiance by lying on mock funeral pyres.
"They're digging up our soil to build their dam, but they're not giving us enough compensation to rebuild our lives."
The dispute is an early test for India's ambitious plan to link some 30 rivers nationwide, which has been decades in the making but only gathered momentum in recent years, championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The aim is to redistribute water to drought-prone regions, boosting food security by aiding tens of millions of farmers in a country where agriculture remains a major employer. Critics say the programme risks uprooting communities and damaging fragile ecosystems.
Connecting Madhya Pradesh's Ken River to Uttar Pradesh's Betwa River is phase one, with a cost of about $4.6 billion.
The government has offered residents along the Ken River in Panna district at least 1.25 million Indian rupees ($13,000) per hectare, more than double the initial offer of 500,000 rupees.
Usha Parmar, the district administrator, said compensation to over 90% of people had already been paid.
However, some residents argue the payments don't cover all their losses.
Dhaniram Bhatnagar, a local priest from the area, said the temple where he worked had been completely submerged.
"The temple was my only source of income and now it is gone," he said.
"The compensation offered by the government is only for my home, and that is not enough."
Submerged trees in the catchment area of the Ken River near the Majhgawan Dam in Ajaygarh, Madhya Pradesh, India, September 20, 2026.
Environmental concerns
Environmentalists have long opposed the project, saying the proposed 2-km-long Daudhan Dam on the Ken River will inundate some 9,000 hectares (22,200 acres) of land, including a significant portion of the Panna Tiger Reserve, one of India's most successful tiger conservation programmes.
The government has said the environmental impact is "unavoidable", but can be mitigated through tree planting, wildlife conservation and other measures.
Some critics even question the scientific basis for the multi-billion-dollar plan.
"There is a big question mark over this project's feasibility because it rests on a hydrological presumption: a surplus in the Ken basin and a deficit in the Betwa basin," said Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.
"That presumption has never been conclusively established."
A government spokeswoman said she could not immediately comment on the scientific assumptions underpinning the project and referred Reuters to an August 21 statement that said the project would help address chronic water scarcity in the Bundelkhand region, providing irrigation, drinking water and hydropower.