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About the Talk
Large hydropower projects are not simply technical or economic interventions. They reorganise landscapes, livelihoods, and political relationships, and the responses they generate cannot be reduced to straightforward support or opposition. Drawing on fieldwork and project documentation in Nepal’s Himalayan region, this talk examines how consent around large dams is assembled through a mix of financial incentives, development narratives, geopolitical anxieties, and expectations of future benefits. Mechanisms such as community shareholding, for instance, position affected populations as stakeholders in the project’s success, tying support to the promise of long-term returns. These arrangements can generate real buy-in, but they are also inherently fragile. Delays, uncertain returns, and shifting (geo)political conditions can erode trust, leaving communities locked into projects without reliable benefits.

As a result, consent is not a one-off outcome of consultation or compensation, but an ongoing process shaped by shifting expectations, project timelines, and political conditions. This helps explain why projects that appear socially acceptable at one moment can quickly become sites of renewed contestation.

The talk reflects on what this means for India, both as a hydropower investor in Nepal and in its domestic context, suggesting that prevailing approaches to participation and benefit-sharing may secure short-term acceptance but struggle to sustain legitimacy over time.

About the Speaker
Dr. Udisha Saklani is a Lecturer in Human Geography and Climate at King’s College London. Her research examines the politics of water, climate adaptation, and infrastructure across the Global South, with a growing focus on how digitalisation and AI are reshaping decision-making and governance in the urban water sector.

Her work has focused extensively on large hydropower development in the Himalayan region, where she has conducted field-based research on how infrastructure projects transform livelihoods, (geo)political relationships, and claims to development, and how consent and contestation emerge around them.

Alongside academia, she has worked as a water policy researcher across South Asia and has advised organisations including UNDP India, the Government of Australia, SPC, and Oxfam Novib. Her research has been published in journals including Geoforum, Environmental Science & Policy, Energy Policy, Water Alternatives, and Renewable Energy.

Udisha holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge and a Master of Public Policy from the National University of Singapore. Prior to joining King’s, she was a Lecturer in Human Geography at Monash University, where she convened and taught postgraduate courses on corporate sustainability and sustainability measurement.