Like his father and grandfather before him, Abul Hussein rose at midnight to paddle his boat into the oily mid-current of the mighty Brahmaputra River.

He cast his nets until dawn, when he took his haul of catfish, eel and trout to market in Guwahati, the capital of India’s northeastern state of Assam.

His has always been a precarious profession. Even on a good day, he earns barely enough to feed himself and his five sons. But now he has a far greater concern than his dwindling daily catch: he fears that the river which sustains him and millions of others in South Asia will disappear altogether.

China is considering damming the Brahmaputra, which begins as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet before cascading down through northeast India and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. The idea is to divert much of the flow to the Yellow River to ease water shortages in northern China that threaten to undermine economic growth and social stability.

Those downstream, however, fear that the project would bring economic and ecological disaster, as well as disrupting India’s own plans to harness the Brahmaputra’s waters.

“The river is our life source. Without it, we’re doomed,” said Mr Hussein. “We’d have to find a new job, a new life.”

Chinese officials deny adopting the plan and many experts dismiss it as fantasy. But Indian officials remain unconvinced, mindful of China’s penchant for gargantuan water projects and its opaque political system.

They plan to raise the issue in talks with President Hu Jintao, who arrives in Delhi today for the first visit by a Chinese head of state since 1996.

The controversy illustrates the enduring friction between India and China, which fought a border war in 1962 and are now in a race to claim global superpower status. India has long bristled at Chinese sales of weapons and nuclear technology to Pakistan. Tensions surfaced again last week when Sun Yuxi, the Chinese Ambassador to India, reasserted Beijing’s claim to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal.

Few believe that China would invade Arunachal, but there is genuine concern that it could one day claim the Brahmaputra’s waters.

China recently finished the $25 billion Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest water conservancy project, and work has begun on another to take water from the Yangtze through a giant canal to the parched north. Now China is debating the "Great Western Route Water Diversion Project", which would divert the Brahmaputra where it does a U-turn through the world’s deepest canyon before entering India.

The plan is being championed by Guo Kai, 73, a water expert who claims to have the support of 15 retired generals and Chinese leaders.

He proposes building a network of dams, canals, tunnels and aqueducts to divert 200 billion cubic metres of water annually to the Yellow River from the Brahmaputra and five other rivers. “It can quench the thirst of all China,” Mr Guo said. “The water supply can last for 1,000 years.”

Downstream its consequences could be quite the reverse, according to Indian experts. They say Mr Guo’s scheme could be disastrous for the 185 million people of northeastern India and Bangladesh. In the state of Assam, for example, 80 per cent of the population is involved in agriculture, depending on the Brahmaputra for irrigation. Assam also gets 60 per cent of its power from hydro electric dams on the river and its tributaries. “We are firmly opposed to the Chinese plan,” said Ripun Bora, a government spokesman. “We will not allow our water to be taken by another country.”

Indian experts also fear that one of the region’s regular earthquakes, which can hit 8.0 on the Richter scale, could destroy the proposed Chinese dam, causing devastating flooding downstream.

Nor would the impact be confined to the area immediately downstream. The Chinese scheme would disrupt India’s own plans for a massive water diversion project to ease shortages in its south and west.

For decades, India has been considering a plan to link the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and other rivers through a network of canals to channel floodwater to its drought-stricken regions.

The $120 billion “Inter-linking Rivers Programme” appeared to have been put on the backburner, but President Kalam called last year for it to be revived. “I feel that it has the promise of freeing the country from the endless cycle of floods and droughts,” he said.

The World Bank has recommended that the Government seriously consider the project. But Indian water experts have dismissed it as a wasteful vanity project — just as some Chinese experts have attacked Mr Guo’s scheme.

In the meantime, Mr Hussein is teaching his sons to fish, just as his father taught him. But he wonders whether they should be learning a different trade.

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