Majuli faces red alert
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Majuli, situated bang in the middle of the Red River, the Brahmaputra and the largest freshwater island in Asia, waits in trepidation for another monsoon. With the landmass eroding at roughly 7 sq km a year, Majuli’s 1.70 lakh residents are fast losing their lands and livelihoods
Majuli in Assam is poised at the brink of another monsoon.And for its inhabitants, another disaster.
A fluvial landform lying east-west in the middle of the mighty ‘Red River’ -- the Brahmaputra -- Majuli’s story is as singular as its occurrence. Although this largest freshwater island in Asia (also the repository of Assam’s centuries-old neo-Vaishnavite culture) is blessed with fertile alluvium from the river, it is simultaneously cursed by its waters. Severe monsoon flooding is an annual ritual here, with homes inundated, standing crops destroyed and a heavy toll on humans.
But what follows the flooding is worse. The autumn and winter idyll here is deceptive, for this is when highly saturated sediment brought by the floods combines with strong undercurrents in the Brahmaputra to erode vast stretches of the island’s landmass. In recent years, embankments in Assam’s upriver mainland towns have further intensified bank-slumping in Majuli. During the rains, when the river widens and strikes against the embankments, there is a backlash that the island’s fragile shores cannot withstand.
For most of the 1.70 lakh islanders, mostly Mising, Deori and Sonowal Kachari tribals, life is uncertain. Organic agro-farming is the mainstay of the island’s economy (pisciculture, boatmaking, dairying, pottery and sericulture constitute a few of the minor economic activities), and the inevitable result of erosion has been loss to livelihood. While prosperous landed farmers have been reduced to penury, farmers with meagre landholdings have been deprived of their livelihood altogether.
Jamini Payeng of Upar Sonowal village lost her three bighas offarmland to erosion after two waves of flooding last year. She and members of her family now eke out a living as farm labourers. Back in 2000, the merciless Brahmaputra snatched away five bighas belonging to Muktinath Saikia of Salmara-Besamara village. Eight years on, his family survives on his petty job at the Char Area Development Authority office. “Even two seasons ago our women could augment the household income by making pottery items for sale. Now with the erosion becoming acute, even the particular clay required for pottery has become scarce,” says Saikia.
Payeng and Saikia are mere examples. With the land shrinking and the number of landless increasing, people all across the island seek out odd jobs for a paltry income. Their despair is compounded when farm activities cease during the season of floods. “In the eight years since 2000, 9,027 families have lost their homes and croplands to erosion. Of these, 4,598 families eke out a living as agricultural labourers, daily wage earners and driftwood and fish sellers. And even these means of livelihood are limited these days,” says Arindam Barua, Majuli’s senior divisional officer (SDO).
The destructive erosion in Majuli first began with topographical changes in the Brahmaputra caused by the big earthquake of 1950. Thereafter, hungry waters on the island’s northern and southern sides have relentlessly strayed inland. The figures are quite alarming. From 1,256 sq km in 1950, Majuli has now been reduced to a mere 422 sq km. The governor of Assam, Lt Gen (Retd) Ajay Singh, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in June 2007, noted that surveys pegged the rate of erosion on the island at 7.4 sq km per year.
At this rate, the doomsayers predict, Majuli could well cease to exist in 15-20 years!
In the mid-’90s, prominent rural development activist Sanjay Ghose tried out a promising experiment by building a 1.7 km-long, 30-degree experimental flood-and-erosion-resistant slope at Pohardiya, on the island, involving voluntary local labour for 30,000 man-days. Unfortunately, his work drew the attention of the embankment-contractors-ULFA nexus. Ghose was abducted and killed in 1997.
A major fallout of the erosion has been large-scale human displacement. For thousands of once self-sufficient and settled families, the embankments have become their only refuge. Makeshift dwellings, some made out of tarpaulin sheets, crowd both sides of the road over the dykes. Jamini Payeng who has been displaced twice in the last two years, speaks of hundreds who have been rendered homeless seven or eight times in the space of a decade, some of them overnight. Last winter, for instance, several displaced families taking shelter on the Sumoimari embankment had to shift within hours because of a breach. “This year, with 75 families losing their homes to erosion and 1,200 families affected by floods, the embankments have become more crowded,” says Arun Pathak, project officer, Char Area Development Authority. Of the total 210 cadastral and 33 non-cadastral villages on the island, 190 have been seriously affected by flooding this year which damaged 9,135 hectares of standing crop.
Displacement has been especially harsh on the noi-parias or riverbank-dwellers, most of them Mising tribals. Already distressed by a livelihood crisis, it has put their identity and unique culture at risk. “Our traditions and way of life are rooted in the silt of the river. Now with people leading a nomadic existence, community ties are under strain,” says Payeng.
The government’s rehabilitation measures have only compounded the people’s despair. Firstly, the amount of land granted to the displaced (mostly in neighbouring mainland districts) has, by and large, been a mere one or two kathas per family, which is barely enough for a simple dwelling let alone cultivation. Indeed, Assam’s Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi recently advised the displaced to settle in the Brahmaputra’s chars-chaporis (sandbars)as there is a dearth of land in the state! Secondly, land grants are not properly demarcated, leading to quarrels as the land often overlaps that of locals. Thirdly, islanders say community bonds have not been taken into consideration while drawing up resettlement plans; instead, people have been dispersed far and wide.
Also in danger is the tapestry of Assam’s culture preserved in 22 of the original 64 satras, or Vaishnavite monasteries (the rest have all been eroded away) spread around the island. These satras, whichhouse priceless artefacts and writings, have existed since the time of Assam’s 16th century Vaishnavite saint and reformer Sankardeva. They have been centres of spiritual learning, art and culture. “The floodwaters are only just receding. Heavy erosion has already begun in the Bengenaati-Bhogpur region, putting four satras in immediate jeopardy. How long will we survive on hope,” asks Janardhan Goswami, satradhikar of the Uttar Kamalabari satra and president of the Majuli Jila Satra Mahasabha.
Although one hears about aid packages and assurances of saving Majuli from disaster from time to time, on the ground the reality is bleak. Anti-erosion measures taken by the Brahmaputra Board, an organisation under the control of the Ministry of Water Resources and, since 2004, the sole authority for flood and erosion management in Majuli, have not found favour with the people who allege they are “piecemeal”. The water resources ministry claims that a Board project currently underway has spent Rs 41.28 crore on bank stabilisation and RCC porcupine spars that have helped reduce erosion and save crops. A further Rs 159 crore will be spent in the second and third phases on enhanced protection measures like boulder-riveting. “But anti-erosion measures have never been based on proper geo-hydrological parameters. Moreover, most of the embankments that stretch around the island are over 35 years old and have been breached countless times. They have not been empowered in the last 15 years,” says Jagat Hazarika, secretary of the Majuli Suraksha Samannay Mancha (MSSM), an umbrella organisation of groups working to save the island from being washed away. The Haldibari-to-Bechamara breach, for instance, has widened over time into a 3 km opening. Even Assam Governor Ajay Singh, in his June 2007 letter to the prime minister, criticised steps taken by the Brahmaputra Board for the protection of Majuli as “inadequate and temporary in nature”.
Until July this year, anguished and helpless islanders were pinning their hopes on the inclusion of Majuli in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list which would have helped bring it into focus and ensure much-needed funds for its protection. Sadly, Majuli lost the race. Now, until such time as a holistic and scientific model is put in place to save the island, people will continue to be at the mercy of the river.
InfoChange News & Features, June 2009