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A journey from Dibrugarh to Majuli along the northern side of the Brahmaputra, exploring how communities, particularly the Mising tribe, live with floods and the river’s constant erosion. From stilt houses and farming to pottery and erosion-control structures, the journey reveals how closely everyday life is intertwined with the restless river.
Journey Along the Brahmaputra: Read Part 1 – Dibrugarh →
Our journey from Dibrugarh to Majuli took us across the Bogibeel Bridge to the northern bank of the Brahmaputra. From there, we travelled along black-topped flood-protection embankments, which also serve as roads.
Assam is a flood-prone state, with the restless Brahmaputra frequently changing course and constantly eating away land. Flood protection is therefore a priority.
Note: The massive July–August floods in Sivasagar, on the southern side of the Brahmaputra, will be covered in the next post.
The image below shows one such preparation for floods: geo-bags being filled for use in flood and erosion protection.
The local reporter, Mittu, was my guide around Majuli, one of the largest inhabited river islands. He took me to a place where, just 15 days earlier, the river had changed course and eaten away part of the bank, as shown in the image below. The river was already flowing at danger levels. Standing there, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the land beneath our feet could disappear at any moment.
Just a short distance from this freshly eroded bank was a huge black erosion-protection structure. This is a geotextile tube. Made of heavy-duty fabric, the tube is filled with locally available soil and river silt and laid along the riverbank, sometimes for kilometres, to protect and stabilise the bank against erosion. I tried walking on it to see how far it went, but eventually gave up. It just went on and on.
We then went into the village for whose protection the huge geo-textile tube erosion-control structure had been built. We learnt from the villagers that the entire village had already been displaced twice after their land was eaten away by the Brahmaputra. Now, once again, they were vulnerable.
Without any prompting, the villagers volunteered that they did not agree with the way the Brahmaputra Board had built the erosion-control structure. They believed it would not protect them. They said that they see how the river behaves every day in ways that the Board’s engineers cannot, and that working with them could lead to better-designed protection structures. This was something I encountered repeatedly in conversations with people throughout my journey.
The house above is built on stilts and belongs to a Mising family. The Mising are one of the largest tribal communities in Assam. They live close to the Brahmaputra and on its ever-changing floodplains and have generations of experience living with the rhythms of this restless river.
Their traditional houses are raised on stilts, helping protect the living space when floodwaters rise. Such houses were a common sight along the northern bank of the Brahmaputra as we travelled from Dibrugarh towards Majuli.
People were busy working in the paddy fields, tilling the land and planting paddy. We saw textile looms in houses, where women would weave in their free time. In the evenings, we saw families making apong, the traditional rice beer.
What struck me was how self-sufficient life here appeared to be. They grew rice and potatoes, caught fish from the river, reared pigs and chickens, and grew mustard, from which they pressed their own oil. They used locally available bamboo to build their houses. They wove their own textiles and even brewed their own rice beer. Much of what was needed for everyday life seemed to come from the land, the river and their own labour.
Not exactly a picture of capitalism here.
And there was the warmth. They were kind enough to invite a complete stranger into their home and share their apong with me.
We also visited the local pottery area, again located right next to the river. The Brahmaputra provides a particular kind of silt that is especially suited for pottery.
As can be seen in the image below, the technique is quite different from the wheel-based pottery that we generally see in Karnataka. Here, the pots are shaped entirely by hand, without the use of a conventional potter’s wheel. The women use their hands, along with a few simple tools, to gradually shape the clay into a pot.
The river provides not just the clay, but even the wood used to fire the pots. During the monsoon, the Brahmaputra carries lots of logs, which are hauled out of the river and stacked. The logs are later used to fire the pots.
As I write this post, several reports are emerging on what caused the July–August floods in Assam. One article stands out for me: Upper Assam’s flood catastrophe is a direct result of river and mountain grabbing by Mitul Baruah in Scroll.
He writes: “Assamese society has been traditionally a flood-dependent society, not a flood-fearing or flood-resisting one.” That is exactly what I saw as I travelled along the Northern bank of the Brahmaputra from Dibrugarh to Majuli: People living with floods. People deeply connected to the Brahmaputra
The story of Sivasagar, on the southern side of the Brahmaputra, where the flood damage was extensive, is very different. As my colleagues from the North East Water Talks programme told me, Sivasagar is generally a dry area where flooding is not a major concern. So when the floods came, people were not prepared. As the waters rose rapidly, many simply did not know what to do. That story is for the next post.
