The river runs red

But 500 years later, it is not just that the outside world has touched Majuli, nature herself has threatened its very existence. Today, the lives of about 1.50 lakh islanders, devout Vaishnavites as well as the colourful Mishing tribals, are at stake, as well as the four other Vaishnavite monasteries which were set up along the lines of the one dedicated to Mahaprusha Shankardeva.

On Tuesday, as this correspondent travelled toMajuli from the Nimati-ghat near Jorhat, the turbulent waters of the Brahmaputra had already crossed the red mark, while the ferry which was transporting about 300 people to the island was almost washed away.

Until three decades ago, Majuli (which means island in Assamese) encompassed an area of 1245 sq km. Today, it has shrunk to about 700 sq km, with the unpredictable Brahmaputra continuing to slice off more of its soil.Says Ananda Hazarika, a geography teacher in the local Majuli college, “This island, which has been proposed for inclusion as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO, is getting reduced day by day, and it shouldn’t be long before it disappears all together. In the process, Assam will lose one of its finest centres of local culture and art.” Hazarika has pioneered the campaign to save Majuli.

Cultural centre

The 22 monastries of Majuli had become the nerve centres of Assamese culture, with their traditional bhaona, a 500-year-old traditional open-air theatre form, satriya dances,colourful boat races and handicrafts. “But all this will disappear soon, unless something is done urgently about it,” adds Hazarika sadly.

Majuli’s problem of flooding and soil erosion is part of the general havoc that the Brahmaputra has wrought on the entire state of Assam. Dykes and embankments constructed by the state flood control department have not been able to rectify the problem. Laments state flood control minister Pramod Gogoi, “Funds from the Centre for protecting the island are just not that forthcoming.”

Last year the Centre, under the erstwhile United Front government, had constituted a high-powered expert committee to suggest measures to save Majuli.

The committee in turn suggested a series of short-term and long-term measures, with the total sum during the ninth plan period pegged at Rs 75 crore. This included three major schemes for 1998-99. A construction of a dowel bundh along the PWD road from Kamalabri to the main Brahmaputra dyke costing Rs 3.10 crore. The strengthening ofthe check bundh at Dakhinpaat cost Rs 1.79 crore and the protection of the Kaniajan area costing Rs 1.94 crore. Only the investment for the first has been so far cleared by the Planning Commission.

No longer secure

The soil erosion has affected the security of the people here.“Local inhabitants, especially those inhabiting the southern and western parts of the island, have been reduced to nomads. If they stay in one place this year, they are forced to shift bag and baggage to another the next year,” says Karuna Dutta, an MLA representing the Majuli constituency.

Only last week he had led a delegation of 284 families from Lower Majuli to the Jorhat deputy commissioner, seeking rehabilitation. They have been rendered homeless at least ten times during the past two decades.

While official efforts to save the island have not yielded much success, one man who tried out an experiment to ensure the survival of Majuli was renowned rural development activist Sanjoy Ghose of AVARD-NE (Association ofVoluntary Agencies for Rural Development). During 1996-97, he along with his associates, had in fact constructed an experimental flood-resistant, erosion-resistant 1.7 km slope at Pohardiya, which involved shram-daan, or voluntary labour, to the tune of 30,000 man-days by the local people.

The slope, having an inclination of 30 degrees, involved an expenditure of only Rs 18,437 according to an AVARD-NE report. Ghose himself had, a few weeks before he was abducted by the ULFA, claimed that the cost was “at least ten times less than what any government agency would have spent.”

This Pohardiya slope experiment incidentally withstood erosion during the floods of 1997, although it is a fact that this time it is under at least five feet of flood-water.

One well-documented report prepared by E.F. Muller, a renowned flood-control engineer of South Africa, has given an extensive description of the geology and hydrology of Majuli. According to him, the island consists entirely of sand and silt deposits withfertile deposits of fine silt and clayey silts of varying depths on the surface.

Mass of moving sand

The geology of the entire island is complex and is subject to extensive earthquake activity. The underlying rock lay, lying deep below the river bed, does not in anyway affect the movement or configuration of the mass of sand continually moving in the bed of the Brahmaputra in which Majuli is situated.

This large mass of moving sand in the river bed is augmented by the large silt-load of the river during the flood season, claims Muller.According to Muller, Majuli has lost about 80 million cubic metres of valuable soil between 1974 and 1993, which after being carried down by the river creates further problems since it is deposited down the river. Had a sum of Rs 25 crore been spent on protection measures during that period (1974-1993), this colossal loss of 80 million cubic metres of soil, running into about 40 sq km, could have been saved from erosion, he argues.

Sanjoy Ghose’s experimentincidentally has been, by and large, endorsed by Muller. Luckily, following Muller’s report, as also Sanjoy Ghose’s experiment, the standing committee of the Brahmaputra Board, an organisation under the control of the ministry of water resources, has approved a Rs 9.7 lakh project to study the erosion and flood-related problems of Majuli. The Central Water Commission too has suggested hydraulic model studies along the vulnerable reaches of the island for formulating long-term measures.

But these projects are yet to take off, and it will take years if not decades to implement the measures that these studies will suggest.

Ananda Hazarika, for one, feels that help may come too late. Says he,“Remote sensing data has said that the width of the Brahmaputra has increased from 6.75 km to 8.95 km on the eastern side of Majuli during 1972-1992, and even the naked eye can see it is getting wider still.”It’s as if the people of Majuli are being chased from one place to another by the mighty red river, while thearea of the island continues to shrink day after day, year after year.

What’s worse, nobody in the outside world seem to be too bothered about it. Sanjoy Ghose had tried to join hands with the local people to fight the floods and erosion. He was killed for his efforts by the ULFA. Today, Majuli’s people are left alone and bereft in the face of a massive ecological tragedy.