GUWAHATI: Deepa Rani Payun cannot return to the place she grew up at – her home on the river island of Majuli in Assam does not exist anymore after being devoured by the mighty Brahmaputra. It has been 16 years since Payun’s good rural life at her native village of Kaniajan was disrupted. Since then she has been holed up in a shelter along a river embankment. Like her, thousands of other displaced villagers are leading a cluttered existence due to lack of basic amenities after their homes and lands were ravaged by floods.
“I have seen it all since I was a child. The river swallowed everything, bit by bit,” said Payun, 46, who is single and stays with her elder brother. Her family lost 120 bighas of land, much of it agricultural parcel, to the Brahmaputra.Payun belongs to the Mishing tribe, a community that lives by the river bank. “The Mishings in rural Assam usually live on stilts in spacious areas, and rear pigs. But now, there is hardly any space for the children to play on the embankment or the pigs to be reared,” she said.
It’s not just the floods, however, that cause displacement of thousands in Assam every year. Large swathes of land on the north bank of the Brahmaputra have turned into deserts due to siltation. Amulya Pamegam fell victim to the siltation that destroyed his Alimur Mishing Gaon and four adjoining villages.“We relocated to a PWD road near Kamalabari Ghat in 2004. Around 1,000 families from five villages have been living on the roadside since then,” Pamegam, who drives an ambulance, said.
With no access to potable water, some of these displaced people have installed tube wells, while others rely entirely on the Brahmaputra. They have electricity connections at home. The families send their children to nearby schools. Although the government constructed some toilets, many of them had to build it on their own. Problems, however, continue to be aplenty.“As the toilets were built haphazardly and unscientifically, the entire area stinks sometimes,” Pamegam said. “You will not be able to pass through our area during the monsoon.”
Their biggest worry, however, is the fear of eviction. According to the residents, an official from the land revenue department visited the area recently, telling them that they would have to vacate the area as the government wants to widen the road.“Where will we go? We have no idea if we will be resettled elsewhere. We continue to remain landless despite a fight for 10-12 years,” Pamegam said.According to KK Chatradhara of the Northeast Water Talk, which works on water-related issues, there has been a change in the Assam flood pattern in recent years. He cited the case of Dhemaji, a flood-prone district on the north bank of the Brahmaputra.
“There is no flood in Dhemaji this year but some areas which never had it came under its grip. Then, there are other issues related to water. We want to highlight those through stories,” Chatradhara said, adding that though no survey has been conducted so far, it is estimated that 1-1.5 lakh flood-affected people live on the roadside in Assam.“The government has no policy for the resettlement of the people displaced due to floods. However, there have been some cases where the victims were allotted land to settle down,” Chatradhara added.