Kalbari: An archipelago village in Assam where life is held hostage by recurrent floods and erosion

Kalbari in Assamese means banana orchard. But this story is not attempted to focus on any banana orchard. Kalbari is the name of an archipelago village encompassed by the water of the Subansiri River in the north and Subansiri and Kherkatiya suti in the south under Bihpuria Revenue Circle in Lakhimpur district of Assam. This landscape looks serene and beautiful for its greenery comes out from grassy vegetation and vegetable gardens; houses built on bamboo stilts from north bank embankment. It is a magnificent beauty from a bird’s eye view. But life in Kalbari is not as beautiful as the beauty bestowed upon by the nature.

Human habitation had started in the Kalbari village years back since 2002. The people of the village were peacefully living on the north bank of the Subansiri but the furious river gradually eroded their homestead lands and agricultural lands. According to the local people the whole village disappeared in the erosion in just four years – 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. As the only alternative remained from them were shifting to the little island, they shifted to this river island for survival. But life was not same in this newly settled land.

Photo- Monoj Gogoi

This archipelago vilage, amid the beautiful meandering rivers, would probably be more beautiful in aerial view. But life is becoming harsher for the villagers. Now in Kalbari about 170 families are dwelling on stilted houses made of light materials like bamboo. No big trees are found here but wooden pillars of abundant houses are still towering as remnants in those areas more prone to erosion and pointing to the pillar someone can say, “This is the place where once I built my house”. This clearly indicates they have been squatting within the limited land from place to place. The problem doesn’t end here but it’s the beginning of the untold miseries of the families of Kalbari, the village that consists of four settlements – Kalbari, (again) Kalbari, No 2 Kalbari and Kumatiya Chapori.

A local youth, Bilash Pegu, who is working in a pharmacy in Itanagar, the capital city of Arunachal Pradesh, said both the intensity and frequency of flood in Kalbari have been increasing over the years. He said that in 2006 – 07, when he was a student of class 10 – 11, the flood water level was just in ankle deep. Now astonishingly, in recent years it surges up to four feet which makes lives more miserable in this isolated land, he adds.

Photo- Monoj Gogoi

As all the people belong to the Mising community, the second largest plain tribes (in terms of population) of Assam and build their houses on bamboo stilt, the flood water flow beneath their houses. High velocity of water also poses huge threat to their houses and creates panic during flood. For the people of Kalbari, boats and rafts play a very pivotal role in the flood seasons. Local people informed that the entire village has only 10 small wooden boats with carrying capacity of 10-12 people each which is not enough for about 180 households of the village. Due to inadequacy of boats, panic and anxiety always increase among the sick and pregnant women during monsoon. Women’s privacy becomes a very serious issue too. Transportation is restricted depending on the availability of boats. The villagers say it needs around Rs 50,000 – 60,000 to make a boat which they cannot afford.

Flood water remains there for more than four months in the monsoon but only fluctuations of water level continues to change. For livestock and men, the village has only a small dilapidated high rise platform provided by the government. People complain that this high rise platform is not even adequate for their livestock. They face immense crisis for fodder for their cattle. “The government does not provide any food for our livestock, so we the youths dive in to the deep water to cut grasses for our cattle. It’s a very hard and difficult work to provide edible and clean grasses for our cattle”, Bilash Pegu said. “If we fall sick we need to go to the Bahgorah Mini Hospital or to Bangalmara by crossing the Subansiri river”, He adds.

Photo- Monoj Gogoi

Ajanta Pegu, another youth says, “We cannot grow Kharif crops due to the flood in our own land but we cultivate paddy as shared cropping at Bangalmara, Kashikata, Panbari and Bihpuria at a distances of more 10 km. During those days those involved in agricultural activities stay at farmhouses.” The people of this island also attempted to grow Ahu rice but during the period of harvesting the entire crops were submerged by the flood water. They abandoned sowing Ahu rice for lack of unpredictability of crop yields. The subsidized rice, provided under Public Distribution System (PDS) helps a lot to escape hunger and malnutrition.

What other options remain for them? Yes, Rabi crops – they are growing vegetables and black lentils on the lands adjacent to their houses. They sell their surplus farm produce in Majuli, Bihpuria and Bangalmara; but the amount of cash flow is not enough for household expenditures. This year two families are trying to grow mustard seeds. Just a couple of years ago, about 15 unskilled youths migrated to Kerala to work as labourers but returned to Kalbari for the ongoing Covid-19 situation. “We could not bring money from there as we spend all the money unnecessarily during our stay there. Now we understand the value of money for Covid-19 and the lockdown. We will not do it again,” said one of the returnees.

Photo- Monoj Gogoi

The village has only two small shops to buy their essential commodities but not dependable. An Anganwadi Kendra and a Lower Primary School are also there on stilts. To study beyond class V, the children must cross the Subansiri by boat which consumes immense additional time – walking to a boat, waiting for boat and the journey over the river and again walking to a nearby school and returning home the same way. The children are still continuing their study as everything is normal.

There is no road in the village; actually the village does not need any road to travel. In the monsoon only boats or rafts are used and in winter there is no water, only sand is abundantly available. Anybody can travel between the shanty houses. The village comes under Bahgorah panchayat and Mising Autonomous Council (MAC), but as government activities only houses provided under Prime Minister Awash Yojana (PMAY) exist - nothing else.

Photo- Monoj Gogoi

The department concerned and agencies are still mute spectators to such situations that have been prevailing in many villages in low lying areas. Crores of rupees have been spent in the name of floods control and erosion protection but with no results. Experts and implementing agencies can never assure about reliability and longevity of their structures. Most of the flood prone areas have already been left as there is no solution.

Years after years, the intensity and frequency, and also nature of floods and erosion have been changing. For the changes, scientific communities reveal that climate change is one of the major drivers in changing these types of disasters. Do our experts have any scientific approach to confront the upcoming floods and erosion?

Monoj Gogoi

Monoj Gogoi is an Environmental Activist based in Dhemaji. The views expressed are the author’s own. He can be reached at [email protected]