Mitul Baruah’s Slow Disaster: Life of the storytellers of Majuli

mitul baruah’s book on the people and environment of majuli

Mitul Baruah, who teaches sociology, anthropology and environmental studies, was born and raised in Assam’s Majuli, one of the largest river islands in the world. His recent book, Slow Disaster, shines a light on the challenges faced by residents of the island, from flooding, riverbank erosion to displacement, and the role of the state. Excerpts from an interview:

The scholarship on the environmental crises facing the Brahmaputra Valley has been highly inadequate, overlooking some of the major aspects of the hazardscape. My book is an attempt to advance this literature. Slow Disaster presents an ethnographic account, of how the twin processes of flooding and riverbank erosion have reconfigured the Majuli landscape, and by extension the Brahmaputra Valley. Such an ethnographic study helps us gain an in-depth understanding of the unfolding of the disasters on the ground, how people’s everyday lives are reshaped in the process, and how they cope with such disasters. Being a native of Majuli, I was also able to combine ethnography with my personal insights on the island.

Through the story of Majuli, the book offers a conceptual framework of “slow disaster” — disasters that are incremental, accretive and non-spectacular. Unlike catastrophic events like a tsunami or an earthquake, slow disasters take place in a quiet, everyday manner, often unnoticed. In Majuli, the devastations have been enormous — in terms of the loss of landmass (roughly 600 sq. km. within the course of the 20th century), displacement and migration of families, and the collapse of traditional livelihoods. Yet none of these have been dramatic; rather they have taken place over a long period of time, slowly and quietly. The book argues that slow disasters require a careful spatio-temporal analysis.

Majuli today looks quite different from what it was a few decades ago. Believed to be the largest river island in the world, it remains largely rural and agrarian. However, traditional livelihoods, including agriculture, have suffered significantly due to regular flooding and the loss of land to erosion. Many villages, wetlands, and satras (Vaishnavite monasteries) that were constitutive of the island’s identity have now disappeared from the landscape. Migration of rural youth to big cities (both within and outside Assam) in search of jobs has also gone up in recent years.

At the same time, since its recognition as a district in 2016, Majuli has witnessed a rapid growth of infrastructural projects — concrete roads, bridges, office buildings and resorts. Commercial activities and tourism are also on the rise. Similarly, cultural activities have gained a new momentum, especially to boost the case for Majuli’s recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (the Archaeological Survey of India has nominated the island for this). Thus, what we see in Majuli today are two parallel processes: on the one hand, there’s a steady, albeit slow, deepening of vulnerabilities among riverside communities; on the other, “development” activities seem to have gained traction, and so has the process of cultural rejuvenation. Only time will tell how the two processes will balance themselves out.

I call the people of Majuli extraordinary storytellers because of their almost lyrical description of things around them, including the crises facing them. They have a story to tell about everything — the river, the long boat journeys to sell pottery, the adventures of fishing, the water buffaloes, the otters and ghost stories, life during flood and erosion, and much more. Some of them are so animated and dramatic in their storytelling that they leave me completely awestruck. Sometimes I wonder if storytelling is also a coping mechanism for this disaster-weary population.

The book presents an in-depth analysis of the role of the state in the production of disasters in Majuli. It pays attention to the questions of hydraulic infrastructure, the embankments in particular, as well as everyday functioning of the state, bureaucratic arbitrariness, and the nexus between the state and various non-state actors.