Riverine Ramble

AS the plane nears Guwahati, the main city of Assam and indeed of the entire Northeast, one is immediately struck by the immensity of the Brahmaputra river below. I had found it difficult to believe that Majholi, an island of almost 1,000 sq km—the largest riverine island in the world—could actually exist in the middle of a river. After my first view of the Brahmaputra, I saw how it was possible. The Ganga, the Narmada and the Cauvery may be big rivers, but the Brahmaputra is truly vast. At its narrowest point in Assam at Guwahati, there is a bridge which is almost a mile long. At Dibrugarh, the width of the river is an awesome 14 miles. The Brahmaputra dominates Assamese life like no other river does the life of any other Indian state. It is both a river of sorrow and a river of munificence. Seasonal floods kill hundreds every year but the floods also spread the rich silt over much of the Brahmaputra valley. "Put a stick into the soil and it will sprout in a few days," the Assamese tell you with only a touch of exaggeration. If the hydroelectric potential of the Brahmaputra was fully tapped, it could generate half the total power being currently generated in the country. But don't tell that to Medha Patkar. The riverine island of Majholi is where activist and social worker Sanjay Ghose was based before his mysterious disappearance. Everybody I spoke to was convinced that he is dead. His body has not been found, probably because it was weighted and thrown into the Brahmaputra. If it is any consolation to his numerous admirers and to his family, his death has created widespread revulsion against his killers, the grandiosely titled United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).