Ratna Bharali Talukdar

large_01-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-2Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

medium_01-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-2Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

small_01-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-2Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

thumbnail_01-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-2Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

01-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-2Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

Hasan Ali's life is as fragile as the
 
 char
 
 on which he lives. Unlike many
 
 char
 
 -dwellers, who shift to the riverbank or
beyond when the river Brahmaputra erodes their land, Ali moved to a
 
 char
 
 from Panikhaiti village along the bank –
making a reverse journey into uncertainty.
 
 Panikhaiti is a village in Mahtoli
panchayat of Assam’s Kamrup district.
 
 “When floods and erosion washed away our
house three years ago, leaving me without a paisa, I came to this
 
 char
 
 , where I could at least erect a roof
over my head to survive,” Ali says.

02-Pari-fellowship-article-1-Photo-1-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_people.jpg

Ali had three bigha (seven bigha is equal to one hectare) of agricultural land when they settled on the char , but the entire plot has been lost to erosion over the last three years. He has no idea where he will shift next, when another bout of displacement occurs due to constant erosion of the char .  Chars – the sandbars or small sandy islands in the braided river – are formed by the mighty Brahmaputra all along its 728-kilometres east-west stretch in Assam. They account for about 5 per cent of the total area of the state, and are spread across 14 districts and 55 blocks.Chars are an integral part of the fluvial process of the river and its tributaries, states the Assam Human Development Report , 2014. Suspended particles and the bed load combine during floods to create these almond-shaped formations. Their rich alluvial soil is ideal for crops such as mustard, sugarcane, jute, peanuts, sesame seeds, black gram, potatoes and other vegetables. But the height of a char is never greater than the level of the highest flood, keeping them at perpetual risk of destruction.There are 2,251 char villages in the Brahmaputra valley. They sustain a population of more than 24 lakhs, over 90 per cent of them migrant Muslim families from erstwhile East Bengal, according to the Socio-Economic Survey Report (2002-03; the most recent population data available) published by the Directorate of Char Areas Development, government of Assam.

03-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-2-PHOTO-7-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_people.jpg

The colonial British government, in an attempt to extract revenues from agricultural lands, encouraged poor farmers from East Bengal to migrate and cultivate these chars . The generations that have grown up here speak a Bengali dialect as well as Assamese, and are listed as speakers of Assamese in the population census.  Ali’s char has three different names – Panikhaiti (the eastern part, where he lives), Lakhichar (the middle) and Morishakandi (the western part). Each refers to the original villages from which the inhabitants had been displaced.It takes around 25 minutes to reach the char on a bhutbhuti (a mechanised country boat) from the riverbank. The river between the char and the bank is about three kilometres wide today – it was only a small stream of the Brahmaputra  separated the char and Panikhaiti village from the riverbank when it was formed nearly 10 years ago. The char , roughly two kilometres wide and two kilometres long, presently houses over 800 displaced families, residents estimate.We find only the elderly, mothers and children at home. While young girls here help in household work and are married off by 14 or 15, most of the young boys migrate for work. They go to Guwahati and other cities in the North East, or even as far afield as Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai to work as construction workers, security guards, industrial labourers, or hotel staff. All of them narrate a similar story of displacement and subsequent hardship. Ali’s elder son has also migrated to Guwahati to work as a daily wage-earner after completing his higher secondary exams.

04-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-3-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_people.jpg

The older men usually do not migrate because they are not considered employable by contractors; they work on their own plots of land or as agriculture labourers on other farms. Ali, now around 60, has stayed back too. He survives on fishing, earning barely Rs. 1,500 a month. His son sends another Rs. 1,500 home to support the family. Ali has seven children; four of his daughters were married when they were minors; the fifth is around 13 and likely to soon be married.  When we visit, he has some time to talk because he is not going to the weekly market across the river, which is also a meeting place for char neighbours.  “We depend on this market for our daily essentials. The fare to and from is Rs. 20, and I don't have the money,” says Ali. In the absence of state-run ferry services, privately-run mechanised boats are the only means of conveyance here.

A Directorate of Char Areas implements specific development programmes on the chars , working alongside the district administrations. Panikhaiti char has two government-run upper primary schools. Anyone who wants to study further must bear the daily cost of crossing the river by boat – a major cause of school dropouts.  Panikhaiti also has a health sub-centre – without a roof. With vegetation growing in and around the building, it appears to be abandoned. An auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) visits the charoccasionally, but she prefers to work from someone’s home rather than this health centre, the people here say. For a health emergency, they have to cross the river and walk another three kilometres to the nearest primary health centre in Sontali.

05-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-5-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_people.jpg

“After the flood havoc in September [2016], no health officials visited us. The administration distributed only two kilos of cattle-feed in the name of flood relief,” Ali says.  The walls, made of jute-sticks, bear the marks of the flood levels that have periodically submerged their houses.

06-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-4Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

07-PARI-FELLOWSHIP-ARTICLE-1-PHOTO-6Crop-RT-Struggles_of_the_sandbar_peopl.jpg

Open defecation is the norm and diarrhoea is common in every household, particularly after a flood. For drinking water, about 10 families depend on a single tubewell, which they maintain at their own cost.  “Our char is divided equally into two legislative constituencies – Boko on the south bank and Chenga on the north bank. Due to some official anomalies, however, people who belong to Chenga constituency have been deprived of below poverty line (BPL) rations for a long time,” says Ali, who is registered with the Boko constituency but does not get any benefits, apart from BPL rice.Electricity is a distant dream and no family has a solar lamp. Instead, they rely on kerosene, which costs Rs. 35 a litre – Ali’s family needs 5-7 litres every month.  Even a radio seems to be a luxury here.“Life would have been better if a char existed for at least 20 years. But the life of a char is hardly 10 years. By the time we manage to earn something and prepare for a relatively settled life, erosion begins again, forcing us to shift,” Ali says.“This is our story, the story of every char -dweller. My story, however, does not end here…”  And Ali begins to speak about his second son, 18, a Class 12 science student at a college in Barpeta district of lower Assam.  He is now preparing for a medical entrance exam. Ali could not provide for his elder son’s higher education. But, with the help of his teachers, his second son got 83 per cent in the secondary examination two years ago, despite all the hardship.“He is determined to get enrolled in a medical college," says Ali. "His teachers say it would cost at least Rs. 30 lakh to complete the course. I do not know how he will complete it even if he does clear the entrance exam.”But Ali’s eyes tell us that he still nurtures the hope that life will take a new turn some day.

Struggles of the sandbar people

மணல் திட்டு மக்களின் போராட்டம்

অনন্ত সংগ্রামে ভরা চরবাসীদের জীবন

ବାଲିଦ୍ୱୀପ ଅଧିବାସୀଙ୍କ ଜୀବନ ସଂଗ୍ରାମ

চৰাঞ্চলবাসীৰ সংগ্ৰাম

جن کے گھر ریت پر ہوتے ہیں

वाळूचा किल्ला,‘चार’-निवासींचा संघर्ष

Panikhaiti

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

IN TELUGU - Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Struggles of the sandbar people

Hasan Ali is one of 2.4 million people who live on impermanent ‘chars’ or sandbars on the Brahmaputra – without basic necessities, frequently shifting home, their lives dictated by the flux of the mighty river

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit