The centrality of Brahmaputra to Assam’s economy is well-known, and the yearly floods never fail to remind how it dictates the lives of millions. Yet, as veteran journalist Sanjoy Hazarika notes in his new book, what is often lost in televised debates is the fact that the “Yarlung-Tsangpo-Brahmaputra is not one river but an extensive and intricate river system with a vast basin that embraces Tibet, North-east India and Bangladesh”.
Hazarika, one of the authoritative voices on the Northeast and its neighbourhood, is talking about debates in the context of dam politics that have swept up both China and India with potentially catastrophic consequences for the border regions.
The book, titled River Traveller: Journeys on the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal, is a recollection of the author’s journeys charting the course of the river across countries.
Some of his travels were part of a documentary film-making experience. That was nearly three decades ago, when he teamed up with well-known director Jahnu Barua and a small crew. As he looks back, the journeys themselves do not occupy much space. The bulk of the book dwells on several issues, from current environmental questions and ethnographic portrayals of people whose everyday life depends on the rivers to historical figures, including conquerors and explorers.
The first of three sections takes the reader to the spectacular but challenging terrain of Tibet, the highest and largest plateau on earth. Also the source of some of Asia’s major rivers whose tributaries sustain the lives of 47% of the world’s population, Tibet comes across as a site of mysticism and intrigue even as it is essentially treated as a colony by a forbidding China.
Hazarika writes, “For centuries, Tibet’s remoteness had made it a magnet for mystics and religious teachers, adventurers, fortune seekers, carpetbaggers and conquerors. China is the most recent of the lot.”
Some of the most fascinating passages involve explorers over the centuries. And none more so than Nain Singh Rawat, a pandit from what is now Uttarakhand. Trained as a spy-explorer-geographer by the British, he was assigned to find the route of the Tsangpo.
According to one account, he trekked more than 16,000 km before joining the Survey of India, for whom he undertook the first journey in 1865 and covered more than 26,000 km. His risky expeditions on foot, while dodging suspicious Tibetan officials, led to precious discoveries and inspired great explorers.
Old discoverers of the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra
The work of old discoverers of the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, and with the Chinese permitting a film on the Great Bend only as recently as 2000, National Geographic-backed Buddhist American explorer Ian Baker’s descriptions of the world’s deepest gorge stir the imagination and elevate the places to a spiritual plane.
The first section, on Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh (which China views as ‘South Tibet’), introduces the landscape—from navigating the roof of the world to treacherous chopper rides in Arunachal—and the geographical and cultural contiguity of a contested region.
In one chapter titled The River is a Hill, Hazarika has blunt advice for policymakers: “The repeated hammer blows that nature has struck against dams, roads and towns bear a singular, clear message: leave us alone.”
Hazarika presents such word of caution, even as the writing steers away from being prescriptive and focuses more on showing how the river and the region’s past and present concerns are interconnected. And as the scene shifts in the second and biggest section, he addresses the big events and issues that shaped modern Assam.
It is only fair to start with the deadly 1950 earthquake, a ‘hammer blow’ that “altered the course of the Brahmaputra, impacted the region’s geography, history and folklore and was described as ‘amongst the biggest temblors which have shaken our planet’.”
Two giant quakes
He argues that the two giant quakes of 1897 and 1950 show how impactful they can be and laments that governments have foolishly pursued unplanned development that is “disconnected to the geology, climate and geography of the region”.
He also rightly points out, in a chapter on tea garden workers and other migrant communities, that when one goes over official reports on floods and disasters, “the Brahmaputra is constantly viewed as an enemy”. On that subject, one could possibly go further to show in what ways the wisdom of local communities is ignored by officialdom to drive home the bias.
With chapters dedicated to the impact of the river on Assamese culture, its wildlife—with an earnest plea to protect the dolphin—the vulnerabilities of the char or riverine island people, etc, as well as hopeful stories of conservation champions, the author presents a useful big picture.
The last section (on Bangladesh), although brief, is a snapshot of a land of innumerable rivers and tributaries and a resilient population. Like the rivers, Hazarika’s encounters show cultural overlaps that may surprise given the tense ties as neighbouring nations.
A close shave with river pirates out of the blue is surely a surprise. One wishes the author had more such (harmless) travel stories to recount.
River Traveller: Journeys on the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal
Author – Sanjoy Hazarika
Publisher – Speaking Tiger Books
Details – Pp 400, Rs 899