By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Barpeta (Assam): Elections occur on regular intervals since independence with so many faces at the helm but what does not change is the fate of deprived people. Take the example of thousand odd people of Barpeta district’s remotest area called Gomfulbari and its neighboring locations. Even now when the country is electing the Members of Parliament these fateful people are confused and rather worried whom to vote and what to expect.
TwoCircles.net tried to know the reality by interacting with the people residing in the locality. Jalal Khan, a 40 year old man has buried all his dreams after the river Brahmaputra washed away his land, property and home. Now, his only hope and dream remains to see her daughters getting education so that they can see a better future.
Village kids play on the embankments
Khan who has been forced by his poverty to live in a makeshift tiny house on the embankment after losing his lands to erosion could not provide education to his sons. He has been staying on the makeshift house on the embankment for the last five years.
“Nothing left now. My sons now work as labouror in Guwahati. I just could not make them educated. But now I want that my daughters go to school and get proper education,” Jalal said who runs a small shop near his house on the embankment.
A water pump and a deserted school toilet after it was shifted to the other side of the embankment.
On asked on the election and his expectations the man replied in anger. “I hardly give any importance to it anymore. Everybody is a cheater. The political leaders just think of themselves. They have no time to think of us,” Jalal added.
In this embankment in an area of 500 metres, at least 10 families reside in their makeshift houses.
A poster of AIUDF candidate Sirajuddin Ajmal is seen on the wall of a makeshift house on the embankment.
Again, for someone like Abdul Rashid, life is very tough after he was forced to be a daily wage earner. Even as the political parties have flooded the people with plenty of promises with the Lok Sabha election taking place, the 50 year old from the same locality can anticipate nothing but a gloomy future.
After losing more than 109 bigha of land to the erosion of river Brahmaputra during the last decade, Rashid is a frustrated soul and he did not even think that any political party is interested in solving the problem. Here, he is not the lonely ill-fated soul but hundred others have the same story of pain and agony.
Jalal Khan with his family inside his makeshift house.
“Election takes place after every five years. Political parties come and go but our plight remain the same,” Rashid told TwoCircles.net standing at the embankment near the river Brahmaputra which is around 80 kilometre from state capital Guwahati. Once, his family was rich with their own agriculture land but now he works as a daily wage earner. More than 120 villages have been washed away by the river since independence in the area affecting more than 25 thousand families.
They are offended and rather angry with the Congress for the party’s no interest to uplift their plight. Congress has been dominating the constituency which also included former Indian President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.
“We are very much frustrated with the poor performance of the Congress. It’s MPs hardly thought of us ever since the independence. Ismail Hussain (current Congress MP) has never turned up here to see our plight,” said an angry Rashid.
Out of his three bighas of land which is left with his family, two bighas of land were taken the government to construct the embankment but he was not compensated.
A mother and her kid at a makeshift house on the embankment.
Besides Ismail Hussain of Congress who is the sitting MP here, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has fielded Sirajuddin Ajmal and Chandra Mohan Patowary is fighting on a BJP ticket from the constituency which will go on polls on April 24. The other contenders include Asom Gana Parishad’s (AGP) Phani Bhusan Choudury and CPI (M)’s Uddhab Barman who has already won from Barpeta two times in 1991 and 96. On the other hand former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed’s son Parvez Ahmed has also in the fray from Trinamool Congress.
But nobody seemed to be happy with the candidates. “We have never seen the face of Sirajuddin Ajmal here in our area. He has hardly any knowledge of the plight our people and so is Patowary. Besides, nobody here knows Parvez Ahmed. We do not see any logic on his part to contest election taking the name of his famous father. It is really tough to choose a right candidate who will work for the people,” said Moinul Hoque Choudhury, a local journalist in the Bahari area of Barpeta district.
Not just these, the erosion has been threat to number of historical centres besides educational institutes and worship places located in the area. A 554 year old Vaishnavite Monastery which is locally called Sattra, a historical wall built by the Swargadeo Shiva Sinha besides number of educational institutes, temples and mosques are facing serious threat from the river.
For the people of these areas, erosion seems to be the toughest hurdle in the battle of their lives. These people also staged hunger strike during the 65th Republic day in protest of government’s failure to address their main problem early this year.
Abdul Rashid makes a point near the river.
“The situation is getting grim day by day with the government hardly taking any initiative in this regard. So, I hope you can easily understand the situation of these people how they have to struggle for a plot of land for shelter and food to be alive. Because almost all these people are poor,” said Ashraful Hussain, a local youth and activist.
To add worries for these helpless people, some organizations and a section of people harass in the name of Bangladeshi when they go out of their area seeking work and shelter. “It is a serious issue. We have rescued several such people who are residents of the state. When these people go to some other places for their livelihood, some organizations would pick them and brand as Bangladeshi,” said Hafiz Ahmed, president of Char Sapori Sahitya Parishad, a literary body of the state.
The areas which affected by erosion by river Brahmaputra at Gomafulbari in Barpeta.
It is also a major problem in some upper Assam districts including Lakhimpur and island Majuli. Though Assam’s 40 per cent land is flood-prone, experts have opined that climate change has further aggravated the problem. Climate analysts have warned that glacier melting in the Tibet region, where the Brahmaputra originates, is likely to increase the magnitude of devastation. Over 1.5 lakh people have been displaced after they lost their land and properties to floods and erosion in the last decade.
The state has lost 4.27 lakh hectares since 1950 in erosion, which amounts to 7.40 per cent of the state’s total land mass.
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AIUDF: The broken dreams and lost hopes of minorities in Assam