Settling-on-the-Move: Birsing Char-scapes in the Brahmaputra Valley

Authors

  • Swagata Das KU Leuven
  • Kelly Shannon KU Leuven
  • Bruno De Meulder KU Leuven

Downloads

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2024.2.09

Keywords:

fluid landscapes, porous borders, cultural resilience, worldviews, climate change

Abstract

Chars are shifting riverine islands. This article focuses on Birsing Char, part of Birsing Jarua Village Panchayat, in the Brahmaputra River near the Indo-Bangladesh border. Generations of families have migrated across this porous border, settling in the Lower Brahmaputra Valley. This migration has intensified the sociocultural othering of Bengali Muslims amid Assam’s identity politics and India’s rising authoritarianism. Through fieldwork and interpretative mapping, the article uncovers forms of alternative knowledge, including local spatial practices and intangible heritage like songs and poetry, threatened by infrastructural development, policies of the Indian government and climate change. It explores how such knowledge can be harnessed and inspire alternative development policy and design in the context of global warming in the Brahmaputra Valley and in Assam’s sociopolitical climate. The case underscores the urgency of recognizing marginalized chars as vital to the region’s water legacy, as they contribute both to local livelihoods and broader ecological systems.

How to Cite

Das, S., Shannon, K., & De Meulder, B. (2024). Settling-on-the-Move: Birsing Char-scapes in the Brahmaputra Valley. Blue Papers, 3(2), 116–27. https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2024.2.09

Published

2024-11-21

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2 (2024): Water & Heritage for Sustainable Development

Section

methodologies and case studies

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Swagata Das, Kelly Shannon, Bruno De Meulder

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biographies

Swagata Das, KU Leuven

Swagata Das is currently developing a PhD on water urbanism at KU Leuven, where she obtained her master’s degree in urbanism and strategic planning. She has worked as an urbanist for the holistic development of the Andaman and Lakshadweep Islands in India. She is involved in organizations such as Muggle Science podcast and pun:chat, which seek to strengthen understanding of climate change within and beyond the academic world.

Kelly Shannon, KU Leuven

Kelly Shannon teaches urbanism at KU Leuven, is the program director of the Master of Human Settlements (MaHS) degree and the Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (MaULP) degree and a member of the KU Leuven’s Social and Societal Ethics Committee (SMEC). She received her architecture degree at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh), a post-graduate degree at the Berlage Institute (Amsterdam), and a PhD at the University of Leuven, where she focused on landscape to guide urbanization in Vietnam. She has also taught at the University of Colorado (Denver), Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, the University of Southern California, Peking University and The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, among others. Before entering academia, Shannon worked with Hunt Thompson (London), Mitchell Giurgola Architects (New York), Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Genoa) and Gigantes Zenghelis (Athens). Most of her work focuses on the evolving relation of landscape, infrastructure and urbanization.

Bruno De Meulder, KU Leuven

Bruno De Meulder teaches urbanism at KU Leuven, and is the current program coordinator of MaHS and MaULP and the vice-chair of the Department of Architecture. With Kelly Shannon and Viviana d’Auria, he formed the OSA Research Group on Architecture and Urbanism. He studied engineering architecture at KU Leuven, where he also obtained his PhD. He was a guest professor at TU Delft and AHO (Oslo) and held the Chair of Urban Design at Eindhoven University of Technology from 2001 to 2012. He was a partner of WIT Architecten (1994–2005). His doctoral research dealt with the history of Belgian colonial urbanism in Congo (1880–1960) and laid the basis for a widening interest in colonial and postcolonial urbanism. His urban design experience intertwines urban analysis and projection and engages with the social and ecologica challenges that characterize our times.

References

Asian Development Bank. 2012. Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific. Manila: Asian Development Bank. ttp://hdl.handle.net/11540/918.

Bahn, Divya. 2019. “Poem on Assam Citizenship Issue Triggers Row, FIR against Ten People.” The New Indian Express, July 12. https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2019/Jul/12/poem-on-assam-citizenship-issue-triggers-row-fir-against-ten-people-2002869.html.

Chakraborty, Gorky. 2009. Assam’s Hinterland: Society and Economy in the Char Areas. New Delhi: Akansha Publishing House.

Choubey, Neha. 2024. “Dhubri-Phulbari Bridge Set to Slash Assam-Meghalaya Travel Distance by 250 KM; When Will It Start?” NativePlanet, May 7. https://www.nativeplanet.com/news/dhubri-phulbari-bridge-set-to-slash-assam-meghalaya-travel-distance-by-250-km-when-will-it-start-012047.html.

Da Cunha, Dilip. 2019. The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Das, Bhargabi. 2023. “Songs of Life from Fluvial Worlds: A River, the State and Bengali Muslim Char-Dwellers in Assam, India.” PhD diss., Maynooth University. https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/17358/1/Songs%20of%20life%20from%20fluvial%20worlds%20BHARGABI%20DAS%20ANTHROPOLOGY%202023%20PhD.pdf.

Das, Partha Jyoti, and Veena Khanduri. 2021. Hopes of Endurance in the Hinterland of Risk: Life in the Islands of the Brahmaputra River, Assam. Policy Brief. Gurugram, Haryana: India Water Partnership.

Directorate of Char Areas Development. 2004. Socio-Economic Survey Report, 2002–03. Guwahati: Government of Assam.

Iqbal, Iftekhar. 2010. The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840–1943. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala, and Gopa Samanta. 2013. Dancing with the River: People and Life on the Chars of South Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Menon, Uma. 2023. “India’s National Register of Citizens Threatens Mass Statelessness.” Journal of Public and International Affairs, June 2. https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/indias-national-register-citizens-threatens-mass-statelessness.

Rahman, S. 2021. “Loss, Longing and Rivers – Songs of Bangladesh | Displacement.” The Third Pole (blog), July 1. https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/culture/bangladesh-displacement-disappearing-islands/.

Saikia, Arupjyoti. 2019. The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Scott, James C. 1999. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Sur, Malini. 2020. “Time at Its Margins: Cattle Smuggling across the India-Bangladesh Border.” Cultural Anthropology 35, no. 4: 546–74. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca35.4.03.