From the ferryboat, the water seems to stretch unendingly towards the horizon – the Brahmaputra looks like a calm sea, its flow so steady that it is barely perceptible. As it proceeds on its quiet course, it is hard to believe the river can actually ruin lives and livelihoods. Having started the journey at Nemati Ghat near the tea town of Jorhat in Assam, we float peacefully for two-and-a half hours to reach Majuli, the world's largest river island. Or perhaps not. That epithet probably belongs to an island in Brazil. Some sources hasten to clarify that Majuli is the largest mid-river island in the world. The title may be under dispute; but what is incontrovertible is that the mighty river's depredations are rapidly eroding the island's soft, silty soil, and soon Majuli may cease to exist.
The island's troubles are believed to have started with the Assam earthquake of 1950. This wrought major topographical changes in the Brahmaputra, bringing the island directly in collision with its ravaging power – resulting in devastating floods almost every year and even more-pernicious erosion. Disturbances in the monsoon cycle and possibly larger volumes of glacial melt, generally attributed to climate change, added to factors such as increasing upland deforestation, has further aggravated the situation. At less than 500 sq km, the island is today a pale shadow of the more than 1200 sq km it occupied 60 years ago. The great river continues to eat away at the island, with the rate of erosion said to be nearly seven and a half sq km annually.
The wearing-away of Majuli, which is Assam's repository of home-grown Neo-Vaishnavism, will be a catastrophe for the state's cultural life. State lore holds that the 16th-century socio-religious reformer Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardev and his disciple Sri Madhavdev made Majuli a base for propagating a more accessible, less ritualised form of Hinduism, popular to this day. They also promoted dance, music and other arts in everyday life. Majuli's satras (Vaishnavite monasteries), sustained by donations in cash or kind from adherents across the state, carefully preserve this heritage. They are homely structures with few artistic or architectural flourishes, in tune with bringing religion closer to the masses. Integral to the island's community life, the naam ghars (prayer halls) of the satras often double as public meeting spaces. Of the 65 original satras, only 22 remain, the others swept away by the tempestuous Brahmaputra or relocated to the mainland.
Among the satras
One of the remaining is the Uttar Kamalabari Satra, where we stay for a couple of nights. The accommodation is basic, and one has to draw water from the single hand-pump by the toilet. But what a privilege it is to be here, to sit cross-legged on reed mats with the satradhikar (head of a satra); to discuss spirituality; to eat simple, delicious meals from massive kah (bell metal) plates and bowls; to watch, in the fading light, the beautiful young monks practise energetic dance steps to skilful drumming. And what fun it is to watch Satya Bora's antics. All of four, Satya is a monk-in-training. He is one of the many youngsters handed over to these monasteries by families who owe allegiance to a particular satra, sometimes because they are too poor to care for their children. In the satras, apart from their spiritual training, the children are sent to regular schools – and, if academically inclined, to college and university. They thus become the carriers of this belief system.