Snehashish Mitra (biltu0717@gmail.com) works as a research assistant at Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.
Guwahati, in the state of Assam is the
largest city of Northeast India, which provides gateway to other part of the
region. In the last decade, the urbanization pattern of Guwahati has challenged
the dominant notion of northeast India being a peripheral and marginal region. The
city is growing in every possible direction, with real estate being the major
engine. The possibility of opening up of trade with the other Southeast Asian
countries has made Guwahati an attractive destination for investments. Along
with capital, there is also an influx of labour, which in turn has led to a
struggle over the environmental resources of Guwahati. Guwahati is ecologically gifted as it is
situated on the banks of river Brahmaputra and has 18 hills within the city
limits. Despite so, Guwahati faces several environmental issues annually like
that of artificial flood, landslide, human animal conflict etc. which takes
toll on an average of 10 human lives per year.
The blame for such issues is mainly pelted
on the hill settlements inhabited by migrants from different parts of Assam. The high living cost in the plain areas
inhabited by the gentrified class and lack of planning for the migrant
population, has made the settlements on the hills inevitable. Such spaces in
the urban sphere have become a bone of contention between the settlers and the
state as some of the hills fall under the reserve forest category. Several grass
root level organizations has come forward in support of the land ownership of
the settlers. In contrast with this
scenario, realtors are developing the hills in other part of the city which are
being offered at a high market price for the gentry. Intrusion of environmental
spaces by human activities has led to frequent leopard attacks in the human
inhabited areas. While the state authorities had taken up eviction initiative
with marginal success, it certainly doesn’t offer a long term solution keeping
in the mind the livelihood of poor migrants and the fragile environment of
Guwahati. The resistance of the settlers on the hills perhaps emancipates from
the fact that they have been forced to leave the rural hinterland of Assam or
neighbouring states due to the redundancy of the traditional livelihood
opportunities along with impacts of socio-environmental issues in the
militarised frontier of northeast India. The mismanagement of natural resources
like forests, water bodies by the state and adverse effects of climate change
(erratic rainfall patters for example) have left occupations like dairy farming
(mainly practiced, rather were practiced by the Nepali community) and fishing
on rivers/ water bodies (mainstay of the scheduled caste communities, locally
known as namasudras) redundant due to
decreasing yields. Natural calamities like annual floods displace a
considerable number of people. Developmental projects like Lower Subansiri Dam
have also displaced people from Mising community (Mising is an ethnic tribal
community residing in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh). Alongside such factors, northeast India has
been a region intermittently in the grasp of militancy and conflict which has also
caused major displacements and people have been spending considerable amount of
time in refugee camps. Such factors or combination of them stems the need to
migrate to a place which offers a comparatively peaceful atmosphere and
provides with livelihood opportunities with somewhat assured remuneration. As
Guwahati is by far the largest city of the region, it turns out to be the first
choice of such rural to urban migration.
