Ecology, Floods, and the Birth of an Agrarian Regime: The Political Economy of the River Brahmaputra in Late Twentieth-Century Northeast India

The floodplain of the river Brahmaputra in the north-eastern India, over the centuries, witnessed the growth of an agrarian ecology and variety of political cultures. Flood was endemic and several communities had forged these natural challenges to stimulate agriculture. Beginning with 1897, when a major earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale vastly changed the river regime of the valley, flooding resulted in slow decline of agricultural endowments. The river erosion had rapidly unfolded a crisis of agricultural land. The situation deteriorated further after another major earthquake in 1950 measuring 8.6. Several reports have subsequently pointed out that the bed of the river had risen. There was increased siltation and in several areas, the river had changed its course. The ruling class in Assam, after independence, had desperately tried to solve the increasing flood by a dose of political debates and less aggressively by innovative use of ‘science'. In 1953, the Assamese ruling class went ahead with a legislation, entitled Assam Embankment and Drainage Act 1953, apparently in order to control flooding. Floods, it was argued, could be controlled by laying embankments. After two decades, the region is crisscrossed by about one third of India's total length of embankment. Meanwhile, agrarian production continued to decline. Land for agriculture was shrinking. Conflicts between the agrarian and forest frontier has increased. Helplessness of the Assamese ruling class became more visible. in the late 20th century, in an apparent move to hold back shrinking agrarian ecology, further legislation was enacted to control nature. Flood moderation, rather than ‘control', became the primary agenda. Hydro power generation was given high priority relegating an agrarian regime. This paper will tell the history of changing landscapes in the floodplains of the Brahmaputra, and changing political economy of the river, which pushed away agriculture and brought industrial capital.