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11. THE BRAHMAPUTRA CHAPORIS

Photo: Lohori Char near Orang NP.

Tayab Ali, 85 years, Settler, Lohori Char

Near Orang National Park

I have lived on these river islands for 35 years. At that time it was all jungle and

elephants roamed on the islands. One year there was a big flood and we had to move

out to a tapu south of the main channel where we built our hut and planted our crops.

We move every two years or so, every time a flood washes away the island we live on.

Elephants used to come by and two to four rhinos would stand around the house, but

they did not harm us. We never harmed them. We people have ‘iman-dharam’ (values).

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The rhinos stopped coming 7 or 8 years ago when the channel between Orang NP and

this chapori widened because of erosion on the southern side of Orang. I have seen

wild boar and deer washed away during floods.

Nobi Hussai, Settler, Lohori Char

Near Orang National Park

This year, a tiger killed my gravid buffalo. Last year about 35 cows were killed, more

cows are killed than buffalo. This year about 15-20 cattle were killed. Wild pigs cause a

lot of damage to our crops on the island. The last 2 months, they have been eating our

peas, tomatoes and brinjal. They hide out in the grass during the day and raid our crops

at night. Even standing guard does not help. We don’t kill pigs. We did not have kills by

tigers before 2006. Tigers have wild pig and deer prey, but they still kill our cattle. In

January 2014, Ahed Ali was attacked by a tiger on the south of this island when he was

waiting for a motor launch.

Safiuddin Ahmed, Badlichar, Teacher

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Near Orang National Park

I came to Lohori Char in 1994 just to see the place. When I came, the people here

thought I was a school master because I was wearing long pants. A senior person Nur

Islam had sent me with a letter, where apparently he had written that I was to be their

teacher. I felt proud and assured them I would be the village teacher. They set up the

school and I started classes in 1995. I married and brought my bride here. In 1999, the

government had an Alternative School scheme to which I shifted, working in this same

school. I started on a salary of Rs 900, which was enough for me and my wife. In 1999,

a very big flood came. We had two huts. One got washed away. In the one we still had,

we put all our belongings on our cot and raised it off the ground by tying ropes to the

house posts. There were one motor launch and one or two boats on the island, but we

could not get help. In our hut there were 5 or 6 large snakes. We didn’t have anywhere

really to tie a mosquito net, but the snakes wouldn’t go. So we put our mosquito net out

and sat under it. We stayed like that for 7 days, with the snakes outside the net, and the

two of us inside.

After the 1999 flood, while going with other villagers to the market on a motor launch,

we crossed a small tapu (island) with lots of jhaubon (grass). On those grasses we saw

many snakes hanging together, like black flowers. I asked for the launch to stop. It was

very lovely to see. But nowadays, i don’t see them any more. I think there could be two

reasons why there are no snakes like before. One, people sometimes poison the water

to catch fish. Snakes also drink water, or they eat frogs which have drunk the poisoned

water. In this way, snakes are disappearing. The other reason, is when the forests are

set on fire, many snakes die. I once saw a big snake lying dead on the sand, burnt.

Ten-fifteen years ago, when people used to boil and leave their ahu-dhan out, there

used to be so many frogs around to catch the insects on the paddy. Now I no longer see

them. My suspicion is that it is poisoning again that has killed off the frogs.

There is a belief that tigers wake up and pray every morning - ‘God, give me a place to

hide’. God makes forests for tigers to live in. Only when there are forests is there rain.

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When tigers are no more, we will have no water. This was how it was explained at a

conservation training that I attended.

Bagh thakile, thakibo bonani Where there are tigers, there will be forest

Bonani thakile, paam ami nirmal pani Where there are forests, there will be water

Another time we heard that when snakes flick their tongues, they absorb the harmful

ultraviolet rays of the sun. In our area as snakes started disappearing, people are

starting to get skin diseases.

Nurul Islam, 65 years, Headman, Badlisar Village

Near Orang National Park

In Darrang district, our village Badlisar south of which is the Brahmaputra, and next to

our village is Orang NP. The wild animals do not harm us. They come out occasionally –

the rhinos, elephants, pigs and deer. Our people chase them and they go back to the

forest. If for some reason they get stuck here, we inform the forest department and they

chase them back. Since the last 6-8 years, there have been no incidents of wild

animals in our crop lands.

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Photo: A typical goth or cattle camp on the Brahmaputra.

Sunnilal Yadav, Age-67, Cattle-herder

Sande Chapori/Chandra Tapu (proposed Kaziranga 6th addition), Sonitpur

I was born in Burhachapori village on the side of the Brahmaputra. I have herded cows

and buffaloes all my life. My goth was near the river and there were many rhinos there,

many times I’d come face to face with them. I survived even that. When the grass

finished in Burhachapori I went to Sadiya in the east and kept the cattle there for 12-14

years. There were 150-200 elephants in those days. When the grass finished there too,

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I returned with the cattle to Burhachapori. The river had eroded many places and

without highlands it became difficult there, so we moved here to Sande chapori where I

have been now for 10-11 years. In Burhachapori, there were elephants, wild pig,

monkeys, rhino and tigers. Here elephants come often, but they do not cause us any

damage. Just 15-20 days ago, three or four elephants had come. A tiger killed a horse

recently on the chapori, and the wild pigs roam around, but the wild animals really don’t

disturb us.

The forest department demolished our huts and have asked us to move out. We rebuilt

them. Where do we go? At this age I can’t leave my livelihood nor hold on to it. My

family is in the village, but my life is here in the goth. I have 30-40 buffalo and about 70-

80 cows. Right now I don’t even get enough money for tea. I don’t know any other skill.

Even if you give me Rs 5 lakhs to set up a shop, I will not be able to run it.

There was one time when I came upon a tiger. I quickly climbed a tree, and it took a

piece of my shirt from my back. God saved me that time. The other day an elephant

came up to this hut, and I spoke to it. I said, ‘Wait Baba. You are also a god to me, I am

afraid. Tomorrow I will worship you and give you salt’. The next day I got banana, rice

and salt and left it out for the elephant. It came and ate all of it, but did not touch the hut.

In all these years, elephants have never broken our huts. They pass through here on

the way from the forest to the fields to eat sugarcane and crops and back again. We

also pass them quietly when they are 50-100 m away. In a year, tigers will eat 2-4 upto

10 of my cattle. They will eat from other goths as well. They say god has made tigers

lazy – once they eat, they lie around for 7 days. There is even a python lying outside the

cattle shed now.

There should be wild animals. When there is wildlife there is jungle, and the village

women and children do not come. Of course wild animals take a cow or buffalo, but they

do no other harm. When there is jungle, there is grass and the cattle can feed well.

When they feed well they give more milk, and there is more income.

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There is no more wildlife on the Brahmaputra in the numbers there used to be before.

There are fewer elephants, tigers and the rhinos – which are only in Kaziranga. They

don’t have place to shelter, less to eat and they are being poached. These large

animals are not like chicken or pigs that they have many offspring, they only have one

or two at long intervals and if they are killed, then how will numbers increase? But in

trying to keep the poachers out, the forest department is also chasing us out.

Anon., Sande Chapori, Sonitpur

This is Chandra Tapu. There are some 10 wild buffaloes here and I don’t go through the

jungle in the morning. They attack when they hear people and keep killing people. Last

year one man had gone to his field. When he saw buffalo, he thought it was a khuti

buffalo and went to chase it, but got killed instead.

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Photo: A cattle camp on Sande Chapori. Only men live in these goths.

Mahendra Upadhyay, Age – 61 yrs, Cattle Owner,

Ganeshghat, Tezpur.

My birth was in Burhachapori. Our family’s khuti occupation has been for generations,

over 115-120 years. This part of the river was called Rongdi. People used to cultivate

vegetables in parts, and the rest was jungle. In the older days, only men lived in the

khutis, never the women and children. Till 1963-64, we never would see families in the

char areas. But after 1965, immigrants settled with families, and because of them the

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wildlife has disappeared. When they cultivated, and the animals damage crops, they

would kill them. Because of this, the animals started disappearing. Before 1980-81

Burhachapori had so many rhinos, there were places named after rhino foraging and

resting areas as Gainde Hola. There were tigers and elephants. Elephants had enough

in the jungle and would harly ever come out. But it is now when the people have cut

down the jungles, that the elephants come out to the villages and tigers to the towns.

The staying of families in the chars should be stopped. If two or three people keep

khutis with 2-4 cattle, then they do not harm wildlife. They prefer that there is jungle, and

unknown people cannot enter.

When the grass dried out here and our cattle was taken up to Sadiya, it used to take our

fathers 4-6 months to go up the river in the dry season. The temporary goths were set

up wherever there was some grazing such as at Mesaki in Sibsagar and Bogibeel,

Dibrugarh and then to Sunpura in Sadiya where we reached in 1966 and then stayed for

13 years. There too encroachers came in, but they were not Bangladeshis, they had

come down from the hills. When they began harming our cattle, we sold our livestock

and came back here. There too there were the big animals - the wild buffalo, tiger,

elephant and many sambar right up to 1976-77 after which we left. Yes, tigers killed our

livestock, but not indiscriminately. Whatever damage has been inflicted on the char

wildernesses, it has been by human beings.