The recent floods in Assam have once again submerged large parts of the Brahmaputra Valley, affecting millions across the state. According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority’s flood report as of July 28, the disastrous flood waters inundated 45,341 hectares of agricultural fields, affected 622 villages and seven districts, and resulted in 75 flood-related deaths. However, the floods in Assam are not just a natural disaster, but also a political one.
Dr Amrita Gogoi, an Assistant Professor at Dibrugarh University, recalls how a flood once interrupted her school examinations. Her narration lacked a crescendo, and she remembers sitting at her desk writing while the floodwaters slowly moved into her classroom. This lack of panic and urgency is a common theme in many flood stories in Assam. The floods have become so frequent and destructive that they have become a part of the state’s hydrosocial rhythms.
Environmental Sociologist Dr Mitual Baruah argues that the disasters begin much earlier than the breached embankments and continue long after the water recedes. The precarity created by erosion and flooding is overlooked by the state, resulting in a delayed or inadequate response. Even after the floodwaters withdraw, the disaster persists and lingers in eroded riverbanks, destroyed croplands, repeated displacements, and loss of livelihoods.
Treating each flood as an isolated natural disaster covers up the historical processes that produce vulnerabilities and overlooks how floods have become more destructive and frequent. It naturalises suffering by attributing the devastation to excessive rainfall, erasing and overlooking political decisions and ecological transformations. The gradual historical changes that take place reshape the relationship between people, environment, and the state.
The numerous wetlands in Assam absorbed excess water, but buildings, roads, towns, and industries have changed this ecological process. Forests in the upstream catchments have been cleared in an unregulated manner for highways, mining activities, and large infrastructure projects. The expansion of dams regulates the seasonal movement of water and sediment. Over the past two decades, these cumulative interventions have transformed the hydrological character of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries.
The proposed Dikhow Hydropower Project, a 186MW dam in Nagaland, exemplifies this unfolding transformation. It represents a fundamentally technocratic idea of the riverine ecology. The dam planned in the Dikhow-Yangnyu rivers promises electricity, investment, and regional development. However, communities downstream in Sivasagar, Charaideo, and Jorhat worry about a different future in which changes in river flow, reservoir operations, and watershed disturbances increase the risk of flooding during the monsoon season and decrease the amount of water available during the dry seasons.
The Brahmaputra valley was not always organised around the idea of taming rivers and transforming the riverine ecology. Floods were integral to the hydrosocial rhythms of the region. It allowed communities to organise agriculture, fishing, and settlement around seasonal inundation, and the communities could adapt to the river’s cyclical behaviour. Maybe that’s why the description of the flood in Dr Amrita’s story lacked a dramatic crescendo.
