Māti

Kaziranga in Assam, is home to several ancient riverine communities residing here, including those that live in the Kaziranga National Park. This park on the banks of the Brahmaputra river is spread across 5 districts - of Bishwanath, Chariali, Sonitpur, Karbi Anglong and Golaghat. From its designation as a ‘Reserve Forest’ in 1908 to ‘National Park’ in 1974 and a ‘World Heritage Site’ in 1985, Kaziranga is home to the iconic one-horned Rhinoceroses, the wild Asiatic water buffalo, eastern swamp deer, gaur, sambar, Indian muntjac, wild boar, hog deer, Indian elephant, the Bengal tiger and leopard as well as over 35 breeding mammalian species. It is also home to a variety of migratory birds, water birds, predators, scavengers, game birds and is identified as an Important Bird Area. This national park receives maximum protection under the Indian law for wildlife conservation with park rangers having the power to shoot and kill, normally only conferred on armed forces, policing civil unrest. At one stage the park rangers were killing an average of two people every month. In 2015 more people were shot dead by park guards than rhinos were killed by poachers. Innocent villagers, mostly ‘tribal’ riverine communities, have been caught up in the conflict. This national park has been one of the biggest success stories of conservation in India. From barely 75 in 1905, the population of the Indian rhino now stands at 2,400.

Today this national park in its conservation efforts is also consuming and encompassing the land of its surrounding villages and further strengthening its boundaries. The proposed amendments to the Indian Forests Act, 1927, have pitted forest dwellers and tribal groups against the government over concerns that the changes will increase bureaucratic control while diminishing their rights. Forest rights activists and tribal welfare organizations say the new amendments to the law will divest millions of tribal and forest dwellers of their rights. In addition, the sanctuary extends deep into the Karbi hills, which are being mined for various minerals. A highway now runs through the park altering the geography of the area whereby animals drown during the flood, crossing over to higher planes, now occupied by hotels and tea gardens.  

Torrential rains and rising water levels of the Brahmaputra River, bring about soil erosion and land loss annually, due to seasonal flooding. The monsoons like every other year has constantly worsened the flood situation in Assam. This year (2020) already around 11 lakh people have been affected in 23 districts and the fatalities due to floods has gone up to 35 and these statistics of destruction are rising. While the state administration is doing its best to tackle the situation, people from riverine villages are being moved to safer places as their villages are being inundated by flood waters. Soon there will be a public outcry about the ineffectual bureaucracy and aid programs on the ground as lakhs of rupees will be once again be spent or unaccounted for. 

 

māti means ‘soil, land, mud, earth’ in Assamese.

Seasonal ‘migration’ of a particular kind, is a way of life amongst the local communities here. Riverine communities including the ‘Mising’, ‘Karbi’, tribal groups and the ‘Adivasi tea pickers’  live around the park in over 25 villages. Internal displacement and dislocation are new and brought about by modern, economic and politically constructed factors. For example, environmental concerns arising from the misplaced labeling of riverine and 'adivasi' communities living in coexistence with their environment as ‘poachers’, or the construction of large scale and unsustainable embankments and the resulting large scale ‘natural’ disasters making the vulnerable environmental refugees. Other factors also include, socially constructed inter-ethnic conflicts arising from  the arming of different factions that trigger community displacement. For the local communities and tribes living here, the geo-spatial architecture, food, clothing (ethno-technologies) and even crops (environ) revolve around the habitat they reside within, the seasonal flooding and the river and an age-old indigenous knowledge system of sustainable co-existence. For them, this seasonal flood brings with it several schools of freshwater fish that lay their eggs. Local fishing communities thereby also find sustenance through this environmental cycle until the winter, by when the cropping season arrives. This annual flushing of the lakes inside the park also clears various kinds of debris, which eventually makes it beneficial for a range of animals enabling the continuity of food webs. 

 

One of the most critical practices that exists and is slowly dissipating is the ‘Mising tribe’s’ practice called ‘rikbo-ginam’. Under this system, the entire community would come to the rescue of a family if it needs help, for sowing or harvesting paddy or ferrying stranded livestock from a flooded area or in times of heath and sickness. In return, the affected family contributes to the community food basket which is used in times of calamity. This practice encompasses a way of life that extends across logistics to architecture, ecology, craft, etc. We believe that our global community could learn from this ‘ethno-technology’, especially in creating a more just and sustainable post-pandemic world.  Today in Kaziranga, communities fear that as they now lose their riverine habitat, this continued displacement,  will only lead to unemployment and the further devaluing of traditional skills and knowledge. 

 

māti is a short documentary film that attempts to understand this annual cycle of flooding and displacement. The film is made in partnership with the local communities by the river. 

māti intersects and is constructed in consultation and collaboration with community members within the marginalized communities living in and around the Kaziranga National Park, Assam. Through a workshop model, based on skill sharing, we began to construct ‘objects’ of documentation and archive them. These workshops shared skills of audio, photo and video documentation processes. The consequent constructed ‘media’ object were photographs, texts, videos audio recordings, maps etc. Each of these media objects is a representation from their community’s way of life and technology (ecology, architecture, fishing, agriculture, weaving, textiles, healthcare and socio-cultural practices, etc.).  Through a call for action addressing shared concerns through various stakeholders, communities and partners and a process of collaboration in meaning creation and generation, māti facilitates  building a collective knowing - ‘Knowledge’. 

 

The ensuing film has been derived and made through this process of ‘co-labour-abling’ as a strategic intervention within the public discourse of seasonal flooding at Kaziranga and in its dissemination lies within the domain of the commons.

About Wenceslaus Mendes

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Wenceslaus Mendes is a film-maker with over 18 years of industry experience. He works in Advertising, Broadcast Television and Digital-Web, producing award winning content. He is a cinematographer, editor by profession; practicing and working with multimedia and mediums. He collaborates and works with video and leveraging technology with communities, with performance and theatre, as well as constructing conceptual and interactive installation projects that have travelled globally.