Abdul Wahab continues moving as Brahmaputra follows him

Goroimari, Kamrup, Assam: Abdul Wahab is a retired school teacher and now 66 years old. He lives with his family in Goroimari Satra village under Chaygaon assembly constituency in Kamrup district of Assam. Like other thousands of displaced people in Assam, Abdul Wahab kept moving from one place to another to save his life and property and his family as the mighty Brahmaputra River continued gulping village after village in the riverine areas.
‘I shifted my house eleven times and still not sure when I have to move again’, said Abdul Wahab sitting on a wooden bench in Goroimari market. Wahab smiled when asked ‘are you not tired of shifting your belongings so many times?’ His reply is simple, ‘what else to do? Life goes on’.


Abdul Wahab
Wahab is the son of Late Abdur Rehman and late Rabiya Khatun of Piredhara village near Mukalmua under Nalbari district. He was born and brought up there. He completed his tenth standard from Piredhara High school in 1965. In 1974 he got job of a teacher in Kalarchar Primary School and retired in 2007.
Wahab has a long list of the villages where he lived. ‘from Piredhara, me and my family shifted to Kalarchar, then to Koltulipathar, then to Kalarchar again as an island reappeared in the river, then again we moved to Goroimari, then ….’ The list goes on. Wahab currently settled in Goroimari Satra village. ‘We lost all our agricultural land. We had myadi patta land (land on lease). I was lucky to have a government job that kept me and my family alive’, said Wahab.
According to Wahab several villages have no physical existence now after complete erosion. He named some ‘disappeared’ villages like Koltulipathar, Batahidia, Salmara, Khalsabari, Bangmara, Duramari, Kathalguri, Magua, Borakhat, Balagaon, Nayapara, Sarjipara and many more. According to his estimate about 50 thousand people have been affected as a result. ‘I never received any compensation nor any survey took place on the number of the affected people’, lamented Wahab. Most of the affected people are shifted to Boroma, Nalbari, Goalpara, Darrang etc and they have become daily wage earners or doing some small jobs.
Wahab’s ordeal didn’t stop here. The issue of D-voters has grabbed her family as well. Wahab said there is 1678 D-voters out of which 1406 are females. Most of the female members are married women who left their maternal home/village after marriage. The figure includes Bengali Hindu women but Muslim women outnumber them. ‘My wife Halima Khatun served as Panchayat President from 1992 to 1996 under No13. Bahatidia Gram Panchayat. On completion of her tenure at gram panchayat, she became a D-voter in 1996 and till date her changed status is not cleared from the doubt’.
Wahab informed that he spent about 20 thousand rupees in procuring documents to prove the legitimacy of his wife’s rights as voter which is yet to be cleared of the prefix of D.

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