Assam, India – Dried-up clay is used to cover Makon Kumar’s wrinkly fingers. She squats on the damp dirt outside her one-room, bamboo-stilted home and spins a pottery wheel – a palm-sized grey bowl – with her left toe.
A lump of newly purchased wet clay is sprinkled, flatten, and curves into the base of the pot’s base by Kumar.
This tradition was passed down to us by my grandmother and her grandmother. We are not farmers, we have no land, and this is our work”, 60-year-old Makon said as she pressed her fist into the clay and carved out the pot’s mouth.
The Kumar community, which has about 540 members, has a reputation for its distinctive pottery work dating back to the 16th century. These women use their toes to spin a plate or bowl of clay without using any tools or potters’ wheels.
In Assam, in northeastern India, the Kumars reside in Majuli, an island district that separates the Subansiri from the powerful Brahmaputra rivers. Majuli, which has a population of nearly 200 000 people and includes people of other ethnic groups, has decreased in size from 1,300 to 483 square kilometers (186.5%) in the last century as a result of erosion brought on by annual monsoon rains and floods.
During the monsoon season, which can stretch from May to September, the floodwaters can get more than 1.5 metres (5 feet) high, forcing Makon and the other Kumars to either seek shelter at the highway bordering the village or stay trapped inside their homes.
The Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) reported last week that 355 relief camps across the state were taking shelter from the floods, which have also caused at least 24 deaths this year, as well as over 72, 000 people.
Riverside clay not permitted
During the floods, the Kumars ‘ pottery business comes to a halt, interrupting their main source of income. Additionally, the authorities’ failure to take any steps to prevent flooding have made their situation worse.
According to Makon, “Our family used to extract clay from the Brahmaputra River.”
Kumar men traditionally dug 18 to 21 metres (60 to 70 feet) deep on the riverbank to extract a glutinous, dark grey clay that locals call Kumar “maati” (soil).
The Brahmaputra Board, a state-run body that regulates the government’s response to floods and soil erosion, started constructing river embankments in 2018 to stop the Kumars from dumping clay on the riverbank.
The Brahmaputra Board’s efforts to protect Majuli island are hampered by the board’s efforts to extract clay directly from the exposed riverbanks, according to a spokesperson for the board.
The spokesperson said the board provided an alternative to the Kumar potters by making clay available through designated pits or boreholes that could be accessed after filling an application form. However, the number of applicants for Kumars was not disclosed.
Makon claimed that the Brahmaputra’s embankment made her pay more for a company with little commercial value or organized marketing because it forced her to purchase clay from mainland Assam.
November is their best month when floodwaters recede and foreign and Indian tourists take a 90-minute ferry from Jorhat, a city in mainland Assam, to Majuli’s Salmora village, where the Kumar women sculpt pots with their hands and feet. The tour provides additional income for Makon’s two daughters who are secondary school students.
On occasion, the Kumars sculpt and sell pots of various sizes to local artisans. Tekelis, the most popular and smallest pot used for storing milk, is sold for just 10 rupees ($0.12) to vendors, who resell them for 20 to 100 rupees ($0.23- $1.15) at shops across Majuli and mainland Assam.
Salmora has long, winding dirt roads lined with bamboo and concrete stilted houses. On a road that crosses the village when the island is not flooded, hundreds of dried tekelis stack on top of one another on top of one another. The men bake those pots and sell them in the market.
No money is involved.
In Majuli, which is prone to flooding, is not just a dying type of pottery, though.
Almost 18km (11 miles) from Salmora lies Upper Katoni village, where the silence of the nights is often interrupted by young men and boys singing and thumping hollow drums. A four-hour long, mostly performed after midnight, theatrical production known as Bhaona is staged there. After having dinner, locals gather to watch their neighbors, siblings, or friends perform.
The entirely male troupe of actors play characters from the Hindu epic, Ramayana.
Jyoti Bhuyan, who plays a king in the dance drama, said, “We’ve been rehearsing for the past three weeks.” “Even in the hotter months, we’re able to perform”.
The Namghars, open prayer houses unique to Assam, are where the Bhaona was performed in the 16th century. According to a Majuli District Office spokesman, the island has more than 384 Namghars.
“I’ve been doing this since I was a young boy”, said Karunav Bhuyan, a Bhaona actor and political science professor at a college on the island. Anyone from any background can watch us perform, and that is what is constant.”
The masks used by Bhaona actors are made of bamboo and a mixture of clay and cow dung. The masks typically have wide, almond-shaped eyes, thick, furrowed brows, and a mouth flaunting a full set of teeth or bright red lips. The mask’s sharp, angular facial features, combined with contrasting eye and hair colors, are frequently displayed inside Majuli residents’ homes.
Hem Chandra Goswami, a 67-year-old mask maker, told Al Jazeera, “At first, no one wanted to make masks because there was no money in it.”
Goswami, who lives in Majuli’s Samaguri village, started making smaller, easy-to-hang masks and has been teaching the art to high school students since 2012. For promoting the art form, he received the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award, in 2023.
Traditional costumes for Bhaona performances were only made by men, and only men have a male face. But that is changing.
At Majuli University of Culture, a university that focuses on the preservation of local art forms, 25-year-old theatre student Brishti Hazarika is learning how to make masks. Whether or not the government grants us funding, Hazarika said, “We can still put on shows and enjoy our festivals.”
The island’s more well-known tourist attractions are the Satras – the cultural and religious centres where celibate male monks, draped in white cotton cloth, reside.
Contrary to the polytheistic pantheon of numerous gods in mainstream Hinduism, these monks, known as Bhakats, enlist in the Satras during the adolescence and spend their entire lives worshiping Lord Krishna.
But annual floods and land erosion have reduced Satras from more than 65 to just 35 in the past decades, according to the Majuli District Office spokesperson. Not every Satra is properly maintained, which is worse.
The Samaguri Satra, in contrast to Makon, is far from the Brahmaputra River, which avoids the destruction brought on by annual floods. That explains why Pradip Goswami, another local mask artist and a cousin of Hem Chandra, wishes there were more opportunities to produce the masks commercially.
He claimed that having a bridge over the river to connect us to the mainland would help mask making spread even further.
‘ This is all we know ‘
An 8 km (5 km) bridge connecting Majuli and Jorhat was announced by the Assam government in 2022. However, the $70 million project was put on hold in September of last year because of payment disputes, according to local media reports that Uttar Pradesh State Bridge Corporation Limited (UPSBCL), a state-run company tasked with building the bridge.
Al Jazeera reached out to the UPSBCL for its response to such speculations, but did not receive any reply.
The Assam government announced in May that it was looking for a new contractor to build the bridge. However, Majuli residents claim that the government has been careless with their lives and livelihoods.
The Majuli Cultural Landscape Management Authority (MCLMA), created in 2006 to oversee the island’s development and protect its cultural heritage, has not held a meeting in more than a decade, alleges MCLMA executive member Sanjib Borkakoti. He claims that even the office where he used to work twice a year no longer exists.
Borkakoti told Al Jazeera, “There is no government] supervision.” He said the Indian government tried at least twice – unsuccessfully – for a UNESCO World Heritage Site status for Majuli, a tag that would have brought “international attention and pushed the local government to protect what’s remaining”.
Borkakoti’s allegations were the subject of an Al Jazeera inquiry, which the government did not receive.
Meanwhile, art transcends the preservation of a cultural identity for Majuli residents like Makon. It is rooted in survival.
As Makon uses a wooden bat to shape a clay pot, she says, “We just don’t know if we will have a home tomorrow.” She spins the pot one more time to make sure there are no bumps, and concludes, “This is all we know.”
Source: Aljazeera
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