River Traveller: Hazarika brings alive the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra ecosystem

River Traveller: Journeys on the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal

by Sanjoy Hazarika

Published by Speaking Tiger

400 pages ₹899

  How do you tell the story of a river that originates in Tibet, flows through Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, then journeys across Bangladesh, and empties itself eventually into the Bay of Bengal? It is not an easy task but veteran journalist Sanjoy Hazarika takes on the challenge with his book River Traveller, a chronicle of his travels on and along “the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra”. 

He is not an aloof commentator. There is a personal, intimate connection with the river. As the founder of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Mr Hazarika lives near a forest in Shillong, and travels extensively across the northeast and its neighbourhood. He has also worked on documentary films that engage with the river’s past and present, and launched boat clinics that provide health care services to people living on islands prone to floods. 

Mr Hazarika’s book will appeal to environmentalists, historians, diplomats, anthropologists, political scientists, bureaucrats, and activists as well as readers who enjoy reading travelogues. He covers subjects as diverse as geopolitics, folklore, poaching of dolphins, river pirates, the politics of migration, sand mining, and wandering Sufis. Moving confidently across systems of knowledge, and making them accessible, are rare skills. 

Mr Hazarika’s curiosity, wonder, open acknowledgement of his ignorance, and the willingness to fill the gaps in his understanding make the book genuinely inviting. This is how one earns the reader’s trust; not by hiding behind an authoritative voice that lacks intellectual humility. 

He does not limit himself to learning from people like university professors, scientists, government officials, and policy wonks who are usually seen as experts. He cares about what drivers, boat builders, daily wage earners, singers, and tea plantation workers have to say, for they have valuable insights into the socio-economic, cultural and political life of the river. 

This, however, does not mean that River Traveller is deficient in terms of scholarly citation. It is clear that Mr Hazarika has read widely, be it on the history of the Ahom dynasty, China’s occupation of Tibet, water diplomacy, tourism, the customs of indigenous people, and climate action. 

The author is also able to put himself in the shoes of people distant from him in time and space, and imagine them in corporeal terms. This is evident, for instance, when he writes about Nain Singh Rawat, an “incredibly fit” Kumaoni man employed by the British as a spy to explore the Himalayas and map Tibet. “At his age (36), I certainly would not have been able to make it and certainly not more than a fourth or fifth of the distance covered every day,” notes Mr Hazarika, with admiration, because Rawat covered close to 500 miles in 37 days in the chilly Tibetan winters. 

It is also worth noting that the author used various modes of transport on his river journeys, including “large ferries, small dugouts, rubber dinghies and mid-sized country boats”. He trekked, cycled, flew, and was driven around. His reflections are shaped by the nature of transport as well because the body processes each experience differently. Comfort or the lack of it is only one aspect of this; who he got to speak with was also determined by how he travelled. 

Alongside the thrill, Mr Hazarika captures the toll that intense fieldwork can take. He is candid about “accumulated stress and exhaustion”, and even mentions an incident when a minor disagreement with a member of his film unit made him feel so vulnerable that he “could not stop weeping”. It is not common for male researchers in India to talk about such experiences. Hopefully, the author’s decision to share will reassure other researchers that they are not alone. 

Through his words, the river comes alive as a home to multiple species, a cultural archive, an economic engine, a muse for the artistically inclined, the site of battle between nations, and a friend to those who seek solace. In a nutshell, a river is not merely a natural resource to be exploited for the sake of human needs, which are always put above the needs of others.  

Mr Hazarika writes, “I have seen its beauty and faced its wrath, been stuck on sandbanks and swept out to sea. I’ve been caught in fierce storms and sailed through shimmering glass-like surfaces, the boat’s course cutting a line through the reflection of sky and clouds.” His prose strikes a chord because it does not come across as a stack of information that is eager to educate. It is deeply felt, and the feelings are shared without embarrassment or apology. It reveals the range of emotional states a river can evoke in a human—awe, fear, joy, nostalgia, sadness, even love. 

It is a pity then that China is building the Medog hydroelectric project, “a monster dam on the bend of the Tsangpo” disregarding environmental concerns. Mr Hazarika notes that “it will not just impact Tibet's ecology but has the potential to adversely affect life downstream in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Bangladesh.” The US government has traditionally been an ally to the Tibetan cause but Donald Trump may not want to arouse Xi Jinping's ire over this.

The reviewer is a journalist, educator and literary critic.

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