Kalapani falls in the arc of greater traditional illegal migration, on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra. Even the then Deputy Commissioner of Dhubri, L’C. Singhi, a large, cheerful man, declared in 1998 that while immigration was still taking place, it was more through the Mancachar corridor, below the Meghalaya hills, near where Kalapani is located. Dhubri, he said, was not an area of settlement because local people were against outsiders coming in and edging them out of the holdings and few privileges which they enjoy.

The extensive devastation caused by the river was forcing people to move away from their homes. ‘Where will all these people go? Where is the land to be shared with Bangladeshis? The entire labour force of Assam is supplied by Dhubri; there is not enough land for them here, how will they accommodate new settlers?’

In Kalapani, one man declared himself to Anindita as a ‘leader-type manuh’ (person in Assamese) and in addition declined to give his name. He spoke about how the new immigrants were Muslim. ‘They have local supporters who give them shelter.’

‘The old settlers have land of their own, the new ones do not have . . . they are daily wage labourers, mostly,’ according to this leader-type.

Abu Hossein Bepari, a landowner on a char, spoke of how he once owned 150 bighas of land. Today, much of this family property is under water. Three sons work in other parts of the state; two were in Guwahati and the third was at Sibsagar,

Recruiting agents come to chars such as his own, known as Bandihana Char (pronounced sor by those living there) to take young men to towns in Assam for work in unskilled professions. They pull rickshaws, drive auto-rickshaws and work at construction sites. Not less than 500 young men from this char leave for the cities every year.

But then, a question arises here.

How does the population of young men replenish itself so quickly, every year? The char has a population of not more than of a few thousand. People may come from other chars, where they are forced to leave by the flood and high water. But not in such numbers. Additional numbers would come from across the border, notwithstanding many protestations, because they too face similar conditions of displacement and penury. Without this factor, an outflow of young men at the rate that Bepari spoke of is impossible.

And what is more, Bepari, who was seventy years old, white bearded, spry and bare-chested acknowledged that ‘most’ people on his char were facing IMDT cases. Many residents of the chars are suspects in the eyes of law enforcement authorities of harbouring Bangladeshis. Bepari said he had two wives and thirteen children—six sons and seven daughters.