Settling-on-the-Move: Birsing Char-scapes in the Brahmaputra Valley

Chars are shifting riverine islands. This article focuses on Birsing Char, part of Birsing Jarua Village Panchayat, in the Brahmaputra River near the Indo-Bangladesh border. Generations of families have migrated across this porous border, settling in the Lower Brahmaputra Valley. This migration has intensified the sociocultural othering of Bengali Muslims amid Assam’s identity politics and India’s rising authoritarianism. Through fieldwork and interpretative mapping, the article uncovers forms of alternative knowledge, including local spatial practices and intangible heritage like songs and poetry, threatened by infrastructural development, policies of the Indian government and climate change. It explores how such knowledge can be harnessed and inspire alternative development policy and design in the context of global warming in the Brahmaputra Valley and in Assam’s sociopolitical climate. The case underscores the urgency of recognizing marginalized chars as vital to the region’s water legacy, as they contribute both to local livelihoods and broader ecological systems.