We reach Majuli by ferry from a tiny port near Jorhat, in Assam, in northeastern India. It is an isolated land, wedged between two rivers, away from the hubbub of the world. In January-February, flowering mustard plants adorn the fields with an intense yellow. In summer, a large part of the territory is drowned in the monsoon rains. There reigns on this earth a mixture of spirituality and serenity, but also of fatalism.
We must hurry to visit Majuli, because, by 2030, the largest river island in the world will have disappeared, engulfed by the Brahmaputra, this stormy river which originates in Tibet and goes to throw itself into the Bay of Bengal after having crossed India and Bangladesh. In a century, the island, which is home to 200,000 people, has lost more than half of its surface, 70 villages have been wiped off the map.
Fatalism and serenity
Its soils are eroding at an accelerated rate under the effect of climate change, floods and dams built by man upstream. There will soon be nothing left of the houses on stilts of the Mising, “the people of the river”, the majority ethnic group, nor of the satras, the Hindu monasteries of the 16e century, both places of worship and cultural and artistic centres. The island has counted up to 65, there are only twenty-two, the majority have been drowned by the river.
Hungarian photographer András Zoltai, 32, was born in Hungary next to a beautiful river, the Tisza. Fascinated by the great rivers, he wanted to capture the special atmosphere of Majuli, which he discovered for the first time in 2020: its geographical, social and spiritual isolation; the relationship of the inhabitants with their island, nature, water; this fragile balance shaken by global warming. He lived with the residents, shared in particular the daily life of two families, until he forged intimate and deep ties and was able to understand what the river represents for them.
“I met an old man in Salmora who had moved more than ten times, and he continues to live in Majuli. »Andras Zoltai, photographer
“I have been to Majuli three times, for more than a hundred days, he says. My working method is always participative, I try to live like people. Families welcomed me for long days and with their eyes it was much easier to see the truth and to understand their way of thinking. I wanted to tell the story of global warming through them rather than dehumanizing the phenomenon by photographing the floods that carry away houses and collapsing banks. »
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