Last Days Of The Subansiri

Assam, in India’s little-visited northeast, harbours a wilderness rafting experience that will soon disappear with the completion of a controversial dam.

- Bodhi Garrett & Nicholas Grady-Grot

THE FIRST DESCENT OF THE SUBANSIRI River back in 2004 didn’t start so smoothly. Local boys threw rocks and even urinated from bridges, signalling their displeasure with outsiders on ‘their’ river. In the ensuing quarrel, bows and arrows were drawn and a drunkard with a machete even tried to slash the rafts. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and the first descent was completed with boats and bodies unharmed.

Tucked away in a remote corner of Assam in northeastern India, the Subansiri has always been an enticingly wild river wrapped in a wider adventure thanks to surroundings seen by few outsiders. Thankfully, today locals are more welcoming than in 2004: more likely to wave to outsiders than wee on them. Still, in the whole of 2018, less than 30 people made the run down the river’s length.

Sadly, just as the region begins to open to the outside world, the river, one of its chief physical attractions, is about to be changed forever. Construction of a downstream dam will flood over 50% of the rafting run.

Once completed, this dam will be the largest in India. Besides the power it will produce, it will also be a major step in India’s development of a truly remote area and will solidify its claim to a region that is still disputed. Many of the tribes there once considered themselves Sino-Tibetan, but the development brought about by the Indian government, in the form of roads, schools, health clinics and food subsidies, has changed perceptions.