With the monsoon and its floods just round the corner, over 20 Satradhikars—heads of traditional Vaishnavite Satras—of Majuli on Thursday fixed May 15 as the deadline for the Government to come out with a “final commitment and action-plan” for protecting the heritage island from being wiped out by the Brahmaputra.

The Satradhikars also headed a two-hour sit-in demonstration at the Kamalabari ghat in Majuli in which over 4,000 people took part. At a subsequent meeting they lambasted the state and Central governments for failing to take any serious step to save the island.

Majuli, the world’s largest inhabited river island, has been facing a serious threat from the Brahmaputra in which it is located, with the turbulent river already eroding away nearly half its land mass in the past 50 years.

“We have been telling the Government over and over again that Majuli is not just home to over two lakh people, but also the heart and soul of Assamese culture and arts. But all our pleas have just fallen on deaf ears. All that the Government does is announce or sanction a few crores of rupees,” Pitamabar Deva Goswami, Satradhikar of Auniati Satra and one of the minds behind the Save Majuli campaign, told The Indian Express over the phone.

He pointed out that whenever the issue was raised, the Government makes an announcement that the Prime Minister would personally visit the island. “We have heard of at least three programmes about the PM’s visit in the past two years. But he has always chosen to cancel the programme at the last minute,” the Satradhikar lamented.

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