Is Guwahati Losing Itself to Concrete Dreams?

There was a time when Guwahati breathed.

Mornings smelled of xewali. The river sang, slow and patient. There was space to walk, to pause, to remember. That Guwahati is fading—beneath the weight of cement, traffic, and a relentless race toward a version of “progress” no one seems to fully understand.

Today, the city is louder, taller, and faster. But is it better?

Each month there is news of another flyover, another "smart road," another apartment complex clawing into another hill. We are assured this is development. But if one hour of rain is sufficient to flood a whole locality, if traffic clogs the air and humans cough more than they inhale—oughtn't we to stop and question what precisely we're constructing?

For right now, it appears we're constructing a time bomb.

Unplanned and Unbothered

Urbanization is inevitable. But Guwahati's growth is like a crisis in slow motion.

We build onto wetlands, hills are excavated for flats, and drainage is medieval. We construct over rivers, not alongside them. We destroy beels to construct banquet halls. And when water takes back what it had given earlier, we say it is a natural disaster. It is not. It is man-made negligence, camouflaged in the language of rain.

Ask the people of Anil Nagar, Nabin Nagar, or Hatigaon—areas that drown every monsoon, even at the slightest shower. Their lives are spent waiting for loss. Their calendars aren't marked by seasons, but by flood days.

The Floods Aren't Just Water

This is not about blocked drains alone. It's about a city that has been planned with no memory or mercy. Master Plans come out but are never implemented. Zoning laws are there, but they flex whenever there is money.

Guwahati expands not because it's planned to—but because nobody is preventing it.

And thus garbage is thrown into rivers, houses rise without parking or drainage, sidewalks disappear under bicycles, and walkers are pushed to the brink of madness.

The outcome? A city where the car-owner only is catered to for convenience, and the rest of us slosh through filthy water, potholed roads, and increasing aggravation.

The City That Forgot Its Lungs

The harm isn't civic—it's environmental. Deepor Beel, a once lush wetland, is dwindling under landfill and encroachment. Silsako has been disfigured beyond all recognition. Hills that used to protect the city from erosion are being cut open in areas such as Kharguli, Noonmati, and Panjabari.

This isn't development. It's ecological suicide.

We're strangling the same systems that used to keep Guwahati cool, breathable, and flood-resistant. We ignore the fact that wetlands aren't vacant land. We use trees as speed bumps. And when the city chokes, floods, or cracks—nobody in charge recalls the last tree felled.

Inequality in Every Brick

Worse still, this urban rubbish doesn't catch everyone equally.

The rich build up. They have generators, water tanks, air purifiers, and gated security. The poor go down—literally and figuratively. They reside in landslide areas, floodplains, and homes one rain shower away from destruction. They are blamed for "encroachment" while the real estate mafia clears forest land with impunity.

This is not merely climate injustice. It's class injustice, dressed as infrastructure.

Is This the City We Wanted?

We need to ask ourselves—what are we heading towards? What does Guwahati want to be?

A "metro city" lined with malls, glass skyscrapers, and highways that are nice on billboards but collapse under their own weight? Or a city that continues to hear its river, respects its forests, and values the people who constructed it?

Because currently, we are selling soul for cement.

It's Not Too Late—But It's Close

There's still time. But not much.

Urgently defend what's left of our green belts. Punish illegal hill cutting. Destroy encroachments on wetlands—first the powerful, then the powerless. Improve public transport. Make all new construction clear environmental audits. Restore footpaths. Replant trees—not as events, as policy.

Most of all, we need to place people—workers, wage earners, walkers—at the heart of our city plans. Not cars. Not profit.

The Clock Is Ticking

Guwahati is not a city. It is a living being—and currently, it's choking on the fantasy of progress.
We have confused movement with progress. Building for planning. Sound for growth. But cities don't fall overnight. They fall gradually—under the impact of unpaid warnings.

And if we’re not careful, this city, once proud and peaceful, will be remembered not for what it became—but for what it refused to become.

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