ABSTRACT
This chapter brings to light the political agency of the disaster-affected people in Majuli. That Assam has been historically a fertile ground for peasant resistance is well documented (Saikia 2014). In Majuli, however, a mass movement has never really taken off despite popular discontent against the state for its failure to protect the island from the twin disasters of flood and erosion. Drawing on social movement theories and political ecology scholarship, this chapter examines as to why there is an absence of social movement in Majuli. The island may lack a social movement, but this does not mean that the islanders have been quiet. Far from it, they have expressed their dissent through a wide range of everyday forms of resistance. The chapter discusses some of these. One of the dominant forms of popular resistance in Majuli is petitions. The chapter critically evaluates petitions as resistance. It also discusses rituals as one of the weapons of the weak.
