GUWAHATI: Organisers of two sought-after festivals along the Assam-Meghalaya border have decided to cancel the annual events scheduled next month in view of the uncertainty prevailing amid ongoing protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the region.
The 10th edition of the Chandubi Festival was scheduled to be held from January 1 to 5, 2020 while the fourth edition of the Drone-Sree-Dilma river festival at Ukiam was listed from January 9 to 12, 2020.
“We regret to state that the Chandubi festival has been cancelled keeping in mind the uncertainty in the wake of the protests against the Act. At the same time, we would like to add here that we respect and support the Gana Satyagraha against CAA and offer our tribute to the youths who lost their lives during the agitation,” Jivan Rabha, president of the Chandubi festival organising committee, told The Shillong Times on Sunday.
Likewise, the organising committee of the Drone-Sree-Dilma river festival, which had earlier planned to organise the event in a bigger and unique way, had met at Ukiam recently and decided against going ahead with the event.
“It is unfortunate as the endeavour this time was to make the festival unique with inclusion of a greater number of indigenous communities, apart from conveying a message for a plastic-free environment. But given the uncertainty amid the unrest across the country, we had little option but to pull out this time,” Suneet P. Marak, general secretary of the organising committee, said.
In all fairness, the organisers might have decided right, if the dwindling number of visitors, including the odd picnic group, to both the sought-after destinations (Chandubi Lake and Ukiam), is an indicator of the things to come this winter.
“Normally, on a Sunday ahead of Christmas, the place (Ukiam) would have been buzzing with picnickers and visitors alike, and the route from Chaygaon would have been chock-a-block with vehicles . But today, we hardly had any visitors at the picnic spot or vehicles on the road to Ukiam,” Marak said.
The scene in Chandubi (65km to the west of Guwahati) located on the foothills of Garo Hills in the Rajapara area of Kamrup district on Sunday was subdued as well.
“It is quite unusual for Chandubi to have a quiet Sunday in December. But, given the uncertainty, it is perhaps understandable, a trend which has also led to the decision of calling the edition off this time. Besides, a majority of the artistes and troupes invited for participation in the cultural events were from outside the area. But we hope that from next year, we will go about organizing it as we have done in the past nine editions,” Rabha said.
The Chandubi organizing festival committee had fixed a budget of about Rs 30lakh for the event. “We had spent about 60 per cent of it so far and hence incurred a loss. Besides, the livelihoods of about 80 boatmen of Chandubi Lake would have been hit this time,” he added.
The Chandubi festival has over the editions witnessed an average daily footfall of about 15000 visitors while the Drone-Sree-Dilma fest had in the past seen close to 4000 visitors every day.