Makaura Pattan, IndiaAlong India’s international border with Pakistan, seven hamlets on the Ravi River rely on scattered lifelines for survival: a floating bridge that has to be dismantled for four months every year during monsoon season, a lone boat in the monsoons, a couple of empathetic boatmen.

Around 3,500 people live in the cluster of seven villages known as Makaura Pattan, which include Tur, Lasian, Rajpur Cheba, Bharial, Kajli, Mammi Chak Ranga, and Kukar. On one side, the land is fenced in by the Ravi, a fierce river that separates it from the Indian mainland; on the other, miles of heavily guarded barbed wire and steel mesh fence partition it from Pakistan.

In the last 75 years—since India won its freedom from colonial rule