Unchecked avarice and abuse of power push Sundarban fishers to the brink
Unchecked avarice and
abuse of power push Sundarban fishers to the brink
(Briefly published in the ‘Ganashakti’ entitled as ‘Punjir Chape Konthasa Hochchhen Sundarboner Matsyajibira’ on 29th September, 2024)
Milan Das
Translated by Santanu Chacraverti
The Sundarban has fallen prey to capital. The
biodiversity of this mangrove ecosystem is threatened by the unbridled growth
of tourism business. The tyranny of the forest department confronts the poor
and marginalized residents of the area with the threat of eviction. Livelihoods
are under constant attack. The traditional livelihood of fishing faces the
threat of extinction. Every day, new legal stratagems are devised to create new
threats to the livelihood of the fishers.* The unique ecosystem of Sundarbans is being destroyed
by the lure of indiscriminate tourism.
Today, the people dependent on the mangrove ecosystem
for their livelihood have become exiles in their own homes. They barely manage
to subsist. Mangroves and other halophytes are being cut down indiscriminately.
Hotels are coming up in hordes. The concrete walls of the offices of the ‘wildlife-loving’
NGOs are being mud-plastered to pose as weekend farmhouses. Round the year, tourists
get a guided tour of local poverty. The misfortunes of the Tiger Widows and
their poverty-stricken neighbourhoods become special tourist attractions. To
promote tourism, resorts and watch towers are springing up in forest department
offices and camps deep inside the forest—and to hell with the real goals of the
Tiger Project!
The fishers are not allowed the use of machine-driven
boats in the name of pollution—yet there is no end to the thick smoke billowing
from tourist boats fitted with high-powered engines. After all, legal restrictions are meant only
for poor people. No rules need apply when it is question of tourism and the
prosperity of the favoured NGOs!
The process of evicting forest-dependent
people from the Sundarban began in 1928, during the colonial rule. The process
continued after the country became independent. Nevertheless, and in heroic
defiance of all conspiracies against them, the people of the Sundarban
persisted in their struggle to survive. However, the present State Government
has set out to hammer the final nails in the coffin.
Recently, the process of incorporating 1044.68
sq. km of reserved forest in Matla, Raidighi, and Ramganga ranges into the Sundarban
Tiger Reserve (STR) has been completed. In the proposal [no. 306/WLI2W-80(2)/2023
dated 20.12.2023] by the Chief Wildlife Warden of West Bengal, which was
submitted to the National Tiger Conservation Authority for Technical Clearance
and which received the said clearance in January 2024 [F. No.
15-30(5)/2023-NTCA, New Delhi, dated, the January 17, 2024], there is no sign
that the State Government has spared even a shred of thought to what would
become of the common people dependent on these forests. In addition, the
so-called wildlife organizations and the tourist entrepreneurs joined hands to make
the combined Centre-State initiative a thumping success.
Out of this 1044.68 sq km of reserved forest, in the
forested area between Matla and Thakuran rivers, 556.45 sq km has already been
designated as West Sundarban Wildlife Sanctuary. In the rest, i.e. in 1044.68 –
556.45 = 488.23 sq. km area, fishing was permitted. That area is now acquired
under Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR). So, what is left for the fishers?
Forest officials and so-called wildlife lovers have a
pat answer: Why, what have the fishers to fear? That 488.23 sq km area of the
reserved forest now falls within the
This bureaucratic reply does not remove the anxiety of
the fishers. Because they know that, after some time the entire buffer will
become CTH (Critical Tiger Habitat) from which fishers will be thrown out. This
is the same thing as what happened in 2007, when, in addition to the entire
core area of the Sundarban Tiger Reserve, 369.53 square kilometers of Kholabada (fishing-permitted area) was
declared as 'Critical Tiger Habitat' (Notification No. 6028-For, dated 18.12.
2007) and fishers expelled from there.
Moreover, the fishers used to fish on machine-driven
boats in the abovementioned 488.23 sq. km fishing area of the reserved
forest. If that area now becomes ‘buffer’ area after being incorporated into
the STR, they will no longer be able to enter there with machine-driven boats.
This is because fishing on machine-driven boats is not allowed in the STR. Yet,
all surveillance boats of the STR and tourist boats operate with high-powered
engines. Is there nothing wrong with that? Aren’t any rules flouted thereby?
The history of eviction of the fishers from the
Sundarban, however, is quite old. It has been an on-going conspiracy, going on
since colonial times. In 1878, the Sundarban had been declared a Protected
Forest (on 07.12.1878). In 1928, the colonial government imposed restrictions
on forest-based livelihoods by declaring most of the Sundarban Protected Forest
in the undivided 24 Parganas as Reserved Forest (Notification No. 15340-For,
dt. 09.08.1928). The Basirhat Range was established. After some fifteen years,
the remaining Protected Forest was also declared Reserved Forest (Notification
No. 7737-For, dt. 29.05.1943) as the Namkhana Range.
As a result of declaring the Indian Sundarban Reserved
Forest, the communities lost the intrinsic right to pursue livelihoods in any
part of those forests. As per the Indian Forest Act of 1927, carrying of guns,
cattle grazing, felling of trees, collection of forest products, and clearing
of land was prohibited or regulated. Whatever livelihood practices remained,
could only continue at the sufferance of the Forest Department.
All this happened during the colonial rule but
did not end with it. In 1973, the government of the independent nation took its
first step to evict fishers from the rivers-creeks-forests of the Sundarban. In
the Indian Sundarban forest, estimated to be of some 4,264 sq. km area, the
eastern side, the Pub Bada situated east of the Matla River, was
reputed to have the most fish wealth. In this area was established (on 23
December 1973) the renowned Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR), measuring some 2,585
sq. km (2,584.89 sq. km, to be exact). Out of this area, 1330.10 sq. km was
declared as the ‘Core’ area and this was taken out of bounds for the fishers. (An
additional area of 241.07 sq. km, in Arbesi and Katuajhuri blocks was proposed
as ‘subsidiary wilderness zone’, to
be also kept out of the fishing operations. However, this does not seem to have
been acted upon in terms of exclusion and fishers could access this area.)
Further, in 1976, Compartments 1–5 of Panchamukhani Forest Block and
Compartments 1–7 of the Pirkhali Forest Block were combined to create the
Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS) measuring some 362.40 sq. km (vide
Notification No. 5396-For,
dt.24.06.1976).
How much was the area of Kholabada or
fishing-permitted area in the STR? To find that we must subtract from the total
STR the two areas to which access was definitively denied—namely the Core area
and the Sajnekhali WLS. The figures are as follows: 2,584.89 sq. km – (1,330.10
sq. km + 362.40 sq. km) = 892.39 sq. km. So, out of 2,584.89 sq. km of the STR,
1,692.50 sq. km area is definitively out of bounds for the fishers, and they
have been given access to only 892.39 sq. km.
To the fishers, this 1,692.50 sq. km area is known as Bandhabada
(access-denied forest). The forest-blocks and its compartments included in this
Bandhabada at that time were the following: Matla (1–4), Chamta (4-8), Chotohardi (1-3), Gosaba
(1-4), Gona (1-3), Bagmara (2-8), Mayadweep (1-5), Panchmukhani (1-5) and
Pirkhali (1-7). In the experience of the fishers, 70 percent of the total fish
of the entire Sundarbans can be found in these 1692.50 sq. km of Bandhabada.
Thus, after 1976, 892.39 sq. km of Kholabada remained
in the Sundarban Tiger Reserve. (Here, we discount the 241.07 sq. km of subsidiary
wilderness zone, which was mentioned in the Management Plan but did not result
in excluding fishers. Hence, the fishers included that area within Kholabada,
or fishing-permitted area). The forest blocks and its compartments included in
the entire Kholabada were Arbesi (1-5), Jhilia (1-6), Katuajhuri (1-3),
Harinbhanga (1-3), Chamta (1-3), Bagmara (1), Netidhopani (1-3) and Chandkhali
(1-4). According to fishermen, only 15% of the fish available in the Sundarbans
can be found in this area.
Before the Sundarban Tiger Reserve was established in
the 2,584.89 sq. km of forest, there were about 8,000 fishing boats. After the
Sundarban Tiger Reserve was established, only 923 boats were given Boat License
Certificate (BLC) by 1980 for fishing in its 892.39 sq. km Kholabada area.
After the Sundarban Tiger Reserve was established in
1973, 1679.11 sq. km of forest area on the west side of Matla River, referred
to as the 'Paschim Bada', remained as reserved forest as before. Some three
years later, in 1976, 5.95 sq. km of that forest, the Haliday Island (a small part of Compartment No. 7 of Dulibhasani
Forest-Block), and 38 sq. km of the forest, the Lothian Island, belonging to Compartment No. 1 of Saptamukhi Forest-Block, i.e. a
total area of 43.95 sq. km has been declared as Wildlife Sanctuary by
Notification No.5388-For, dt. 24.06.1976 and Notification No. 5392-For, dt.
28.06. 1976 respectively. Only 5% of the total fish in the entire Sundarbans
can be found there. The remaining 1635.16 sq. km of reserve forest produce only
10% of the total fish of Sundarbans. About 3,700 boats have been granted BLC
and allowed to access that 10%.
In the 4,264 sq. km of Sundarban forest, about 10,000
boats (both manually driven and machine-driven boats) hunt fish. Usually, about
three fishers go to fish in the usual-sized boats. However, in many cases,
10-12 fishers may go to fish in the longer boats. Countless others fishing in
the waters adjoining their villages (for example, in Bakkhali or Dhanchi forest)
do not need to resort to boats to fish. Thus, the total number of fishers
fishing in the Sundarban has been estimated to be easily more than a hundred
thousand.
Anyway, of all the boats, only 923 for the original
STR and 3,700 for the non-STR Reserved Forest, i.e. a total of 4,623 boats have
been given BLCs to fish in the Sundarban forests. Thus, only about 14-15
thousand people get the opportunity of fishing in the Sundarbans with BLC.
However, hunger overrides all other laws. Most of the
more than hundred thousand fishers who fish or hunt crabs in the Sundarban are
compelled to do so without permission in their traditional fishing grounds—i.e.
in areas adjoining their homes or areas further off but familiar to them—irrespective
of whether the said area is Core, WLS, or Buffer. As a result, in the very
areas they had frequented for their livelihood down generations, they are now
unwanted ‘intruders’. And, because of that, when they are caught by the forest
guards, they are subjected to indescribable humiliation.
What sort of humiliation? A hefty bribe! If
you can't pay, you lose your nets and boat. Getting beaten up; food provisions
and water thrown out of the boat! Along with that, the fish and crabs are snatched
and water poured into the oil tank if it is a machine-driven boat! Leaving with
the handle of the machine—leaving the fishers stranded! Throwing out the rudder
and oars in the tidal current, to be lost for ever!
To evade these predator 'Forest Babus', fishers
row or push their boats deep into the narrow forest creeks, where many fall
prey to tiger attacks. Thus, to earn a few rupees, the future of the entire
family is thrown in jeopardy.
Even those with BLCs are not immune to persecution.
Because the Kholabada has little fish, the catch there does not pay for the
cost the trip, let alone leaving some money for the family. So, the fishers
also enter the Core or WLS areas for fish. If caught, every fisherman on the
boat must pay a fine of Rs 1,150. A second-time offender has to pay twice that amount.
The third-time offender must pay twice the amount paid on the second offence—and
so on. This extortionate principle of increasing the fine amount by geometric
progression is undertaken with impunity by government officers and employees.
A forest officer might just choose not to levy a fine.
Instead, the fisher is made to pay a hefty bribe. Here, obviously, the fisher
doesn’t get a receipt. If the fisher refuses to pay the bribe, the forest
officials snatch away the BLC and keep it for any number of fortnights in some
unknown forest office. Alternatively, the nets and boat are taken away and kept
in a creek or land adjoining the forest office. Even a mild protest against such
injustices will draw kicks, sticks, and abusive language. Fighting these is
almost as hopeless as wrestling with a crocodile in water. Thus, after handing over
a large bribe to the forest officials, the fishers depart with bowed heads.
Time passes. The boats covered by BLC become
old and break down. Then again, some BLC owners have moved on to other
professions to avoid the daily harassment in the hands of the Forest Department.
Others die natural deaths. Some end up in the tiger's belly. Some fall sick.
Normally, in such situations, their BLCs should be cancelled. However, for
reasons unknown, this does not happen in many cases. The BLCs continue to be
let out on rent as BLCs belonging to ‘absentee owners.’ Again, if a boat's BLC
is cancelled, the forest department does not take any initiative to re-issue it
in the name of some other eligible fisher.
Those that don't own a BLC, try to get BLCs on
yearly contract to avoid harassment and beatings. Consequently, year after
year, absentee BLC owners continue to earn without venturing out to the forest.
The demand for BLCs is many times greater than the number of BLCs available on
rent. Therefore, in the competitive market, the rent of BLC keeps increasing. Now
the annual rent of a BLC has exceeded a hundred thousand rupees.
On the other hand, the Kholabada area of the STR calling for high-rent BLCs has been
reduced in size. While declaring the core area as Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH)
in 2007, the forest department declared an area of 369.53 sq. km (Chamta 1-3,
Bagmara 1, Netidhopani 1-3 and Chandkhali 1-4) as Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH).
This brought down the area of Kholbada to only 522.86 sq. km (892.39 sq. km –
369.53 sq. km). It was this part of Kholbada
that along with the Sajnekhali WLS was mentioned as 'buffer' in 2009
(Notification No. 615-For/11M-28/07, dated 17.02.2009). It goes without saying
that, although technically within
the ‘buffer, the Sajnekhali WLS was out of bounds for the fishers. Moreover, the
fishers did not possess exact maps of the fishing permitted area. Therefore,
every day, they would venture into the forest and face difficulties and
harassment, learning the geography of the kholabada
the hard way.
On the other hand, in 2013, 556.45 sq. km of
the 1635.16 sq. km fishing area of the West Sundarbans Wildlife Sanctuary
(Notification No. 1828-For, dt. 11.09.2013) was declared as the West Sundarban
Wildlife Sanctuary. The catch area was thus reduced to 1078.71 sq. km. In this
way, the fishers have steadily been pushed into an ever decreasing area of
operation.
This is how, for fifty years since 1973, the Sundarban
fishers have continued to retreat. What has been their lot in these 50 years?
In the last 50 years, about 50,000 boats belonging to
the poor marginal fishers of the Sundarban have been seized by forest officers and
have rotted into disuse at the forest offices. Depending on size and quality,
the cost of these boats varies from 30 thousand rupees to 3 hundred thousand
rupees. If the average boat is priced at Rs 50,000, the total loss is around Rs
250 crore. Around five hundred thousand nets of the poor marginal fishers of
Sundarban were seized and sat idle in forest offices until they were ruined.
Each of these nets costs anything from Rs 3,000 to Rs 30,000. If taking a lower
range average, the nets are taken to cost around Rs 5,000 each, the total loss
is again about Rs 250 crore.
In the last 50 years, about 8 thousand women have
become widows after their husbands going to the forest and falling prey to
tiger attacks. How does one estimate the monetary value of such a loss? It
would be difficult to ascribe a monetary figure to the value of a fisher’s life
to himself and his family (and his friends and the society at large). However,
the government has come up with a figure, in terms of compensation that a
fisher should get. The compensation that the family of a fisher who dies in a
tiger attack should get is currently a total of Rs 1,240,000—Rs 5 lakh payable
by the Forest Department, Rs 5 lakh from the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada
Yojana, Rs 2 lakh from the State Government’s Matsyajibi Bandhu Scheme and Rs
40 thousand from the National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS). (Whether the
fisher’s family actually gets all this money is a different question.) So, even
in terms of government compensation, the monetary value of eight thousand
fishers who died in tiger attacks in the last 50 years is Rs 992 crores at
current rates. And, for the past 50 years, millions of poor marginal fishermen
have been beaten, bled, insulted, and humiliated—what is the price of their
injuries, humiliation, and tears?
On the other side of the equation, what did the state,
the country and the world community gain from the Sundarban in the last 50
years? Reportedly, only a total of 103 tigers, 79 of which live in STR and the
remaining 24 are in the reserved forests. Why should the fishing community have
had to bear the cost of supporting these tigers instead of the society at
large?
When the STR was established, it had no legal basis.
What was the legal basis for the 923 BLCs originally issued and how was the
number 923 for the STR arrived at? These questions have not been answered by
Sundaran Tiger Reserve administration till date. The forest department did not
feel the need to consult and obtain the consent of the fishers dependent on the
forest before declaring the West Sundarbans Wildlife Sanctuary in 2013. Again,
before finalizing the decision to include 1044.68 sq. km of forest area of
Matla, Raidighi and Ramganga ranges of the three reserved forest ranges in
the STR, the fishers were not consulted, let alone being asked to give their
consent.
As a result of this scheme, only two ranges—the Bhagbatpur
Range and Namkhana Range—will remain outside the STR and merely within the
Reserved Forest area. Soon, these two ranges will also enter the STR as the
latest in a hundred-year long series of conspiracies to evict fishers from the
Sundarbans.
The impending disaster affects not only the fishers of
the Sundarban, but also the villages near the Sundarban forests. One often
listens to a media report—a tiger has entered a village. Here, the key question
is: why has the tiger entered the village? The answer is known to almost
everyone these days. The Royal Bengal Tiger finds it very difficult to get the
food it requires in the forest. For, a tiger consumes anything from 5 to 15
kilograms of meat a day. A full-sized male tiger can eat even up to 30
kilograms in a day. Sometimes, tigers also fast. So, on an average, if a tiger
consumes roughly 10 kg of meat per day, then, in a year, i.e. in 365 days, an
average of about 3.65 tons of meat will be needed per tiger.
Thus, in round figures, a hundred tigers in the
Sundarbans require 365 tons of meat annually. If the average weight of a
full-grown wild boar or deer is 50 kg, then 7,300 such animals will be needed
to feed 100 tigers in a year. Besides, there are animals like foxes, fishing
cats etc. in the forest and they will also need some meat. So, with so many
animals getting killed in a year, for how long will the Sundarban be able to
provide sustenance for 103 tigers? Moreover, what if, in the coming days, the
number of tigers increase from the presently reported 103? Unless there are appropriate
plans for meeting the nutrition needs of an increasing tiger population, what is
to prevent the tigers from entering the forest-adjoining villages of Sundarbans
in search of food?
Does not the above discussion suggest another question?
If, because of the inexorable logic of predation, the number of wild animals being
slaughtered in the Sundarbans forests to provide for 103 tigers is so large, how
many wild animals other than tigers are at all surviving in the forest? And if
they are surviving in ample numbers, then a doubt arises: are there at all 103
tigers in the Sundarban forest? Or is there some other story behind the reported
number 103—the ultimate outcome of immense expenditure, endless persecution, and monumental
injustice?
To put up a show of benevolence and good faith, reduce
the dependence on the forest of the forest-dependent people, to ensure that the
villagers do not kill tigers when they enter the village, and to build good
relations with the villagers, the forest department is doing some development
work by bringing the villages adjoining the forest under the Joint Forest
Management Committees (JFMCs).
However, it can be argued that development in those
villages is not the real objective of forest department at all. It can be
argued that the real objective of the forest department is to use the JFMC
members to gather information about those who are fishing in the forest without
permission. In addition, the objective is to try and isolate these adjoining
villages from other villages by providing the former with special financial
facilities through the JFMC. This creates bad blood between the benefit-receiving
villages and those denied such benefits. Therefore, when, sometime in the not-distant
future, the benefit-receiving villages adjoining the forests need to be evacuated
to increase the area for tigers, these villages will not receive the sympathy
and support from their unprivileged neighbours. This would help the forest
department to undertake eviction far more easily. Of course, all these actual
and possible measures are directed against the hapless fishers and marginal people of the Sundarban. The forest department does not and never will lift a
finger against the tourist business and its hotels.
Finally, in the process of evicting forest-dependent
livelihoods from the Sundarban forest over the last 100 years, it is clear as
day that the first in the line of eviction are the fishers—facing the threat of
losing their fishing livelihood. And, next in line for eviction are the people
of villages near the forests, who will be uprooted from their livelihood as
well as their homes.
In short, more than a hundred thousand poor fishers of
Sundarbans are endangered in a long-term conspiracy by the West Bengal
government—with active cooperation from some so-called wildlife loving NGOs and
the tourism business.
=============0==============
* A particularly striking
example from the not too distant past is from 2003, when about 10,000 fishermen
in Jambudwip were evicted from their Sabar-Jeebika
(livelihood of fish drying).
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