The Two Sides Of The Sundarbans

First published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. 42 No. 4, April 2022

By Amandeep Kaur Bamrah

I had a chance to visit the Sundarbans for the first time in February 2022, as part of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation’s project – Sundarbans-Bagh Sankalp, supported by the H.T. Parekh Foundation. Under the project, we took a few women from various villages like Chhotomollahkhali, Kalidaspur and Pakhiralaya on a visit to the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve, and I had the opportunity to interact with them and listen to their stories. As language was a barrier, I was accompanied by Suchandra Kundu, founder of SHER, who has been working in the region for a long time. This provided a glimpse into some of the problems they face, allowing me to realise that the many things that we take for granted or consider as a basic necessity are quite a luxury for these women.

The first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Sundarbans’ is the long and continuous stretch of mangrove habitat divided by rivers and creeks that support a variety of lifeforms – from reptiles to birds, crustaceans to fishes, and mammals, including the endangered Bengal tiger. A total of 49 mammal, 355 bird, over 500 plant and 360 fish species are found here.

Sundarbans is believed to have been named after the most dominant mangrove species found in the region – the Heritiera fomes, also commonly known as Sundari. Sundarbans in Bengali literally means “beautiful forest”. It is located at the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers and the Bay of Bengal. It extends approximately over 10,000 sq. km., of which 40 per cent (4,110 sq. km.) is under Indian administration while the rest is under the Bangladesh administration. In India, for administrative reasons, the region is divided into two regions of West Bengal – north and south 24 Parganas, with the majority area falling under South 24 Parganas. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is not only home to wildlife but it is also home to approximately 4.5 million people.

A tiger on the banks of the Sundarbans. Human-tiger conflicts have claimed many fishermen’s lives, often leaving behind bagh bidhoba or tiger widows who are ostracised, abandoned or disowned by their families. One of the key goals of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation’s Sundarbans-Bagh Sankalp project is to empower women and children from communities in the Sundarbans with knowledge and skills to lead more secure and sustainable lives. Photo: Amitava Majumder.

Community on the edge

This unique ecosystem has its unique set of problems. People here live in extreme poverty. The terrain is difficult and inaccessible with little to no development. There are frequent natural calamities like cyclones, floods and tidal surges, now recurring even more often due to the climate crisis. Over the last two decades, the frequency of high to very high intensity cyclonic events in the Bay of Bengal has risen by 26 per cent.

For the women of the region, these problems are significantly higher. They often support their families financially, and also care for their wellbeing, which leaves them with no time for themselves. They are involved in the collection of prawn seeds, crabs and fishing from the river, on account of which they are under the constant threat of snake bites, and shark or crocodile attacks.

Challenges Aplenty

While in urban regions, women live in relatively better environments, in rural areas there is still a long way to go. In the Sundarbans particularly, here are women’s most significant challenges that I learnt about during my visit.

Migration: Male members of the family migrate to other cities or countries to earn a living, leaving the women behind in this difficult terrain to take care of the kids and the elderly.

Access to fresh and clean drinking water: Water, water everywhere but not a single drop to drink. This stands true for the people of the Sundarbans. Salinity ingress has made their home ponds saline on account of which the women travel long distances to fetch potable water from tube wells. This situation gets worse during the rainy season, when they have to wade through dirty water, causing various skin diseases. As street lights are missing from the majority of villages, it is extremely difficult for them to fetch water in the evening if the stored water is exhausted.

Access to safe and hygienic sanitation: A major problem that these women face on the island is access to safe and hygienic sanitation. Toilets without a water pipeline are of no use as they create a burden on the women to fetch additional water for flushing the toilets. Another issue is that these toilets often get submerged during the monsoon season, which is when they are needed the most, leaving them with no choice but to defecate in the open, defeating the whole purpose of promoting toilet construction in the house.

Health: On account of constant contact with saline water during fishing, crab and prawn collection, UTIs are common among women. These women are also often totally unaware of hygenic menstruation practices leading to increased risk of cervical cancer.

Expecting mothers have to travel long distances during labour to deliver their babies in the hospital and that too by changing modes of transport (road and water) to reach Canning, where they have a good hospital. Surveys conducted to understand the well-being of women by the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) and the international NGO Save the Children in Patharpratima block in 2013 revealed that more than 64 per cent of the female population was anaemic and malnourished. Malnutrition and anaemia increase mortality during childbirth.

While an LPG cylinder is a basic need for most of us, it’s a luxury for women here on account of which they are dependent on the forest to collect firewood and are not only exposed to harmful gases like carbon monoxide but also risk snake bites and tiger attacks.

As part of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation’s Sundarbans-Bagh Sankalp project, local women from Kalidaspur village were taken on a visit to the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve in February 2022. These women, who are burdened by financial and family responsibilities, had never had the opportunity to take a day off to explore the biodiversity in their own backyard. Photo: Amandeep Kaur Bamrah.

Bagh bidhoba or tiger widows: Life for the bagh bidhoba or tiger widows (women widowed on account of tiger attacks on their husbands) is probably the most difficult as they are ostracised overnight for being unlucky and the reason behind the untimely demise of their partners. The young widows’ financial and family needs force them to work overtime. The elderly tiger bidhobas are often abandoned or disowned by their families, making them the most neglected of the lot.

Lack of education: Most youth in the Sundarbans are school dropouts. This is not on account of lack of interest but mainly because of poverty and lack of resources to complete their education. The girls are married at a young age – around 15 years or as soon as they reach puberty – as they are believed to be a liability. Human trafficking is another major issue in the Sundarbans.

During my interaction with these women, I realised that all of them, although involved with fishing, crab or prawn collection, had never visited the forest for recreational purposes and had not perhaps enjoyed even a single totally carefree day. As we were to conclude the trip, I saw these women singing some folklore songs and also dancing to celebrate this freedom that they had for one day.

If you believe that being a woman is not easy in our country, what do you think about being one in a remote village of the Sundarbans?

Amandeep Kaur Bamrah is the National Coordinator for Sanctuary’s Kids for Tigers Programme.


 

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