A Political Ecology of Forest Conservation in India (Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment) [1 ed.] 1032116390, 9781032116396

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The Sunderbans stands out as not just the biggest mangrove forest in the world, but as a complex, multi-layered and multi-dimensional ensemble of humans and non-human actors. We actually know and understand much less than we think we do and Sen takes one important step in this book in explicating this dynamic world of forests, tigers, prawn, livelihoods, conflict, itinerants, rivers, tides, boats, fishing nets, bees, fakirs and much more . . . a very welcome addition to the literature. Pankaj Sekhsaria, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

A meticulously researched account. This book is an excellent resource for students of conservation and researchers alike. The Indian Forest Rights Act was potentially one of the more radical and transformative conservation experiments. This careful analysis of its failures, and the reasons why it is not implemented is important. The site of the study— the Sunderbans—and the intricate understanding of mobility and the examination of indigeneity that the author provides, make it all the more important. This is an excellent contribution to our understanding of the political ecology of conservation. Dan Brockington, University of Sheffield

Amrita Sen advances the field of political ecology by centering the mutually constitutive nature of political and ecological contexts of the socioecological landscape in the Indian Sundarbans. Her fascinating ethnographic work engages deeply with forest-based life worlds of families, social groups, and political communities that inhabit these endangered and rapidly eroding landscapes. Sen’s arguments about how humans and tigers of Sundarbans are subjectified, through processes of regulation, control, and subjugation, shine new light on the complex workings of power within the narratives of interspecies rights. Prakash Kashwan, author of Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico (2017) and editor of Climate Justice in India

Amrita Sen breaks new ground in understanding the politics of participation in community-based conservation, by exploring how the capacity to participate is unequally distributed among different social groups as well as between humans and nonhumans. A timely and important intervention. Robert Fletcher, author of Romancing the Wild: Cultural Dimensions of Ecotourism (2014), Wageningen University

Sundarbans is in the centre-stage of our climate change debate. By exploring the political ecology of India’s highly contested regime of forest conservation and by looking at what is happening in the Sundarbans, this book offers compelling insights into the making of modern Indian nature. This will be a companion for those interested in Indian environmental politics. Arupjyoti Saikia, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

A valuable contribution to the burgeoning political ecology literature in India. By taking a rights-based approach, this book highlights the adverse environmental justice implications of conservation policy in the Sunderbans and how well intended laws such as the Forest Rights Act end up benefiting powerful interests at the expense of more marginalised forest-fishers. Ajit Menon, Madras Institute of Development Studies

A Political Ecology of Forest Conservation in India

This book critically explores the political ecology of human marginalization, wildlife conservation and the role of the state in politicizing conservation frameworks, drawing on examples from forests in India. The book specifically demonstrates the nuances within humanenvironmental linkages, by showing how environmental concerns are not only ecological in content but also political. In India a large part of the forests and their surrounding areas were inhabited far before they were designated as protected areas and inviolate zones, with the local population reliant on forests for their survival and livelihoods. Thus, socioecological conflicts between the forest dependents and official state bodies have been widespread. This book uses a political ecology lens to explore the complex interplay between current norms of forest conservation and environmental subjectivities, illustrating contemporary articulation of forest rights and the complex mediations between forest dependents and different state and non-state bodies in designing and implementing regulatory standards for wildlife and forest protection. It foregrounds the issues of identity, migration and cultural politics while discussing the politics of conservation. Through a political ecology approach, the book not only is human-centric but also makes significant use of the role of non-humans in foregrounding the conservation discourse, with a particular focus on tigers. The book will be of great interest to students and academics studying forest conservation, human–wildlife interactions and political ecology. Amrita Sen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and Visiting Faculty with Azim Premji University, India. Her research interests include cultural and political ecology, politics of forest conservation, urban environmental conflicts and Anthropocene studies. In 2019 she received the ‘Excellence in PhD Thesis award’ from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, for her doctoral research on the conservation politics in Sundarbans.

Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment

This series includes a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches to conservation and the environment, integrating perspectives from both social and natural sciences. Topics include, but are not limited to, development, environmental policy and politics, ecosystem change, natural resources (including land, water, oceans and forests), security, wildlife, protected areas, tourism, human-wildlife conflict, agriculture, economics, law and climate change. Natural Resources, Tourism and Community Livelihoods in Southern Africa Challenges of Sustainable Development Edited by Moren T. Stone, Monkgogi Lenao and Naomi Moswete Leaving Space for Nature The Critical Role of Area-Based Conservation Nigel Dudley and Sue Stolton Power in Conservation Environmental Anthropology Beyond Political Ecology Carol Carpenter Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild Conflict, Conservation and Co-existence Edited by Robyn Bartel, Marty Branagan, Fiona Utley and Stephen Harris Humans and Hyenas Monster or Misunderstood Keith Somerville Is CITES Protecting Wildlife? Assessing Implementation and Compliance Tanya Wyatt A Political Ecology of Forest Conservation in India Communities, Wildlife and the State Amrita Sen Ethics in Biodiversity Conservation Patrik Baard For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Conservation-and-the-Environment/ book-series/RSICE

A Political Ecology of Forest Conservation in India Communities, Wildlife and the State Amrita Sen

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Amrita Sen The right of Amrita Sen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sen, Amrita, author. Title: A political ecology of forest conservation in India: communities, wildlife and the state/Amrita Sen. Description: New York: Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge studies in conservation and the environment | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021025464 (print) | LCCN 2021025465 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367440671 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032116396 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003007852 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Forest conservation—India. | Forest ecology—India. | Political ecology—India. | Human ecology. Classification: LCC SD414.I4 S46 2022 (print) | LCC SD414.I4 (ebook) | DDC 333.750954—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025464 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025465 ISBN: 978-0-367-44067-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-11639-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-00785-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figuresviii List of tablesix Acknowledgementsx Forewordxiii 1 Introduction: a political ecology of forest conservation in the Indian Sundarbans

1

2 Reclaiming riverine forests: an environmental history of the Sundarbans

22

3 People and forests: understanding social structures in a vulnerable ecology

39

4 Forest-based livelihoods, survival crisis and politics of belonging in conservation landscapes

78

5 Decentralizing conservation processes through rights-based frameworks: Forest Rights Act and Joint Forest Management

117

6 A political ecology of non-human subject making in forest conservation161 7 Conclusions

175

Index193

Figures

3.1 Boats carrying commuters from Godkhali Jetty to Gosaba 41 3.2 Fieldwork sites within Satjelia island 43 3.3 Distribution of population within the GPs of Satjelia and Lahiripur (within individual mouzas) 44 3.4 River-bank huts bordering earthen embankments in Emilibari 46 3.5 Village embankments bordering river in Patharpara 47 3.6 A Munda woman making Hariya, in a village near Emilibari, named Sardarpara 60 3.7 Household distribution in the two villages according to the area of landholding 63 3.8 A well-built house of a panchayat functionary at Patharpara 64 3.9 A fisherman making the idol of Bonbibi for maghi purnima worship70 4.1 A BLC issued by STR 84 4.2 Forest fishers on a river 86 4.3 Small hand-rowed wooden boats used for forest-fishing 87 4.4 Bonbibi, Shah Janguli and Dakshin Ray 92 4.5 Small fisheries in interior villages of Sundarbans 109 5.1 Unfinished brick road at the riverside in Patharpara 153

Tables

1.1 Nineteen inhabited blocks of SBR 11 3.1 Distribution of population within the GPs of Satjelia and Lahiripur44 4.1 Fisher profile in the district of South 24 Parganas by CFMRI 83 4.2 Collection of wild honey from 2004 to 2014 93 4.3 Forest offences and seizure from 2009 to 2014 96 4.4 Human causalities 2013–2015 99 4.5 Estimates of tiger straying, human casualties and human injuries owing to tiger attack within STR (2007–2017) 102 5.1 JFMCs at STR 138 5.2 Work under JFMCs of STR carried out between 2013 and 2016 146 5.3 Community rights under JFM 148

Acknowledgements

As I write this book, the world seems to be reeling with COVID-19, running its course with the second wave now—spreading contagions; claiming lives; and added to this, in India, rendering people homeless with jobs lost; communications scrapped; and no food, ration and money. What is troubling, even more, is a severe political apathy towards the economically vulnerable people—those struggling the most with the pandemic. Coronavirus, the severest zoonotic virus which wreaked havoc across the world since December 2019, has taken the worst toll on marginal communities. While I  remain worried on the lingering impact of pandemic, I  remember the days I  had spent in Sundarbans, amidst such a group of people who despite being economically fragile kindly welcomed me into their lives with all warmth, and despite their many constraints allowed me to explore their worlds. I  owe a large debt of gratitude to each one of them. It is my pleasure to remember all those who were an integral part of this journey. I extend my deepest gratitude to the people of Satjelia with whom I stayed for the fieldwork. I am indebted to Menoka di, Anup da and Bulti, who not only provided me with the warmth of a family while I  was staying with them, but did everything possible to help me with my fieldwork in the village. I fondly remember my travels with Bulti to different places in the village and outside and the little hearsays that we shared at night, being companions of almost same age. I am grateful to Malati di, Gokul da, Mukul di, Swapan da, Karuna di, Nirapada da, Priyanka di and Shubhadeep da for their immense help with initiating the fieldwork. I  am grateful to Nimai Mistri, Baburam Mondol, Sasanka Mondol, Sandhya, Pancharam Mondol, Mahadeb Mondol, Prabhat Mondol, Harekrishna Mondol, Kabita Sardar, Tapas Mondol, Joykrishna Haldar, Joydeb Mondol, Bimal Haldar, Dilip Sardar, Asutosh Sardar, Suchandan Mridha, Umasankar Mondol, Mrityunjay Mondol, Suranjan Mondol, Thakurpada Mondol, Himangshu Mondol, Ranajit Mondol, Bapi Auliya, Mriganka Mondol, Dipankar Mondol and several others who are not mentioned here, for sharing their thoughts, stories, connecting me to different people across the island. I am indebted to them as they always remained accessible and time and again left their work to accompany me to several places during my fieldwork. Their reflections were invaluable for this research—I can never pay back the immense debt that I incurred to each one of them. I must

Acknowledgements

xi

mention Bhanu da, in whose cycle van, I was travelling to different places and this was a memorable experience. I remember time spent with Shyamal Nandy and Satabdi, with whom going for fieldwork and to village markets in evening, walking along the river early mornings and the endless conversations will be a much-cherished experience. This book would not have been possible without the constant guidance and inspiration of my PhD mentor, Sarmistha Pattanaik. I  benefitted immensely from her human wisdom across my journey as a PhD student and remain indebted to her for reposing a relentless confidence in my work. I thank D. Parthasarathy, K. Narayanan and N.C. Narayanan who, as examiners, provided valuable inputs at various stages of this work. I am grateful to Harini Nagendra for all her kindness and encouragement while framing the initial ideas of the book, during my tenure at Azim Premji University. The University and all my colleagues and friends there provided much needed motivation and energy during the initial attempts towards writing. I would be ever indebted to Ajit Menon for his constructive and thoughtful comments at various stages; he was always generous with his time and read the thesis and all preliminary chapters of this book with interest. I thank Prakash Kahswan for his suggested ways of improving the manuscript. I thank Annu Jalais for putting me in touch with numerous people who live and work in the Sundarbans; among them, I must mention Dr. Amitabha Chowdhury, towards whom I would be ever indebted. It was through his life experiences as a medical practitioner in the region that I was exposed to many of the intriguing realities of Sundarbans. I was blessed to have his constant support and readiness in all the help that I needed of him during my fieldwork. I am fortunate enough to have interacted with Amites Mukhopadhyay, whom I approached at various stages during fieldwork, and he was always kind enough to share thought-provoking suggestions. I thank Gautam Gupta, Joyashree Roy, Sujit Mandal and Sumana Bandopadhyay for providing me with valuable suggestions during my PhD. I  am ever grateful to late Dhrubajyoti Ghosh for providing me with his thoughts during a very critical period of my thesis writing. I remember lovingly my interactions with Jaya Mitra, an eminent novelist and environmental activist, who enthralled me with the stories of rural Bengal and the struggles of the people who are ever marginalized and oppressed. Reading her books during my PhD journey will always be a pleasurable experience. I thank Anamitra Anurag Danda, who, during the initial phases of my fieldwork helped me in getting a larger sense of the administrative and geomorphological system of Sundarbans. Much of the lessons on practical vulnerabilities of local people, particularly the forest workers, were learnt interacting with Pradip Chatterjee. Milan Das was kind enough to meet me and discuss interesting cases of fishers’ struggles over the years. I am thankful to Naba Datta for discussing with me implementation politics of historical forest laws. I express my sincere gratitude to Pabitra Mandal for his insights on the long-drawn struggle to implement Forest Rights Act (FRA) in Sundarbans and also for inviting me to several public meetings held with the Forest Department to put forward agendas on FRA implementation. I am grateful to Jafar Iqbal Lashkar for providing me with help and support to interact

xii

Acknowledgements

with the prawn fishery owners. I thank Aswini Pahari, chief librarian of West Bengal Legislative Assembly, for letting me access archives and documents from the Assembly library. I thank Pranabes Sanyal who always encouraged me to visit him for discussing my research. I earnestly thank Nilanjan Mallick, field director of STR, for bearing with me long interviews. I also thank Anindya Guha Thakurta, assistant field director of STR, Chandani Tudu, managing director of WBTDCC Ltd., Arabinda Bhattacharya and Madhusudan Dhar, forest guards from Bidya Beat Office of STR, for their cooperation. I thank Tapas Mondol, forest guide under STR, for his immense help during my visits to the Forest Range Offices. I also thank several forest officials from STR Range Office at Sajnekhali—Biplab Kumar Bhowmick deserves a special mention. I am thankful to Indian Institute of Technology Bombay for its general bestowal of funds during my fieldwork, without which the study would not have been possible. I also thankfully acknowledge Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project ‘Dried Fish Matters: Mapping the Social Economy of Dried Fish in South and South-East Asia for Enhanced Wellbeing and Nutrition’ (https://driedfishmatters.org/) for funding my advanced stages of research and fieldwork. Several parts of the book were presented at conferences, organized by the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (Kolkata), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (Hyderabad), Indian Institute of Technology (Guwahati), Indian Institute of Management (Calcutta), International Institute of Social Studies (The Netherlands), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm) and Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway). The feedback received from these conferences helped to look into my work more critically. Part of the fourth chapter, ‘Forest-based livelihoods, survival crisis and politics of belongingness’, was published in the Journal of Political Ecology (Volume 24, 2017). Also, part of the fifth chapter, ‘Decentralizing conservation processes through rights-based frameworks: Forest Rights Act and Joint Forest Management’, was published in the Economic and Political Weekly (Volume 52, No. 29, 2017), Environment Development and Sustainability (Volume 21, No. 5, 2019) and Environmental Sociology (Volume 5, No. 1, 2019). I thank the editors of these journals for consenting to use these works in my book. I  also thank referees of these articles, who offered multiple insightful comments. John Baddeley has been extremely cooperative during the writing and kindly considered my several requests for extensions, when I failed to meet submission deadlines. My dear colleagues at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur—and my dear students, made the long journey of this writing a cherished experience. My parents and parent-in-laws have been the sole inspiration for me in the entire duration of writing. They were the most important motivating force for my work—any attempt to thank them would belittle their affection, and there is no part of this journey that excludes them. Thanking Soumya, my husband, would be too formal; yet I take this opportunity to thank him too, for being the integral support. I thank him for being so accommodating and supportive when I failed to meet several other expectations at different fronts.

Foreword

In 2000, when atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and other scholars of global environmental change introduced the idea that humanity is living in a new Epoch—the Anthropocene—they were met with substantial scepticism. A couple of decades later, it has become clear that we are indeed living in a time unlike any that humanity has witnessed. The rate of destruction of natural resources, ecology and the environment has led to the transgression of multiple planetary boundaries, with visible impacts that include climate change and biodiversity collapse. The idea of the Anthropocene emanates from an acknowledgement that humanity has played a major role in this destruction. Yet by placing all of humanity in the same category, we implicitly assume that that all people are equally culpable, failing to acknowledge the role of capital in shaping systemic inequalities. It is an undeniable fact that those countries, societies and groups of people who have contributed the least to climate change will face the worst of the impact. Political ecology frameworks are fundamental in helping us to develop a better understanding of the structural factors that shape these inequities. In ‘A political ecology of forest conservation in India: communities, wildlife and the state’, Dr. Amrita Sen provides a deep dive into the world of the biodiverse mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, one of the world’s most densely populated areas. These forest islands are highly vulnerable to climate change and associated sea level rise. For the forest-dependent communities who eke out a precarious living in this threatened landscape, life is further complicated by the fact that much of the Indian side of the Sundarban falls within the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR). Thus, the Sundarban landscape is marked by contestations, conflict and the claiming of territorial space by the state, ostensibly for biodiversity protection. Dr. Sen weaves a compelling narrative of coupled political-social-ecological change in the Sundarbans from the colonial period through post-independent India, up to current times. She draws deftly on multiple methods, including analysis of archival records, and deep ethnographic analysis as an embedded observer. As Dr. Sen demonstrates, colonial ideas of conservation as a political project bear their signature in the Sundarban forests even today, impacting politics,

xiv  Foreword

living conditions and culture. The nexus between politics, power and socioeconomic inequalities has a visible impact in shaping imaginations, narratives and practices of forest management in the Sundarbans. By notifying large tracts of forest as protected, and drawing lines in the shifting marshland between indigenous and non-indigenous communities, political ecology plays a key role in shaping winners and losers in the short term. Tigers also become co-opted as commodified objects of control, to simultaneously serve conservation and political objectives, in a landscape which witnesses exceptionally high levels of human–wildlife conflict. In the long term, with climate change looming on the horizon, both the human and non-human actors who inhabit these islands may be doomed to lose, as global inequalities play out at a much larger scale. Through a series of chapters examining the lived experiences of specific villages, caste groups and forest management communities, this book thoughtfully demonstrates the illogic of using a simplistic, universalized understanding of politics, culture and ecology in a complex social-ecological landscape like the Sundarbans. In doing so, the book also offers a critique of existing tropes on sustainability which posit a harmonious relationship between people and nature in ‘unspoiled’ areas like the Sunderbans, blind to the complexities of everyday navigation between a sinking landscape and a hostile state that local communities are forced to undertake. There is a growing understanding of the importance of political ecology in shaping long-term trajectories of social-ecological systems in different parts of the world. This book provides a rich and nuanced addition to this literature and will be of value to scholars interested in diverse aspects of sustainability in the global South. Harini Nagendra Professor of Sustainability Azim Premji University

1 Introduction A political ecology of forest conservation in the Indian Sundarbans

Abstract: This chapter sets the conceptual framing of the book, by introducing political ecology as an analytical category to explain impacts of conservation politics on forest-dependent communities. The proposed framework offered in this chapter also provides a grounding to ask how vulnerable ecologies shape human associations, claims to resources and material relations between humans and the state. The framework foregrounds issues of power asymmetries, inequities and social injustice as imperatives in framing explorations on forest conservation politics in India, moving beyond discourses which see conservation as strictly defined by the state or those that rely on a simplistic portrayal of local communities. It prompts readers towards recognizing ecological conflicts as chequered and nonlinear, shifting discourses towards capturing complexities within place-based framings—on the impact of conservation norms on diverse stakeholders.

This book is an attempt towards the analyses of human-environment linkages in contemporary India, through an empirical and epistemological exploration of the political ecology of forest conservation. Contextualized in a geopolitical conservation landscape, the book reflects on human relationships with nature and coupled social-cultural-environmental conflicts caused by unabated human dispossessions from the forests. In the book, political ecology as an analytical framework foregrounds issues of power asymmetries, inequities and social injustice as imperatives in framing practical explorations on conservation politics, moving beyond discourses which see conservation as strictly defined by the state or those that rely on a simplistic portrayal of local communities. The aim of the book is to understand how prevailing conservation norms mediate communities and affect their existing social and institutional structures, underpinning forest livelihoods into a political realm that is embedded within multiple networks of power. While livelihoods of marginal communities are challenged by a range of control mechanisms inherent within conservation norms, the book explains how many of these conservation landscapes ‘comprise socially DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-1

2  Introduction

differentiated actors, whose priorities and claims to resources vary over space and time’ (Chomba, Treue and Sinclair 2015: 38) and so do their responses to recent conservation initiatives. The structural and social differentiation within local communities and the key imports of this differentiation within contemporary neoliberal mechanisms of forest governance are central to the political ecology analyses of this book—the current framework of forest conservation has to a large extent led me to explore and analyse the prevailing sociality of the landscape and its intensifying complexities. The book discusses ways in which rights and entitlements to resources are differentially constituted, based on social and political factors determining everyday realities of living—local heterogeneity fundamentally accounts towards exploring and identifying role of forest communities with regard to their rights to forests. It prompts readers towards recognizing ecological conflicts as chequered and non-linear, shifting discourses towards capturing complexities within placebased framings—on the impact of conservation norms on diverse stakeholders. The book raises some questions, crucial to the understanding and problematization of rights, identity and marginalization within forest-dependent lifeworlds and their profound bearing in the politics of conservation. How do vulnerable risk-prone ecologies shape material socio-economic relations and institutional contexts of forest communities? How are the marginal forestdependent people represented as a part of the ‘local’? How are policy choices determined within ecologies with sharply disaggregated social interests? Why increasing participatory powers and empowerment policies, mandated within recent conservation frameworks, fail to reduce socio-economic marginalization? The structural context (caste, class, religion and kinship) and political organization of the forest-dependent communities provide the primary context in addressing these questions, situating political-economic policies of forest conservation within the complex social arrangements of conservation landscapes.

Bringing ‘politics’ in political ecology One of the prominent frameworks that engages with the central questions of this manuscript is political ecology, which discusses ecological transformations triggered by complex political and material forces, marginalization and vulnerabilities of people dependent on ecosystem resources, movements which emanate from ecological distribution conflicts as well as political changes determining access and use of resources (Daur, Adam and Pretzsch 2016: 96). In many contemporary contexts of conservation, which are ecologically fragile and have quintessentially distinct social characters owing to unique geopolitical locations and structural compositionality, identities and political struggles around forest rights are constituted differently and cease to be explained through representative narratives (Karthik and Menon 2016; Sen and Pattanaik 2019). In an era of rapid forest policy reform, such distinctive social characters are instrumental in shaping and politicizing ecologies, since situating identities in relation to the landscape are critical imperatives while legitimizing rights to livelihood resources. In his recent book, Kashwan (2017: 13–16) points out how the interests of different social groups around resource rights are transformed into

Introduction 3

political choices and specific policies through mechanisms of ‘political intermediation’. Such intermediation takes place through politically engaged social movements, party-led corporatism and politically structured advocacies, and are effected through successful mechanisms of representation at the national, sub-national and local levels. He argues that apart from civil and political rights, mechanisms of political intermediation are critical components in successful claim-making and instituting political and policy change (ibid.). Implementation of Forest Rights Act, one policy reform explained in this book, is identified as being largely embedded in such a political agenda, necessitating an inquiry into the multiple levels of politics to understand how its implementation is translated into practice through similar political intermediations. Others referring to competing discourses in situating politics in political ecology describe interactions around resource management as ‘cultural politics’—ways to understand symbolic values of resources as instrumental in shaping collective representations, exceeding a mere signification of resources for immediate material use (Baviskar 2003: 5052). However, political ecology, including cultural politics, does not account for the effects of mainstream political processes, including how populist politics shapes the extent to which different groups can assert their rights to natural resources. Scholars of environmental politics account for these processes linked to electoral politics—the power and authority of forestry agencies and the effects of forest laws, policies and programmes on the nature and the outcomes of the contestations over natural resources. Conventionally, scholars of political economy have failed to account for the complex ways in which power shapes subjective worldviews of individuals in different contexts. An exhaustive and burgeoning range of studies have linked Foucault’s theorization of power and governmentality to the political economy of conservation. Foucault (1991: 102) defined governmentality as the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analysis and reflections, the calculations and tactics, that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security. His analysis of ‘governmentality’ presents a unique approach in examining power as central to current environmental governance frameworks (Goldman 2001; Agrawal 2005; Fletcher 2010; Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012). A fundamental way in which governmentality is understood alludes to the fact that power does not remain central to the sovereign but is exercised at all levels of the society. Power is manifested through technologies and practices, fields of knowledge, fields of visibility and forms of identity. According to Goldman (2001: 500), Foucault’s ‘art of government’, or ways in which traditional state decentred itself as the locus of centralized power, leads us to envision ‘dispersed forms of government and their immanence to the state’ (Foucault 1991: 91). This art of governance adds explanatory power to the contemporary politics of forest conservation. ‘Eco governmentality’, an effort in this direction, explores the construction of environment through production of expert knowledge and

4  Introduction

power mechanisms (Blake 1999; Goldman 2001; Agrawal 2005; Rutherford 2007). Goldman (2001: 501) describes eco governmentality as ‘the productive relations of the government, with their emphasis on “knowing” and “clarifying” one’s relationship to the nature and environment as mediated through new institutions’. Luke (1995: 77) has used the concept of ‘green panopticon’ in understanding how environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like World Watch Institute encloses nature in a kind of global supervision in order to dominate, exclude and repress people and the environment. Current environmentalism, marked by a precedence of global conservationist principles, continually operates with a scientific eco knowledge-based management of protected areas, delineating individuals into specific roles of environmental custodians. Protected areas, according to Dudley and Stolton (2008: 9), are ‘an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means’. In India, they include national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation and community reserves. Environmentalism is linked to a kind of ‘knowledge production’, based on institutionalized and professional scientific activity, whereby environmental activism and its relationship with science appears as a nexus of knowledge and power, along with being a political project (Epstein 2005: 48). This is integral to the current neoliberal conservation policies, characterized by the diffusion of regulatory powers across global think tanks, environmental organizations and corporations (Rutherford 2007: 296). Other scholars describe how forest governmentality, by reshaping forest legislations through new laws, regulations and procedures, has created ‘environmental subjects’, who ‘not only adapt to the environmental regulation practices as set by the state, but also change their behaviour from initial resistance to state regulation to pro-active participation in forest management’ (Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012: 665–666). By this mechanism, current participatory forestry policies like Joint Forest Management (JFM) transform communities from passive entities to the keepers of wildlife and forests, rather ‘environmental subjects’ (Agrawal 2005; Fletcher 2010). In recent times, environmental politics scholars have also sought to bridge gaps in conventional political economy analysis by mapping how global, transnational and national actors utilize multiple dimensions of power at various scales. For example, Kashwan, MacLean and García-López (2019) present a ‘Power and Institutions Matrix’ to facilitate a holistic mapping of power in the ‘shadows of neoliberalism’. By facilitating incorporation of material, discursive and agenda setting powers of various actors, the power matrix affords a holistic analysis of human-environment interactions, including the multiple facets of community forest dependence, the social ecologies of forests as well as the entrenched political forces that besiege contemporary forest governance and the everyday lives of the forest communities.1 The inquiry in this book advances this line of analysis on the centrality of power in administrative agendas of conservation, by putting forward a political ecology framework of incorporating politics as a context within forests lifeworlds. This framework helps to bridge a common critique of political ecology, which is, to leave out mainstream populist political processes and political

Introduction 5

economy, resulting in a failure to account for its mutually reinforcing effects in ecological and social contexts. Conservation politics, as has been conventionally understood by scholars, has been shaped by ideological debates on wildlife preservation between multiple social classes having contradictory views on the management of natural resources and simultaneously embedded in a politics of prioritizing voices of privileged stakeholders (Saberwal and Ranarajan eds. 2003; Lele 2019). Johari (2007: 48) points out that the principle of exclusion underlying the politics of forest conservation has centred on a production and divide between two distinct varieties of ecological knowledge—traditional and scientific. An exhaustive range of studies have indicated how forest policies have worked to the detriment of marginal classes by restricting their livelihoods—a primary strategy reinforced to sustain political imperatives of industrial development (Blaikie 1985; King 1996; Alier 1997). In the framework of this book, I introduce a perspective to define politics as a context in systematically examining ways in which a variety of existing socialities as well as forest rights come into conflict with conservation—an enterprise to discuss the role of politics in constituting marginalization and instituting structural changes in forest-based lifeworlds. Drawing on recent works which strongly emphasize the contemporary role of power within neoliberal policy reforms on resource management (Kashwan, MacLean and García-López 2019), this book aims to navigate through current institutional mechanisms of conservation in understanding how they differ from past approaches and how critical their role is in redefining material social organizations in vulnerable environments. The book is based on an ethnographic fieldwork in Sundarban mangrove forests in India, a climate-vulnerable geopolitical ecology situated at the mouth of the Ganges River, inhabited by more than 4.5 million people. Sundarbans, the largest brackish riverine mangrove belt globally, is shared between India and Bangladesh, with a maze of small and large crisscrossing deltaic rivulets interspersing the mud-washed islands. Out of the 102 islands that are located in the Indian part, 54 are inhabited and can be broadly characterized into two kinds—one set of inhabited islands are closer to the mainland and were reclaimed between 1765 and 1900, while the other set, adjoining the forests, were reclaimed between 1900 and 1980 (Jalais 2010: 2). Contextualized in the SBR, as Indian Sundarbans is known as, the book captures the daily practices of people inhabiting the forest fringes, in association with the forests, their resources and their intermediations with the conservation policies today. It narrates how conservation politics shapes constellations of social and ecological vulnerabilities in the delta and progressively transforms socio-economic and political relationships of the contextual actors, often through disparate representations for instituting reforms (Bryant 1991; Kashwan 2017).

Forestlands in India Forest policies in post-independent India, before the trends towards reform since1990s, were largely formulated mirroring colonial policies—the most prominent one being the Indian Forest Act (IFA) of 1878 (subsequently revised in 1927), which at large converted majority of the national forest lands into state

6  Introduction

property. The takeover severed most of the livelihood dependencies by banning shifting cultivation, nationalizing timber and non-timber forest products, imposing fee on grazing and notifying major forest areas as ‘inviolate’ through legal categorization of forest areas (Lele 2019: 23). Post-independence, state monopolization of forests continued unabated, mostly for the supply of raw materials and state revenue. During this period, attempts of industrialization at par with the developed world relegated environmental concerns while development in practice was witnessed as a universal desire for the pursuit of economic growth—an aspiration overlooking ecological concerns as a ‘luxury imported from the West’ (Baviskar 1997: 196). However, rapid decline in forest cover owing to the increasing demands of industrialization eventually prompted states towards drafting rigorous wildlife conservation policies from 1970s, most of which advocated forest fencing in the form of protected areas. The centralized forest laws drafted during this time notified forests as national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and critical tiger habitats (CTHs),2 curtailing human activities and evicting people, more or less following the colonial past (Willems-Braun 1997). The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 secured certain hunting restrictions but at the social cost of excluding local communities (Lele 2019: 23–24). Redrafting forest policies with wildlife conservation as a priority also underscored an ideological debate between middle-class wildlife enthusiasts and forest rights activists. According to Guha and Alier (1997: 35), this debate represented a conflict between elite environmentalism or an ‘environmentalism of affluence’, hinging on an ‘enhanced quality of life’, contradicting an ‘environmentalism of survival’, where dispossession from inhabited natural landscapes challenges life prospects and leads to resistance. Several years after independence and three decades since economic liberalization, conservation of forests still remained a contested practice. The forest policy reversals, which initiated since the implementation of National Forest Policy (NFP) of 1988 to integrate local needs within forestry, failed to provide a robust mechanism for sustainable management and remained unsuccessful to a large extent. Recent works prompt a necessary transformation of conservation frameworks towards a convivial one, keeping in mind larger challenges of the Anthropocene (Büscher and Fletcher 2019, 2020). Forest reforms, initiated with the introduction of the NFP, exemplified an organizational restructuring through decentralization. Decentralization, as defined by Ribot, Agrawal and Larsson (2006: 1865), refers to ‘any political act in which a central government formally cedes powers to actors and institutions at lower levels in a political-administrative and territorial hierarchy’. Decentralization, which gained momentum in the realm of forest governance since the mid-1980s,3 has been commonly defined as a system of power delegation and management rights to marginal communities for ensuring democratic decision-making and greater stakeholder participation within management practices. Decentralization had been largely driven by demands of participation by local communities and external pressure from national and international donors. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a form of decentralized management, offering a new paradigm in forest conservation, by abandoning the exclusivist agendas entrenched in the pre- and postcolonial

Introduction 7

management practices (Das 2007). CBNRM was adapted mainly in the latter half of the 1970s, to enable and engage the forest-dependent communities in applying indigenous techniques of forest management (Arnold and Campbell 1985). Success of CBNRM can depend on a range of factors, integrating ecological sustainability, social equity and economic efficiency (Pagdee, Kim and Daugherty 2006: 35). CBNRM can be of two broad types. The first one is where the communities have the sole management rights over a patch of forest land which they jointly manage and control through local disciplinary mechanisms. The second one, commonly known as JFM in India, is where the state involves the communities for participating with the State Forest Department, in managing certain tracts of forest land, on which the communities depend for livelihood. CBNRM differs from JFM in certain ways. While CBNRM refers to the management of communal forests by a village where management plans are developed for government approval, there is certain accountability and revenue sharing between the communities and the state in case of JFM. However, in CBNRM, the community is principally involved in forest management and conservation with indirect and informal cooperation from the state (Pailler et al. 2015: 84). JFM, as a World Bank report states in 2006, is a model of community forestry where the state engages with the communities in forestry, as a contrary to exclusive community management of forests. JFM was an important and radical departure from the administrative imperative of the forest officials confined within the department, since its advent initiated an attitudinal change among the officials, who initially considered the communities as negligent subjects and incalcitrant (Jodha 2000). JFM is a development program predicated on active cooperation between the forest officers and the villages. While recent studies emphasize the role of plural knowledge into decision-making, democratization and community-based transformations in addressing current environmental challenges, JFM, can be an effort towards recognizing shifts towards equitable resource governance patterns (Zafra-Calvo et al. 2020). There have been significant debates on the nature of participation in contemporary collaborative forest governance mechanisms like JFM (Agrawal and Gupta 2005; Lele and Menon eds. 2014). Community management is usually successful in those areas where communities are ethnically homogenous, small in size and have limited variations in individual interests (Agrawal and Gupta 2005). In a large number of demonstrated cases, decentralization has led to asymmetric power relations within the communities (Manor 2004; Kashwan and Lobo 2014; Kumar, Singh and Kerr 2015). JFM while having necessary merits if successfully implemented to situation-specific needs, there are internal political hierarchies at the local level that subvert the rationale of community participation. According to Das and Narayanan (2008), if argued from the new governance perspective which promises an exit from the bureaucratic, hierarchical and overloaded structures of decision-making, the efficacy of the new method in resolution of conflicts demands an inquiry. Efforts to implement JFM are in many cases plagued by political participation, power differentials between the state and the resource users, favouritism and legal restrictions on

8  Introduction

civil society institutions (Jeffery and Sundar eds. 1999). At the local level, unaccountable governance structures have facilitated concentration benefits in the hands of the local elites and inhibited local attempts to address mismanagement of resources (Nelson and Agrawal 2008). The reasons which posit an unequal and unequivocal exchange among the communities include the gradual infiltration of the global market economy, transformations in community characteristics, values and traditions and diversification of livelihood (Ghate and Ghate 2010: 3, see also Jodha 1998; Sundar 2000). Decentralized forest governance, as the book shows, has a major role to play in transforming traditional social institutions. A discussion on recent decentralized forest policies would be particularly useful in situating power and politics, operating at multiple scales, within human-forest interactions.

Political ecology and environmental communities Understanding communities in association with their forests constitutes a central line of inquiry for this book. It is therefore imperative to re-examine ways in which local institutions and community stewardships are represented within resource management, specifically those with a generic emphasis on community customs and traditions (Mosse 1999: 303–304). A long drawn hegemonic framing represents conventionalities as attached to the idea of community at large, especially in the scholarship of German sociology. Wirth (1926: 416) drawing on one of the pioneering works of Ferdinand Tonnies of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (1957) points attention to the two key attributes of community: Community grows out of the organic relationship of man to his environment and those natural involuntary bonds that inevitably grow up between human beings and between groups. Influenced by Henry Maine’s ideas on status (community) and contract (society), Tonnies’ framing of community arises out of Wesenwillen or those life forces associated with instincts, emotions and habits. Wesenwillen, he says, is highly integrated and organismic in behaviour and shares a lot of parallels from the primary groups as defined by sociologist Charles Cooley, which includes intimate and familiar relationships (Wirth 1926). Communities have been far more often projected in an ideal typical sense as sharing no individual interests but basic conditions of life as well as a strongly knit group occupying a particular geographical area (MacIver and Page 1949). According to Ridger, Le Bailey and Gordon (1981), four types of community attributes can be identified: feeling of bondedness, extent of residential roots, use of local facilities and degree of social interaction with neighbours (see MacMillan and Chavis 1986: 7). However, the ideology that besieges the framing of communities in classical sociology has been challenged by a range of contemporary thinkers in terms of the uncritical primacy bestowed on traditional group relationships. According to Chatterjee (1998), traditional community structures are not simple and inflexible: ‘primordialities are multi

Introduction 9

layered, the self is open ended, adjustments and compromise is ethical norms’ (Chatterjee 1998: 278; Upadhya 2002). The growing population of the rural areas and the infiltration of the market economy within the village societies have rendered given definitions of community problematic. Much of the discourses on ‘hypermarginality’, as Bessire (2014: 278) points out, rests on an uncritical recognition of indigenous culture as ‘a priori, homogenous, and equally distributed experience of marginality reducible to poverty, insufficient socioeconomic development, or the lingering effects of imperial histories that a more effective policing or protection of difference will alleviate’. Such discourses have key counterpoints, with respect to the role of social actors in political struggles, while advancing their particular agendas and mobilizing their interests (Purcell and Brown 2005: 281). Communities being regarded as ‘autonomous’ and uniformly in opposition to the state ignore processes of elite capture, specifically those within collaborative forest management, where state devolve rights of governance to local communities (Menon et al. 2007). Advocacies on localization and nativist claims to ecological landscapes tend to increasingly exacerbate the ‘local trap’—one where local-level decision-making is principally considered to yield socially just and ecologically sustainable outcomes (Purcell and Brown 2005: 280). Mosse (1999), drawing on tank irrigation in Tamil Nadu, critiques a similar pervasive representation of community resource management—representing traditional community-driven tank irrigation as a ‘corollary of state power and not its inverse’—he (1999: 310) reports realities of material linkages between colonial state and community management. Resource management systems in traditional India wrested upon structurally differentiated villages—political authorities and caste-based administrative structures speak about a ludicrous harmony abstracted from power differentials (Sen and Nagendra 2020). As Fuller (1977: 96) points out, rights-based conflicts and political hierarchies at the supra-local level indicates organizational supremacy and distinct power hierarchies. A contemporary politics of forest conservation provides scope to reveal how environmental communities, through their political struggles for forest rights, ought to be defined in terms of a specific combination of agency, autonomy and sovereignty. The conceptual framing of the book on the discourses of political ecology would help pay specific attention to a range of complex contextual dynamics while discussing community linkages to forests. The book specifically interrogates three specific counterpoints to the characteristic ideas on forest-based conflicts—it looks into (1) how claims to resources are articulated by forest communities in vulnerable ecologies; (2) how subjective material relations are shaped between the forest community4 and the state under recent forest governance mechanisms; and (3) how conservation mechanism can be framed as ‘political’, raising critical questions about identities and power. The book acknowledges potential constraints in recognizing forest conservation as a systemic process of disenfranchisement, since there has now been a drastic change in community’s role in conservation—‘communities are now the locus of conservationist thinking’ (Agrawal and Gibson 1999: 632).

10  Introduction

Several forest management policies have now been restructured towards dynamic participatory models, where communities have a significant stake in the policy debates. This has minimized the established notion of conservation as facilitating marginalization and necessitated a large-scale contextual mapping of disenfranchisement and exclusion, in the face of a ‘widespread political empowerment of the indigenous majority’ (Bessire 2014: 276). The book provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded critique of a tenuous representation of conflict within political ecology. It draws specific attention to explicit lines of inquiry within the intrinsic human-nature assemblages through reflections on local institutional contexts, decentralized forest conservation, role of customary community norms and political economies. Comprehensively, the book provides a chequered understanding of the role of power within local social-ecological contexts, drawing considerably on Greenough’s (2001: 141) critique of the ‘standard environmental narrative of South Asia’. According to Greenough (2001:141), the standard narrative, as represented by a uniform image of the local people as organic communities imbued with an ‘ecological wisdom’, needs an urgent reversal, a line of thought which subsequently Scott (2001: 5) endorses as one ‘overturning the reigning narratives’ in environmental history. He points out that ecological wisdom, if perceived as undisturbed by the market and the state, can run the risk of being reductionist in spirit. The exploration thus calls for a coupled intellectual exercise of associated and aligned approaches and comparative frameworks, to understand political ecology through a discursive construction of postcolonial environmental paradigms. Understanding communities in a context of intensifying conservation politics would provide significant conceptual trajectories— they would outline prominent reflections on the political ecology analysis that the book engages with. This book shows how the methods of conservation excludes and spells abuse for the forest-dependent people in the Sundarbans, but simultaneously earns for many of them subsistence in a perilous and marginal landscape. Communities today are constituted through their daily encounters with the governmentality exhibiting, as Li (1996: 502) points out, the ways in which ‘relatively powerless people demonstrate well honoured analytical skills and strategies as a routine condition of day-to-day survival and long-term advancement’. The involvement of the local people in the environmental governmentality are thus efforts ‘to lend visibility to the governmental departments’ for negotiating chances of livelihood in a locale, where economic opportunities are limited (Mukhopadhyay 2016: 89). A range of power struggles manifested within material abilities to survive opens up a wide spectrum of discursive domains to explore politics as a substantive context. The book offers a multilevel analysis of political ecology, by bringing into the framing, local intermediations of power, networks and political economy as instrumental forces in shaping global conservation landscapes.

Introduction 11

Indian Sundarbans: juggling through vulnerabilities, submergence and survival Setting the field: demographics and administration

The Sundarban forests lie between 21°30´ and 22°30´ N latitude and 89° and 90° E longitude. It is the largest stretch of global littoral mangrove forests, declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, for its unique physical attributes—range of wildlife, biodiversity and aquatic resources. The name ‘Sundarban’ is derived from primarily three aspects: (1) the ‘Sundari’ tree (Heritiera fomes) which grows in abundance in the region, (2) the name ‘sundar’, meaning beautiful and (3) ‘ban’, meaning forest.5 Situated at the southernmost part of the Gangetic delta, Sundarbans was notified as a ‘reserved forest’ in the year 1878 by the colonial administrators. The Sundarban mangroves encompass an area of 25,500 km² of which 15,870 km² lies in Bangladesh and 9,630 km² in India. While the western and eastern boundaries of the forests are defined by Rivers Hooghly and Baleswar respectively, Harinbhanga marks the boundary between the Indian Sundarbans and the Sundarbans in Bangladesh (Gopal and Chauhan 2006: 339). The Indian part or SBR was notified in 1989 and is partially inhabited and partially forested, being divided into core, buffer and transition zones. Out of the 9630  km² of the SBR, the forest cover of 48 islands measures 4263 km², divided into the core and the buffer area, which is entirely uninhabited. This forest area is ‘encroachment free’ and ‘demarcated with a natural boundary’.6 The rest 5367 km² covering 54 islands is a community inhabited zone, divided into 19 Community Development (CD) Blocks (details mentioned in Table 1.1) located within the districts of North and South 24 Parganas in West Bengal. These blocks are further divided into separate islands, under the administration of Gram Panchayats (GPs).7 Each GP includes Table 1.1  Nineteen inhabited blocks of SBR Name of Block (S. 24 Parganas)

No. of Islands

Name of Blocks (N. 24 Parganas)

No. of islands

Gosaba Basanti Caning No. 1 Caning No. 2 Naamkhana Sagar Kakdwip Patharpratima Mathurapur No. 1 Mathurapur No. 2 Kultali Joynagar No. 1 Joynagar No. 2

9 2 Falls Inside Basanti 1 5 2 1 13 1 2 1 Falls inside Kultali Falls inside Kultali

Minakha Harowa Sandeshkhali No. 1 Sandeshkhali No. 2 Hasnabad Hingalgunj

1 5 1 6 1 2

12  Introduction

individual village hamlets. The islands have a number of mouzas8 within which the village hamlets are located. A part of the forests of SBR is notified as the Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR), with a designated area of 2584.89 km², and the rest of the forest area is known as the South 24 Parganas forest division, measuring 1678.11 km². STR is bordered by rivers Harinbhanga, Raimangal and Kalindi to the east. To the south lies Bay of Bengal. To the North West is river Bidyadhari and Gomti and to the west is river Matla. STR, was notified in the year 1973 under Project Tiger scheme of the government of India9 and has an area of about 1699.62 km² as a core area or the CTH. Sundarban National Park, declared as a World Heritage Site in 1987 by the UNESCO, falls within this CTH and covers an area of 1330.12 km². Sundarban National Park is an inviolate zone where human activity is prohibited by the Forest Department. Within the core area of STR, 124.40 km² is designated as a gene pool. The remaining 885.27 km² outside the CTH is considered as a buffer area. Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary (SWLS) lies within the buffer area of the STR, occupying an area of 362.34 km². The buffer area excluding SWLS, that is, 522.85 km², is open to human use for livelihood. Sundarbans have been designated as the Tiger Conservation Landscape of global priority as it is the only mangrove ecology with tigers (STR 2014). All the forest fringe villages lie along the northern and north western boundary of the forest. The delta is subjected to an influx of tidal currents, created by the interspersed distributaries of the rivers on their way to the Bay of Bengal. In the words of Jalais (2004: 12): This delta, the largest in the world, is animated by two opposing flows of water: fresh water coursing all the way down from the Himalayas towards the Bay of Bengal and salt water streaming up with the tide from the Indian Ocean into the Bengali hinterland. These fast-moving current-driven salty muddy waters are the locale of crocodiles, sharks, and snakes of the most dangerous variety and of thousands of mangrove-covered islands. Born of these rivers, these islands seem to cling on to their vegetation for their very existence. Sandbars washed up into existence one moment, are immediately dispersed if left bare of trees. Sundarbans is a fragile and vulnerable ecosystem, prone to intense and incessant real-life threats. In the recent years, the threat has increased due to the devastating effects of climate change. Rise in the sea level accompanied by stronger tidal waves have inundated and eroded away chunks of landmass, along with depletion of mangroves. The saline water is increasingly gulping on the inhabited land and forcing people to resign to their future of submergence (Mukhopadhyay 2016; Ghosh 2018). The Indian Sundarban forest area is divided zonally for administration and execution of conservation plans. There are four STR range offices in Sajnekhali, Basirhat, National Park (East) and National Park (West). 14 STR beat offices operate under the four range offices. Chamta, Bagmara and Chandkhali beat

Introduction 13

office falls under National Park (East) range. Haldibari, Netidhopani and Kendo beat office falls under National Park (West) range. Duttar, Dobanki and Sajnekhali beat office fall under SWLS range. Buridabri, Jhingakhali, Katuajhuri, Bagna and Harikhali fall under Basirhat range. Under individual beats, there are landbased camps and floating camps. They are established for combating poachingrelated activities and for forest protection. Along with the establishment of the STR, Sundarban Development Board (SDB) was established in 1973 as a separate department under the Government of West Bengal, to initiate development in the region. In January 1994, Sundarban Affairs Department (SAD) was established, which implements developmental activities through the SDB. Water, forests and humans in a perilous labyrinth of islands

SBR has assumed a global prominence worldwide due to its wide and exotic range of biodiversity, wildlife and marine resources. The most celebrated species is the famous predator of the forest, the Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris). Sundarbans are the largest remaining tract of the Royal Bengal Tiger, which necessarily occupies an integral core of the terrestrial food chain and is known globally for its valour in man-eating trait. Conservation policies in the Sundarbans align with a large-scale effort of ‘economizing governance’ (Wilshusen 2019), integrating ‘environmental conservation parameters with the financial sphere’ (Sullivan 2013: 199). To acknowledge and preserve the globally valued resources of Sundarbans, international conservation agencies have aligned with the Forest Department of West Bengal to conserve the region from potential threats of decimation. Organizations like United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank and Asian Development Bank extend regular financial aids to the state to conserve the ecological system of the Sundarbans (Mukhopadhyay 2016: 47). Sundarbans provide an ideal case to explore transnational forest governance and its impact on the socioeconomic and biophysical environment (Castree 2008: 134). Studies reflecting on economic valuation of natural resources for controlling biodiversity decimation largely neglect symbolic practices that might be affected through the financialization of nature (Bayon and Jenkins 2010). Following Peluso (1993: 201), ‘global concerns over conservation have imposed additional pressures on the state, in the hope of achieving sustainable management objectives’. Human settlements in the fringe areas of the forest and community livelihoods based on the forest resources are considered by the state as the principal threat to the forests. Sundarbans are one of the most productive stretch of riverine mangrove commons and ecological hotspots globally, alongside accommodating a dense community settlement cover at the fringes of the forests. Best described in the words of Jalais (2004: 13): at high tide, when vast expanses of forest go under water, these inhabited islands come alive through communication with each other as sailing

14  Introduction

between them becomes possible once again. In contrast during low tide, the forest re-emerges and many of the inhabited islands become isolated once again as riverbeds are left with insufficient water for boats to ply. Volatility of the landscape has also been documented in gazetteer writings. According to O’Malley (1908: 2), Sundarbans are a desolate tract, 12–30 inches above the high-tide level, still in the process of land making. The extreme northern limits of SBR, which were reclaimed from the forests during the 18th and 19th centuries have well-knit physically stable settlements found in abundance, sharing close proximity with the mainland cities. These settlements are stable since they are away from the forests and the rivers and consequently from the threats of erosion, resulting from the intermittent change in the course of the rivers. The survival and livelihood of the population that inhabits the corridors of the forest in the southern limit of SBR forms the context of the present study. These settlements are dissected by streams and rivulets and are situated on a relatively unstable land topography than the northern ones, being exposed to the fury of the nature. Jalais (2004: 17) refers to these islands as ‘on the move’, since they are continually created, recreated and eroded by tidal action. Here the tidal action of the river channels is belligerent and active, since they are on their final journey to the sea. Having being reclaimed and settled much later than those in the northern limits, there is instability in the land surface. These islands are usually referred to as the ‘lower islands’, situated on the ‘active delta’, where land is constantly made, unmade and remade, thus necessitating embankments, commonly known as ‘bunds’, for holding back brackish water from settlements and cultivated lands (Jalais 2010: 2). The frequently changing course of the rivers erode away land surfaces abruptly and thus these unstable landscapes support not many economic activities. The forests and the rivers are the two main sources of livelihood in these villages. Since agriculture is erratic due to high salinity of the water, many people from the forest fringe villages depend on the forests and the rivers for livelihood. Some of these resources include fish, crab, prawn seeds, honey, bee wax, dry wood, shells, among others. Conservation in these constantly eroding volatile landscape is imagined in different and diverse ways, which are mostly competing, yet central forces in representing the landscape (Mehtta 2019). The population which subsists on the resources of the forest and river constitutes the most marginalized section within entire SBR. They are landless or are marginal landholders. The livelihood options from the forests are perilous in several ways, owing to the presence of tigers. A lot of lives are claimed to the tiger every year when the people enter the forests for livelihood. Most of the families are rendered to utter despair, since they get compensation very rarely. Due to the extensive policing imposed by the Forest Department of West Bengal, local livelihoods are further threatened as well as denied. The state officials prefer to keep the people residing in the forest fringe villages outside the forest reserves and label them as the contingent sources of depleting the

Introduction 15

forest resources. These marginal habitats are exposed more to natural hazards like cyclones, storms, yearly increase of temperature and other climate change effects. Rapid landscape erosion and devastation of agricultural fields and habitations render inhabitants homeless and force them to emigrate as ‘ecological refugees’.10 Local people are leaving the islands in large numbers, as migrants to places like Bihar, Mumbai, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Andamans. Inhabitants of the Sundarbans share a physically vulnerable as well as a socially dystopic context, shaped by extreme natural events and more glaringly an arbitrary governance with a reasonable insolence on the part of the formal administration in addressing the risks. A global attention on the prized biodiversity and the flagship wildlife species of the region masks prevailing threats to human lives—narratives of the people, their everyday struggles of existence on the ever-eroding volatile landscapes remain invisible and disregarded (Ghosh 2018: 5). The contextualization of the study in the Sundarbans within a disciplinarily engaged framework of political ecology is thus imperative, for its relevance as a ‘constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources, and also within classes and groups in society itself ’ (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987: 17). Sundarbans provides a challenging yet intriguing epistemological context where any ethnographic analysis remains incomplete without understanding the structural complexities and power relations influencing resource conflicts, since the presence of the ‘state’ as a ‘free standing entity’ ceases to exist (Sivaramakrishnan 2000: 433). With current conservation policies, largely transforming the landscape through globally pervasive environmental governmentality and globally produced and valued eco-knowledge, human relationships with nature are likewise transitional and evolving. Sundarbans are located at the last frontiers of mainland, and the people inhabiting these eco-fragile risk-prone territories are ironically bound in their relentless attempts in making their weary voices heard. Hence, lived realities in such a physical ecological geography characterized by complex and intricate cohabitation of humans and non-humans, as Ghosh (2018: 21) in his book points out, make a single all-pervasive narrative is least explanatory. Different contestations, power and claims sums up the complex processes, including those of interspecies connections (Govindrajan 2015). Politics and power relationships are key factors instrumenting actions (Zafra-Calvo et al. 2020); thus, mechanisms of political intermediations (Kashwan 2017: 16), as identified in this book, are critical components of claim-making, institutional negotiations and ways in which policy reforms perform at sub-national levels. It is the collective pursuit of marginalization that is mobilized by otherwise disparate groups, to make their causes amenable to the policy.

Book plan The book ties multiple contextually situated thematics within the analytical terrain of political ecology. The second chapter entitled ‘Reclaiming riverine forests: an environmental history of the Sundarbans’, focuses on a review

16  Introduction

of literary sources, gazetteer writings and ancient archives to elaborate the historical-ecological specificities of the landscape. It explores how in Sundarbans, forests acted as the principal source of revenue generation by East India Company till the middle of the 19th century. The islands of Sundarbans, locally known as bhati (lower plains of Gangetic Bengal), were mostly reclaimed and inhabited since the British rule in the 1700s and 1800s. The colonial administrators took a massive drive to clear the forests for human settlement and turn these forests into cultivable lands in order to obtain revenue. Sundarbans was popularly depicted as a ‘drowned island’, ‘impenetrable forests’ and ‘thick brushwood’, but without any restrictions on indigenous activities like fishing (Hunter 1875: xiii). The chapter would provide an account of historical power interactions embedded within the process of shaping the landscape as a protected wilderness. The third chapter, entitled ‘People and forests: understanding social structures in a vulnerable ecology’ focuses distinctively on ways in which ecological vulnerabilities shape associations within people. It provides an account of the geography of the landscape and settlement patterns, physical and social structure of the studied villages and associations that people share with the forest. A  large section of this chapter would explore how the power-ridden institutional mechanisms of conservation have impacted the social constitution of Sundarbans in the recent years. In the fourth chapter entitled ‘Forest-based livelihoods, survival crisis and politics of belonging in conservation landscapes’, the ways in which forest dependents in Sundarbans encounter the potential constraints in obtaining livelihood from the forests would be discussed. It would reflect on the socio-economic impacts of notifying large tracts of forests as inviolate conservation zones and how by this process of notification, the state specifically labels non-indigenous people as unlawful intruders into the forests. To this end, I have elaborated on fishing, honey collection and prawn farming in the villages. As observations show, prawn seed collection from the rivers of Sundarbans largely destroys the fragile ecology of the region. Setting up prawn fisheries in the physically vulnerable landscape is equally detrimental to the ecological system. Despite the consequences on the ecology, many of such occupations triumph by greasing the palms of the local political parties. While describing the everyday struggle for survival as an integral part of the occupation, this chapter explores the realm of forest livelihoods as a dynamic political space. In the fifth chapter ‘Decentralizing conservation processes through rightsbased frameworks: Forest Rights Act and Joint Forest Management initiatives’, I discuss the interfaces of the state in the recent methods of participatory conservation. It explains the politics of implementation of Forest Rights Act 2006 and JFM and to this end, it offers insights on forest governmentalities. The decentralized policies underscore the fact that communities using the forest resources can better manage them than private intervention or state agencies. However, the choices underlying these policies adapted by the state remained partially fulfilled in some cases and incredibly wasteful in others. Through the

Introduction 17

field observations, the chapter examines critically in the context of Sundarbans, the kind of ecological and social crisis that the policies entailed in the name of decentralized governance. The chapter also explains how these decentralized policies led to the emergence of disparate political actions due to a range of discontented strategies of implementation. The sixth chapter entitled ‘A political ecology of non-human subject making in forest conservation’ aims to explore how ‘non-humans’, alongside humans, can constitute a part of the subject-making process by the state, to sustain the politics of forest conservation. To this end, I draw on the subject making of tigers and through empirical observations, aim to show that the pervasiveness of tiger representation in the global world as ‘exotic’ and ‘wild’ is a part of such a subject-making endeavour, utilized by the modern state for conservation. It would also shed light on the ways in which current and future environmental governmentalities account for these multiple crosscutting forms of subjectivities, since non-humans are also part of the political process of conservation.

Notes 1 Forest communities is a term used to refer to the people who depend on forest resources in varying extents. 2 There are differences between a CTH and a Critical Wildlife Habitat (CWH). CWHs are introduced by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 (hereafter FRA), while CTHs have been introduced by the Wildlife Protection Act 2006 (hereafter WLPA). For details, see Broome, Desor, Kothari and Bose (2014: 193, 194). 3 Refer to Agrawal and Gupta 2005. 4 Ramachandra Guha (1983: 1882) refers to ‘forest community’ as ‘those people whose existence depends on a close and ecologically sustainable relationship with the forest they inhabit. In the pre-colonial period, this category would include the tribals of peninsular India - e g, those living in the Chotanagpur and Dandakaranya regions — and the inhabitants of the Himalayas, both those following settled agriculture and nomadic practices’. 5 Reference- Jalais (2004: 12), ‘Sundarbans’ is the anglicised version of the Bengali shundor (beautiful) and bon (forest). 6 According to the official website of STR. 7 GPs in India are the lowest tier of the three tier local self-governance organizations (panchayati raj system) in rural India. Their members are elected by the adult members of the village, for a period of five years. In West Bengal, gram sansads are the electoral constituencies of each GP. 8 Mouzas are administrative units within a village which comprises of one or more settlements or villages. There might be dispersed settlements within each mouza. 9 The Project Tiger was implemented in the year 1973 under National Tiger Conservation Authority (NCTA), by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, to implement state level conservation emphasis on the preservation of tigers. Under this scheme, the Government of West Bengal on 18.12.2007, constituted Sundarban as a CTH, listing the area to be 1699.62 km² which was previously 1330.12 km². Under this notification, a large area of the STR, which was previously buffer, was also included within the core, increasing the area of the inviolate zone. 10 The developmental projects like large dams open cast mining, eucalyptus plantations as well as policies of conservation have uprooted and displaced around 20  million

18  Introduction ecosystem people and forced them to migrate to the cities in search of livelihood. This has created a class of ‘ecological refugees’ who inhabit the slums and shanties of towns and cities in India (Guha 1997: 384).

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20  Introduction Johari, R. 2007. Of paper tigers and invisible people: the cultural politics of natural resource in Sariska. In G. Shahabuddin and M. Rangarajan (eds.), Making conservation work: securing biodiversity in this new century (pp. 48–77). Uttaranchal: Permanent Black. Karthik, M. and Menon, A. 2016. Blurred boundaries: identities and rights in the forested landscapes of Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. Economic and Political Weekly, 51 (10), 43–50. Kashwan, P. 2017. Democracy in the woods: environmental conservation and social justice in India, Tanzania and Mexico (studies in comparative energy and environmental politics). New York: Oxford University Press. Kashwan, P. and Lobo, V. 2014. Of rights and regeneration: the politics of governing forest and non forest commons. In S. Lele and A. Menon (eds.), Democratizing forest governance in India (pp. 349–375). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kashwan, P., Maclean, L.M. and García-López, G.A. 2019. Rethinking power and institutions in the shadow of neoliberalism (an introduction to a special issue of world development). World Development, 120, 133–146. King, D.Y. 1996. The political economy of forest sector reform in Indonesia. The Journal of Environment and Development, 5 (2), 216–232. Kumar, K., Singh, N.M.. and Kerr, J.K. 2015. Decentralization and democratic forest reforms in India: moving to a rights based approach. Forest Policy and Economics, 51, 1–8. Lele, S. 2019. Understanding current forest policy debates through multiple lenses: the case of India. Ecology, Economy and Society: INSEE Journal, 2 (2), 21–30. Lele, S. and Menon, A. (eds.). 2014. Democratizing forest governance in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Li, T.M. 1996. Images of community: discourse and strategy in property relations. Development and Change, 27, 501–527. Luke, T.W. 1995. On environmentality: geo-power and eco-knowledge in the discourses of contemporary environmentalism. Cultural Critique, 31, 57–81. MacIver, R.M. and Page, C.H. 1949. Society: an introductory analysis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. MacMillan, D.W. and Chavis, D.M. 1986. Sense of community: a definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14, 6–23. Manor, J. 2004. User committees: a potentially damaging second wave of decentralization? The European Journal of Development Research, 16 (1), 192–213. Mehtta, M. 2019. Conserving life: forest imaginaries and competing values in the Sundarbans forests of India. PhD thesis, The London School of Economics and Political Science. Menon, A., Singh, P., Shah, E., Lele, S., Paranjape, S. and Joy, K.J. 2007. Community based natural resource management: issues and cases from South Asia. New Delhi: Sage. Mosse, D. 1999. Colonial and contemporary ideology of ‘community management’: the case of tank irrigation development in South India. Modern Asian Studies, 33 (2), 303–338. Mukhopadhyay, A. 2016. Living with disasters: communities and development in the Indian Sundarbans. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, F. and Agrawal, A. 2008. Patronage or participation? Community based natural resource management reform in Sub Saharan Africa. Development and Change, 39 (4), 557–585. O’ Malley, L.S.S. 1908. Bengal district gazetteers: Khulna. Calcutta: The Bengal Secretariat Book Depot. Pagdee, A., Kim, Y. and Daugherty, P.J. 2006. What makes community forest management successful: a meta-study from community forests throughout the world. Society and Natural Resources, 19 (1), 33–52.

Introduction 21 Pailler, S., Naidoo, R., Burgess, N.D., Freeman, O.E. and Fisher, B. 2015. Impacts of community-based natural resource management on wealth, food security and child health in Tanzania. PLoS One, 10 (7), e0133252. Peluso, N.L. 1993. Coercing conservation: the politics of state resource control. Global Environmental Change, 3 (2), 199–218. Purcell, M. and Brown, C. 2005. Against the local trap: scale and the study of environment and development. Progress in Development Studies, 5 (4), 279–297. Ribot, J.C., Agrawal, A. and Larsson, A.M. 2006. Recentralizing while decentralizing: how national governments reappropriate forest resources. World Development, 34 (11), 1864–1886. Ridger, S, Le Bailley, R.K. and Gordon, M.T. 1981. Community ties and urbanite’s fear of crime: an ecological investigation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 9, 653–665. Rutherford, S. 2007. Green governmentality: insights and opportunities in the study of natures’ rule. Progress in Human Geography, 31 (3), 291–307. Saberwal, V. and Rangarajan, M. (eds.). 2003. Battles over nature: science and the politics of conservation. New Delhi: Permanent Black. Scott, J.C. 2001. Introduction. In J.C. Scott and N. Bhatt (eds.), Agrarian studies: synthetic work at the cutting edge (pp. 1–7). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sen, A. and Nagendra, H. 2020. The differentiated impacts of urbanization on lake communities in Bengaluru, India. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2020.1770260 Sen, A. and Pattanaik, S. 2019. The political agenda of implementing forest rights act 2006: evidences from Indian Sundarban. Environment Development and Sustainability, 21 (5), 2355–2376. Sivaramakrishnan, K. 2000. Crafting the public sphere in the forests of West Bengal: democracy, development and political action. American Ethnologist, 27 (2), 431–461. STR (Sundarban Tiger Reserve). 2014. Annual Report 2013–2014. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.sundarbantigerreserve.org/news/Annual%20Report%202013-14. pdf ” www.sundarbantigerreserve.org/news/Annual%20Report%202013-14.pdf Sullivan, S. 2013. Banking nature? The spectacular financialization of environmental conservation. Antipode, 45 (1), 198–217. Sundar, N. 2000. Unpacking the joint in joint forest management. Development and Change, 31, 255–279. Tonnies, F. 1957. Community and society: gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. Translated by Charles P. Loomis. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press. Upadhya, C. 2002. The concept of community in Indian social sciences: an anthropological perspective. In S. Jodhka (ed.), Community and identities: contemporary discourses on culture and politics in India (pp. 32–58). New Delhi: Sage. Willems-Braun, B. 1997. Buried epistemologies: the politics of nature in (post) colonial British Columbia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87 (1), 3–31. Wilshusen, P.R. 2019. Environmental governance in motion: practices of assemblage and the political performativity of economistic conservation. World Development, 124, 104626. Wirth, L. 1926. The sociology of Ferdinand Tonnies. American Journal of Sociology, 32 (3), 412–422. Zafra-Calvo, N. et al. 2020. Plural valuation of nature for equity and sustainability: insights from the Global South. Global Environmental Change, 63, 102115.

2 Reclaiming riverine forests An environmental history of the Sundarbans

Abstract: This chapter introduces readers to the unique environmental history of the Sundarbans—popular representations of the communities, ecology and landscape in medieval texts, gazetteer documents and folk literature. It provides a colonial account of the deltaic region and a range of evolving narratives, co-constituting a history of the swamp forests. Speaking to colonial environmental history on reclaiming the forests and the state policies on governance, traced through a transition from a glaring indifference to conservation to a most rigorous forest management framework, the chapter emphasizes on a need to discuss the political project of forest governance and entrenched power relationships across temporalities. Among other factors, it also discusses how the political economy of organized forestry practices have, since its inception, nullified the idea that physical-natural spaces can be defined through social-cultural histories. What the chapter reminds the readers is about the striking monopoly control on forests across timelines—with discrete organizational structures institutionalizing forest governance—a history of the swamp forests provides ideal contexts to look into emergent relations of powers driving current environmental stewardship patterns of the region.

On the ancient history of the frontier islands The historicity of human settlements in Sundarbans can be captured through invasions, intensive reclamations and land disputes by the precolonial dynasties as well as the imperial rulers. Human habitations in the Bengal deltaic region can be traced back to as early as the Mauryan period (322–185 bc) and before, as excavations of pottery, terracotta beads, figurines of goddesses, large number of human and animal skeletal remnants reveal. Noted emperors like Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka consolidated their power over significant parts of Northern and Eastern Bengal, including the deltaic regions—Mauryans also took significant initiatives in managing the forests based on their usage patterns (Dutta Dey 2018). There have been tools discovered from the ancient DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-2

Reclaiming riverine forests 23

city of Tamralipta (currently known as Tamluk, located in Midnapore) as well as Harinarayanpur and Deulpota mouzas, which also indicate influences of the pre-Mauryan era—primarily of the Neolithic period (Mandal 2003: 40). An exploration by the Archaeological Survey of India at Gobardhanpur of Patharpratima block yielded several terracotta and animal figurines—terracotta lumps which were probably seals.1 Megasthanes—a Greek traveller who visited India during the early Mauryan period mentioned Sundarbans largely in his treatise—‘Indica’, which is usually considered to be the first reference to the forests. Folklores mention that Alexander’s battle-drained army did not want to undertake another battle with the people of lower Ganges basin, commonly known as the Gangaridis or Gangaridais, with their capital set in a certain city known as Ganganagar. Gangaridis were allies of the Nanda rulers, and they were said to have a strong army—furthermore deterring Alexander to fight with them. In an article in Frontline, Chattopadhyay (2014) writes about explorations carried out by the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Government of West Bengal, where around 500 antiquities were found with dates ranging from as early as 3rd century bc to 11th century ad. Historic mentions of the Sagar Island have been found in the Vanaparba of Mahabharata, as the pilgrimage sites of the Pandavas, and in the Puranas. Bhima, one of the Pandavas, defeated the Bengal kings Chitrasena and Samudrasena and thereafter came to the southern forest covered tip of Bengal referred to as Patratal to heal wounds after being injured by a poisoned arrow. Yudhistira, the eldest of the Pandavas, is said to have visited the Kausiki Tirtha at the junction of the Kusi River and Ganges river, beyond which there was the sea, joined by 500 rivers (O’Malley 1908: 26). Historical evidences from the region point towards subsequent invasions by the ruling dynasties of the Guptas during 400 ad, Palas during 770–800 ad and Senas during 1200 ad, before the region came under the Turkish and Islamic rule in 1465. Different reclaimed tracts of land in the deltaic region, which are currently inhabited, record dispersed settlement patterns from as early as 3rd to 10th century bc, with places in islands like Sagar dating back to the pre-Christian period, Harinarayanpur to the Mauryan period, Kulpi to the Christian period2—all adjacent to perennial water sources like rivers and seas and often attributed as resource-rich ecologies (Chacraverti 2014: 9). The making of the delta, as the presence of these civilizations suggests, have not only been constituted through physical-ecological changes, but simultaneously, through human significations of the natural environment. Around the 1st century ad, historians like Siculus and Ptolemy traced the history of the region at the lower basin of the Ganges to a sea-port or a marketcity, occupied by the Gangaridais, with prevalent trade exchange of gold, betel, pearl, Gangetic Spikenard and Gangetic Muslin (Mandal 2003: 38–39). The Vayu Purana also points towards significant economic activities in lower Bengal. Accounts by Bipradas Piplai in his Manasavijay, composed in 1495, on Chand Saudagar and his journey to the sea for maritime trade as well as seals discovered from the Chandraketugarh area (presently located in the North 24

24  Reclaiming riverine forests

Parganas), indicate the role of lower Bengal in thriving maritime activities in Indian Ocean (Chattopadhyay 2014). Ptolemy, the famous Alexandrian scholar depicted Sundarbans on a map as a Gangetic delta. Here onwards a bulk of anecdotes about this region can be obtained from the records of the GreekRoman and Chinese historians, who labelled the people from the region as Gangaridai and the region as Samatata (lower basin) or, as described by the noted Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang, ‘a low-lying country bordering on the sea and rich in crops’ (Chakrabarti 2009: 76). The Samatata had its first reference in a pillar inscription of Samudragupta. During this period, the region witnessed widespread prevalence of Jainism and Buddhism as dominant religious cults (Banerjee 1998: 158; Mandal 2003). O’ Malley (1908: 25–26) writes about the prevalence of the doctrines of Buddha in the region, with reference to the influence of Buddhist scholars like Shilabhadra and Indrabhadra and the kingdom of Ballal Sen, the second emperor of the Sena dynasty and a staunch Buddhist of the 12th century. Furthermore, a mix of different religious orders, demonstrated by traces of monuments, scriptures, mosques, forts and temples makes it clear that the Sundarbans region were once a cluster of thriving crosscultural villages, with multiple belief systems (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010). According to the accounts of Hiuen Tsang, ‘there are some 30 Buddhist monasteries with some 200 priests and 100 Hindu temples, while the naked ascetics called Nirgranthas are also numerous’ (O’ Malley 1908: 25). The Jatar Deul3 located in Lot No. 116, in Mathurapur II block of the South 24 Parganas, is one of the prominent Shaivite structures—a lofty monument near the estuary of the Moni River and an acclaimed architectural remnant of the Pala-Chandra-Varman period, dedicated to lord Shiva (Mandal 2003: 40–41). Remnants of Vinshnu and Nrisimha idols have been found in Joynagar region, traced through architectural ruins dating back to 10th, 11th and 12th centuries, along with icons of the Jaina-Tirthankar Adinath, found in the village of Ghanteswari in Kulpi and Jaina Tirthankar Parswanath, found in Diamond Harbour (Mandal 2003: 41). Prominent trade relations in the region speak at length about the economic stability and distinct political systems, accompanied by administrative divisions, land grants and well-documented penal orders. Different traces of surface artefacts found in the lower basin area like stones, seals, tools, potteries and hammers resemble those of the Neolithic culture—however many of these findings lack precision, since the changing course of the Ganges over subsequent administrative periods posed a problem to corroboration of the accuracy (Mandal 2003: 40). Despite its difficult physicality and inhospitable territorial attributes, other historical evidences also show small transient segments of selfsustaining settlements across castes and racial orders, who made the Sundarbans forests arable for living, confronting potential threats of survival. There are significant records of plunders and violence in the region between the 12th and the 15th century, which picked up further after the rule of Pratapaditya, the son of Bikramaditya. Pratapaditya’s rule was one of the most dominant periods in the history of lower Bengal. Towards the end of the 16th century, Sundarbans along with the rest of South Bengal came under his rule. A Hindu landlord of Jessore and one of the chiefs of Baro-Bhuiyans,4 he, along with his uncle Raja Basanta Roy,

Reclaiming riverine forests 25

undertook several constructive works in South Bengal, significant among which were the construction of a naval port and reclamation of the forests (Banerjee 1998: 159). After the fall of the Karrani empire at the hand of Mughals, Pratapaditya was the de-facto ruler of the region extending from Jessore in the north to the Sundarbans in the south. He is said to have constructed noble buildings, roads, temples, tanks and wells (O’Malley 1908: 30). After subsequent victories, he declared himself independent of the Emperor of Delhi, defeating all the generals who were sent to fight with him (O’Malley 1908: 30). He was identified by some Jesuit missionaries during the end of the 16th century as the king of Chandecan or Ciandecan (O’Malley 1914: 27). He subsequently became tyrannical for the prowess of his powers and was ultimately defeated by Man Singh, the Governor of Bengal (O’Malley 1908: 310). Somewhere in this period, João de Barros—a Portuguese historian is said to have depicted Sundarbans delta more accurately in his book Decades da Asia. Pratapaditya’s rule came to an end in 1611 and the kingdom was passed on to the hands of the rulers in Jessore and later annexed into the Mughal Empire (O’ Malley 1908: 36–37). This was followed with raids by the Portuguese in early 16th century and Arakanese and Dutch pirates from Europe and South East Asia, during 1632 (Banerjee 1998: 152; Ghosh 2018: 71–72). These pirates had a mixed ethnic identity of Buddhists as well as Muslims (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010). Throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Sundarbans were plundered by the pirates and the locally settled population eventually fled by the terror of the pirates’ den or magher muluk locally, the term used to designate an anarchic place and the lawlessness and violence (Jalais 2010: 4). The decline of human settlements may also have happened partly due to certain changes in the natural environment such as river course shifting, increasing intrusion of salt water and lack of accessibility to agriculture (Chakrabarti 2009). With the gradual eastward shifting of the course of the Ganges, causing Padma to become the main distributary of the Ganges, salinity of the rivers increased with a gradual decline in the supply of freshwater and erosion of human settlements (Chacraverti 2014: 9). Several literary sources like those from Ralph Fitch and W.W. Hunter point towards splendid infrastructures and prosperous civilizations in the deltaic region, reliant upon the waterbodies for sustenance and communication (Chakrabarti 2009: 76), while others, specifically the Western scholars like Beveridge and Westland refute the claim that Sundarbans was densely populated and had high prospects for human civilization (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010). Ralph Fitch referred to Sundarbans in the 1580s as a dense forest populated by ferocious animals such as tigers (Chakrabarti 2010: 44–47). In a recent work of Uddin (2019: 293), we find reference to the works of Francois Bernier, another noted traveller to the region between 1665 and 1666, who likewise pointed out the dangers associated with the region, as he, in his Travels in the Mogul Empire ad 1656–1668 (1914: 443) writes: Among these islands, it is in many places dangerous to land and great care must be had that the boat, which during the night is fastened to a tree, be kept at some distance from the shore, for it constantly happens that some person or another falls prey to tigers. These ferocious animals are very

26  Reclaiming riverine forests

apt, it is said, to enter into the boat itself while the people are asleep, and to carry away some victim, who, if we are to believe the boatmen of the country, generally happens to be the stoutest and fattest of the party. Bulk of archaeological findings from the ancient ports and riverbank excavations revealed relics, seals, coins, temples and terracotta figurines dating back from the pre-Mauryan to the Gupta period (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010). Mughal Kings were said to have leased the areas around present-day Sundarbans to local residents. Owing to its location outside the periphery of the empire, criminals took refuge against the advancing armies. Some of them were attacked by tigers. Many of the structures built by them were passed on to the successive legion of marauders, namely—Portuguese pirates, salt smugglers and dacoits of the 17th century. The Portuguese occupied the Tardaha on river Bidyadhari and were prolific in both trade activities and piracy—one river channel known as the Channel Creek came to be known as the Rogues River during the rule of the Portuguese pirates (Chakrabarti 2009: 77). Despite lacking accuracy, mentions about people settling along the Lower Gangetic Basin, to make a viable living out of the fertile landscape, has been found with significant references to the Aryans trying to invade the region, after their invasion of the Northern territories. However, accounts drawing on archaeological excavations, available from several local historians point to a selfabundant economy, with the non-Aryans or Dravidians invading the region after battling with the upper-caste led Brahminical orders in the North (Ghosh 2018: 71). Commonly known as the bhati or the lower tidal land in noted medieval literary texts like the Akbarnamah by Abul-Fazl, lower Bengal extended from the east of Bhagirathi River in the west to Chittagong in the east (Chakrabarti 2009: 76). The Maynamati-Gopichand legend refers to the long-bearded people of Bengal as those belonging to the bhati region. Agriculture was abundant owing to the excellent quality of the soil—a reason why several studies attributed ecology of the region as a factor determining dominant discourses on administration and state politics (Iqbal 2010). Large-scale transformation of the landscape, from one covered with forests to that of fertile agricultural fields, has been witnessed between 1204 and 1575, in the accounts of several Chinese visitors, during the rule of the Indo-Turkish Sultans (Eaton 1990: 6–7). Muslim holymen, locally known as pirs and fakirs, have been attributed with the success of this transformation of a marshy landscape into arable irrigated paddy fields—special mention had been made about Muslim saints like Khan Jahan and Murabba Ghazi (Eaton 1990: 7, 1993). Khan Jahan was said to have arrived from the Middle East and was commissioned by Allah to spread Islam in the marshy mangrove forests of lower Bengal (Uddin 2019: 293). They cleared the forests, enabling the population in engaging themselves as rice cultivators. The fishing castes of East and West Bengal, like the Paundrakshatriyas (locally known as pods) and the Chandals, eventually integrated into such livelihoods. Muslims considered fishing to be of lowly association, due to the prevalence of the outcastes participating in the profession (Wise 1883 in Danda 2007: 29). Turkish rulers identified them at large with the local Bengali

Reclaiming riverine forests 27

population and for this reason their rule is largely referred to as the period of independent Bengal (Banerjee 1998: 159). The Muslim identity of these holymen never took over their zeal of forest reclamation and cultivation.5 Before this time, the swamp forests existed almost to the frontiers of Kolkata.

The Empire and trajectories of forest reclamation Forest management regimes in India were not consistent between the different historical timelines—administering forest resources manifested differently during the colonial period and its aftermath. Forest conflicts in independent India differed in one important aspect from the colonial period. The colonial conflicts emerged out of competing claims over a relatively ‘abundant’ resource, while postcolonial conflicts played out against a backdrop of rapidly dwindling forest resources (Gadgil and Guha 1994: 105). Current conflicts are centred around a newer ‘ecological’ dimension, added to the moral/political/ economic dimensions of conflicts over forests and wildlife (Gadgil and Guha 1994: 105). In the pre-independence era, large-scale exploitation of forests to generate revenues for the state depleted forests to the extent that the people dependent on them were relegated either to extreme impoverishment or were forced to emigrate in search of a living (Guha 1990). Following independence, growing imperatives of biodiversity and wildlife conservation resulting from the dwindling resource base across the country led to designing exclusionary policies by the state, to preserve the existing forest cover. Control over forest lands and state monopolies of extraction were legitimized in terms of ‘national interest’ and ‘biodiversity conservation’ (Baviskar 2001: 1). According to Peluso (1993: 199), state control over conserving ecological resources was acted out through ‘legitimate violence’ over marginalized groups, who sustain on those resources. However, despite a growing concern towards conservation, the prominence of industrial production and economic outputs had been an overarching choice of the successive governments, bypassing issues of ecological damage (Stuligross 1999). Extracting resources that augment state revenue were justified as the ‘greater good of society’ (ibid., 201). Several forestdependent people suffered from the impact of industrialization on their lands and forests. Alienating forest laws such as the Wildlife Protection Act (WLPA) of 1972 and Forest Conservation Act (FCA) of 1980 centralized forest governance—however both colonial extraction and postcolonial conservation agenda exacerbated the process of rights deprivation. The widest range of forest laws which exists in India presently undermine local subsistence needs. WLPA, Project Tiger of 1973 and FCA are rigorous legal provisions which severely restricts local communities from the forests (Kothari, Singh and Suri 1996: 2757). Prominent environmental conservation agencies like Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) had been influential in the development of wildlife protection and forest management programmes in the post-independence period. For the purpose, they subscribe to the state bodies by augmenting their financial and physical capacities (Peluso 1993: 199). Scientific conservation aided with technology and western knowledge thus marks the essential shift in forest

28  Reclaiming riverine forests

conservation in independent India, from the revenue-oriented approach in the colonial period, although both types being necessarily manifesting in forests as ‘people-free’ landscapes. Forest conservation in the Sundarbans followed a more or less similar trajectory. The need for conserving Sundarbans mangroves did not strike the imperialists till the 18th and the early 19th centuries, since a popular representation of the forests, as writes Hunter (1875), was that of a ‘drowned island’, ‘impenetrable forests’ and ‘thick brushwood’, but without any restrictions on indigenous activities like fishing. However, Hunter (1875: 19) also points out that the right to fish in the navigable channels of Sundarbans was public and no revenue for the same was collected on behalf of the government. Similarly, Eaton (1990: 12) mentions that cultivators and fishers were allowed to extract resources from the unclear tract of the forests, at least till the middle of the 19th century. Danda (2007: 30), drawing on Buchanan (1798: 36), mentioned about the unrestricted rights of resource access within the forest area and the fact that every settler-cultivator was free to collect timber for livelihood purposes. Mangrove varieties like Sundari and Garjan provided the best hardwood, which were used for a variety of domestic purposes. However, wild animals, notably tigers, were treated to be a major threat for land reclamation, since it was estimated by the second half of the 19th century that tigers killed about 1600 people venturing into the forests for reclamation and livelihoods, every year (Chakrabarti 2009: 81). Prominent literary fictions on Sundarbans by Sibsankar Mitra depict the stories of villagers who acquired hymns to control tigers and prevent them from attacking humans. As the fictions narrate in several of its fascinating short stories, people inhabiting villages adjoining the forests regularly entered the forests for killing tigers whose skin then earned a favourable repute as well as awards from the Forest Department. Following East India Company’s victory over Mughal Bengal (1575–1765), the pursuit of cash crop production gained prominence and cultivation programmes accelerated widespread exploitation of forests and wildlife in the southern delta region (Richards and Flint 1990: 18). Zamindari rights of the 24 Parganas were accorded to the East India Company following the treaty of 1757 between Mirzafar, the nawab of Bengal, and the Company, whereby the former ceded rights of 24 estates to the later (Mandal 2003: 45; Chacraverti 2014: 12). After the grant of 24 estates measuring 882 square miles (locally known as Parganas) to the Company, leases were granted by Collector General Claude Russell between 1770–1773 ad to reclaim land for a steady supply of timber (Banerjee 1998: 161). The victory in Buxar in the year 1764 granted the rights of ‘Diwani’ to the Company to collect revenue in Bengal. With the approval of Governor General Warren Hastings and under the administration of Tilman Henckell, the renowned Magistrate of Jessore district, a forest reclamation programme was initiated, primarily by rewarding migrant peasants, who came from other parts of Bengal and initiated cultivation of rice and other cash crops by clearing major tracts of forests (Richards and Flint 1990: 18). Henckell brought people from the districts of Midnapore (Medinipore) and other parts of central Bengal, primarily tribals, to clear the vast tracts of forest lands. Landless labourers also migrated from places like Chotanagpur plateau,

Reclaiming riverine forests 29

Balasore and Arakan coast in Myanmar, many of whom settled in the Sundarbans after reclaiming lands from the forests. The mandate was that, for an initial period of cultivation, no rent would be collected. In about 40 years, the forests were cleared up to the Sagar Island in the South and port Canning to the East (Chacraverti 2014: 13). For reclaiming the forests and bringing it under cultivation, grants were given by the government, which were governed by the Rules of 1817, 1830, 1853 and 1863 (Ascoli 1934: 6; Rollet 1981). The peripheries of the forests during the 18th century extended much beyond the frontier forests as it is now, since South-eastern fringes of Calcutta (now Kolkata) were also covered with swamp forests and wastelands (Chacraverti 2014: 12). The instinct of forest clearing was driven by the pursuit of making land arable and fit for cultivation, reclaiming them from inhospitable terrains and wildlife (Danda 2007: 30). With large-scale clearing of the forests, several proposals were made to construct ports, docks and canals, which necessitated a detailed and extensive survey of the region. The initial surveys were conducted between River Hughly and River Passar, by Lt. W. E. Morrieson between 1811 and 1814 and later his brother Hugh Morrieson in 1818. This work was subsequently a route to all the maps that were drawn of the region. After the initiation of the Permanent Settlement Act of 1793, the landlords or zamindars were entrusted with complete ownership of their estates, which eventually persuaded them extend beyond their estate boundaries into the delta region and around 790 km² of the Sundarbans forests were cleared (Richards and Flint 1990: 19). Disputes arose over ownership of land and amount of revenue to be paid, since the zamindars were noted to be clearing forest lands in addition to what they have taken on lease (Danda 2007: 31). The demand for the timber products was growing high in these times, and it was easier to transport timber to urban centres, using waterways. To restrict the zamindars from encroaching more inside the forests without paying revenues, Regulation IX of 1816 of the Bengal government was passed for surveying of lands cleared for cultivation in the Sundarbans region and collecting revenue for the same. Clearing of the land progressed at a slow pace since 1829, since the Bengal government leased out lands to cultivators for a period of twenty years without revenue. This was on the condition that one fourth of that land has to be cleared and brought under cultivation within five years, after which the remaining three-fourth land would be liable to revenue at moderate rates. In order to mitigate the ambiguities of reclamation and validate the claims made by the zamindars on the clearing operations of the forests, all lands reclaimed in the previous years were brought under re-evaluation and survey, conducted by Ensign Prinsep between 1822 and 1823, and all forest lands between the rivers Jamuna and Hughly were designated as ‘blocks’ and later came to be known as ‘lots’ (Chacraverti 2014: 14). These blocks, 236 in number, measured over 1.7 million acres. But reclamation happened in a very erratic manner till the advent of the Rayatwari system. The Regulation III of 1828 decided the rights of the uninhabited tract of forest in favour of the state (O’ Malley 1908: 46). The process of survey was completed by 1828 and the state granted itself comprehensive rights over the uninhabited forests and cultivated lands through Regulation III, with recommendations to designate the boundaries of the

30  Reclaiming riverine forests

Sundarbans forests (Chacraverti 2014: 15). The colonial project of documentation through gazetteer writing was to gain exhaustive knowledge about the land and deploy it for the purpose of colonial rule (Mukhopadhyay 2016). In 1830, the first map of Sundarbans was designed by Mr. William Dampier and Lt. Alexander Hodges, who were appointed as the Commissioner and Surveyor respectively, with jurisdiction of the whole of Sundarbans in Khulna and Backergunge (O’ Malley 1908: 46). They drew a line defining the boundary of the forests, which demarcated 3737 km² area to the south of the line as cleared for cultivation and settlement. The line denoted the forest limit from Kulpi on Hughli River to Basirhat on River Khammati, comprising of both the reclaimed area and the forested area (Banerjee 1998: 141). This line eventually came to be known as the ‘Dampier-Hodges Line’, delineating the boundaries of the Sundarbans region. Records report that the blocks like Joynagar, Bhangar and Mathurapur were reclaimed as early as 1780–1873 while extensive reclamation of the northern and south western blocks of Kakdwip, Gosaba, Basanti, Sagar, Namkhana, Patharpratima and Canning were carried out during 1873–1939 (Banerjee 1998). This means that the islands bordering SBR were reclaimed much later than those away from the forests (Jalais 2010). Rights to extraction and sale of resources, like fish and fishery rights, were auctioned for five years, although Port Canning on several occasions had tried to lease out fisheries within the unappropriated forests (Danda 2007: 31). Other forest resources like honey, wax and firewood were commonpool resources, accessed indiscriminately by all the prevailing caste and community groups, until the commencement of the Indian Forest Service in 1865, facilitating the state with exclusive rights over the forest and privatization of property rights (Danda 2007: 31–32). The IFA was also passed in the same year and was later amended in 1878 (Guha 1983: 1884). In 1879, forest grants were integrated to the system of reclamation by smallholdings and in the Act I of 1905, the post of the Commissioner of Sundarbans was abolished (Ascoli 1934: 8). The amendment of the IFA in 1878 reconfirmed the fact that the forest is a property of the government and the state can demarcate tracts of forest as valuable, which can be utilized by the same for its resources (Guha 1983: 1884). It included the category of ‘reserved’ or ‘protected’ forests within the forest conservation laws. By 1890s, there were about 4095 km² of reserved forests in the Khulna district as well as 4480 km² Protected Forests in the district of 24 Parganas. Khulna also possessed a protected forest measuring 65 km² (Richards and Flint 1990). Since 1905, with the abolition of the system of appointment of Commissioner, a need was felt to integrate the administration of Sundarbans with the general administration of the district of 24 Parganas.6 The Sundarbans Act or the Bengal Act of 1905 transformed the functions of the commissioner of Sundarbans to the collector of the three districts namely 24 Parganas, Khulna and Bakargunje. Between 1880 and 1910, arable land in the districts of 24 Parganas, Khulna and Bakargunje increased by 1975 km² (Richards and Flint 1990). The postcolonial expansion however did not reclaim wastelands at the frontier and the boundary. The area of reserved forests remained unchanged between 1920 and 1980 (ibid., 23). However, the reclamation of lands and

Reclaiming riverine forests 31

the human settlement history in Sundarbans has been treated as a fundamental guideline to understand the process of cultural syncretism of different groups in Bengal (Bera, Mukhopadhyay and Sarkar 2010). With the partition of Bengal following independence in 1947 and the abolition of the zamindari system, lands started to be leased directly to the peasants following the newly introduced ryotwari system, and more intensive land reclamation followed.

Human settlements There was subsequent increase in the settled population of the region, as beginning from the first census taken in 1872 in the Khulna district to decades thereafter, all through which the population estimates varied depending upon the influx of migrant labourers to the region as well as the boat population during these periods (O’Malley 1908: 53). For instance, in 1901, the number of residents from other districts was 65,717, 5% of the total population of the district (O’Malley 1908: 56). According to this census, the population largely belonged to two religious’ groups: the Mohammedans and the Hindus, with an almost equal distribution of each category. O Malley (1908: 59) speaks about large-scale adaptations—with Hindus, loosing caste and adapting Islam as their religion. Hindus comprised of lower castes, primarily from Napit, Kaibartas, Pods, Kapali, Chandals, Jalia, Bagdi, Tior, Dhoba, Jogi, Kaora and Suri categories (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010: 31). Chandals and the Pods were the original inhabitants of lower Bengal and were the ‘most numerous’ (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010: 32), been driven to the jungles and marshlands of the lower delta, while the higher caste Hindus occupied the high land banks of the rivers like Jamuna, Betna, Kabadak and Bhairab. There were also some Christian population, as O’ Malley (1908: 60) observes, mostly the converts of the Baptist Mission, headquartered in Jessore—they were found primarily in Khulna, Paikgacha and Rampal. The Mohammedans could be divided into the Shaikhs, Sayyids and Pathans, most of whom were cultivators (Chatterjee Sarkar 2010: 32). Christians were also cultivators by profession. The gazetteer also gives a detailed account of the everyday lives in lower Bengal towards the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as following—the diet principally consisted of rice, fish and vegetables while the dress varies—wellto-do people were seen wearing a waist-cloth (dhuti), a cotton sheet or shawl (chadar) and sometimes a coat or a piran, while a poor cultivator usually was dressed in a waistcoat and a scarf (gamcha). Houses were not clustered structurally, but were mostly isolated, standing amidst a designated homestead, with a small cultivating plot and/or orchards—floors of the housing structures were made with mud, raised well above the ground surface, walls with reed mats and bamboo, while the roof was strewn with thatched straw, bamboo, wild date palm and the leaves of mangrove varieties, like Golpata and Hental. Banerjee (1998) describes the settlements in the upper islands like Joynagar and Mathurapur as being closer to the cities, agglomerate, heavily clustered, shapeless as a contrast to the dispersed, semi-nucleated and linear settlements in the lower islands like Gosaba and Basanti along the riverside.

32  Reclaiming riverine forests

Houses, as O’Malley (1914: 66) mentions, were scattered across rice and paddy fields and the old villages were primarily built close to the riverbanks or in ridges of higher elevated lands. Village entertainments included regular theatres or jatras, boat races and kite-flying. A myriad range of community festivals were also prevalent (O’Malley 1908: 68–72). From the period of 1951–2001, the population in Indian Sundarban recorded a growth of 2.36% per annum, most of which was rural and the acceleration escalated in the aftermath of the independence period (Chacraverti 2014: 19). The fisher population constitutes an integral part of the occupational structure in the lower deltaic region. Although associated with ritual ostracism as being a low caste, fishing has a particular prominence in the state of Bengal as the staple diet of all the Bengalis, the tradition having been penned within the popular Bengali literary collections like Titas Ekti Nadir Naam and Padmanadir Majhi.7 Most of the fishing castes are considered to be menial and aboriginal and as having connections to lower racial origins. Current occupational patterns in the Sundarbans are represented by a majority of fishers and land labourers in forest adjoining islands and a preponderance of cultivators in the remaining islands. The preponderance of the small-scale cultivators in Sundarbans and the rest of West Bengal can be traced to the system of land reforms, which guaranteed the rights of the sharecroppers to two-third of the produce, enabled the government to distribute surplus lands among the landless and enabled housing facilities for the homeless in the countryside (Jalais 2004: 50). According to the 2001 census, 42% of the whole population of SBR belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC)8 and Scheduled Tribe (ST)9 community as against the 28.5% for the rest of West Bengal (Mukhopadhyay 2009: 125). The lowest ranks of the castes, mainly the fishers, inhabit the active deltas, which record scarce and dispersed settlements and an unstable land surface. The 2011 census reveals a total population of 4,426,259 in the Indian Sundarbans, and a 17.8% growth between 2001 and 2011. A majority of SC and ST categories within the total population is represented by the ‘poor literacy and high drop-out rates’ (Chacraverti 2014: 20–21). The total rural population in 2011 stands at 4,172,248, but there is a shrink in the rural area between 2001 and 2011. Due to sustained lack of entitlements to education and economic opportunities, significant sections of population residing in the islands continue to fall back on forest resources for subsistence. According to Chaudhuri (1976), Gosaba, an island which is situated at the heart of Sundarbans, was once a ravishing site of business and commerce under Lord Daniel Hamilton.10 He transformed the region to a flourishing economic centre, reinforcing the system of cooperatives and loan redemptions (Jalais 2004: 53). However, the region has now deteriorated abysmally in terms of economic opportunities and infrastructure.

Conservation politics: changing practices Sundarbans has a protracted environmental history, speaking about multiple forms of regulatory structures governing rights and access to forests. British imperialism reinforced marginalization of the peasantry by their efforts to maximize timber production for the market (Guha 1989; Tucker 1991).

Reclaiming riverine forests 33

For instance, commercial forestry in the Tehri Garhwal were introduced by the British colonial rulers by using indiscriminately, species like wood, oaks and conifers for construction purposes (Guha 1989). The state’s transformation of mixed forests of conifers and broad-leaved species into pure strands of commercially valuable conifers reflects depredation of a delicate ecosystem, which led to large-scale ecological degradation of the region. The introduction of silviculturist techniques to maximize the timber production (which otherwise could have been challenged by the customary use of forests by grazing, looping and burning of the forest floor) led to erosion of community ownership and social bonds which had regulated the customary use of forests (Guha 1989). Commercial values of land were rapidly increased during this time, restricting shifting cultivations and posing direct threats to the subsistence of the forest dependents. Utilizing the forests for commercial usage and a protracted indifference to conservation at least till the middle of the 19th century was a uniform trend in Indian forestry—forest reclamations were considered useful towards exacerbating the process of revenue generation and extension of agriculture to make more lands arable (Guha 1983: 1883). Such intensive exploitation has also been defined as a ‘fetishism of nature’ (Parthasarathy 2011: 56). The swamp mangroves of lower Bengal were considered by the British as a ‘dense and tangled vegetation’, ‘hotbeds of deadly tropical diseases’ and ‘hideouts for dacoits and predatory beasts’ (Chakrabarti 2009: 79). There were hardly any demonstrated merits of the forests, as most travellers passing by the rivers mentioned, apart from the images of the swampy marshes as danger-prone and perilous, owing to the presence of tigers and other wild animals. During the beginning of the 19th century, some representations of the region appeared through the voyagers’ descriptions in terms of its representation as the ‘hotbed of deadly fevers and a breeding ground of ferocious tigers and crocodiles’ and a site of infanticide largely practiced by the Hindu devotees inhabiting the Sagar island, with barely any attention ascribed to the unique nature of the wilderness (Chakrabarti 2009: 79–80). Tigers were largely depicted in all gazetteer writings as ferocious man-eaters, prohibiting people from entering forests for felling trees. The large-scale depiction of the region was that of a ‘wasteland’ (Hunter 1875)—colonial accounts described the region as wild and inhospitable and a marginal reference to people as ‘a few wandering tribes’ have been found (Jalais 2007: 337). A  reason deterring the travellers to explore the region in their accounts was the absence of sublimity in the nature (Greenough 1998: 240). The Britishers saw prospects in reclaiming this tract for the generation of revenue and with the passing of the IFA, the forests were declared as a ‘reserved forest’, further legitimized as the property of the state, with unabated rights of exploitation. Till the middle of the 19th century, policies were oriented towards the generation of revenue and maximization of profit, by making the land settled and habitable, with no attempts towards the design of formal forest policies towards conservation. In the year 1879, new wasteland rules were formulated, whereby blocks of 200 acres of such lands were leased out to big capitalists for redevelopment purposes and smaller plots were leased to small cultivators for clearance. In the year 1893, the

34  Reclaiming riverine forests

first forest management plan for the Sundarbans was designed to extract the available resources (Hoq 2014: 324). The colonialists, between 1795 and1850 regarded the forests of South Bengal as restricting prospects for agriculture and forested lands, mostly classified as wastelands, were passed on to zamindari estates (Sivaramakrishnan 1997: 75). The predominant belief about the swamp forests as unhealthy and unproductive was soon taken over by a zealous pursuit of forest reclamation by the British through the IFA of 1878 (also known as Act VII of 1878), demarcating 4400– 4500 km² between 1890 and 1930 as ‘protected’ and ‘reserved’ forests in entire British India, of which 60% was in the Sundarbans (Ghosh 2018: 74). Reinforcing control over land and resources was to serve a dual purpose of earning revenue and designing a developmentalist agenda for a seemingly disorderly region (Ghosh 2018: 75). Forest conservancy was also partly the results of a wider concern that timber supply is diminishing with the reckless felling of trees, with noted conservators arising as prominent critiques of the destruction to steady timber sources (Sivaramakrishnan 1997: 76). The Riotwari system was introduced in the year 1904 to lease out small plots of land to agriculturalists, with some support from the government, like construction of irrigation tanks. This Riotwari system accounted for a majority of land reclamation and settlements during the start of the 20th century. The extent of cultivable lands increased by 1950s, along with a subsequent increase in settled human population. Recognition of the ecological extents and the usefulness of the forests were traced at a much later stage—with a protracted extraction of natural resources and forest decimation, there were recurring flood risks, erosion and damage to the physical infrastructure. Several incidents, like that of the Morichjhanpi massacre reminds one of the ways in which the postcolonial state altered its forest-based administrative principles—communities residing in the island were evacuated to ensure unclaimed forests remain people-free and within bureaucratic regulations highlighting environmental priorities (Mallick 1999). A historical backdrop of intensive exploitation of a resource-rich forest have contemporarily been replaced by neoliberal policy transformations, with an overarching and urgent attention to forest conservation. The ways in which such material transformation in environmental thinking happened and the fundamental motivations that propelled such changes can be attributed not only to socio-environmental processes and systemic changes in governance but also to a large-scale context of mainstream development—in other words, a place-based ‘political economy of contemporary environmental change’ (Hornborg 2007: 3). The river ecology of the region represents a continuum of imperious control mechanisms. British colonial rule, zamindari rights and formation of the state in independent India, all have explicitly imbibed the region with their determining factors in governing the ecology—as a wasteland, dense impenetrable forests, marshy reclaimable lands and finally as a climate-vulnerable and eco-fragile conservation landscape (Iqbal 2010). Sundarbans, as a globally valued forest belt, are currently managed under a ‘protectionist paradigm’ through both direct governance

Reclaiming riverine forests 35

and newer governance mechanisms offered by concerned non-state bodies (Fletcher 2010: 171). There was a temporal shift in the dominant narrative representing forests as sections of landscape. Despite being a tidal swamp and an ecology not reasonably amenable to human settlements, different historical accounts—gazetteer, folk, travelogues as well as archaeological findings indicate that the area had numerous settlements at different points of time—a stable social cultural arrangement, playing a vital role in the management of resources. But Western representation of the forests and indications towards ‘clearing away’ the ‘jungle’ infested with beasts bear strong trends towards an ignorance of the flood-prone, saline marshes and a subsequent attempt towards reclamation starting from the second half of the 19th century for the generation of revenue, when the Europeans recognized the potential of the forests (Chakrabarti 2009: 78–94). In most of colonial depictions, Sundarbans rarely was invested with a human history, owing to a precedence of the ecological characteristics of the delta—largely imposing ways of ecological representation as integral to defining future conservation projects. The colonial history and designation of Sundarbans as a protected forest during the 19th century had set the stage towards the formation of a political project of conservation—an erasure of the ‘social’ and a growing ‘naturalization’ through the imposition of boundaries and further reinforcing line of separation through wilderness activism in the postcolonial period. In the subsequent chapters, the book engages with the political representation of such a compelling mandate of forest conservation and its impact on the current sociality of the Sundarbans.

Notes 1 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Civilisation-in-Sunderbans-tracedto-Mauryan era/articleshow/53483794.cms 2 Jesuits had come to Jessore in 1599 and set up the first Jesuit Church in Bengal in 1600. It was demolished in 1602 by the Arakans. 3 Jatar Deul is a monument temple of Lord Shiva, currently located in Raidighi, in the Mathurapur II block of South 24 Parganas. A varied mix of documentations speak differently about this monument. While some believe it to be the watch tower of Pratapaditya, a rich landlord of Jessore in the 16th century, others believe it to be an Oriya architecture. A copper plate found in 1875 near the temple suggested that the structure was built in 975 ad (Datta 2012: 56). 4 The word Bhuiyan means landlord. Baro-Bhuiyans were the 12 landlords of Bengal during the late 16th century, who fought with the Mughals and were ultimately defeated by Jahangir. These 12 ruled the bhati region during a period of the loose confederacy of powers in Bengal, between the end of Afghan rule and beginning of Mughal period. 5 As a departure from the widespread usage of the word Ghazi, which literally denotes the Islamic warriors fighting against the non-Muslims, the struggle of the Muslim saints against the forest tigers as well as taming the land for agriculture presided over their identity as a ghazi. Thus, after the forests were cleared for cultivation, the ethos of Islam shifted from mastering the forests and its beasts to mastering the earth and its soils (Eaton 1990: 9). 6 In 1986, 24 Parganas district was split into the two districts of North and South 24 Parganas.

36  Reclaiming riverine forests 7 Authors are Adwaita Mallabarman and Manik Bandopadhyay respectively. References to these stories as carrying notable accounts about the fishers of Bengal were also made in Annu Jalais’ (2010) Forest of tigers: People, politics and environment in the Sundarban. 8 In the four-tier caste system of India, the scheduled castes occupy the lowest tiers of the hierarchy, and were historically regarded as untouchables and profane by the upper castes. Due to their social disadvantage, they are now entitled to certain provisions by the government, the most important of which being the reservation of seats in education and employment opportunities. 9 According to Article 366 of the Constitution of India, ‘the STs are such tribes or tribal communities, or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be scheduled tribes for the purpose of this constitution’. The criteria which specify a community as ST includes primitive traits, distinct culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact and backwardness (Ministry of Tribal Affairs/ MoTA, Government of India). 10 Lord Daniel Hamilton was a Scottish businessman who settled in Bengal for a long time. He made Gosaba, the site of his zamindari activities and helped poor farmers in establishing cooperative societies, by providing initial monetary assistance to start-off.

References Ascoli, F.D. 1934 (2002). A revenue history of the Sundarbans: volume II. Kolkata: West Bengal District Gazetteers, Government of West Bengal (Higher Education Department). Banerjee, A. 1998. Environment, population and human settlements of Sundarban Delta. New Delhi: Concept Publishing. Baviskar, A. 2001. Written on the body, written on the land: violence and environmental struggle in central India. Working Paper Number 2–10. Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Bera, G.K., Mukhopadhyay, A.K. and Sarkar, A. 2010. Syncretism at Sundarbans: anthropological and linguistic dimensions. In G.K. Bera and V.S. Sahay (eds.), In the lagoons of the Gangetic delta (pp. 1–23). New Delhi: Mittal Publication. Bernier, F. 1914. Travels in the Mogul empire: AD 1656–1668. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Company. Buchanan, Francis. 1798. An account of a journey undertaken by order of the Bd. of Trade through the provinces of Chittagong and Tipperah in order to look out for the places most proper for the cultivation of spices (March-May, 1798). London: British Museum. Chacraverti, S. 2014. The Sundarbans fishers: coping in an overly stressed mangrove estuary. Chennai: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF). Chakrabarti, R. 2009. Local people and the global tiger: an environmental history of the Sundarbans. Global Environment, 3, 72–95. Chatterjee Sarkar, S. 2010. The Sundarbans: folk deities, monsters and mortals. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. Chattopadhyay, S.S. 2014. Settlement of history. Frontline. Available at: www.frontline.in/ arts-and-culture/heritage/settlement-of-history/article5486821.ece Chaudhuri, K. 1976. West Bengal: poverty and exploitation in Sundarbans. Economic and Political Weekly, 11 (50), 1914–1915. Danda, A.A. 2007. Surviving the Sundarbans: threats and responses. PhD Dissertation. University of Twente. Datta, R. 2012. A tower of mystery: Jatar Deul. Chitrolekha International Magazine on Art and Design (Special Issue on the Temples of Bengal, edited by Tarun Tapas Mukherjee & Sreecheta Mukherjee), 2 (1), 56–60.

Reclaiming riverine forests 37 Dutta Dey, R. 2018. Sundarbans and conservation: historical perspectives and contemporary challenges. Sahapedia. Available at: www.sahapedia.org/sundarbans-andconservation-historical-perspectives-and-contemporary-challenges Eaton, R.M. 1990. Human settlement and colonization in the Sundarbans: 1200–1750. Agriculture and Human Values, 7 (2), 6–16. Eaton, R.M. 1993. The rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fletcher, R. 2010. Neoliberal environmentality: towards a poststructuralist political ecology of the conservation debate. Conservation and Society, 8 (3), 171–181. Gadgil, M. and Guha, R. 1994. Ecological conflicts and environmental movements in India. Development and Change, 25 (1), 101–136. Ghosh, A. 2018. Sustainability conflicts in coastal India: hazards, changing climate and development discourse in the Sundarbans. Switzerland: Springer. Greenough, P.  1998. Hunter’s drowned land: an environmental fantasy of the Victorian Sundarbans. In R. Grove, V. Damodaran, and S. Sangwan (eds.), Nature and the orient: the environmental history of south and Southeast Asia (pp.  237–272). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guha, R. 1983. Forestry in British and post-British India: a historical analysis. Economic and Political Weekly, 18 (44), 1882–96. Guha, R. 1989. The unquiet woods: ecological change and peasant resistance in the Himalaya. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Guha, R. 1990. An early environmental debate: the making of the 1878 Act. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 27 (1), 65–84. Hoq, M.E. 2014. Management strategies for sustainable exploitation of aquatic resources of the Sundarbans Mangrove, Bangladesh. In I. Faridah-Hanum, A. Latiff, K. Hakeem, and M. Ozturk (eds.), Mangrove ecosystems of Asia (pp. 319–341). New York: Springer. Hornborg, A. 2007. Introduction: environmental history as political ecology. In A. Hornborg, J.R. McNeill, and J. Martinez-Alier (eds.), Rethinking environmental history: world-system history and global environmental change (pp. 1–24). Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press. Hunter, W.W. 1875. A statistical account of Bengal: district of the 24 Parganas and Sundarbans. London: Trubner & co. Iqbal, I. 2010. The Bengal delta: ecology, state and social change, 1840–1943. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Jalais, A. 2004. People and tigers: an anthropological study of the Sundarbans of West Bengal, India. PhD Dissertation. London School of Economics and Political Science. Jalais, A. 2007. The Sundarbans: whose world heritage site? Conservation and Society, 5 (3), 1–8. Jalais, A. 2010. Forest of tigers: people, politics and environment in the Sundarbans. Abingdon and New Delhi: Routledge. Kothari, A., Singh, S. and Suri, N. 1996. People and protected areas: towards participatory conservation in India. New Delhi: Sage. Mallick, R. 1999. Refugee resettlement in forest reserves: West Bengal policy reversal and the Marichjhanpi massacre. The Journal of Asian Studies, 58 (1), 104–125. Mandal, A.K. 2003. The Sundarbans of India: a development analysis. New Delhi: Indus Publishing. Mukhopadhyay, A. 2009. On the wrong side of the fence: embankment, people and social justice in the Sundarbans. In P.K. Bose and S.K. Das (eds.), Social justice and enlightenment (pp. 118–152). New Delhi: Sage Mukhopadhyay, A. 2016. Living with disasters: communities and development in the Indian Sundarbans. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.

38  Reclaiming riverine forests O’Malley, L.S.S. 1908. Eastern Bengal district gazetteers, Khulna. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot. O’ Malley, L.S.S. 1914. Bengal district gazetteers: 24 Parganas. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot. Parthasarathy, D. 2011. Hunters, gatherers and foragers in a metropolis: commonising the private and public in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, 46 (50), 54–63. Peluso, N.L. 1993. Coercing conservation: the politics of state resource control. Global Environmental Change, 3 (2), 199–218. Richards, J.F.  & Flint, E.P. 1990. Long term transformations in the Sundarbans wetland forests of Bengal. Agriculture and Human Values, 7 (2), 17–33. Rollet, B. 1981. Bibliography on mangrove research 1600–1975. Paris: UNESCO. Sivaramakrishnan, K. 1997. A limited forest conservancy in Southwest Bengal: 1864–1912. The Journal of Asian Studies, 56 (1), 75–112. Stuligross, D. 1999. The political economy of environmental regulation in India. Pacific Affairs, 72 (3), 392–406. Tucker, R.P. 1991. Resident people and wildlife reserves in India: the pre-history of a strategy. In P.C. West and S.R. Brechin (eds.), Resident peoples and national parks: social dilemmas and strategies in international conservation (pp. 40–50). Tuscan: University of Arizona Press. Uddin, S.M. 2019. Religion, nature, and life in the Sundarbans. Asian Ethnology, 78 (2), 289–309. Wise, J. 1883. Notes on the races, castes and trades of east Bengal: volume II. London: Harrison & Sons.

3 People and forests Understanding social structures in a vulnerable ecology

Abstract: An ethnography of the two villages—Emilibari and Patharpara— enables an understanding of social structures being shaped by institutional approaches to forest conservation—ways in which people mediate across multiple political scales, for their survival amidst ecologically prioritized landscapes. It also provides an account of the anxieties associated with inhabiting an endangered and rapidly eroding landscape. A sociality, largely comprising of diverse imaginations about the forest makes visible ongoing contestations within social groups and reveals a deeper and transformative understanding of forest communities as associated to nature. How do these dominant transforming trends within forest-based lifeworlds unfold? What events lead to considering political actions as viable strategies of living in a vulnerable geopolitical landscape? This chapter provides an account of these dimensions as instrumental in understanding lived spaces amidst vulnerable ecologies.

Entering Satjelia island: lived spaces at forest fringes It was the month of January 2015 when I started my fieldwork, travelling by a train from Kolkata to Canning, early in the morning.1 Earlier known as Port Canning, the town Canning covers two south-eastern blocks of South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal and is 57 km from the city of Kolkata. Canning is crammed by major daily markets operating outside the railway station, noteworthy being the fish market. 48 trains run between Canning and Kolkata every day, carrying 50,000 commuters—a wholesale market for traders, Canning breathes life as early as 3am in the morning, with vendors crowding to get their daily supply of vegetables and fish for sale in Kolkata and adjacent markets (Chaudhuri 2020). Along with a steady supply of vegetables for the daily markets, around 110 tonnes of fish, 20% of the total demand from Kolkata, is supplied by Canning alone (Chaudhuri 2020). Outside the station, a range of other shops including eateries selling snack, flatbread, curries, etc., garment shops and miscellaneous household items attracts traders as well as common people, as DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-3

40  People and forests

prices are cheaper than the city. Canning also acts as the gateway to the Sundarbans. People from Sundarbans commute to the city through Canning. To ferry people to the jetties further down, there are buses outside the station with designated stops at Sonakhali, Jharkhali, Basanti and Chunokhali—few block-level villages within South 24 Parganas.2 Apart from buses and autos, there are engine vans3 and local cars as public transportation which ply directly between Canning and Godkhali, the latter being the jetty on River Bidyadhari transporting people by motorboats (locally called bhotbhoti) to Gosaba. At around 9 am, I reached Godkhali jetty from Canning station. Motor boat connected us to Gosaba from the jetty. In Gosaba, metalled roads are mostly absent—cycle vans carry people within respective islands and boats ply for travel between the islands. While travelling on a boat between Godkhali and Gosaba, one can have an initial glimpse of the forests on the river banks—swamp trees with a lower extent immersed in the water. Plying between the islands in a boat is locally known as ‘kheya parapar’ (kheya meaning small boat and parapar meaning crossing). During daytime, people commute to the upper islands for work and daily needs, fetching groceries, ration and vital products for the villages, like cooking oil, bricks, vegetables, fruits, poultry stock, etc., mostly by the bhotbhoti (Jalais 2010: 6). Motorboats carry not only people but also their vehicles like cycles and bikes. The more one travels towards the active delta, land stability decreases being undercut by tidal waves, making it difficult for heavier vehicles to ply for transportation (Jalais 2010). The jetty of Gosaba, an island situated on the active delta, opens up to a daily market trading almost everything like clothes, vegetables, groceries, stationeries, medicines and also has small eateries. It constitutes a vital lifeline for people inhabiting remoter islands like Satjelia, Rangabelia, Kachukhali, Choto Mollakhali, Lahiripur, Kumirmari, etc. People carry goodloads like clothes, medicines and household items like gas cylinders, furniture, clothes and equipment, etc. from Gosaba to these remote islands. Travelling all the way to Gosaba for a myriad range of things like hospital, visiting banks, doctors or going to the block office (commonly known as BDO) for personal needs is often painstaking for the remote islanders, since it takes away all the time travelling from far-flung villages in boats—there are in many cases more than one river to cross, to reach Gosaba. Movement of the boats largely depends on the flow and direction of the tide. The stronger the tide, the faster a boat plies. Figure 3.1 shows a crammed motor boat carrying people from Godkhali to Gosaba. Gosaba block is situated within 22°9´47´´ N and 88°48´10´´ E and consists of 9 islands and 14 GPs. The GPs are Amtali, Bali I, Bali II, Radhanagar-Taranagar, Choto-Mollakhali, Rangabelia, Kachukhali, Sambhunagar, Pathankhali, Bipradaspur, Gosaba, Kumirmari, Satjelia and Lahiripur. The GPs are further divided into mouzas, and mouzas are further subdivided into hamlet villages under the administration of gram sansads.4 Each of the GP offices is locally known as regional panchayat (anchal) office by the villagers. Satjelia, the island where fieldwork has been conducted, is a southernmost island, comprising of Satjelia GP and Lahiripur GP. Gosaba block consists of 51 mouzas, out of which seven lies in the island of Satjelia. Satjelia GP and Lahiripur GP together form the island of Satjelia. As a lower island, Satjelia is vulnerable to river erosion and tidal action. According to the Census of India 2011, Gosaba has a population of 246,598. It was in the early 20th century a thriving seat of commerce, owing to the

People and forests 41

Figure 3.1  Boats carrying commuters from Godkhali Jetty to Gosaba Source: Picture credits: Amrita Sen

cooperatives established by Sir Daniel Hamilton, a businessman hailing from the west coast of Scotland and the chief of Mackinnon Mackenzie in Kolkata. Hamilton bought about 9000 acres of land in Gosaba in 1903, and reclaimed forests for building up three islands, which were later named as Satjelia, Gosaba and Rangabelia. These three islands were jointly known as Hamilton Abad (abad refers to the islands which were reclaimed from the forests and made habitable). With 15 members, he started the first cooperative society in Gosaba to help indebted poor farmers against the extortion of the British government. The peasants in Gosaba were primarily an immigrant population at that time. Leasing out lands to the poor farmers and introducing selfcultivation, Hamilton tried to espouse a spirit of honesty and self-sufficiency. He prohibited discriminations based on caste, creed and religion among the people and promoted collective work through agriculture as well as cooperatives. With the help of his wife, Lady Margaret Elizabeth Hamilton, he erected bunds or embankments along the river bank to keep the saline water out of the agricultural fields and make the land permissible for farming. Upon examining the tedious manual wooden machine of husking grain used by the women in the villages, known as dheki in Bengali, Margaret Hamilton introduced rice husking machines in rice mills of Gosaba. These machines could rind grains without manpower. Jatirindranath Mukherjee, the Indian Revolutionary activist, leased land from Hamilton to build schools for sheltering revolutionaries in Gosaba, who ran night schools (Chakrabarti 2009: 84). An ardent admirer of Bengali culture, Hamilton retained close ties with

42  People and forests

Rabindranath Tagore too. Both of them jointly espoused several educational schemes for the newly founded Viswabharati University in Santiniketan. According to Jalais (2010: 41, 42), when money-lenders persuaded poor farmers with legal documents to seize their crop and the new found land, Hamilton set up a loan redemption scheme through the cooperatives to help the cultivators repay the moneylenders. Between 1913 and 1937, 33 village cooperative societies came up (ibid.). However, after his death, the legacy of selfsufficient cooperatives ceased to continue. Corruption, political party disputes and conflicts within the trustees led the trust to be eventually ceased (ibid., 42). For me, the journey of roughly 107 km from Kolkata to Satjelia was of six hours. Communication time largely depends upon availability of local transport and more importantly upon the tide. As one travels further southwards from Gosaba, the landscape structure changes to muddy, often unstable roads, wide exposed mudflats and rivers running parallel to the road. The roads on the active delta are mainly brick paved and uneven, spelling discomfort for the travellers. During the ebb tides, the flats are exposed while during high tide, tidal streams engulf the sedimented mudflats and submerge the mangroves to an extent. Satjelia is a remote forest-fringe island, situated at the south-east of the Gosaba block. The river acts as the main mode of communication with the island. Communicating within the island is possible with the help of cycle vans or engine vans depending upon the road condition and the distance. The island has different jetty points which constantly carries people from other islands. The island shares about 22  km of its boundary with the STR. Satjelia is divided into two administrative units. The northern part of the island falls under the administration of the Satjelia GP while the southern part falls under the administration of Lahiripur GP. Satjelia GP has three mouzas named as Dayapur, Sudhansupur and Satjelia. The GP administers 15 gram sansads. The eighteen villages within the three mouzas include Emilibari Madhyapara and Colonypara, Emilibari Thakruntala and Paschimpara I, Emilibari Thakruntala and Paschimpara II, Emilibari Thakruntala and Paschimpara III, Sukumari Uttarpara, Sukumari Kacharipara and Saradapara, Mitrabari, Emilibari Dakshinpalli I, Emilibari Dakshinpalli II, Sudhanspur, Anandapur Purbapara, Anandapur Paschimpara and Koyal Para, Anadapur Jelekhalipara and Dakshinpara, Dayapur Renukanagar, Dayapur Binapani para, Dayapur Kasturipara, Dayapur Dakshinpara and Madhyapara and Dayapur Madhyapara. According to the Census of India 2011, the total no of households in Satjelia GP is 4352 and the population size is 18,081. 1281 households are listed as BPL (Below Poverty Line), according to the GP office. Within Lahiripur GP, the four mouzas are Hamilton Abad, Sadhupur, Lahiripur and Luxbagan. The GP administers 17 gram sansads. The villages within the mouzas are known by the names of Santigachi Purbapara and Dakshin Para, Chorgheri, Parashmoni Purbapara and Dakshin Para, Luxbagan I and II, Bidhan Colony I  and II, Patharpara, Dattagram, Jahar Colony, Rajat Jubilee I  and II, Banikhali, Sadhupur, Jamespur and Aanpur I and II. According to the Census of India 2011, the total no of households within Lahiripur GP is 5531 and the total no of population is 21,838, out of which 1979 are BPL households. Satjelia island is divided into 13 consecutive ‘lots’ according to the lot numbers allotted to them. Table 3.1 shows the distribution of population within Satjelia and Lahiripur GP.

Figure 3.2  Fieldwork sites within Satjelia island

People and forests 43

44  People and forests 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Sukumari Satjelia Dayapur Mitrabari Anandapur Sudhansupur Luxbagan Parashmani Santiganchi Chorgheri Sadhupur Jamespur Aanpur

SATJELIA GP ISLAND OF SATJELIA LAHIRIPUR GP

Figure 3.3 Distribution of population within the GPs of Satjelia and Lahiripur (within individual mouzas) Source: Census 2011, http://censusindia.gov.in/

Table 3.1 Distribution of population within the GPs of Satjelia and Lahiripur (within individual mouzas) Name of the Mouza

Total Total Total Households Population Male

Total Total Female SC

SATJELIA GP Satjelia Dayapur Sudhansupur LAHIRIPUR GP Luxbagan Hamilton Abad Lahiripur Sadhupur

4352

18,081

2090 1215 1047 5531

8757 4972 4352 21,838

1119 936

4504 3761

2321 1940

2183 1821

3496 1809 1687 3239 1688 1551

576 301 275 477 232 245

1745 1731

6581 6992

3478 3573

3373 3419

6609 3371 3238 5756 2968 2788

736 374 362

9287

Total Total Total Total Total SC SC ST ST  ST  Male Female Male Female

8794 13,719 7056 6663 2147 1097 1050

4490 4267 6459 2570 2402 4091 2227 2125 3169 11,312 10,796 19,100

3319 2121 1616 9836

3140 752 1970 723 1553 672 9264 1789

381 365 351 907

371 358 321 882

Source: Census 2011, http://censusindia.gov.in/

My field areas in the island of Satjelia were in Lot No. 2 and Lot No. 11, Satjelia and Sadhupur respectively. I stayed in Emilibari village (2) in Satjelia and Patharpara village (11) in Lahiripur. These villages are locally known as ‘number 2’ and ‘number 11’ instead of being called by their names. Depending upon the geography of land structure in the islands of Sundarbans, people staying nearer to the forest are considered unsophisticated and boorish (Jalais 2010). It is believed by the people staying in the upper islands that the forest fringes have very little access to the urban mainland, thus lacking development, and that living in these places have not changed over time. The

People and forests 45

differences in the way of thinking can be traced not only within the upper and lower islands. It was a general conviction within the inhabitants of Satjelia that the dependence on forest-based livelihoods for subsistence is more in Lahiripur and that the people in Lahiripur have reasonably less contacts with the city. People from Satjelia conceive of their space as ‘easily accessible to the city’ than Lahiripur. Inhabitants of Satjelia also regard the land in Lahiripur to be ‘barren’ compared to Satjelia, the latter being more conducive to agriculture. The kind of geographical location that one occupies within the islands as well as one’s contact with the city impact associations with each other (Jalais 2010). Emilibari has a comparatively better connection to the mainland, better equipped weekly markets and moderately good roads than Patharpara. The inhabitants of Patharpara were often referred to as ‘indecorous’ by the villagers of Emilibari, a term used to describe lack of proper mannerisms in their conduct. These mannerisms, as locally perceived, include welcoming guests to one’s home for a meal, choice of dress while going out, ‘cultural’ qualities, etc. Tiger straying incidences are infrequent in Emilibari than Patharpara since the forest is not very close. Forest neighbourhoods and forest-related livelihood practices are materially shunned by local elites—as pointed out by Jalais (2010: 22), ‘in the hierarchy of geographical locations, the worst place one could choose to settle on are the peripheries of islands adjoining the forest, in the downer down or at the gate of ‘the tiger’s lair’. In a similar vein, forest work is considered denigrating by landowners, who often identify with forest officials in their concern over wildlife, forests and a romanticized version of nature (Jalais 2010: 33). Positions in better island interiors are thus linked not only to social status but also to stronger political agencies in communicating more effectively to the bureaucratic sphere and shaping dominant environmental agendas. Satjelia is connected to the upper islands like Pakhiralay and Rangabelia through river only. It has a continuous earthen embankment along the river to protect the village households and agricultural fields from the saline water of the river. The embankments, called the ‘nodi baandh’ (in local language) or bunds, are built by heaps of mud and soils brought from the river banks. The fragile earthen embankments wreck easily leading to continuous erosion of land in the entire island. An incidence of embankment collapse is usually followed by a hasty patchwork repair or construction of a ring embankment behind the earlier broken one. Ring embankments protect lands and households which are situated at the riverside. Most of the inner village roads are brick paved, barring a few like those near the panchayat offices and the local market area. These areas have well-built concretized roads. The areas around local panchayat offices in both Lahiripur and Satjelia are facilitated with tube wells, cycle van and engine van stands, markets, jetties and steady telephone network. In Emilibari, hutments are arranged linearly along the two sides of the road. While one line of hutments runs adjacent to the river, vast stretches of rice fields mark the backyards of the other line of huts. In Patharpara, all the hutments border the river embankment and the forest lies on the other side of the river, directly opposite to the settlements. The agricultural fields lie beyond

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the settlements. In both the villages, permanent housing structure is practically absent. Housing materials are mud, brick and clay with a thatched or asbestos roof. Whereas hutments in the village interiors bordering the agricultural fields are away from the river and have greater protection against tidal swells, those hutments lining the river embankments are always subjected to threats of erosion and submergence, collapse of embankments and changing course of the river. Many huts along the river are erected out of temporary makeshift structures like plastics, wood and asbestos which can be disentangled during incidents of flood and embankment collapse. The forest workers usually live along the side of the river at the forest side of the village. Poor people, who have little or no landholdings, employ themselves in forest work as a subsidiary means of livelihood. The well-off inhabitants like the agriculturalists till their own lands (Chacraverti 2014: 27). During my fieldwork days, electricity was absent in the entire island, but generators were available in market areas from 9 in the morning to 10 at night. Few houses had solar plates used for electricity, lighting up a room or two barely.5 Houses usually have a provision of a pond at the backyard, which is used for bathing as well as washing clothes and utensils. The river water being saline is of no use for household purposes. Patharpara is encumbered by regular threats of tiger straying. Many hutments, with little or no boundary walls are at

Figure 3.4  River-bank huts bordering earthen embankments in Emilibari Source: Picture courtesy: Amrita Sen

People and forests 47

Figure 3.5  Village embankments bordering river in Patharpara Source: Picture courtesy: Amrita Sen

constant threat from both embankment collapse and tiger attacks. During ebb tides, tigers easily swim across from the adjacent forest. There are two kinds of inhabited lands in SBR presently: those closer to the mainland which were deforested and cultivated largely between 1765 and 1900 and those on the forest fringe, reclaimed between 1900 and 1980 (Jalais 2010: 2). Emilibari and Patharpara falls under the second category of land, where deforestation and reclamation happened much later. Islands like Satjelia are young—they are still on the making, having been reclaimed from forests into lived spaces owing to increasing cross-border migrations till mid-20th century and even after. Landscape volatilities and precarious living in these newly formed islands are popular reasons cited commonly by the state and key conservation bodies in proscribing human settlements and recommending retreat, to adapt stronger conservation goals along with climate resilience action plans (Danda, Ghosh, Bandyopadhyay and Hazra 2020). State commanded forest conservation in the region has been historically entrenched, as we have also seen in the previous chapter—there were political-economic transitions in forest monitoring and forest policy over different periods, which resulted in widespread inequality and structural marginalization in the region. People residing in inner islands adjacent to the forests are largely referred to as ‘encroachers’,

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who are believed to ‘destroy the remainder of the forest’, if conferred rights to the land (Roy 2020: 15). The incidents of forceful eviction from Sundarbans’ Morichjhanpi island in 1979 foregrounds a similar attempt to legitimize the state as the absolute authority over the Sundarbans. Morichjhanpi, an uninhabited island to the south-east of Satjelia, witnessed an infamous political turmoil following the partition of India in 1947. The turmoil, commonly referred to as the ‘massacre of Morichjhanpi’, was rooted in the apathy of the Left Front government6 in Bengal in accommodating Hindu refugees of East Bengal (present Bangladesh) in the protected forests of Morichjhanpi. Although the wave of refugee influx from East Bengal continued for many years after independence in 1947, the landed urban middle and upper class got to settle themselves with ease in the cities of West Bengal (Mallick 1999). The rural and ‘untouchable’ population (primarily the Namasudras), failing to get habitable spaces to live, were deported to the discretion of the ruling Congress government in settling them. As refugees, they were initially sent off to deserted and inhabitable lands of Dandakaranya in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. These were primarily tribal inhabited lands and as a result, the migration enumerated in conflicts, confrontations and lootings between the tribals and the Hindu refugees. The refugees survived under vulnerable conditions, such as malnutrition due to lack of relief from the government, overcrowding in the camps and outbreak of diseases like cholera. The opposition (Left Front) during that time supported the cause of the refugees to establish their political foothold in the state and eventually proposed to settle them in the Sundarbans of West Bengal, after coming to power. They even declared that there was enough land in Sundarbans to be reclaimed. While 15,000 refugee families started making way to Sundarbans, the same Left Front government, now in power, made arrests and forcefully tried to send them back to Dandakaranya, fearing acquisition of ‘government-owned land’. As Jalais (2005: 1758) points out, the Left Front government found that the refugees have taken them at their word and sold their belongings to return to West Bengal, expecting the government to honour its word. The government deployed massive police force to send them back to Dandakaranya. A few refugees made their way escaping police and came to settle in the Morichjhanpi. They eventually made the island habitable by making embankments. The Left Front Government, fearing political antagonism in this event of land acquisition, claimed that these people are encroaching protected forest lands of the state. An economic blockade was imposed in January 1979 in Morichjhanpi. Police patrolling started in motorized boats, leading to firing and rounds of public harassment. Police gradually engulfed the entire island in boats and prevented any movement to and from the island, thus denying basic amenities like water, healthcare and market. The CPI-M government deployed massive armed forces and indiscriminate violence followed in the adjoining islands of Kumirmari, Choto Mollakhali

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and Satjelia, where many refugees sheltered. According to Mallick (1999: 110, 111, 112), Muslim gangs were hired to assist the police as it was thought Muslims would be less sympathetic to refugees from Muslim ruled Bangladesh. At least several hundred women were killed in the operation and their bodies dumped into the river. The CPM congratulated its participant members on their successful operations in Morichjhanpi. In a final twist to the episode, the CPM settled its own supporters in Morichjhanpi, occupying and utilizing facilities left by the evicted refugees. The issues of the environment and the Forest Act were forgotten. Many of the refugees died of hunger and malnutrition. Those who survived tried to rehabilitate to suburbs of Kolkata like Dumdum, Midnapore. Some took shelter under the TMC7 flagship. However, unlike earlier modes of conservation induced dispossessions, impacting mostly as social and economic distress, what remain noteworthy as well as constitutive in the contemporary approaches of conservation in Sundarbans are rapid shifts in power structures from economic to non-economic spheres, towards political arenas, visible through elite capture and rapid growth of political patron-clientelism (Kashwan, MacLean and García-López 2019: 134). These processes are intrinsic to the current politics of conservation where competing groups shape grounds of contestation in a myriad range of ways. In a recent paper, Kashwan, MacLean and García-López (2019: 137) draw attention towards a reasonable scope of broadening the institutional analysis of power, by introducing a matrix—‘whether power is exerted by constraining of the opportunities and control that actors and agencies previously had (power over), or by creating new opportunities—that is, new resources, structures and institutions—and relatively greater control than individuals and groups of individuals enjoyed previously (power to)’. The uniqueness of this matrix lies in its representation of both forms—power over and power to as discrete and distinct forms of operation and in its ability to be deployed conditionally by any actor, privileged or dispossessed, moving ahead of analyses studying power as a representative category within elites and intra-elite coalitions. Conservation politics in the Sundarbans is contemporarily embedded in a similar dynamism, where exercise of power in administering the landscape is no longer linked exclusively to authoritarianism, but has shifted to newer forms of redistribution and strategies exercised through actors and institutions at scales. Many of such newer forms, as pointed out by Brockington (2006: 99), ties environmental concerns to very discrete agendas and material interests—mostly by the usefulness of environmental policies to the needs of the people. It is imperative to explore how distinctive environmental agendas are pursued through chequered political processes—a backdrop of the physical-social structures thus remain implicit in discussing conservation politics.

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Village and the forests This section focuses on the physical-social structures of two forest fringe villages, situated in the Gosaba block of the South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal—villages where the study has been conducted. Field observations from these two villages, namely Emilibari and Patharpara helps describing overwhelming anxieties associated with the ways in which the forest is popularly imagined through normative structures reinforced by the state and aligned conservation groups. The section also brings empirical and analytical insights about structural compositionalities—socio-economic divisions in the villages and the ways in which the divisions influence perceptions about conservation and forest-based livelihoods. The villages on which the fieldwork is conducted are inhabited mostly by economically and socially backward classes of people. Being located at the active delta, these villages have reasonably weak infrastructural developments and a puzzling array of overlapping governance structures, coupled with a harsh, unstable and difficult topography, animated by tidal activities of the numerous interspersing rivulets. Islands on the stable delta like Canning, Joynagar, Minakha, Haroa and Sandeshkhali have regular transportation facilities like buses and autos. Being away from the forest and the riverside; they are less prone to splintering and have a stable land surface. However, islands like Satjelia happen to be at the ‘gate of the tiger’s lair’ as Jalais (2004: 16) calls it, since they are located at the closest peripheries of the forest. Majority of the people from these villages have marginal or no landholdings and least economic assets; they depend upon the resources of the forests for subsistence. However, the community ‘does not constitute, an economy and polity that is largely autonomous from external control’ (Baviskar 1997: 207). Empirical details inform about practical realities of a sociality aligned significantly to market-oriented mechanisms of conservation, an essentially neoliberal practice (Roth and Dressler 2012). The chapter, through a ‘translation of experience into textual form’ (Clifford 1983: 120) explores everyday social living, local administrative processes and the disconcerted local imageries of the forest—it explains structural discords within the sociality, which also impinges significantly upon the prevailing perceptions on forest conservation, extending the discourse further to issues on identity, rights and social dissonances. Navigating the field: approaches and designs of the research

The fieldwork for the study was carried out during a period of nine months between 2015 and 2016. Ethnography as the method was informed by a coconstructed framework, based on an integrated descriptive-inductive research design, through the conceptualization of the research problem and subsequent operationalization through a qualitative method. Field areas were two villages on the island of Satjelia in Gosaba block—Emilibari and Patharpara, administered by Satjelia and Lahiripur Gram Panchayats (GP) respectively; the choice of the field sites and the idea of conducting the research in Gosaba were

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prompted through a pilot survey of three weeks to the island of Satjelia in 2014. The primary reason for choosing these two villages is their peripheral location at the forest fringe, sharing closest proximity with the STR and one of the most fragile and risk-prone landscape structures, with little or practically nonexistent livelihood options and magnifying disaster frequencies. In the earlier days of fieldwork, participation into the social life of the forest community interfaced through periods of ambiguity, structural predicaments and anxieties—responsiveness towards my role as a participant researcher was constrained by reasonable despair by the local people on the ends of the research. As being raised in a city and distanced significantly from experiences of rural lifeworlds, acquainting with the ‘risk-prone’ terrain of the remote villages was dire unfamiliar and difficult initially. The initial days at the field were marked by experiences of travelling in motor boats connecting one island to the other, treading, often uneasily, on muddy and slippery embankments as well as sometimes wading through knee deep mud to the boat at the jetty. An overwhelmingly pervasive impression of my city life and the contrasting reality of my prolong and planned living amidst the villages often seemed to constrain chances of rapport with the villagers at the onset of my stay. Apart from the families which quite graciously hosted my stay in the two villages, others found responding to questions I asked pointless and of little or no value, with which many people before having also come but little to accomplish any end, as they commonly mentioned.8 After deliberating for several days, I could realize, among other things, that a structured research theme and a formal set of questionnaire would be of little use, as also pointed out by M.N. Srinivas in his lectures of 1945, that such an approach might translate into an impression of lacking a moral dimension. Srinivas had further pointed out that the researcher not only must be a genuine participant observer but should also consider the relationship with the community chosen to study as more than an attempt for data collection—natural behaviour of an essentially marginal community cannot be not easily captured by interviews and quantified information (Madan 2004: 195, 206). Constraints of this sort can be further illustrated by the words of Latour and Wooglar (1979: 44): the observer’s organization of questions, observation and notes, is inevitably constrained by cultural affinities, whereby the notion of a total newcomer is unrealizable by practice. He has to steer a middle path between the two extreme roles of a total newcomer and that of a complete participant. Imperative, especially of anthropological studies, is the positionality of the researcher amidst the community as an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’, as pointed out by Srinivas (2004: 419)—‘the very depth of the involvement of the “insider” in his society is likely to invest his work with a relevance or an urgency which the “outsider’s work is not likely to possess” ’. The fact that my connection to individual families evolved to be convivial gradually had a significant bearing to my identification as a Bengali—I had advantage of communicating in the

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language. With my regular visits to some households, mainly the ones of the fishers, interactions became much congenial, but bulks of exchanges at the starting point were pleasantries, fostering chances of open communication. The discomfort eased out gradually, also with the warm welcome of people with whom I shared residence in the villages. They not only provided a home but helped in acquainting me with the neighbourhood. I complemented the interview method initially crafted for the study, with a more informal free flowing discussion, which helped understand the competing versions on forestbased livelihoods as well as management. The research has been guided by socio-philosophical assumptions, beyond typically representative descriptions, explanations and specific procedures of analysis (Laraswati et al. 2020). The data gathered were recorded in writing and filling up interview schedules as well as through audio and video clips and thematically contextualized and analysed. Discourse analysis and individual narratives were utilized towards subjective understandings of written or oral conversations, making sense of contrasting materialities within the social structure, embodied social practices, affectivities and dissonances as well as ritual symbolisms associated with the forests. Emilibari and Patharpara share almost same physical and demographic characteristics being on the lower islands of Sundarbans. They have a significant number of forest fishers9 and other forest-dependent communities (jointly referred to as the ‘forest workers’). Patharpara shares the closest proximity with the forest. A  large number of civic bodies and a range of state departments were integral response-units for the fieldwork. West Bengal Forest Department, Sundarban Development Board, Backward Classes Welfare Department (BCWD) and West Bengal Tribal Development Cooperative Corporation (WBTDCC) were visited for information on recent forest governance mandates. Interactions with functionaries from Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF), Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF), Sundarban Matsyajibi Joutha Sangram Committee (SMJSC), Sundarban Jana Sramajibi Mancha (SJSM), Direct Initiative for Social and Health Action (DISHA), South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE) and Nagarik Mancha helped in framing important analytical points. Proceedings and budget speeches from West Bengal Legislative Assembly, legal orders on government schemes were analysed. The panchayat offices of Satjelia and Lahiripur helped with village information on hamlet population, occupational patterns and governmental assistance schemes. National Library and West Bengal Legislative Assembly Library at Kolkata were visited for newspaper archives. An ethnographic report summarizes behaviours and beliefs, attitudes and values of a group of interacting people, positioned in a globally valued mangrove belt (Berreman 1968). Lowie (1953: 528) suggests that ethnography is the ‘complete description of all cultural phenomenon everywhere and at all periods’. An ethnography is generally expected to give an overall view of the culture of the people about whom it is written, within the limits inherent in ethnographic research and in prose exposition (ibid.). It thus involves a method where research experiences like encounters, field notes and dialogical

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conditions are translated into a ‘textual corpus’, which eventually becomes a cultural reality, essentially separated from its former ‘communication of specific persons’ (Clifford 1983: 131, 132). Such an interpretation similarly draws from Geertz (1973). He explains that the ethnographer inscribes social discourse by writing it down and thus turns it from a passing event from its moment of occurrence into an account which is textualized and can be consulted later (ibid., 19). I used a snowball sampling method for identifying respondents. The initial respondents were fishers from a household just opposite to the hut where I stayed in Emilibari, who acted as ‘a primary source to identify other persons who qualify for inclusion’ (Bailey 1987). The understanding and the learning of the subjective experiences of the local people as well as the description of the customs and rituals are constitutive of patterned beliefs associated with the forest. In this study, the ethnography details inductively, the contemporary sociality crafted by recognition of the landscape as an ecologically vulnerable conservation hotspot and the politics of paradigm-shift in forest management policies. An inductive framing through analyses of textual literature have led to the formulation of research questions, subsequent identification and recruitment of respondents into the study and analytical and thematic representations. The ethnography relied on a range of field approaches intertwined collectively for a robust exploration of positionalities of the community within the largest mangrove ecosystem of the world. Field apparatuses: a mix of qualitative methods Participant observation

Participant observation, according to Srivastava (2004: 27), is a technique which involves sustained, intensive, day to day participation of the researcher in the life of the respondents. Here the researcher has a first-hand experience of sharing peoples’ culture in its natural habitat for a lengthy period (ibid.). In his anthropology of the Trobriand islanders, Malinowski’s (1922) primary methodological tool, what he termed as ‘participant observation’, helped ‘immerse’ in the everyday life of the community by participating in everyday interactions, rituals as well as the developments and events. The term ‘participant observation’, according to Baviskar (1995: 8), serves as a shorthand for a continuous movement between the inside and the outside of events- on the one hand grasping the sense of specific beliefs empathetically and on the other, stepping back to situate these meanings in wider contexts. Dewalt and Dewalt (2011: 5) have pointed out that the key elements of participant observation include living for a prolonged period in the situation, learning the local dialect and language, participating in the routine and everyday activities of the people, informal observations, field notes and use of tacit and explicit

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information in analysis and writing. Berremen (2004: 170) mentions that the way in which an outsider can achieve acceptance is by establishing residence as well as through social interaction, acquiring the status of a community-dweller. Participant observation has been used in this fieldwork for conducting effectively, informal and semi-structured interviews, focused group discussions and general conversations—a contextual qualitative analysis. Staying in community households enabled learning about local contexts: plural imaginations on forests, everyday living with the natural and structural predicaments and power asymmetries around implementation of newer conservation norms. I had chances to participate in the local festivals like annual fairs, rituals, household worships as well as village meetings where fisher’s union met and discussed issues. Participation was important since it offered a closer examination on the politics of conservation and enabled a perspective on how community-state relationships are produced and perpetuated in ecologically vulnerable landscapes. Semi-structured interviews

In qualitative research, three kinds of interview methods are used to elicit descriptive responses (Gill, Stewart, Treasure and Chadwick 2008: 291). In semi-structured interviews, no structurally specific questions are set in advance and it resembles a free-flowing conversation (Srivastava 2004: 29). Semistructured interviews are ideal methods in qualitative research since being exploratory in nature, such research methods are more intrusive and less structured (Jarratt 1996: 9). This kind of interviews also allows the researcher to cover a definite range of topics as well as the fact that ‘unexpected topics or facts can easily be explored’ (ibid.). As has been mentioned before, restricting merely to the questions was eliciting typical answers in the beginning and the respondents were not opening up to participate in the discussions. The reason for choosing this type of interview schedule for this work was thus to allow the conversation flow, keeping in mind the schedule. Focused group discussions

According to Bailey (1994: 191), the main characteristic of focused group discussion is ‘the structure provided by interviewing people, all of whom experienced a particular event. In focused group discussion, questions are open ended to provide flexibility and allow for unanticipated responses’. Merton, Fiske and Kendall (1956: 3, 4; also see Bailey 1994) pointed out four criteria which prompts focused group discussions: (1) respondents being involved in a particular situation, (2) content or secondary analysis by the social scientist before the interview, (3) setting of an interview guide indicating the major areas of inquiry and the hypothesis and (4) focus on the subjective experiences of the interviewees and ascertaining their definitions of the situation. Focused group discussions stand out from semi-structured interview methods by the fact that the former indulges in a discussion more than merely collecting data,

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on a particular topic organized for research purposes (Gill, Steward, Treasure and Chadwick 2008). The two also differ by the fact that in focused group discussions, more flexibility is allowed in terms of the questions asked since the questions are not written in advance but are allowed to emerge in course of the discussion. This helps to ‘investigate deeply into the subjective areas of the respondent’s mind in an attempt to discover his/ her real feelings and motives’ (Bailey 1994: 191). The focused group discussions conducted in this study involved groups of eight to ten respondents, which largely helped eliciting collective observations on evolving forest governance patterns. Around 12 focused group interviews were conducted during the period of nine months. Responses were mainly recorded as well as written down. Questions were asked on the perceptions on prevailing conservation norms and participatory management, customary practices and traditional beliefs associated with working in the forest, local knowledge on ecosystem resilience, everyday negotiations with state functionaries to enter forests for livelihood, management of embankments, etc. Diary writing

The main reason for using qualitative research is its process of analysis, based on distinct and methodological traditions of inquiry of exploring a social or human problem in a natural setting (Srivastava and Thomson 2009). Qualitative data includes descriptions about circumstances, people, interaction, attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, as well as quotes from people who are experiencing the phenomenon. It also includes passages or excerpts from the personal experiences of the respondents and is mainly in the form of texts, although it might include tables, charts, etc. (Strauss and Corbin 1998). In this book, personal narratives and informal discussions have been used, which are not drawn from forest workers, but also from conversations with village elders, landholders and rich agriculturalists, schoolteachers, panchayat functionaries as well as functionaries of the party office. Most of these conversations were captured in field diaries. Diaries, as pointed out by Rudolph and Rudolph (2004: 310, 325) is an exercise in self-communication and is governed by the logic of its daily entry. According to Ross, Ridout and Carson (1994: 415), diaries allow for freedom of expression by subjects and are used extensively by anthropologists to examine intra-cultural variables among attitudes, values, cultural styles, emotions and behaviour. As a part of diary writing, I have introduced oral histories of the region in this book, which helped to contextualize current socio-political transformations perpetuated through conservation politics.

Organization of the community In Satjelia, people mainly subsist on agriculture, forest work and petty trade within the village. People, who are well off, aspire to buy plots around Kolkata. The entire island reports large-scale migration year-round, to places like

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Mumbai, Bangalore and Andaman in search of labour-based work, since wages are higher in cities than on working on other people’s land in the villages. Outmigration from marginal spaces like these is a part of survival strategy and most marginal families can sustain themselves in the hinterland only by absenting themselves from the area for long periods (Baviskar 1995: 157). The population that stays back in the villages are mostly involved in artisanal fishing, agriculture and are landowners, school teachers, labourers, shop owners, followed by other small and petty trading like poultry, weaving and pottery. Forest workers usually have little or no land—they constitute the bulk of the population in Emilibari and Patharpara. The population in Emilibari and Patharpara belong to Scheduled Caste (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), with a miniscule of Christians and Muslims. Possession of land and contacts with the city acts as a benchmark of one’s economic and social standing, more than one’s ranking in the caste hierarchy. This is partly because the entire collective belongs to the lower caste order. People who have land to themselves are held in high esteem within the village, along with other privileged groups like primary school teachers and health workers. Wealthier people consider forest workers as utterly poor, destined to the risk of encountering tigers for subsistence. Forest workers usually reside along the river bunds—spaces which are physically vulnerable and closest to the forest. They engage themselves in small scale artisanal fishing in river creeks, prawn seed and crab harvesting and fuelwood, bee wax, honey and shell collection from the forests. During lean seasons of fishing, many of them labour in other’s agricultural fields and are paid a wage of 100–200 per day. Agriculturalists are settled in the better interiors of the villages, away from the river and the embankments. The main crop which is cultivated is rice or paddy. The islands sustain on mono-crop cultivation due to high salinity of the water. Few agriculturalists rely on seasonal incomes from the forests, especially during crab harvesting seasons, since it fetches a large amount of money—these people are not regular forest workers. Forest workers consider the realm of the forest as tranquil and ‘free from the complexities and hassles of daily life’ in the village—this is largely because the forests are sacred, as they believe. Changing social relations between the different socio-economic groups in the villages can also be traced to the changing occupational patterns across generations. The present generations have eventually tried improving their socio-economic position in the village, by migrating to other cities and shifting settlements to better locations in the village. During rice cultivating season, the absentees working as migrants elsewhere can be seen returning to help their family in making the land for cultivation. Surprisingly, when asked about experiences outside their native spaces, these returnees, often condescendingly, speak about opportunities to explore urban spaces and rarely speak about economic incentives that migration entails. While recent research shows how remittances brought to native villages by rural out-migrants impact current agrarian transformation (Barney 2012), migration can also be considered ‘as a

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temporary escape from home and an opportunity to explore a new country, gain independence from parents and live out prohibited amorous relationships’ (Shah 2006: 93). Returnees to the villages holds them in a higher esteem by the fellow villagers, since they have established contacts with the ‘city’ and had an ‘urban’ experience—they largely detest forest work and associated ritualistic beliefs. Urban migration and the mobilities that is entailed transform traditional organizations and prevailing environmental agendas to a large extent— experiences of migration reveal realities in stark contrast to experiences of disenfranchisement and disconnection from ‘native’ spaces (Sen and Nagendra 2020). Migration allows people to adopt the consumptive behaviour of the urban residents, towards branded and other status goods like mobile phones, television, vehicles, etc. (Mawdsley 2004: 86); many of the households in the island are now seen to widely adapt consumer goods. People are also keen to establish physical contacts with the city, access service jobs and labour works in the suburbs as well as in far flung places like Andaman. As Chatterjee (1998: 281) points out, strategies for survival in such marginal landscapes involve ‘a large array of connections outside the community’. Prolonged physical disconnects to the village life also shape different material abilities of challenging existing arrangements—of resistance, bargains and navigating situated power relations in a dynamic political settlement (Kashwan, MacLean and García-López 2019). The population in the two villages can be broadly divided into three categories. The ‘agriculturalists’ who own land constitutes the first occupational category consisting of economically and politically dominant classes. In the villages, they have around 3–4 bighas (around a hectare) of land. Their houses can be well identified as having a tin roof, brick laden walls, iron bars on windows, well painted interiors, two three rooms with basic furniture like bed, table, chairs and a separate kitchen space. Wealthier agriculturalists are no longer dependent on the forests despite having an ancestral lineage in forest-based occupations. Some of them practice forest fishing very rarely, if at all, during times when land is fallow for several years and there is no income to sustain their family. Most of the panchayat office bearers as well as the functionaries of the political parties, school teachers, shopkeepers, local health-care specialists and NGO workers are agriculturalists. People work in the fields during sowing and the harvesting season. Wealthy farmers employ labourers while small and marginal farmers cultivate their own land. The intermediary occupational category is the unskilled working class. They work as land labourers in other’s fields, as middlemen, as house servants, shop-cleaners and hotel-helpers and as petty traders and primarily reside in mud hutments along the river. The third occupational category is that of the forest workers. Forest workers can be classified into honey and wax collectors, wood collectors, fishers, crab fishers and prawn-seed fishers. Regular forest workers are not the only ones to indulge in forest-based livelihoods. Any person, having no ancestral lineage to fishing, might be a forest worker depending upon his economic condition, survival needs and homestead location. While decreasing forest dependence in favour of other jobs was found among younger generations, many of those

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who are still residing in the lower islands have become agriculturist turned forest workers. This is due to the declining quality of land, natural calamities, low economic returns as well as the pursuit of ‘quick money’ associated with occupations such as prawn seed collection and crab collection. However, caste fishers, commonly known as jele, have a perennial dependence on fishing. Honey collection is practiced during April-May and permits are issued from the Forest Department to licensed collectors. It is imperative to mention that none of the occupational categories are discrete ones in Sundarbans, since people practice multiple occupations, irrespective of castes. Pointing to the same, Chacraverti (2014: 8) states that fishing in Sundarbans as an occupation does not exclude other occupations, since many fishers are cultivators, labourers, carpenters and so on, on the side. The occupational patterns are thus conceivable less in terms of heredity and more in terms of land location and economic condition. Such a categorization reminds one of the three kinds of assets which determine class formation: property assets, organizational assets and cultural assets (Savage, Barlow, Dickens, and Fielding 1995: 16). The organization of these assets across the different classes is dynamic, offering different potential for class formation. For instance, the agriculturalists, who usually stay away from the forests, have better access to property assets (land), organizational assets (political authority) and cultural assets (education) than the other two groups. Caste-based identification of occupation has strong historical roots, as has been pointed out by classical sociologists—G.S Ghurye (1961: 241) writes: The unfreedom of occupation in actual operation at the beginning of the 19th century was accompanied by a staunch belief that almost everyone of the large number of castes had an occupation which was its own, its traditional and hence the hereditary occupation of its members, to abandon which in search of another was at least not proper, if not actually sinful. Further, he mentions, ‘a caste or a group of allied castes consider some of the callings as hereditary occupation, to abandon which in pursuit of another, though it might be more lucrative, was thought not to be right’ (1961: 15). Caste organizations are significantly related to the persistence of a variety of cultural practices, imposing social restraints on the utilization of natural resources (Gadgil 1998). It is argued that an identification of caste-based resource utilization was crucial for maintaining an ecologically steady state for decades till the advent of the British rule (ibid.). Baviskar (1997: 200) points out how the caste system as a whole accounted for the profound inequalities, which enabled the upper castes to deny resources to those working under them. Rai (2007: 152) points out that in the village of Kelanginkeri in Uttar Kannada, majority of areca plantations were done by Brahmins, while non-Brahmins who do not own areca plantations, worked in the fields of the Brahmins as labourers. This created inequity in access to forest resources, with the Brahmins controlling most of the resources. Sivaramakrishnan (2000: 436) studied

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the control of the Mahatos on the resources more than the Lodhas, since the latter own little land and were mostly dependent on forests. However, Sundarbans has a hierarchically backward sociality, with population belonging to lower caste orders (Jalais 2010). Caste is thus best studied as a regional system, for there are interregional differences, which tend to lose sight when viewed as an all-India system (Srinivas 2004: 418). Political processes operate as the mechanism through which the relationship between the different communities in the village is altered (Beteille 1969). Caste discriminations are ineffectual in everyday relationships as well as access and use of resources—in the absence of privileged castes, politically dominant and landowning classes shape dominant environmental agendas and are prominent faces within the local forest management groups. In pursuing their political agendas, they consider occupations like prawn seed collection and forest fishing as debilitating for the forests and also condemn the forest workers (Jalais 2010: 3). Prawn seed collectors are condemned for being ‘greedy’ and for posing a threat to the ‘ethics’ of the village life (Jalais 2010: 3). The two villages of Emilibari and Patharpara are primarily constituted by the SCs—a population of 13,719 SCs can be found in Satjelia GP and 19,100 in Lahiripur GP. SCs are locally known as the Toposhilis and are divided into a number of endogamous sub-castes, which is very specific of India (Ghurye 1961). The two main sub-castes which are constitutive of the SCs in the two villages are Paundrakshatriyas (locally called the pods) and the Namasudras— the two extreme lower ranks of the Hindu caste order. Others little found categories include Jele, Kaibartas, Suri, Bagdi, Malo and Muchi. Paundrakshatriyas form majority in the villages and are also predominant within the forest workers. Previously referred to as Chandals, they migrated to Indian Sundarbans from Bangladesh after independence in 1947 and were fishers by caste. The Namasudras, a numerically dominant Hindu caste of undivided Bengal are the next numerically populous community in the two villages, following the pods—they disintegrated and came to India after 1947, when their identity in a Muslim majority region started getting sidelined. (Bandyopadhyay 1999). Following the SCs, the next predominant population group in the villages are the STs and the OBCs. According to the Census of India, 2011, the no of ST population in Satjelia GP is 2147 and in Lahiripur GP is 1789. The places which the tribals inhabit are referred to as Adivasipara or Sardarpara in the villages. The predominant tribes in the three villages are Bhumij and Munda. Their ancestral lineages are from Purulia, Orissa, Chotanagpur, Ranchi and Bihar—as pointed out by Shah (2006: 94), in the late 1800s, West Bengal, among other states, attracted migrants from Chotanagpur region. They were preferred as labourers in railway and road building projects, as well as in plantation works, since they were considered ‘more industrious and tractable than others’ (ibid.). Many of the Bhumij tribes hail from the Jharkhand region while the Mundas mainly belong to Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal. The Adivasis, apart from working in the forest, are largely involved as wage labourers for developmental works in the villages like embankment building, road

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Figure 3.6  A Munda woman making Hariya, in a village near Emilibari, named Sardarpara Source: Picture courtesy: Amrita Sen

construction, pond digging as well as agricultural labourers. The predominant forest occupation of the STs are prawn-seed fishing and crab fishing. The last group of people in the villages are the OBCs who are from the adjoining district of Medinipore (Midnapore). According to Jalais (2004: 57) they migrated to Sundarbans after the Bengal famine of 1943, when their district suffered the most severe blow. They are generally wealthier than the SCs and the STs and are mostly agriculturalists, with miniscule practicing forest work. OBCs consider themselves as economically and culturally advanced than the SCs and the STs since many of them possess landholdings in the city suburbs. They hold them in higher status also because they are least associated to forest-based occupations and inhabit stable lands which are away from the rivers. Panchayat members largely belong to the category of SCs and OBCs. There are also a handful of Christian and Muslim population in the villages. The houses which are situated away from the rivers in the better interiors of the villages are less vulnerable and are inhabited by people who have fixed agricultural lands. Physical locations of particular households in the villages influence occupational choices and perceptions of social status, more than caste-based identity. SCs are primarily a group with a uniform lineage to fishing. The STs and the OBCs practicing fishing can be divided into two categories: ‘converted forest fishers’ and ‘flexible forest fishers’. By the converted forest fishers, I  refer to those who hereditarily practiced agriculture in their natives, but have taken to fishing post-migration, since they have no land.

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Flexible forest fishers are those who alongside land-based work, are periodically involved in forest-based occupations to complement their income. Such alterations in occupational patterns have also been explained by Danda (2007: 29)—‘with the increase in population, subsequent pressure on land and loss of land due to erosion, counter conversion of occupation can be witnessed. Cultivator families, irrespective of caste and religion are taking to fishing, especially collection of tiger shrimp seeds; caste and religious scruples no longer hold in case of occupation’. Similarly, Chacraverti (2014: 21) observes that ‘with subdivision and fragmentation of landholding through generations, the landed households gradually turned marginal and could hardly sustain with agriculture alone. Consequently, fishing became the second most important occupation for these islanders’. Regular conversations with the forest workers revealed about mutual companionships while within the forest, where no one is discriminated based on caste and creed. There is a uniform belief on a forest deity, Bonbibi. Bonbibi, although being an Islamic deity, is worshipped by all forest workers annually as well as before their particular visits to the forests. Forest is treated as a sacred realm where no forms of violence and discrimination should prevail. People follow norms of reciprocity and brotherhood, when travelling to the forests for livelihood. Within the forest workers, social relations are constituted through mutual interests of persons in one another, or on one or more common interests or both (Radcliffe Brown 1940). In this regard a particular cultural practice related to forest work needs mention. In the three villages, evoked reciprocity of relationships through the concept of ‘evoked divine kinship’ or dharmo atmiya (atmiya meaning relatives), are established especially within the forest workers. By such evoked divine kinship, a particular person from the same village is ritually converted to become one’s kin. This includes evocations of father, mother, brother, sister, aunt or uncle. According to the villagers, such invoked kinship is equal to one’s blood relations and resemble one’s own kindred. A ritual worship is performed whereby a person acquires the right to have an evoked kin relationship. While working in the forests, such kin relationships are believed to protect each other from any impending dangers. Such relationships are usually evocation of cultural identities, to be utilized mutually to meet certain mutual ends. It transgresses caste-based kinship, which limits individual choices over existing social arrangements.

Physical structure of the villages Emilibari and Patharpara share boundaries with rivers and forests. Hamlets in Patharpara run parallel to the river. The forest is situated at the other side of the river. Emilibari is also located parallel to the river, but the huts are divided into two parallel stetches, with a brick road intersecting the two lines of huts. The rooms in each hut are preceded by a raised earthen platform at the front-yard which leads to the inner room(s). This platform is usually used to host guests and relax in the afternoons. The kitchen is separated from the main room—the

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hearth is erected with mud and clay with two separate vents where the cooking pot is placed. The hearths are in many cases built outside the house in the front-yard. Farm cultivation and livestock raising is done in small pieces of land at the backyards. Staple vegetables like potato, onions and others greens are seasonally grown here. However, many houses have no adjoining land for farm cultivation. Many homesteads have one or two ponds which cater to household water needs like washing utensils, clothes and bathing. Those who don’t have ponds use those of their neighbours. All the huts which are built along the river-embankments have seepage problems and are severely susceptible to erosion during high tides and floods. Families in both villages are usually nuclear. Kin networks binds families together—sometimes kin members share a single piece of land owned by their forefathers (bhite), with each nuclear family living in different huts built on the same land. In other instances; relatives stay in different villages on the same or different islands. This is also typical of other places in India—an extended family always has an ancestral seat or locality, although occupationally they might be forced to settle in other places (Karve 1953). The families reflect a particular kinship pattern prevalent in India as early as the 17th and 18th centuries. Especially studies on the Chamars in the village of Senapur in Uttar Pradesh as well as the Mundas of the Chotonagpur in Bihar illustrates deep bedrocks of extended families and the kinship patterns as a cultural ideal among the Hindu castes and tribes in India (Cohn 1961; Perucca 1981). Kin members are not egalitarian in terms of economic assets and land ownership. Reciprocal relationships are usually traced within kin networks of the same village. Kinship ties are stronger within same socio-economic classes; a forest worker and a landed agriculturalist or a panchayat functionary, school teacher, who are otherwise kin, are usually not close to each other. A larger section of the panchayats functionary in the two GPs of Satjelia and Lahiripur are political and economic elites, who apart from their centrality in village affairs, are keen towards an urban progressivism and making contacts with the city (Ruud 2003)—they have additional land and house in the city peripheries like Sonarpur, Garia and detest forest-based livelihoods in the strongest terms. Forest workers are treated to be contemptible by their wealthier relatives for greed and for staking life to earn quick money, the hazards of sharing residence close to the forests is expressed strongly by wealthier kins settled in better interiors. Marriage is exogamous, that is outside one’s clan. In negotiated marriages, preference for the groom is from the upper islands or places near to the city. The occasion takes place in the bride’s house—the grandeur varies according to the economic capabilities of the bride’s parents. Dowry in the form of material assets as well as money is prevalent. The practice of giving utensils, furniture, livestock and money as gifts is common. If the groom and his family possess some land in Kolkata and its surroundings, has a post-graduation degree and is a salaried employee with a service job, the number of endowments from the bride’s family increase. School teachers and those who have government jobs are regarded as suitable grooms.

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25 20 15

10 5

Households

0

Figure 3.7  Household distribution in the two villages according to the area of landholding

As the figure shows, 64% of the households have a landholding of less than one bigha (3 bigha=1acre). They include the landless households also. 36% have a landholding of one bigha and more. According to Danda (2007: 97), in West Bengal, farmers holding land below 2.5 acres (1 hectare) are defined as marginal and those with landholdings of 2.5–5 acres (2 hectares) are deemed as small farmers. However, Sundarbans, farmers with 0.13–0.27 hectares (1–2 bigha) is considered as marginal while a farmer with 0.27–0.67 hectares (2–5 bigha) are considered as small farmers (ibid.). Thus, in both villages, there is a majority of landless people. Sundarbans provide a context where rather than caste stratification, institutional politics is deeply interwoven within the physical-social space and influences dominant environmental agendas. As discussed before, forest communities are subjected to marginalization owing to their identities as ‘landless’ and the ‘denigrating’ occupations like fishing and honey collection, that they practice. Much of the marginalization is witnessed through dominant political disaffections and not social hierarchies. Local institutional politics acts as a major way in which power is effected and wielded across different social coalitions, often underemphasizing reforms which catalyse marginal rights. Most of the forest workers have no BPL cards. They are thus denied access to benefits and housing schemes like Indira Awas Yojna (IAY),10 widower allowance, pension and handicapped allowance. The panchayat of Satjelia claimed that in the year 2015–2016, around 500 (in average) requisitions have already been passed on to the block level office and 300 families have already received the first instalment. Money is provided in three instalments (35,000 + 28,000 + 12,000). However, there was no house construction visible in any of the villages, which

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Figure 3.8  A well-built house of a panchayat functionary at Patharpara Source: Picture courtesy: Amrita Sen

was allocated to a forest worker. On the contrary, beneficiaries of IAY were identified as those with fixed incomes like school teachers and wealthy farmers. Several forest workers mentioned how unreliable payments under IAY are— the first instalment is never received in full, political leaders usurp money in the form of enticements. Village elites ‘buy’ BPL cards, by greasing palms of the dominant party leaders. Forest workers from BPL households, whose monthly income is below INR 6000 are entitled to INR 194,000 from the Forest Department, under the Gitanjali Housing Scheme11 to construct new houses. The housing scheme, initially known as Amar Thikana, was earlier constructed by the beneficiary alone. Following a notification dated 11.08.2014; Housing Department of the Government of West Bengal amended its clause to select beneficiaries of the scheme with the consent of the panchayat. The task of supervising the progress of the construction and purchase of material is also vested with the local panchayat representatives who subsequently orders for the regular release of instalments based on the progress of work. According to the forest workers, panchayats retain close ties with the Forest Department and proposes to build its programme of administering rural development

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through well-funded projects like IAY and MGNREGA. The beneficiaries of these schemes are commonly those who have vertical allegiances to political cadres in the villages. Widower pension allowances and old age pensions are not remitted regularly, but sequestered and paid after six or more months of gap. Beneficiaries of the pension scheme are denied subsidized ration through the Public Distribution System (PDS). Many villagers, being ineligible to receive old age annuity, does so by aligning with the local party cadres. Widows of tiger victims (commonly known as tiger widows), who are in many cases young and severely marginalized, lack entitlement to widow pension, since most of them have no BPL card.

‘Religion of forest’: Bonbibi and local conservation norms Bipod e poriya bon e jei jon e daak e, Ma boliya Bonbibi doya r maa take . . . Uddhariye taro torey aponaro gun e, Maa er o hujura koto likhibo ekhane. (Bonbibir Johuranama) (Facing any danger inside the forest, whoever prays to her, Mother Bonbibi protects them all.) Forest-based livelihoods are largely congruent with religious identification (Herring 1990: 96). Local techniques of conservation are informed by religious customs, rituals, collective local norms of sustainable management and equitable distribution. In the ‘the land of the eighteen tides’ (atharo bhatir desh), as Sundarbans is popularly known as, the daily movement of the tides govern direction of the forest workers in their journey to the forests. The only precaution that they carry with them is the sacred blessings of the forest goddess Bonbibi. Bonbibi is believed to protect the forest workers from any impending danger, the most notable among which is the tiger attack. Literature on Bonobibi and the spread of religious rituals in Sundarbans is widespread. In most of this folk literature, reference has been made to presence of supernatural powers in the forests, especially after the Turkish Afghan invasion in Bengal in the 13th century (Mondol 2010: 41). The literature has been divided into three parts: (1) the ancient Islamic literature on Bonbibi (mainly following the advent of the religious Sufi saints during the Muslim invasion), (2) contemporary theatres and local plays, and (3) hymns, poems, prose and proverbs. The most notable contributions among these three have been the Islamic text titled Bonbibir Johuranama, the holy book written in Arabic style from back to front. This book is read by the people of Sundarbans while worshipping the forest goddess. The book was written by a Muslim poet called Abdur Rahim. It was generally believed by many 18th century Hindu writers that worship of Bonbibi commenced with

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the increase in fear in venturing the forests and did not have any element of Hindu-Islamic divide within the prevalent rituals, apart from little difference in the attire of the goddess. In Muslim dominated areas, Bonbibi has braided hair with a head cover, wears a piran along with ornaments and flowers while in Hindu dominated villages, she wears a crown, sari and ornaments (Mondol 2010). The forest workers venturing into the Sundarbans forests identify themselves indiscriminately as poor landless adherents of Bonbibi, whose survival depends upon the mercy of the goddess. Bonbibi is widely worshipped by the woodcutters, forest fishers, honey collectors and the like, who are integrally connected to the forest for their livelihoods (ibid., 46). The epic on Bonbibi is enacted in villages through theatrical performances and plays, known as Bonbibir Palagaan (songs and plays on Bonbibi). These performances continued for about eight to nine hours earlier and is divided into several parts. The first part is on performing the incidences of the birth and activities of Bonbibi. The second part involves acting through songs as medium for describing the events, along with narration which is known as Bonbibir Pala. The final one, known as Dukhe Jatra (the journey of Dukhe) is an oral narration accompanied by drama and songs. This part depicts the rescue of the little boy called Dukhe by Bonbibi, from the hands of the tiger demon Dakshin Ray (Mondol 2010: 14). During the worship of Bonobibi, people narrate from the Johuranama, the birth of Bonbibi and her fight with Narayani, the mother of a tiger-veiled clairvoyant called Dakshin Ray, for the possession of the forests. They also narrate the journey of a merchant called Dhonai to the forest (Dukhe jatra), encountering Dakshin Ray and saving Dukhe from the clairvoyant. The image of Dakshin Ray is epitomized as that of an extortionist zamindaar (landlord), who has usurped all lands from the poor forest workers and thus these workers are now thrown amidst the threat of life in the forest. Bonbibi is considered as a protector who shields the forest workers against any impending danger. In addition, Bonbibi also acts as the superhuman protector of the forest and its wildlife from the potential threats of greedy usurpers whose rampant extraction subjects the forests to risk of depletion. The epic of Bonbibi in these two parts, described in the following words. The history of Sundarbans dates back to the rule of the Ray dynasty in medieval Bengal. The 12 brothers of the dynasty (known as Baro-Bhuiyans of Bengal) were landlords as well as warriors, who once ruled the area. Chand Ray one of the initial rulers, was later succeeded by Pratap Ray and Kedar Ray. Dakshin Ray, the son of the Brahmin priest called Dandabakhya and his wife Narayani Devi, was the last ruler of the Ray dynasty. He was a clairvoyant and through his mythical powers, was able to assume different forms, primarily that of a tiger. He started to territorialize the forests in the veil of tiger and preyed on the poor Muslim forest workers who ventured the forests and rivers in search of fish, honey, wax and wood. Being a wellestablished landlord, he proclaimed himself the king of the bhati. Legends have it that by the prayers of the poor Muslim families, who were victimized

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by Dakshin Ray, Bonbibi and Shah Janguli were summoned from heaven by the almighty. They were born as the children of Ibrahim Fakir, a Sufi saint from Mecca and his second wife Gulalbibi. Gulal was later abandoned to the forest by Ibrahim, according to the wishes of Ibrahim’s first wife Phulbibi, who demanded Gulalbibi to be sent to the forest immediately after conceiving. Since Gulalbibi gave birth to both the children in the forests; they were named ‘Bonbibi’ and ‘Shah Janguli’. People believed that since Allah had sent these two divine creations to the world, they grew up very fast. Ibrahim, a few days later, out of his repentance, left for the forests in search for Gulalbibi and came across the three of them. Although Gulalbibi eventually went back with Ibrahim, Bonbibi and Shah Janguli refused to go back. They wanted to stay in the forests as its protectors and save the poor forest workers from the attack of Dakshin Ray. Dakshin Ray eventually came to know about the two and his mother Narayani attacked Bonbibi. However, she was defeated in the battle. Eventually Narayani and Bonbibi became friends and were locally known as ‘soi’. The second part of the story of Bonbibi further goes on to address the life of a small child called Dukhe (the word in Bengali means ‘sorrow’) and how he was saved from the hands of Dakshin Ray. A wood and honey merchant known as Dhanai Mawaley (mawaley meaning honey collector) from Barijhathi in Bangladesh decided to enter the forests of Sundarbans with several people and seven boats in search of honey and wax. Accompanying them was a little boy called Dukhe who was assigned to shed the waters out of the boats when the others will venture the forests for honey and wax. He was also instructed to cook for them. When Dukhe was leaving with them, his poor mother reminded him to worship Bonbibi if need arises in the forest. As Dhanai reached the forests, to their despair, they found no trace of honey or wax. It was a deliberate ploy by Dakshin Ray, who wanted this group of people to come to his help. Dakshin Ray finally came into the dreams of Dhanai and demanded Dukhe from them in return of a large amount of honey and wax. Although Dhanai initially refused, later on he conceded and decided to hand over Dukhe to Dakshin Ray in an island called Kedokhali. Dukhe incidentally learnt about the plans of his sacrifice by Dhanai in return of wax and honey. He started to cry and pray for life to Bonbibi. Dhanai was further instructed by Dakshin Ray to collect wax instead of honey, since it is more profitable in the market. Following his instruction, Dhanai threw away his entire stock of honey and filled his boat with wax instead. On the way back, Dukhe was thrown off board, but was saved from Dakshin Ray by Bonbibi and Shah Janguli. When Dakshin Ray came to devour Dukhe, he was defeated by Shah Janguli and he fled away. He took shelter with Boro Ghazi Khan, a Muslim saint who reigned in a part of the forest but worshipped Bonbibi with reverence. On his request to Bonbibi, Dakshin Ray was spared and he vowed not to attack any person who worships Bonbibi before entering the forest and who does not plunder the forest beyond his subsistence needs.

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Dukhe was eventually sent back home on the back of a crocodile with loads of honey and wood to suffice his needs and build his manor. Ghazi helped him with gold coins. Dukhe became a rich landlord. Dhanai was spared from death sentence since Dukhe’s mother intervened and demanded that since Dhanai took Dukhe to the forests, as a result of which they acquired fortune, he should be spared from any punishment. Further it was decided that whoever ventures the forest only for his/her subsistence needs, will be spared from Dakshin Ray if they worship Bonbibi before coming. Atharo bhatir majhe ami sobar ma Ma boli dakile karo bipod thakena. (Bonbibir Johuranama) I am the mother of everyone in the bhati. No one fears death if they call me in the forests. But the agreement was that whoever enters the forests must not obtain more than what they need and must follow the norms of equitable distribution. Dakshin Ray ever since was believed to protect the forest (in the form of a tiger) from the pirates and greedy woodcutters exploiting the forests. Beyond imparting rules of sustainable extraction, Bonbibi’s belief system entails certain norms and restrictions which the forest workers should follow during their journey to the forests. These include: entering the forest during certain hours of the day, refraining from entering at night, refraining from defecating and smoking within the forest, entering the forest in ‘clean hands’ without any arms, refraining from abusing, hitting or falling out on fellow workers in the group and refraining from forest expeditions on one’s birthday and Friday. On Friday, Bonbibi and Shah Janguli are believed to leave the forest for Mecca to perform hajj prayers—in her absence, it is unsafe to enter the forests as it is believed. During my fieldwork, I observed people worshiping Bonbibi throughout the year, along with Dakshin Ray, Shah Janguli, Gazi Khan and little Dukhe. Apart from worships in the village, forest workers are also seen constructing small wooden shrines inside the forests. At the first full moon day of the Bengali month of Maagh (usually in March) and in the last day of the Poush month (usually in January), known as ‘poush sonkranti’, Bonbibi is worshipped. The worship usually starts at night, at around 8pm. A  person (not necessarily a priest) reads out verses from the Johuranama using a mike. The marquee is made outside one’s hut, by fixing four bamboo stacks on four sides with a plastic sheet cover overhead. After the recitation, people who had vowed to Bonbibi fulfil their vow (manasik) by distributing pieces of sweets and sugar drop candy to those who are present around. Many people sacrifice animals like hen and goat as well as contribute gold as offering. After the narration, rice pudding and fruits is distributed within all those who are present. Everyone from the village sits together and eats. Post worship, the

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idol is placed in a small shrine at the backyard or left back inside the forests. Every year a new idol is made. Bonbibi is also worshipped on the day someone leaves for the forest—as an offering and to ensure safety, fishing boats are adorned with flower swags. During the period for which honey collectors stay inside the forests for the collection, women in the households perform certain rituals. After the team leaves for the forest, women should not light fire during the daytime—the duration for which the team is inside the forests for honey. Cooking should be completed before sunrise, tallying with the time when their husbands are expected to start off. Lighting a fire in one’s household signifies losing one’s way in the forest due to smoke. Beggars should not be given food and money. Doors of the huts should not be closed throughout daytime and clothes should not be dried in the open, to prevent them from blowing in the wind. This is because a blowing cloth symbolizes an empty hive. Women should refrain from brushing their hair and putting vermillion on their forehead, cleaning the household, washing utensils and welcoming any guest to their house during daytime, as long as their husbands stays inside the forest. The worship of Bonbibi transgresses ethnic and religious boundaries— calling out to ‘Allah’ before embarking on the forest soil is essential for all forest workers—Johuranama mentions at the onset: ‘everyone should charm the name of Allah, irrespective of caste and religious divisions, to pay obeisance to Bonbibi’.12 Along with the worship of Bonbibi, the worship of Dakshin Ray as the ‘tiger god’ is prevalent. Much excerpts of Dakshin Ray’s dominance on the forests in medieval Bengal have been observed in Krishnaram Das’s treatise named ‘Raimongol’. Dakshin Ray is worshipped in two forms—either dressed as a landlord with swords and a crown with a tiger idol at his side or he is worshipped in the form of an earthen human head placed above a tiger idol. The arrogance of Dakshin Ray as a landlord and a devout Brahmin can be traced within the narratives of the forest workers. One of them mentioned: Post a casualty, we can understand if it is a tiger or Dakshin Ray- if it is Dakshin Ray, he usually kills in the veil of a tiger, but does not necessarily feed on his prey. By feeding on a lower caste person, he might lose his nobility as a Brahmin. The worship of Boro Gazi Khan, a renowned Muslim pir and his foster brother Kalu is also common in the villages. Gazi khan, who chose to inhabit the forests as a fakir, defeated Dakshin Ray, who was then the army general of another powerful ruler of the Baro-Bhuiyans, Mukut Ray. One can also come across little mud or straw huts at the side of the village road, placed outside one’s courtyard on the embankments. These thaans, as they are commonly known as, are covered with a red shroud, indicating the presence of Bonbibi’s shrine.

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Figure 3.9  A fisherman making the idol of Bonbibi for maghi purnima worship Source: Picture courtesy: Amrita Sen

The norms which the forest workers follow during their fishing and honey collecting expeditions are preached by a group of people known as gunin or bawali (tiger charmers) (Jalais 2010).13 The bawalis, as they are called by the forest workers, are believed to have inherited mythical hymns and thus they qualify to accompany forest workers inside the forests. He, through his mythical powers, is said to control the ‘environment of the forest’ including the movement of a tiger, ability to close its open mouth and predict areas where a tiger can be present. He is treated in high regard by the forest workers. Bawalis, usually an elderly group, are said to be the descendants of the pirs and possess ‘hymns of the forest’. These hymns cannot be learnt by a lay person and is usually kept confidential, until a person with some ‘special quality’ qualifies to learn them. The hymns protect forest workers not only from the tigers, but also from the ‘evil spirits of the forest’. Commonly known as para, these hymns are functional during the entire expedition inside the forest. The para being functional signifies ‘closing off the forest workers from impending dangers’. During honey collection, bawalis perform some rituals—before entering they touch a tree base which lies affront and chant some hymns. During this time, he should place his hands at the base of the tree. If his hands tremble, he

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has to leave the place and convince the group to leave, since trembling hands signify impending danger—the presence of a tiger nearby. If his hand doesn’t tremble, the group can enter the forest only after the bawali attaches to his forehead and chest, some of the soil that lies underneath the tree. This soil is known as maal. This piece of soil is believed to control the movement of the tigers and hold them back from crossing the way of the group. Once the expedition is complete and the group leaves, the maal expires and the animals are again rejuvenated. There are certain rituals which need to be followed by the forest workers as long as the maal is attached to the body of a bawali. Defecation and spitting should involve use of leaves so that the excreta do not directly touch the ground. The burnt exterior of the cooking pot or the burnt mouth of the cigarette should not touch the river water and knives should not touch the earth. These activities indicate the expiration of the maal which might ignite dangers. The soil of the forest is considered sacred and nothing should pollute the soil in the process of collection. Bawalis believe that tigers can be tamed by them during the duration of the expedition. However, when a bawali inherits the hymns, he should be reasonably acquiescent towards the forest and should not tempt the tiger by virtue of his expertise in controlling its movement. The worship of Bonbibi might not have transcended local barriers of the islands to reach the popular cultural in the cities. But it is still idiosyncratic and preaches to the forest workers, virtues of conserving the forest in an equitable manner. According to them, religious traditions must be approached with an understanding of historical and regional particularities and how these factors inform practical experiences. As Eaton (1990: 9) mentions, the gazetteer of the Khulna district in 1908 mentions the prevalence of a class of professional woodcutters, including both Hindus and Muslims who proceed in boats to certain localities called gais each of which is presided over by a fakir, who is supposed to possess the occult power of charming away the tigers and who had undoubtedly some knowledge of woodcraft. Here the woodcutters work six days in each week for one day of the week is set apart for the worship of the sylvan deity presiding over that particular forest. The worship of Bonbibi, although rooted in Muslim tradition, is followed by all the communities in Sundarbans irrespective of caste and religion. Here, incorporation of the worship of Bonbibi does not conflict with the respective worldviews of Hindus and the Muslims within the specific cultural context (Schmalz and Gottschalk, 2011: 79, 80). Rather than invoking a religious divide between Hindus and Muslims, both the communities pay obeisance to the ‘religion of the forest’ in the name of Bonbibi. Sundarbans provides only context where a deity is worshipped not as a prerequisite of a custom, but because of need, the need of gaining confidence and courage before entering the forest. According to Alex (2007), Bonbibi is the only artefact which binds

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culture and conservation here. The whole range of religious rituals portrays the culture of a region, which physically might be endangered, but still holds its roots to the traditional folklore. As pointed out by Berkes, Colding and Folke (2000: 1258) ‘rituals help people remember the rules and appropriately interpret signals from ecosystem change’. Chatterjee Sarkar (2010: 51) points out that a struggling population with whom the question of survival was of the utmost important, had sought to accommodate one another and propriated every god or goddess who held sway in the jungle. Bonbibi in a way suggests that forests are subjected to local understandings and people can enter forests freely as long as they have the motivation to protect them and use its resources sustainably. Hereby in Sundarbans, religion has given precedence to culturally prescribed ways which has imbued norms of sustainability within the utilization of the resources. Although the universal applicability of this religious folklore is contested, the religion of the forest is practical with little scope for spirituality or mysticism (Chacraverti 2014: 75). The religion, as the worship of the superhuman rather than spiritual figures suggest, gives primacy to the control of the forest by people associated to them, and not by any outside agency (ibid.). Scientific forest management having its base in the western ideologies have widely contested environmentalism in the South, based on indigenous cultural patterns. There are still disputed claims on the religious norms attached to the sacredness of the forests on which the local communities survive. The distinctiveness of nature worship in Sundarbans emerges from the fact that Bonbibi transcend religious barriers and is worshipped not as a religion but as a form of self-protection and mutual companionship. It is acknowledged that survival of the animals is equally at stake since both the communities and the animals share the endangered terrain and suffer loss of habitat (Jalais 2010). A range of other rituals exemplify the local ways in which people attempt to seek protection from the potential threats of the forest and the physical habitat. The worship of Manasa, who is believed to be the god of snakes, is common in the villages due to the heightened presence of a large number of venomous snakes. Worshipping the nature and its forms as well as the superhuman is not only imbued in the region as a form of protection in the endangered terrain, but also as a response to the need for recognition of the popular folk cultures and emancipation from exploitation of the upper castes which permeated through the social order of Bengal in the 18th and the 19th centuries. The realm of forest work and the customary religious norms informing forest practices have provoked strong criticisms linked to lack of environmental consciousness and anti-conservationist trends. A closer observation reveals key social tensions produced by plural political forces associated to conservation, shaping contentions within multiple groups on legitimation of discrete ends. Sundarbans is ecologically fragile, with climate threats escalating over years (Ghosh 2018)—recent studies have located growing poverty and development deficits as factors propelled by incidences of tropical cyclones, ravaging islands and physically displacing communities—such an approach has necessitated framing of suitable conservation goals and retreat-based action plans as

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prerequisite (Danda, Ghosh, Bandyopadhyay and Hazra 2020: 4). Dominant approaches in an effort towards creating ‘values’ of conservation landscapes, propose retreat, stricter conservation and growing separation of people from forests as imperatives; conditions essentially unresponsive towards the plight of the residents, as a community threatened by multiple forces. Such conservation attempts, often driven towards the creation of ‘values’ as construed in recent times, are symbolic of an ‘epistemic circulation’—a belief in linear cause-andeffect relationship, effecting increasing chances of commodifying nature in the global market (Büscher 2014: 80). In a recent article, Bhattacharyya and Mehtta (2020) critiques policies strictly mandating retreat as an essential option and asks how such an unthought retreat plan can manifest as a tragedy, as many of the mass rehabilitation efforts and the concomitant displacement experiences in the past show. ‘A discursive hegemony of sustainable development and climate change adaptation is at work in the global South’, which largely masks growing aspirations towards enhancing capabilities through multiple agencies, power actions, risk perceptions and ideologies (Ghosh 2018: 217). Predominant narratives of conservation in the recent times, as enforced on the landscape and its people, requires a nuanced understanding of local environmental agendas as transformative. Local elites perceive the forest workers as degraders of the forest. The realm of the forest is one where relations of solidarity and brotherhood is visible, however on the sole conviction that collective action is indispensable for combating potential risks. In a socially iniquitous landscape, exclusionary conservation doesn’t merely manifest into state-community conflicts, but operates through chequered micropolitics—political actions across institutions and actors play an instrumental role in embodying ‘legitimate’ identities and ‘constituting’ practices, often amenable to state imperatives—the conservation micropolitics so shaped also allows us to explore how existing socio-political inequities are altered and reconstituted.

Notes 1 Port Canning was set up in 1858 and then the railway station in 1862 which connects Sundarbans with Kolkata. 2 There are several islands within SBR which lies far south, very near to the forest, and they cannot be reached by heavier vehicles since they are only connected by waterways. Motor boats, locally called bhotbhotis or human-driven rowing boats called dinghies are available for plying between these far-flung islands. Satjelia is one such island. 3 Engine vans have a motorized pull cart with a shade at the top, which is capable of travelling a greater distance in shorter time to distant places. They normally carry six to eight passengers. 4 Village or ‘gram’ in West Bengal represents an entire area under a GP, with a constellation of hamlets, not a single one. According to the West Bengal Panchayati Raj Act of 1973 (p-3), gram sansads are recognized as the electoral constituencies of gram panchayats, while gram sabha refers to a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls of the entire ‘gram’- large number of hamlets which falls under a single gram panchayat. Such gram sabhas are essentially large, with a constitution of people from several hamlets which forms a particular gram panchayat. Legally, the gram sansads instead of the gram sabha represent hamlets in West Bengal.

74  People and forests 5 A 2008 WWF project had catered some of the forest fringe villages in Gosaba with around 120 solar street lights to ensure reduction of tiger straying. 6 Left Front government represents a coalesce of the left-wing parties. In West Bengal, the coalesce includes the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M) which forms the largest part, followed by Communist Party of India (CPI), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and All India Forward Bloc. They came to power in 1977 and had a historic rule for 34 years in West Bengal till 2011. All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) is the opposition party and presently the ruling party in the state. They came to power since 2011, winning 190 out of 294 seats in West Bengal Legislative Assembly. 7 All India Trinamool Congress (abbreviated as TMC) is a regional political party in West Bengal, formed in the year 1998. They won the assembly election of 2011 and is the present ruling party in the state 8 The most common words of despair were: ‘So many people from the city like you comes and goes, talks to us- we nurture falls hopes that things would change! But we are today where we were yesterday.’ 9 Forest fishers refer to the fishers from the lower island villages, who fish in the creeks and the rivulets interspersed within the forest area. They do not practice marine fishing. They fish crabs, prawn seeds and other fish species. 10 IAY came into operation in 2005 as an initiative by the Government of India to provide BPL households with affordable housing schemes. These houses are mainly allotted in the name of the women, or jointly in the name of the husband and the wife. The houses should be constructed solely by the beneficiary. The amount granted is INR 75,000 for building houses in difficult topographical areas, like Sundarbans. When the programme started in 2005, the entire amount was credited to the GP which then allocated the amount to individual beneficiary bank accounts after identification. The house should be constructed within 200 square feet. A facilitator has been appointed in this regard who is supposed to assist the beneficiary families for building the house and fetching construction materials. Administrative action is to be taken by the GP against those who have not started construction work of the house within three months after receiving the first instalment and the money in such case should be refunded. 11 Gitanjali Housing Scheme is being implemented in the rural areas and non-municipal urban areas by the Government of West Bengal, Housing Affairs in coordination with seven other government departments. Rs 1.94 lakhs is to be allotted to the beneficiaries of the forest fringe areas of Sundarban by the forest department and for the beneficiaries residing in other non-forest coastal areas by the Sundarbans Affairs Department. 12 In Bengali: Allah Allah koro shob e hoye ek mon. . . . Bonbibir kotha ebey shono sorbojon. 13 Jalais (2010: 75) refers to the ‘tiger-charmers’ as a group of people, who are entrusted with a responsibility of negotiating between humans and non-humans—hence they preach ideals to ensure that the norms of the forest are not breached when people from the village enter the forests for livelihood. People believe that tiger-charmers are blessed with a vision of Bonbibi and are usually humble and peaceful.

References Alex, R.K. 2007. Essays in ecocriticism. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons. Bailey, K.D. 1987. Methods of social research. New York: Free Press. Bailey, K.D. 1994. Methods of social research (4th ed.). New York: Free Press. Bandyopadhyay, S. 1999. Caste, protest and identity in colonial India: the namasudras of Bengal, 1872–1947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Barney, K. 2012. Land, livelihoods and remittances: a political ecology of youth outmigration across the Lao—Thai Mekong Border. Critical Asian Studies, 44 (1), 57–83. Baviskar, A. 1995. In the belly of the river: tribal conflicts over development in the Narmada valley. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

People and forests 75 Baviskar, A. 1997. Tribal politics and discourses of environmentalism. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 31 (2), 195–223. Berkes, F., Colding, J. and Folke, C. 2000. Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecological Applications, 10 (5), 1251–1262. Berreman, G.D. 1968. Ethnography: method and product. In V.K. Srivastava (ed.), Methodology and fieldwork (pp. 157–190). New York: Oxford University Press. Beteille, A. 1969. Social inequality: selected readings. Hardmondsworth: Penguin Books. Brockington, D. 2006. The politics and ethnography of environmentalisms in Tanzania. African Affairs, 105 (418), 97–116. Bhattacharyya, D. and Mehtta, M. 2020. More than rising water: living tenuously in the Sundarbans. The Diplomat, 29 August 2020. Büscher, B. 2014. Selling success: constructing value in conservation and development. World Development, 57, 79–90. Chakrabarti, R. 2009. Local people and the global tiger: an environmental history of the Sundarbans. Global Environment, 3, 72–95. Chacraverti, S. 2014. The Sundarbans fishers: coping in an overly stressed mangrove estuary. Chennai: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF). Chatterjee, P. 1998. Communities in the east. Economic and Political Weekly, 33 (6), 277–282. Chatterjee Sarkar, S. 2010. The Sundarbans: folk deities, monsters and mortals. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. Chaudhuri, M. 2020. Canning cannot. The Telegraph, 4 April  2020. Available at: www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/coronavirus-and-the-comprehensive-closuresit-imposed-have-choked-calcuttas-arterial-human-and-material-supply-line/cid/ 1762072 Clifford, J. 1983. On ethnographic authority. Representations, 2, 118–146. Cohn, B.S. 1961. Chamar family in a North Indian village: a structural contingent. Economic and Political Weekly, 49 (34), 1051–1056. Danda, A.A. 2007. Surviving the Sundarbans: threats and responses. PhD Dissertation. University of Twente. Danda, A.A., Ghosh, N., Bandyopadhyay, J. and Hazra, S. 2020. Strategic and managed retreat as adaptation: addressing climate vulnerability in the Sundarbans. ORF Issue Brief No. 387, July 2020, Observer Research Foundation. Dewalt, K.M. and Dewalt, B.R. 2011. Participant observation: a guide for fieldworkers. Plymouth: Altamira Press. Eaton, R.M. 1990. Human settlement and colonization in the Sundarbans: 1200–1750. Agriculture and Human Values, 7 (2), 6–16. Gadgil, M. 1998. Traditional resource management systems. In B. Saraswati (eds.), Life style and ecology (pp. 5–26). New Delhi: National Centre for the Arts. Geertz, C. 1973. The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books Inc Publishers. Ghosh, A. 2018. Sustainability conflicts in coastal India: hazards, changing climate and development discourses in the Sundarbans. Switzerland: Springer. Ghurye, G.S. 1961. Caste, class and occupation (4th ed.). Bombay: Popular Book Depot. Gill, P., Steward, K., Treasure, E. and Chadwick, B. 2008. Methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews and focused groups. British Dental Journal, 204, 291–295. Herring, R.J. 1990. Rethinking the commons. Agriculture and Human Values, 7 (2), 88–104. Jalais, A. 2004. People and tigers: an anthropological study of the Sundarbans of West Bengal, India. PhD Dissertation. London School of Economics and Political Science. Jalais, A. 2005. Dwellings on Morichjhanpi: when tigers became “citizens”, refugees “tigerfood”. Economic and Political Weekly, 40 (17), 1757–1762.

76  People and forests Jalais, A. 2010. Forest of tigers: people, politics and environment in the Sundarbans. New Delhi and Abingdon: Routledge. Jarratt, D. 1996. A comparison of two alternative interviewing techniques used within an integrated research design: a case study in out-shopping using semi-structured and nondirected interviewing techniques. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 14 (6), 6–15. Karve, I. 1953. Kinship organization in India. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Kashwan, P., MacLean, L.M. and García-López, G.A. 2019. Rethinking power and institutions in the shadows of neoliberalism (an introduction to a special issue of world development). World Development, 120, 133–146. Laraswati, D., Rahayu, D., Pratama, A.A, Soraya, E., Shahide, M.A.K. and Maryudi, A. 2020. Problem-method fit in forest policy analysis: empirical pre-orientation for selecting tested or innovative social-qualitative methods. MethodsX. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. mex.2020.100794 Latour, B. and Wooglar, S. 1979. Laboratory life: the construction of scientific facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lowie, R.H. 1953. Ethnography, cultural and social anthropology. American Anthropologist, 55 (4), 527–534. Madan, T.N. 2004. In pursuit of anthropology. In V.K. Srivastava (ed.), Methodology and fieldwork (pp. 191–207). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Malinowski, B. 1922 (2014). Argonauts of the western pacific: an account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagos of Melanesian New Guinea. Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge. Mallick, R. 1999. Refugee resettlement in forest reserves: West Bengal policy reversal and the Marichjhanpi massacre. The Journal of Asian Studies, 58 (1), 104–125. Mawdsley, E. 2004. India’s middle classes and the environment. Development and Change, 35 (1), 79–103. Merton, R., Fiske, M. and Kendall, P.L. 1956. The focused interview. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 35 (1), 85–88. Mondol, S.K. 2010. Bonbibir Pala. Kolkata: Gangchil Publishers. Perucca, C. 1981. Social water management among Munda people in the Sundarban. Chapter 3. Bangladesh: University of Liberal Arts. Radcliffe Brown, A.R. 1940. On social structure. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain, 70, 1–12. Rai, N. 2007. The ecology of income: can we have both fruit and forest. In G. Shahabuddin and M. Rangarajan (eds.), Making conservation work: securing biodiversity in this new century (pp. 147–164). Uttaranchal: Permanent Black. Ross, M.M., Ridout, E. and Carson, M. 1994. The use of the diary as a data collection technique. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 16 (4), 414–425. Roth, R.J. and Dressler, W. 2012. Market-oriented conservation governance: the particularities of place. Geoforum, 43, 363–366. Roy, D. 2020. ‘On the horns of a dilemma!’ climate change, forest conservation and the marginal people in Indian Sundarbans. Forum for Development Studies. DOI: 10.1080/080 39410.2020.1786452 Rudolph, S.H. and Rudolph, L.I. 2004. Becoming a diarist: Amar Singh’s construction of an Indian personal document. In V.K. Srivastava (ed.), Methodology and fieldwork (pp. 308–327). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ruud, A.E. 2003. Poetics of village politics: the making of West Bengal’s rural communism. New Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press.

People and forests 77 Savage, M., Barlow, J., Dickens, P. and Fielding, T. 1995. Property, bureaucracy and culture. London: Routledge. Schmalz, M.N. and Gottschalk, P. (eds.). 2011. Engaging South Asia religions: boundaries, appropriations and resistances. Albany: State University of New York Press. Sen, A. and Nagendra, H. 2020. The differentiated impacts of urbanisation on lake communities in Bengaluru, India. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. https:// doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2020.1770260 Shah, A. 2006. The labour of love: seasonal migration from Jharkhan to the brick kilns of other states in India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 40 (1), 91–118. Sivaramakrishnan, K. 2000. Crafting the public sphere in the forests of West Bengal: democracy, development and political action. American Ethnologist, 27 (2), 431–461. Srinivas, M.N. 2004 (1989). The insider versus the outsider in the study of culture. In V.K. Srivastava (ed.), Methodology and fieldwork (pp.  413–420). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Reprint of: The insider versus the outsider in the study of cultures. In M.N. Srinivas (ed.), The cohesive role of sanskritization and other essays (pp. 172–180). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Srivastava, A. and Thomson, S.B. 2009. Framework analysis: a qualitative methodology for applied policy research. JOAAG, 4 (2), 72–79. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J.M. 1998. Basic of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounding theory. London: Sage.

4 Forest-based livelihoods, survival crisis and politics of belonging in conservation landscapes

Abstract: This chapter explores how integral are making of rights as ‘legitimate’ in prioritizing human spaces amidst globally recognized wilderness landscapes. However, mobilization towards rights is not politically neutral—a political ecology analysis helps understand that it is powerful institutions and political actors, which represent distinctive agendas on the legitimation of rights as collective priorities. Despite having established cultural integrity and traditional occupations, the forest workers in Sundarbans being not indigenous, are subjected to political marginalization and are treated as ‘others’ and ‘settlers’—a range of ongoing reforms exclusively focus on rights, with no regard to legitimizing mainstream local practices of livelihood. Political activism on legitimation of rights is rather construed to the interests of dominant social groups. The chapter also shows that a bureaucratic and hierarchical structure of forest management has little or no accommodation of alternative knowledge systems— to this end it explores into the scope for integrating ‘non-indigenous’ environmental knowledge, for a more egalitarian transformation of socio ecological relations. It also positions ongoing debates on the reframing of community as subjects of forest governmentality.

A political ecology of forest livelihoods in ‘non-indigenous’ landscapes Despite growing out-migration for labour works, a major section of population in Emilibari and Patharpara sustain themselves through direct dependence on river and forest-based resources—mostly fish and honey. These challenges are manifold and requires a broader analysis keeping in mind the contextual political setting. The coupled uncertainties to which the forest workers are subjected in their everyday lives and the embodied practices of ‘ecologically wise thinking’ necessitates a nuanced analysis. Environmental plans in Sundarbans are guided by discourses on western ‘eco-science’, largely relegating local knowledge systems in association with the forests (Jalais 2010: 206). The population in these DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-4

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two villages as well as within the extended inhabited boundaries of Sundarbans are non-natives—they are settled communities with disperse territorial lineages from adjoining regions. The fact that communities are non-natives and do not ‘belong’ to the landscape works to a detriment in claiming rights to livelihood. A  place-based and ‘regional’ environmentalist discourse largely asserting indigeneity as principally ‘valid’ in relation to their native ecological spaces simultaneously elicits a non-recognition of settled communities, their temporal mobilities and their claims to resources (Trudeau 2006; Chhotray 2016; Menon and Karthik 2019; Sen and Nagendra 2019). Traditional fishing and honey collection practiced by the forest workers provide critical grounds to envisage alternate environmental practices (Menon and Karthik 2019). It is also interesting to observe how the institutional apparatus of the state has a significant stake in operationalizing the social production of spaces in biodiverse landscapes (Sivaramakrishnan 2000: 433). The chapter also explores how certain visibly complex process of livelihoods adopted by a section of the community, to facilitate living, become important in drawing a critical political ecology analysis of forest conservation. These livelihoods, exposing distinct relations of power between communities and the state bodies, reveal how rights are legitimated in non-native landscapes. Prawn seed collection harvesting and the setting up of prawn fisheries poses critical challenges to the ecology of the delta. Nevertheless, these occupations persist as key practices of livelihood, mostly by greasing palms of the local political parties and aligning with dominant political agendas. Forest livelihoods in Sundarbans are thus embedded in political dynamisms which shape the everyday lives of the villagers and their rights as forest-dependents. Observations from the realm of forest-based livelihoods in the Sundarbans help in exploring a representation of nature and nuanced discourse of belongingness to global conservation spaces through embodied practices, articulation of ‘authenticity’ and shaping of identities through multiple evocations of Sundarbans as a shared space (Trudeau 2006). The section reveals how conservation strategies and political forces align to each other in extending mechanisms of bureaucratic control over globally valued ecologies. Forest-fishing: an exploration on ‘non-nativist’ practices

The Bengali month of Kartik (late autumn) brought an implausible life turn for Paritosh. As a part of his routine, he accompanied two other fellow neighbours from his village and ventured onto a narrow creek of the Sajna River near Pirkhali in his small boat, searching for tiger-prawn (Penaeus monodon) seeds in the brackish water. They caught juvenile prawn seeds until the weather turned gloomy and the murky waters made them rest their boat with a Hental tree (Phoenix paludosa) on the mudflats. Their work was done for the day and they waited for morning. It was full moon and the tidal surge had just started to recede, exposing the mudflats on both sides of the river. Three of them tied the boat to a shaft. As Paritosh made space in the front of the boat for a doze, a tiger grabbed him, but missing its usual target (the neck of the prey), tried

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to drag him catching the hands. While his other companions froze with terror, Paritosh fought back for over half an hour, managing to clutch the tiger’s tongue and punch its cheek for some time. His compatriots, terrified by the gaze of the tiger, managed only to turn the pulling net towards it, of which tigers are usually afraid. Maybe this pulling net saved his life that day, but that was the last fishing expedition for Paritosh—his left hand was severely impacted and is almost defunct, still—he left fishing. According to the United Nations (UN), indigenous communities practice unique traditions, retain social, cultural, economic and political characteristics and are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Gadgil, Berkes and Folke (1993: 151) pointed out that ‘indigenous knowledge is defined as a cumulative body of knowledge and beliefs handed down through generations by cultural transmission about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment’. Traditional ecological knowledge is considered as a subset of indigenous knowledge, due to the traditional relationship of communities with nature, inherited and sustained culturally through generations by involving ritualistic practices of reverence (Dudgeon and Berkes 2003: 76). The term ‘indigenous people’ applies to communities who, through political actions and movements against the state, oppose disenfranchisement to traditional resource claims (Peluso 1993; Adams and Hutton 2007). Greenough (2001: 142) traced the intimate dependence of the indigenous people with the gifts of nature, in their material efforts to avoid market intrusion and technical innovations as well as their respect and traditional bonds with nature. For indigenous people, their native territory is their cultural identity. According to Gurr (2000), indigenous people are those who are the descendants of the earlier inhabitants of a region, living in conformity with traditional social, economic and cultural customs that are sharply distinct from those of dominant groups. Wilmer (1993) defines indigenous people as those with tradition-based cultures, who were politically autonomous before colonization and who continue to struggle for the preservation of their cultural identity, economic self-reliance and political independence by resisting the assimilationist policies of the nation state. Indigenous communities are more widely represented in academic scholarships, due to the historical basis of their claims. Despite legal safeguards, indigenous people suffered dispossession from their lands, territories and resources owing to conservation of forest tracts (Baviskar 1997; Capistrano 2010; Gadgil and Guha 1995; Shahabuddin and Rangarajan 2007). The politics of state control over conserving ecological resources is acted out through ‘legitimate’ violence over marginalized groups, who sustain on the resources (Peluso 1993: 199; Sen and Pattanaik 2015). For instance, the dispossession of the indigenous communities like the Masai, Kamba and Orma of Kenya from their land and livelihood activities was prompted by the alliance between international conservation agencies and the Kenyan state, prioritizing wildlife protection (Peluso 1993: 202). Rangeland degradation of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in China have been linearly attributed to livestock grazing activities by the pastoral Tibetans and Mongolians, without any systematic surveys conducted by the government (Harris 2010). Escobar (1998) reflects on the social movements of

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the indigenous black communities in the Pacific rainforest region of Colombia, which are focused on the denial of traditional ecological associations and livelihood activities like hunting and gathering, fishing, timber collection, etc. Indigenous livelihoods and knowledge systems have proven their worth for conservation. Forest islands in the Amazon Basin called apete by the Kayapo Indians of Brazil create an architectural zone of medicinal species, palms and vines which produce drinking water. Many of the ancient fish rearing systems of China, Hawaii, Indonesia and elsewhere make use of a mix of species taking advantage of the ecological characteristics of each, and make full use of wastes, recycled to provide food (Gadgil, Berkes and Folke 1993: 155). For indigenous communities, most knowledge about the environment is ingrained in a set of material and ideological practices (Baviskar 2000). Alfred and Wilmer (1997: 27) argued ‘indigenous’ identities to be linked to tradition-based cultures, political autonomy prior to any colonization, cultural integrity, economic selfreliance and political independence. Béteille (1998: 190) mentions that ‘the idea of indigenous people must have some basis in the territory inhabited by them in the past and the present’. He points out that the term ‘indigenous’ is symbolic of an association with a particular settlement since the past. Subsequent generations of a community coming and settling in other dispersed locations from their natives are ‘settlers’; not ‘indigenous’ (ibid). Forest fishers, like the rest of the Sundarbans community, are not indigenous but settlers—they migrated to the region at different historical periods. Recognition of rights of a ‘non-indigenous’ forest-dependent community is complex when positioning them as a social category in relation to ‘nature’. What are the differences between ‘indigenous people’ and ‘other’ forest-dependent people, in terms of collective rights, cultural heritage and livelihood claims? How are traditional conservation norms articulated within the realm of the ‘non-indigenous’? Thirdly, how do the Forest Department’s restrictions and coercions marginalize these ‘non indigenous’ forest-dependent communities culturally, politically and economically? A range of studies have focused on ways in which non-indigenous communities ‘articulate’ and ‘claim’ rights through political strategies and representational practices of infusing lived spaces with cultural identities (Chhotray 2016: 5). They tend to contest state power by the invocation of indigeneity, ‘to roll back state’s territorial, social and political control’ (Li 2000: 156). According to Corntassel (2003: 76), the dilemma over ‘who is indigenous’ has become increasingly politicized as indigenous people have attained distinct legal standing under international laws and conventions. International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention of 1989 (No. 169) allocates indigenous rights to development, customary practices, lands and territories inhabited by them.1 Protection of their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge, including knowledge of ecological resources and rights to land are recognized under Article 31 of the UN ‘Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People’, 2007. ‘Non-indigenous’ economic and social contexts thus exist, as in the case of Sundarbans, where communities are settlers, yet adapt ways and practices to seek the cooperation of nature in sustaining livelihoods as well as resources. In Sundarbans cultural identity is not based on an ascribed status like caste, class or on venerable autonomies, but on traditional livelihood practices. It is therefore

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an imperative to see how identities and rights are legitimized politically by settled communities. On the island where I conducted fieldwork, rights and practices determine local identity. Since the colonial period, there was a migration in SBR from the adjoining regions of Bangladesh, Bihar, Midnapore, Jharkhand and Odisha. The Forest Department, subscribing to a ‘nationalist overtone of conservation’ (Menon and Karthik 2019: 196), claims that these people here have no prior rights to the forest, since they are settlers. This ‘indigenist-regionalist’ brand of environmentalism mediates against rights of those forest-workers, who have limited agencies in making a claim to forest rights (Chhotray 2016: 7). As pointed out by Menon and Karthik (2019: 195–196), belongingness to many conservation landscapes is determined through an ‘ethno-environmental fix’, in which conservation ethics are considered embedded in communities like Adivasis, who are rooted to their place. For many of the forest workers, fishing practices are learnt through a ‘locality-specific’ knowledge of the ecology, through growing associations with the forest. Close living between different groups having otherwise different natives points towards a kind of assimilation of cultures and practices and an influence over each other. Forest-dependent communities in Sundarbans now exhibit established norms of forest usage and sacralized practices of reverence towards wildlife and deities (Hunter 1875; Chatterjee Sarkar 2010; Jalais 2010). Such reverence associated with forests in Sundarbans can be traced as early as the period of Mughal Empire, when professional woodcutters and fishers entered the realm of the forest only after worshipping the sylvan deity presiding over that particular tract (Eaton 1990: 9). Constraints faced by marginal forest workers in legitimizing their ecological knowledge system suggests how identities based on pre-defined categories like ‘indigenous’ obscures alternative perspectives suggesting human-oriented approaches in conservation. Overt claims to cultural integrity by indigenous people act to marginalize other poorer non-indigenous communities, who have demonstrated conservation skills (Chhotray 2016: 6). Through an exploration of the traditional livelihoods in Emilibari and Patharpara, I  argue that established definitional standards of ‘indigenous’ identification exclude ‘other’ marginalized forest communities from their rights to livelihood, their ideas of ecological knowledge and their self-identification as ‘forest communities’. The 13 inhabited blocks of SBR within the district of South 24 Parganas have a total marine fisher folk of 197,781 in 40,684 households spread over 68 GPs, according to Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI 2010). According to other earlier estimates, 35,330 people work in the forest of SBR annually, of which 4580 collect timber and firewood, 24,900 are fishers, 1350 collect honey and 4500 are involved in other activities (DISHA 2009: 13). However, in the villages where the study was conducted, there are no marine fishers. People fish on the rivers and the creeks interspersed within forest areas and are thus referred to as ‘forest fishers’. After the notification of STR in 1973, Boat Licence Certificates (BLCs)2 were issued to boat owners who were fishers. When the fieldwork was conducted, the total number of BLCs was 923 under STR area and 3750 under

Forest-based livelihoods 83 Table 4.1  Fisher profile in the district of South 24 Parganas by CFMRI No. Fisher folk population Fishermen families Traditional fishermen families BPL Families Actual fishing (full time) Actual fishing (part time) Fish seed collection (full time) Fish seed collection (part time)

197,781 40,684 28,030 26,906 33,112 10,323 4206 3320

Source: CMFRI (2010)

the reserved forest area under SBR, lying outside STR. However, only 650 BLCs are active currently in STR, while the rest are dysfunctional. A fisher with a BLC had to pay INR 40 as a pass to the STR forest office to fish in the admissible areas—catching crabs costs INR 10 per gear per trip. Two things need to be clarified regarding the issue and ownership of BLCs. Firstly, these BLCs have been around a long time and are now mainly owned by rich agriculturalists and the middlemen, whose ancestors were fishers.3 The middlemen buy fish from the fishers when they return from fishing. These middlemen, known as aratdaars or khotidaars, lend money to the fishers and provide them boat and fishing gears on the condition that the fish caught has to be sold to them at concessional rates.4 The poor fishers, who are in need of the BLCs, thus have to rent them from the aratdaars at INR 30,000–45,000 for a period of six to nine months, during the fishing season. This rent applies to the BLCs within STR, while for the BLCs outside STR; the rent is lower, around INR 10,000–15,000. Secondly, considering the growing number of forest fishers over the years, no fresh BLCs have been issued by the Forest Department after the initial allocation of 923 around 44 years back. As a result of this, most of the fishers fish without a licence. The charge for renewing the licence per year from the Forest Department office amounts to INR 500, while the renting of a BLC from aratdaars costs INR 45,000 a year (in 2016). With the extension of the core forest area of STR from 1330.12 to 1699.62 km² in 2007, following its declaration as CTH, the villagers in Emilibari say they have been dispossessed of their forest livelihoods to a large extent. The areas where fishing is permitted within the buffer zones (522.85 km²) are congested and overfished. The fishers have to enter the core areas secretly, risking a fine of INR 500 for the first offence, INR 1000 for the second and INR 1100 for the third if caught by a forest guard patrol boat. They have their BLC, boat and fishing gears confiscated if they are caught a fourth time. In this event, the patrolling boat usually transports them back to their village and leaves with the confiscated belongings. To release the licence and fishing equipment from the forest guards, fishers travel long distances to the head office of the Forest Department and pay a ransom as penalty. Transportation costs for a fisher for travelling to and fro to release the pass from a forest office costs INR 200, apart from the fine for confiscation to be paid.

84  Forest-based livelihoods

The BLC mentions the name and address of the boat owner and the other fishers (usually three) on board, linked to Janata insurance,5 the number and description of fishing gears and other equipment as well as firewood quantity carried by the fishers for cooking purposes in their boats while they are in their fishing expeditions for days. If a fishing boat takes a simpler route to reach a permitted area of fishing in less time, it has to cross the wildlife sanctuary which falls under the core conservation area (Chacraverti 2014: 64). However, the Forest Department does not allow innocent passage through the core (ibid).

Figure 4.1  A BLC issued by STR

Forest-based livelihoods 85

Fishers mention about verbal abuse when found in a core conservation area during the passage and some respondents mentioned about physical abuse. The fishers are often confronted by the forest guards even if they are found in the buffer zone, simply because the guards presume that these fishers are retreating from restricted or core areas. Their boats, BLCs, fish catch and fishing nets are often confiscated and heavy fines are imposed. Harvesting crabs, fishing, and prawn seed collection are the three main fishing livelihoods along the forested creeks and rivers of STR. These involve three discrete locations. While catching crab, forest fishers enter the narrowest creeks within the forests which are inundated during high tides and dry during low tides. Fishing occurs in creeks but mainly along main river bodies, apart from a few fish species found in creeks. Prawn seed can be caught along river banks with pulling nets. In many cases, the fishers have to travel at least a day to reach a location, and their trips last 7–14 days. Prawn seeds, on the other hand, can be caught while pulling the fishing nets along the bank of the river or from a boat. Fishing primarily occurs from June to the end of October. Hand rowed wooden boats carry five to six people on board. Fishers look for a section of collapsed riverbank. They know that species including Bhetki (Lates calcarifer) and Tengra (Pimelodus cenia) will be abundant. They encircle this breached area with a drag shore seine net which has wooden sticks attached to both ends and middle. Two people take the head of the net and move into the water towards the bank and two more do the same in the middle. The remaining two exits from the other end of the boat, encircling the breached bank. This system is called bait. Then, after some time, using sticks, the fishers dig into the mud to make it easier for the fish to enter the nets with the water current. Gradually, the net is lifted up and emptied into the boat. It is risky because many times, it attracts crocodiles. In that case, the net has to be released from one side to avoid tearing, or a crocodile attack. The second technique involves the use of a gillnet, locally known as galsha, which six to eight fishers carry in a bigger boat. This net is almost 25 feet in width with a mesh size of 10 inches and is made of nylon threads. The net usually attracts bigger fish. Using the same process as mentioned earlier, the sticks fix one end of the net at a riverbank and the other is anchored some distance away. White buoys mark it and keep it afloat. These nets are fixed usually during night at the ebb tide. Next day, after the high tide when the ebb tide returns, the nets are withdrawn so that the fish remains caught in the mesh and cannot recede with the outgoing tide. Ten to fifteen such nets are placed across the rivers. Fish are Dyatne (common carp), Parse (Liza Parsia), Topse (Polynemus paradiseus) and Bhetki. The third system uses a small dinghy boat with two wooden poles attached on either side to which the fishing net is attached. These are floated for a distance of about 200–300 feet length and have a mesh size of around 75 mm. There are three crew members, with one rowing. The fishing net is spread along the belly of the river and pulled by hand from each bank. The fish caught include Parshe, Pyra (Scatophagus argus) and Chingri (shrimp). The fishing nets used are called fixed bagnet or beoundi, locally. The fourth technique involves the use of hook and line or kata don, locally. Four to five lines have fishing

86  Forest-based livelihoods

Figure 4.2  Forest fishers on a river

hooks like elongated knives attached along them (called borshi). A little snail or small trout are attached as bait. Lines are tied to a wooden log on one side of the bank and stretch out downstream at a small distance from the edge and are reattached at the other end. After an hour or two, the fishers come looking for fish along the thread. This type of fishing is practiced in very narrow creeks. The fish caught by this method include Tengra, Bhetki, Baan (Anguilla bengalensis) and Kajli (Tenualosa Toli). The fifth system is comparatively common—the use of a spreading net or khyapla jal which is thrown into the water standing at the bank of the river. This net is quite heavy and is lined with lead weights, which imprisons the fish. Spreading net is thrown into the river by an individual, standing at the riverbank. It does not need a group. The last system of fishing is practiced in a very narrow creek just when the water starts receding from the forest land. These creeks are almost devoid of water during the ebb tide and have forests on two sides. The nets used are known as Khalpata or channel seine nets, usually hundred to two hundred feet long and are fixed across the mouth of the creek. One end of the net is placed by a rope tied to the trunk of a tree during low tide, so it can be pulled during high tides. These nets are fully immersed during high tide. When the water completely recedes, the fish caught within them can’t release themselves.

Forest-based livelihoods 87

Figure 4.3  Small hand-rowed wooden boats used for forest-fishing

The mouth of the net has to be shut during the high tide to prevent the fish from coming out. The fisher has to get onto the land from where the water has receded, to take the few fish which are still caught in the muddy water, after washing them in the river water. At this time, they are vulnerable to tiger attacks as they are working in the dried-up creeks. Parshe, Chingri and Baan are the popular varieties of fish caught by this technique. Another kind of net, called fixed shore net or Charpata is also used. This is almost 100 m in length with a mesh size of 20 mm and is tied with a bamboo pole at regular intervals during the ebb tide. Unlike khalpata, charpatas are fixed during ebb tides. As the water rises, the fishers pull up the net gradually and the fish remains caught, coming with the inflow of water and then getting stuck. Tiger attacks are also possible as the operator is bending down to push the water towards the net. The two sides of the creeks are high after the water recedes, from where it is easier for the tiger to spot the man standing on the land below, engrossed in catching fish, thus attacking him from behind. The second form of forest fishing involves harvesting of crabs (Brachyura) which is done within the narrowest creeks of the forest. The crab harvesting season, as the collectors say, roughly extends from September to March, although the best catch is expected from November to March. For catching crabs, STR issues a permit for four people, per boat. Crab collection follows

88  Forest-based livelihoods

a definite lunar cycle, that is, the period of fifteen days following the new moon and the full moon, known as Suklapaksha and Krishnapaksha respectively. The day of full moon is locally known as purnima while the day of new moon is called amabasya, locally. The duration of the tides and their timings during crab fishing season controls the movement of fishers. Suklapaksha and Krishnapaksha are divided further into short spans by the fishers depending upon the time when the tide is strongest and the catch is highest. The period of five days from the start of suklapaksha and krishnapaksha is the time when the tide is strongest and the catch of crabs is highest. During this period, the river creeks are inundated with water to its maximum. Most of the crab collectors venture out for collection during this time. The period after that for consecutive four to five days is the weakest tide and catch is less. During the preceding few days of full moon or new moon, the tide is again very strong and crabs are abundant. The crab collectors usually start on the 10th day of the 15-day cycle, that is, 5 days before amabasya or purnima and come back on the 3rd or 4th day of the cycle. Each 15-day cycle before full moon and new moon is locally known as gon. The crab fishers do not start their first journey of the collection season on Saturdays and Tuesdays or on the day of full moon or new moon. For the entire period of collection inside the forest, which extends for around seven days, the fishers carry with them rice, grocery, drinking water and vegetables for their daily meals on boat. The essential stock for a crew of three fishers includes cooking utensils, 1 kg edible oil, 15 kg rice, 1 kg potato, spices, 500 g pulses, 500 g kerosene and 6 barrels of drinking water, each barrel having a capacity of 16 litres. They also have to carry 800–1000 kg of ice to preserve the crab, placed in a wooden cold store stacked with the ice (Ghosh 2014: 137). The procedure of crab harvesting involves tying tiny trout fish called chuno to long threads of plastic or nylon (don). These trouts are dried beforehand, so that the crab cannot consume one easily. The line spreads linearly for about 500 feet long distance, immersed at low tide along very narrow creeks where tiger attacks are possible, so narrow that in many cases trees has to be cut back as they move along and drop the line. Since the creeks are narrow, the banks on the two sides make it easier for a tiger to jump onto the boat. The bush of a Hental tree or a Garjan (Rhizophora mucronata) tree is so dense that visibility is too poor to spot a camouflaged tiger. One person stays at the back of the boat, one at the middle and one at the front. The person at the middle drops the trout while the other two steers. After the line is laid, they anchor and wait at the end of the creek for about fifteen to twenty minutes for the crabs to be hooked, and then withdraw the line. They use a spoon like vessel called jalti, to fetch the crab from the fishing line. Another method involves the use of an iron rod (sheek), with a bent mouth to dig the holes where the crabs are found. An experienced crab collector usually knows the holes where big crabs reside. Larger crabs have greater market value. The crab collectors estimate that if the catch is good, around 100 crabs can be caught on a 50 feet long line. The crabs are sold to the aratdaars owning the BLC, to whom they are contracted.

Forest-based livelihoods 89

Of course, the aratdaar buys cheap and sells at a much higher price. While the crabs were earlier graded (female and 250 g or more) by the aradataar before paying the fishers, presently the crab fishers sell the stock of any size at INR 24,000 or INR 25,000 per quintal (100 kg) to the aratdaar. Selling crabs in bulk does allow those weighing less than 100 g to be sold, which encourages harvesting smaller crabs, but depletes stocks. Aratdaars sell the crabs to the fish market in the cities through the traders (paikars),6 quoting a higher price. Hereby, female egg laden crabs are sold separately and are the most expensive (INR 500 for 180 g). Those without eggs are INR 300 per 180 g or more. Male crabs are cheaper, costing around INR 200 for 100 g. Aratdaars sell these crabs in Canning from where paikars auction them and send them to Kolkata, where these are packaged and mostly exported to places like Taiwan, Shanghai and Bangkok, etc. However, crab fetches a seasonally high rate to the collectors, than fish. Prawn seed collection is the third major fishing activity. In many families living along the embankment, almost all members pull nets at the bank of a river. There are a few techniques for collecting prawn seed. The first method involves the use of a pulling net, commonly known as tana jal which is attached to a rope by its end. This is 3–4 feet wide and 5–6 feet long and looks like a mosquito net. This pulling net is mainly used by women, at the evening and early morning during high tide, when they wade through chest deep water of the river along the banks in the villages, pulling the nets. Pulling nets are also used along the banks of the river close to the forest. Fishers pulling nets on the banks of the forest are, of course, prone to tiger attacks. The second method involves the use of a net which is dipped into the water from a boat in mid-river, although poor families do not possess boats. This net is triangular in shape and is tied to wooden poles attached to the boat. This net is also known as a shoot net. One end of the pole is fixed in the mud bank while the other end is tied to a nylon rope. The collected prawn seeds are kept in a white aluminium pot to segregate them from fish or bugs. Prawn seeds are in many cases caught by people who are not fishers by profession. It is a very local occupation which might earn a family a day’s expenses. Since people go chest deep into water to spread the net, crocodile attacks are common, along with tiger attacks, as previously mentioned. After collection, prawn seeds are counted and segregated carefully, which is a long process. Seeds are then sold off to aratdaars who come to each village in search of collectors who have just returned from fishing. According to Jalais (2010: 131), the price fetched by the prawn seed collectors from the aratdaars during the monsoon months goes as low as INR 50 (US$0.78) for 1000 seeds while during lean seasons of January and February, 1000 seeds can fetch about INR1000 (US$15.55) to the collectors. The aratdaars deposit their purchases from the collectors at their landing centres. Here the seedlings are kept in a water tub for two weeks to grow and are then sold off to the prawn fisheries. However, this entire process of collecting and selling of prawn seeds is conflictual in terms of price, quantity and cheating during the counting process (Jalais 2010).

90  Forest-based livelihoods

Apart from caste fishers, others have ‘adapted’ to the local knowledge of forest fishing through experience and acquisition of skills, staying in the region for a long time. Knowledge about tides and the river flow during crab harvesting, the kinds of net required for different locations and fish species and use of pull nets for prawn seeds are largely ‘locality-specific’ and not inherited. Fishing techniques are not ancestrally imbibed but learnt and adapted through growing associations with the forest, after migrating to the island. Contrary to the culturally inherited ecological knowledge of the indigenous communities, for the forest fishers in Sundarbans, ecological knowledge is ‘learnt’ to seek nature’s cooperation in practicing livelihoods. Despite practicing traditional methods of sustainable fishing, which are analogous to indigenous methods of subsistencebased livelihoods, Forest Department officials as well as political and economic elites in the locality refuses to recognize the forest fishers as claimants to forest resources. This ‘indigenist’ assertion sustained by the state questions the ‘authenticity’ of the forest fishers as they seek legitimacy for their livelihood claims, being migrants (Chhotray 2016). Since state bodies are empowered to control and regulate natural resources, they consider enforcement or coercive conservation as the easiest way of establishing control over people and resources (Peluso 1993: 201; Gadgil and Rao 1995). Ideas about cultural identity, rights and traditional practices which inform the ‘indigenous’ are debilitating for the forest workers in Sundarbans, since they are migrants, lacking cultural attachments in relation to the space. The practice of Mahal: wild honey collection in the Sundarbans forests

Honey collection is another traditional occupation with a substantial contribution to rural livelihoods in both the villages. Emilibari and Patharpara has a significant number of people who are honey collectors. Alternatively, honey collectors are also involved in fishing-livelihood activities in Sundarbans are not mutually exclusive, driven by extreme poverty. The entire system of honey collection is a cycle beginning and ending at home, and is known as mahal, locally in Sundarbans. The STR issues pass/ licence to at least 1000 boats, each honey collecting season. The season includes the two months of April and May for a period of fifteen days each. However, some of the collectors mention that passes are sometimes issued for 21 days as well. Before venturing out, a meeting is held by a team of honey collectors prior to leaving the following day. This meeting is headed by the sajandar or the team head, who decides the place of visit and the plan. An entire boat with a crew of 7–8 collectors gets a licence for a payment of INR 27. During this period, honey collectors, who are known as mawaley, sail to the forests from their villages, in groups of seven or nine boats together. After reaching a particular island, all but one of the team disembarks. The honey collectors go deep inside the forest where hardly any sunlight enters even during the day. The remaining person (bhorel) carries a loud whistle called singhe with him to help the others retrace their steps while coming back.

Forest-based livelihoods 91

Formal procedures are followed before entering the dense forest. Before entering a particular forest, a tiger charmer7 (locally known as bawaley) touches the ground with his hands as a sign of praying to the forest deity Bonbibi to seek her blessings in protecting the group from any impending danger. If he senses any danger, he advices others to leave that particular land and search for honey elsewhere. Slang and prohibited words as well as defecating are forbidden inside the forest. Collectors dress only in a cloth from waist to knee and hold a stick on their right shoulder. They carry a steel vessel in which the honey is to be stored and a large knife with them to cut the hive. On entering, the team disperses, horizontally at a distance of 20 hands from each other while moving in, in search of trees like Hental, Genwa (Exocoecaria agallocha), Khalsi (Aegiceras corniculatum), Garjan and Keora (Sonneratia apetala). Since they remain dispersed from each other while searching for a hive, they communicate to the others through a sign language on locating a honeycomb. All of them then gather under the tree bearing the honeycomb, to extract the honey. While moving, the buzz of the honeybee (Apis dorsata) is the only signal of a hive of honey. Grass and Hental leaves are lit in a fire, so that the smoke disperses the bees. When smoke emerges, the bees instinctively behave as if the forest is on fire and disperse, since they believe the hive is doomed and there is no point protecting it. These giant Asian honey bees feed on the nectar of the mangrove flowers and in the process, pollinate them. Before extracting honey, the collectors cover their entire face apart from their eyes with a towel to prevent bee stings. However, attacks still occur, after the smoke is set, since the bees associate people with threats to their hive. A  collector (commonly known as gachal) climbs up the tree to break the hive with the knife, while the others stand below holding the aluminium pot (aari) to collect the honey. The collectors always leave behind a considerable part of the hive, so the bees can make a new one within 14–15 days. Even after the first chunk of hive is broken, they offer the first piece as a sacrament to Bonbibi. A mature bee hive can fetch the collectors up to 20 kg of honey. The pot is carried back to the boat based on the direction given by the bhorel and his singhe. They collect honey the entire day, starting from seven in the morning till four in the evening. But in the afternoon, they do not enter the forest, since it is believed to be the resting time of the animals and breaching this rule would enrage Bonbibi. They stay collectively on the creeks for the fifteen days of the permitted collection season, sleeping in the boat at night. The forest is particularly dangerous for human lives and collecting honey is one of the most dangerous occupations. Syama, a collector who lives in a small hutment in Emilibari explained that the deepest forest is normally the resting places of the tiger in the summer months of April and May. It is difficult for them to come out of the forests in search of prey because of the heat and they prefer to stay at a cooler place, in shades of dense trees like Hental, Garjan and Khalsi; the same trees that host the hives. As the honey collectors usually say, ‘finding honey in the trees is like finding a tiger’, every step has to be taken cautiously. Tigers commonly attack prey from the rear. Added to this, the

92  Forest-based livelihoods

dense smoke reduces visibility, making tigers harder to spot. They usually have fixed territories of their own which they can demarcate by the stench of their excreta. Thus, they become aggressive when any others enter zone demarcated by them. Mawaleys recall that there are certain honeys bearing trees which the tiger visits almost every day, evident from the fresh paw prints. This is because, they say, they know people will come there and this will be easy prey. It is well known to families of the collectors that all might not come back. During the period of mahal, their wives refrain from putting vermillion on their foreheads till their husbands return, do not entertain guest, do not visit crematoriums, do not wash utensils and keeps the door open all day, mimicking a mourning period. There have been several instances where many people have been saved miraculously from the tiger, which they believe was the gift of mother Bonbibi. This belief system of the mawaley is rooted in their long traditional association with and use of the forests. They believe that the forest and Bonbibi sustains them. This belief system has further garnered grounds in the voices of the tiger charmers who are said to be versed in mythical hymns that drive the tigers away if they are recited in front of them. Tiger charmers are believed to inherit the hymns from Bonbibi and thus they usually keep them secret, except when they grow old, transmitting them to an heir. A tiger charmer is always a member of a honey expedition. They practice certain prohibitions—not entering the forest on Fridays and refraining from eating pork and crab. They are also believed to control storms or prevent ailments along with the power to drive away evil spirits (Jalais 2010: 76). However, forest workers should not extract beyond their needs; offenders are believed to incur the wrath of Bonbibi and fall victim to tiger.

Figure 4.4  Bonbibi, Shah Janguli and Dakshin Ray

Forest-based livelihoods 93

The honey collectors are grossly impoverished—their only other occupation is fishing. If an ‘accident’8 happens in the family, there is little support. The collection of honey, for which the Forest Department is dependent upon the islanders, constitutes a threat of life at every moment. While the honey collectors venture the forests in search of honey, bee stings are treated as auspicious. They believe that if a honey bee attacks them, they will be spared from any disease throughout the year. In their work, it is striking that they have no defences other than resorting to supernatural beliefs. Collectors subscribe to traditional practices and rituals and their own sense of precaution and experience. This traditional respect for the forest means they spare flowering trees which will yield honey in the future. They also spare the small bees and its eggs and cut the honey so that the eggs remain intact. The mawaleys are quite adept with identifying the best quality, thick honey. During the fieldwork period, it was a norm to deposit honey with the Forest Offices at a rate of INR 150/kg. Previously it was INR 50 to INR 75, which was quite nominal compared to market rates. Honey is then sold to companies like Dabur, at a rate of INR 350—Rs 370/kg after adding preservatives and water, according to all the honey collectors with whom we interacted. According to the honey collectors, an ‘accident’ or death by tiger attack, brings additional harassment by the Forest Department. Establishing a death is arduous, since the forest guards accompany the companions of the deceased to locate the place of the accident, but in an atmosphere of suspicion. Thus, the victim’s family is often, as with fisherfolk, denied compensation. There have been cases were a mawaley was able to extract 1.5 quintals (150 kg) of honey from a single hive. But the permitted period in April and May is not the ideal time for the hives to fully mature. Several collectors have asked for a twomonth extension. According to the collectors, forest need to be cut and re-grown to remain healthy. They say that core conservation areas are not growing. Mangroves like Garjan have started to die. Garjan, according to the locals, if cut well Table 4.2  Collection of wild honey from 2004 to 2014 Year

Quantity Collected (in kg)

Value Earned (in INR)

2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–2009 2009–2010 2010–2011 2011–2012 2012–2013 2013–2014

22,119.500 30,552.000 25,170.000 21,368.000 12,550.000 13,800.000 14,300.000 18,025.000 24,750.000 20,950.000

1,150,215.00 1,726,799.00 1,356,176.00 1,303,446.00 716,479.00 778,734.00 817,350.00 1,027,425.00 1,559,250.00 1,571,250.00

94  Forest-based livelihoods

from below, develops at least four to five stilts. But since it is not allowed, no new varieties are growing. The branches of Nipa Palm (Nepa fruticans), locally known as Golpata, needs to be cut from time to time, through the brown edges of its mature branches. But the forest guards do not allow cutting them as a result of which Nipa are not thriving. People can demonstrate greater success of trees on the inhabited islands which they cut from time to time. These have vigour, while closed areas have hedges rather than trees. Well-maintained flowering plants would be thriving sites for honey. The defiant mode of the Forest Department towards such alternate knowledge reflects significant apathy towards recognizing ‘alternative knowledge claims’ within dominant environmental agendas (Forsyth 2005: 168). Dominant agendas refer to representative patterns of environmental explanations on how ecosystem works or how it might get degraded (ibid). Marginal livelihoods and knowledge variants

Forest workers, despite being ‘non indigenous’, are aware of ecological limits like fish reproduction cycles and employ sustainable extraction techniques. Spiritual and cultural values are embedded in understanding local ecological processes. The process of honey collection and the rituals observed are not only to treat forests as a consecrated space, but to integrate cultural norms to principles of sustainable extraction. Traditional methods involve fishing nets, tailored to different kinds of fishing. According to Ray (2013), fishing nets like Khalpata and Charpata are specially designed to be used in the river creeks, pleated and concealed during the ebb tide and lifted during the high tide. Seine nets are used in the reservoirs and rivers or ponds tied with two bamboo poles to form a large net wall. The fishing nets are not technology-intensive but stitched at home, without any destructive effects. Many of our respondents started catching fish from a very early age (five or six for many respondents) and said they were aware of the breeding season and refrained from fishing during that period. According to a study by DISHA (2009), traditional fishers know from childhood when the different species were not to be caught. If such fish entered the net, the practice was to release them. Religious customs also prohibit eating fish at certain times of the year. So, local knowledge of fishing is based on experience, with a unique belief system that also considers the forests as a source of healing. Especially the fruits of trees like that of Garjan are revered by the communities and are believed to cure any disease. Even within limited localities, communities have an intimate knowledge of the natural resources, which has permitted the survival of several biological species (Gadgil and Rao 1995: 57). For the forest workers, the small human-driven artisanal boats constitute an integral part of the expeditions. A week or two is required to make a boat. Usually the wood of Shirish tree (Albizia lebbek) is used in the making of a boat—however earlier, wood from Sal (Shorea robusta) tree was used. From the day the manufacture of a boat starts, forest workers designate the area of work

Forest-based livelihoods 95

as sacred and usually stick to that area for the rest of the construction period. The day the keel of the boat is put up, they perform a ritual to worship the boat by offering sacraments, soil from Bonbibi’s shrine and flower wreaths. This is indicative of the fact that the boat is now ready for its journey inside the forest. It is believed that this is the day from which goddess Kali starts resides at the hull of the boat. Fishers avoid touch of feet at the hull since this is the place where Kali resides, as they believe. During fishing expeditions, the fishers believe that the boat ‘calls’ them when it senses any impending danger to anyone in the group. Boat worship constitutes an integral religious practice of the forest workers. For the forest workers, much of this knowledge of the local ecosystem, embedded within social relations and based on observations and experiences of a specific geographical space, maybe viewed as a kind of ‘capital’ (Gadgil, Berkes and Folke 1993: 151). Local knowledge as a reliable option for conservation (like periodic slitting for re-growth of certain mangrove species) has escaped popular thinking on conservation. This, according to Forsyth (2005: 165), forms one of the contemporary focus of political ecology—centring the ‘political authority of different knowledge claims about the environment’ and the construction of ‘authoritative knowledge’. International conservation groups have imposed additional pressures on the state to prioritize wildlife conservation in Sundarbans. The unilateral financial assistance directed by the international environmental NGOs for conserving Sundarbans has reinforced accountability of the state forestry institutions to augment its capacity in controlling access to resources. A combination of factors challenges small scale livelihoods in Sundarbans. When the fishers go for fishing deep inside the creeks, they have to carry their own food and drinking water, since they go for at least a week. They used to cook with wood, sourced from floating timber or around the mudflats. But now this is no longer an option—the Forest Department has ordered that each boat has kerosene stove. This, according to the fishers, is time consuming; since it is frustrating to light a stove in the midst of a forest surrounded by material for a fire. Wood costs nothing and a fire complements breaks in fishing—kerosene is expensive. 22% households across both villages fish with a rented BLC. Rest of them fish without a BLC, thus without an official permit. Due to the endless debt cycle of BLC rent to the aratdaars, bribes to the forest guards and confiscation of catches, fishers resort to illegal fishing. But there is awareness of sustainable fishing. Many fishers have switched to crab fishing as fish stocks have declined. Many fishers have shifted to inshore aquaculture as alternative livelihood. The challenges posed by the current conservation methods are several. Firstly, there is no scientific study of fish stock management within the STR. Secondly, while forests guards confiscate equipment from the fishers, no confiscation note is issued to them, questioning what happens to this fishing gear. Public pressure has begun on this point. Finally, the compensation to be paid in case of the death of a person by a tiger attack inside the buffer area of the forest, the rule is that, the family of a person who enters a forest buffer area with a permit (no compensation is to be provided in case of

96  Forest-based livelihoods Table 4.3  Forest offences and seizure from 2009 to 2014 2009–2010 2010–2011 2011–2012 2012–2013

2013–2014

POR (Preliminary Offence Report) COR (Compounded Offence Report) UDOR (Undetected Offence Report) No. of persons arrested Incidence of firing by staff (in round) No. of offenders died No. of offenders injured No. of forest staff killed No. of forest staff injured Total compensation realized (in Rs) Quantity of timber seized (sawn and logs)

11

16

6

6

1

1684

1957

2221

2499

2577

69

72

81

58

35

90

18

36

8

NIL

NIL

NIL

17

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

NIL

825, 834.00 0.5 m3

No. of vehicles seized No. of dinghy seized No. of mechanized boat/ trawler seized No. of cattle seized

NIL 13

863,690.00 1,092,700. 1,712, 1,965,450.00 00 860.00 NIL 225 quintals 35 quintals of 18,263 m3 of of fuel fuel wood timber+52, wood 811 m3 of firewood 8 Cycle 1 Cycle Van 2 Van NIL Vans Rickshaw 22 37 16 7

19

37

4

3

3

91

218

52

NIL

NIL

Source: STR Annual Report (2013–2014)

a core area), is entitled to a cash compensation of INR 100,000 from the Forest Department. The same amount is assured from Janata insurance, the district level council9 and the Fisheries Department. However, in reality, very rarely has the Forest Department actually paid compensation. Since most of the accidents happen inside the core area, they have reasons to support this claim. The forest guards tend to write down on the permit that the accident has happened inside the core conservation area, denying compensation. Payment from district level council requires high-level political connections. The Fisheries Department insurance is not even known to most of the fishers, who usually lack a biometric card indicating their occupation. The village council office in many cases doesn’t certify them as fishermen after an

Forest-based livelihoods 97

accident happens. Thus, apart from the Janata insurance, families of victims hardly receive any compensation. The crab fishing season which is ideally permitted from June to March, is almost always delayed by a month, starting in July, due to delay in administrative procedures like issuing the pass, thus reducing a month’s income of the fishers. Added to this, if by mistake on entering a core area, their pass is ceased by a forest guard, it will take another two weeks to release the pass, which means they miss an entire lunar cycle (gon) further reducing their income. Being migrants and without any ‘authentic’ or prior forest rights, the Forest Department has further the privilege of a leeway to deny local livelihood claims. Making universal claims about impact of indigenous knowledge on the local ecosystems excludes the question of cultural diversity within political ecology debates as well. Knowledge cannot be the property [emphasis added] of a specific group over a period of time and cannot be characterized in a particular way (Agrawal 1995: 423). Indigenous people are usually typified by their geographical isolation, along with high levels of ethnic closure, holding them distinct from other communities (Corbridge 1988: 6). Inhabiting particular regional domains for generations, their knowledge about the ecosystem is rooted in their cultural heritage. Cultural identity thus forms a part of their claim making (Karthik and Menon 2016: 48). Li (2000: 151, 174) explains how certain communities ‘articulate’ an indigenous identity through particular forms of political struggles, to ground their livelihoods in particular places and contest the arbitrary state power to exploit. However, the practices that influence local ecological processes necessitates considering the broader symbolic representations and knowledge systems (Lanzano 2013: 5, 6). ‘Non-indigenous’ practices also speak of distinct knowledge patterns and methods of sustainability. Unlike indigenous ecological knowledge, the ‘other’ forest-dependent communities in Sundarbans gain knowledge through experience and growing associations with forests and is based on needs. The ‘indigenist-nativist environmental discourse’ shaping the dominant environmental thinking underscores a relative misrecognition of the credence of ecological knowledge that other communities might possess (Chhotray 2016). Local traditional knowledge of ‘non indigenous’ forest communities is undervalued, despite its deep relevance to local conditions and embedded conservation agenda. Sensitivity towards the livelihood of the ‘non-indigenous’ communities and integration of their livelihood practices with recognized indigenous groups might lead to viable capacity building measures within forest management.

‘Land of the tiger’: politicizing human–wildlife interface conflicts The Royal Bengal Tiger has a global reputation of being a ‘natural’ man eater. Mallick (2014: 4), field director of STR, pointed out that the earliest documents of Portuguese Jesuit merchants, Francis Fernandez and Melchoir Fronseca, who travelled to Bengal in 1598 and 1599 respectively pointed out that tigers of Gangetic Bengal are fond of human flesh. Testifying to this ‘naturalness’,

98  Forest-based livelihoods

there have been several arguments which states that adaptation to the harsh territoriality and salt water habitualization have led to the man-eating traits of the Bengal tiger. Another common reason that the department provides is that the tiger has added humans to their diet after feeding on human corpses following subsequent devastating cyclones. According to Pranabesh Sanyal, ex-director of SBR, increasing incursion of saline water in tiger habitats have made them intrude northwards in the inhabited areas from the core forests. This is primarily because, he states, their kidneys cannot stand salinity for a long time. Tiger conservation has assumed an overarching precedence in Sundarbans, overriding incidences of human killings due to interface conflicts. There has been a subsequent ignorance about initiatives towards minimizing human deaths caused by tiger attacks every year. The portrayal of Sundarbans as a ‘land of the tiger’, a region amidst mangrove swamp forests, rivers and creeks has been found in almost all the early writings by the colonial administrators (Hunter 1875). However, in the colonial period, tigers were treated as potential threats towards the land reclamation process. During the period, killing tigers was considered as the only remedy to reclaim the forests. The process of land reclamation in the 19th century by the British administrators revealed several instances of death by tiger attacks, while clearing the forests. According to Chakrabarti (2009: 46), The government was convinced that all or most of the tigers of Sundarban were man eaters and the destruction of as many tigers as possible appeared to be the only way of reducing casualties. The encounter with the beast on the ground however was mostly left to the indigenous shikaris, who were usually looked down upon as incompetent, unskilled and effeminate. To receive their reward, shikaris were required to produce the skin and skull of the animal to the forest official. In 1909, the amount for a full-grown animal was further raised to Rs 200 prompted by the loss of 500 lives to tigers between 1906 and 1909. Over the years following independence, tigers have assumed a growing significance in the conservation of Sundarbans. Tigers as ‘flagship species’ attract global attention and unilateral financial aid, since international conservation bodies encourage conservation and protection of tiger habitats. Following the implementation of Project Tiger, Sundarban National Park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. STR has been identified as a tiger conservation landscape of global priority which supports a significant tiger population along with other endangered species like the fishing cat (Felis viverrina), estuarine crocodile (Crocodilus porosus), Gangetic (Platanista gangetica) and Irrawaddy Dolphin (Oracella brevirostris), King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah), water monitor lizard (Varanus salvator), Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) and river terrapin (Bagatur Baska). The STR report peripherally mentions about nylon net fencing at the forest side, spreading for 85 km, which can prevent tigers from crossing the rivers and entering villages. The report points

Forest-based livelihoods 99

out the number of casualties owing to tiger attack in buffer areas of the forest, but not the ones in the core. It indicates six incidents of death in the year 2013 and one incidence of death in the year 2014—the areas mentioned as the place of casualty are Panchamukhani and Pirkhali, the two forest blocks falling within the SWLS which is a buffer area. However, while visiting the department office of STR in January 2017, a list of casualties by tiger attacks from the year 2015 till date (appended as follows) was made available. This list is inclusive of the total number of deaths under the STR area (core and buffer), although the exact location of the incidence was not known.

Table 4.4  Human causalities 2013–2015 Date

Name of person with details (age, sex, address, etc.)

Place of incidence

Killed or injured

6/8/13

Bhola Sindhu Mandal s/o late Haladhar Mandal Village-Bidhan Colony, PO-Chargheri, PS-Sundarban Coastal Somedh Mistry s/o Ratikanta Village-Nehru palli, Jharkhali/4 no., PO-Jharkhali bazaar, PS-Basanti Harendra Mandal s/o-late Jatin Mandal Village-Hentalbari, PO-Kalidaspur, PS-Sundarban Coastal Ujjal Majumdar s/o-late Ratikanta VillageSatyanarayanpur, PS-Gosaba Kuddus Molla s/o-Siddiki Molla Village+PO-Moukhali, PS-Jibantala Sujit Mandal s/o-late Atikay Mandal Village+PO-Chargheri, PS-Sundarban Coastal Asit Mandal s/o late Sachin Mandal, Village+PO- Jaharcolony, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas

Pirkhali/6(sjf/55)

Killed Dead body recovered

Panchamukhani/4 (cJF-66)

Killed Dead body not recovered

Panchamukhani/4 (SJF-260)

Killed Dead body not recovered

Pirkhali/5(sjf/106)

Killed Dead body not recovered

Pirkhali/7(cgf/04)

Injured body recovered admitted at hospital and died on 4/1/14 Killed Dead body not recovered

30/10/13

7/11/13

18/11/13

29/12/13

29/1/14

22/9/2015

Panchamukhani/5 (SJF-140) Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

(Continued)

100  Forest-based livelihoods Table 4.4 (Continued) Date

Name of person with details (age, sex, address, etc.)

10/10/2015 Arjun Sardar s/o late Jagendra Sardar Village-Tipligheri, PO-Sadhupur, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas 10/10/2015 Anath Bandhu Kayel s/o Haripada Kayel Village+PO-Anandapur, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas 09/11/2015 Nikhilesh Mandal s/o late Monmotha Mandal Village+PO-Santigachi, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas 11/11/2015 Sahadat Gazi s/o late Haziruddin Gazi Village+PO-Birajnagar, PS-Gosaba, District-South 24 Parganas 09/12/2015 Srikanta Barkandaj s/o late Joydeep Barkandaj Village-Hentalbari, PO-Kalidaspur, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas 19/12/2015 Monoranjan Mandal s/o late Kalipada Mandal, Village+PO-Kumirmari, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas 08/02/2016 Subal Jaddar s/o late Basanta Jaddar, Village-Mitrabari, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas. 08/03/2016 Paresh ChandraMandal, s/o late Bijoy Mandal Village+PO-Jamespur, PS-Sundarban Coastal, District-South 24 Parganas. 25/03/2016 Mukta Mandal s/o late Nitai Mandal Village+PO-not known, District-South 24 Parganas Source: STR Annual Report (2013–2014)

Place of incidence

Killed or injured

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Core area

Killed Dead body not recovered

Forest-based livelihoods 101

As recent studies point out, there has been an overarching discourse explaining human–wildlife conflicts as conditioned and exacerbated by a growing intolerance of rural communities towards historically humananimal cohabited ecologies—such intolerance is attributed to lifestyle and cultural transformations (Margulies and Karanth 2018: 153). These studies assert that the source of human–wildlife conflicts is more nuanced than interspecies conflicts over use and access to resources (Margulies and Karanth 2018: 155). However, community interventions and sustained cohabitation were historically integral parts of many wildlife ecologies, where popular acknowledgement of the needs of predators for conserving biodiversity and locally devised conflict mitigation methods could be traced. Jalais (2010: 146) writes about the ways in which specific local techniques to control tigers, employed by the present tiger charmers, can be traced back to the historiography of the Sundarbans, designed by the Sufi saints using Arabic formulas. She (2010: 148) makes use of regional narratives, where people, drawing on local mythologies, speak of ‘tacit agreements’ with tigers in respecting ‘the other’s need for a piece of territory and a portion of the products of the forest’ so that both ‘can cohabit in relative peace’. However, current attempts towards human–wildlife conflicts mitigation are largely oriented to technical aspects with no long-term approach and consideration of social factors (Woodroffe, Thirgood and Rabinawitz 2005; Dickman 2010). State agencies entrusted with conservation regulates conflicts through popular overtones on human intrusion into the forests as adversely impacting the wildlife and allocating compensation as ‘casualty-management’. Vyas (2012: vii), the ex-additional PCCF (Principal Chief Conservator of Forests) of STR, writes in his study: out of the 410 human deaths caused by tiger during the period 1985–1986 to 2009–2010 (25  years), only one human death took place inside the village and 409 human killings by tigers were inside the mangrove forest. Forest Department is paying Rs 1.00 lakhs ex gratia compensation to the tiger victim’s dependents, but the same is not available to the dependents of victims who enter the forests without valid permits. The deaths which occur in the core areas are not only unrecognized, but are also refused by the Forest Department. A fisherwoman from Emilibari stated that in February 2016, her husband was killed and taken away by a tiger near an area of the forest known as Gopalkhali, which is located in the buffer area. While his fellow fishers reported the incident to the Forest Department as well as to the Choto Mollakhali Police Station, the police refused to believe about the accident. They did not even record the ‘missing diary’ of her husband. Forest workers mention that police stations do not report incidences of accidents without the approval of the Forest Department. Thus, she did not receive any compensation, despite the accident taking place in the buffer. An Adivasi hamlet at Tipligheri village in Lahiripur with around 200 tribal

102  Forest-based livelihoods Table 4.5 Estimates of tiger straying, human casualties and human injuries owing to tiger attack within STR (2007–2017) Year

Tiger Straying

Human Death

Human Injury

2016–2017 (till date) 2015–2016 2014–2015 2013–2014 2012–2013 2011–2012 2010–2011 2009–2010 2008–2009 2007–2008

2 0 3 0 12 19 27 24 12 10

6 (5 unauthorized)* 10 (all unauthorized) 14 (13 unauthorized) 6 (all unauthorized) 6 (5 unauthorized) 3 (all unauthorized) 6(all unauthorized) 5(all unauthorized) 4(all unauthorized) 6(all unauthorized)

Nil Nil 1 3 1 Nil Nil 3 Nil Nil

Source: Office of STR *Unauthorized area includes the core area of 1699.62 km² along with the SWLS of 362.42 km².

households has the highest number of casualties from tigers. None of the tiger widows receive any widow pension. According to Biswanath Mandal, the compensation of INR 25,000 to be given to his family for his father’s death by a tiger was appropriated mostly by the local political party and the lower-level functionaries of the Forest Department. At the end, he received only INR 9000. It is possible that lists provided by the Forest Department on the number of casualties is not a comprehensive list. The forest workers collectively believe that many deaths occurring in the core areas are not reported, fearing hefty fines and abuse. Such deaths cannot even be mourned publicly in the villages. The bodies of the deceased are abandoned to the tiger without fighting back, in the fear of the patrolling forest guards. For those whose mortal remains cannot be retrieved back after an attack, their family have to perform a different death ritual, where a flour doe is made by the spouse of the deceased and shaped in the form of a human body. This flour doe is treated as the body of the deceased and is cremated in the funeral pyre. Death cases in core areas are more than the buffer. If an accident happens in the buffer area and if the dead body is recovered, the crew in the boat as well as the family has to go through a serious of methods to claim compensation. Before bringing the deceased to his/her family in the village, it is required to come back to the forest office to inform them about the occurrence of the accident. The exact location of the accident needs to be mentioned. The forest guards come to the accident spot, inspects the place, needs to get convinced (through the remaining evidences like the victim’s clothes, bloodspots or the pugmarks of the tiger) before confirming that the death has taken place in the buffer and eligibility for a compensation. Cases where full compensation is granted are rare. However, this is more due to the involvement of local political leaders in the village who then claim a share.

Forest-based livelihoods 103

Villagers mention that in most cases, nylon nets bordering the forest are rotten and have torn apart due to the regular contact with salinity—these nets are very easily torn by the tiger and then they swim across. While tigers confront the forest fishers and the honey collectors inside the forests, the prawn seed collectors are at further risk to the crocodile and river sharks. Prawn seed collectors, most of whom are women wade through chest deep water along the bank of the river, pulling their nets to catch prawn seed. Crocodiles are especially adept in spotting the victim from the river bank. As soon as the victim reaches its limits of preying, the crocodile carries it off deep inside the water, holding the victims’ leg. There is little time for rescue since the crocodile swiftly carries the victim under water. The river sharks on the other hand are desirous of a part of the body like the hands or the legs, which they easily swipe off when the collectors are half under water while pulling nets. In all these cases, even if the victim survives, no medical facility is available in the village and on the way of shifting to the hospital, either in Gosaba or in Kolkata; the victim succumbs to the injuries.

Summary of interviews with the foresters According to Nilanjan Mallick, present Field Director of STR; (interview conducted on 04.01.2017), it is unlikely that a forest official misbehaves with any of the forest workers, in-case they are caught when entering the forest. Regarding the issue of insufficient number of BLCs, Mallick observes that there is no scientific study on how to increase the number. He pointed out that the forest is a rich nursery of aquatic fauna, a wide range of mangrove species and the natural habitat of the Bengal tiger which has acquires Sundarbans the status of a World Heritage Site. He said that the forest has a carrying capacity and already much of the reserve is under threats of depletion due to excessive human pressure. Mallick seems to be optimistic about the functioning of JFMCs in the forest fringe villages, since he believes that the relationship between the villagers and the Forest Department has improved following JFM. However, he also admits that there is a lack of communication with the forest workers in general, since it is only a handful JFMC members from a village who interact with the foresters. He disapproves of the involvement of forest workers with the several fisher unions, since he believes that these bodies have no accountability towards capacity building. Regarding the issue of implementing FRA in Sundarbans, he mentioned that till the time any government orders are issued, there would be no propositions to implement FRA in the two districts of North and South 24 Parganas.

104  Forest-based livelihoods

According to Dr. Pranabesh Sanyal, former director of SBR (interview conducted on 24.08.2016), there are no charges levied on fishing in inland creeks of STR, except that of the fuel that the fishers use during fishing expeditions in the form of fire-wood. He mentioned that fruits of Byne plants (which are found in abundance at the village side) used for cattle feeding presently have nutritional value and can be used as vegetable for humans too. He largely disapproved of the practice of maligning forest workers by the forest guards. He mentioned that one uniqueness of the forests of Sundarbans is that there is no forest dwellers settled within the forests, making the implementation of FRA problematic. He agrees that JFM has to a large extent fulfilled the needs of the local villagers by providing them usufruct benefits. An important part of it is eco-tourism which has revived traditional customs of the region through cultural programmes offered to the tourists, like Dukhe Jatra. Crab fisheries, he says can also augment local income, by involving the Fisheries Department. Crab will earn a good return, especially in the eastern side of Matla River, in terms of export, he mentioned.

Prawn-framing: political ecology of legitimizing claim to conservation spaces An ethnography of prawn harvesting in the villages provides an engaging political ecology account on ways in which powerful and autonomous voices predominate in the making and legitimation of local claims to livelihood— it suggests significant ways in which dominant environmental knowledge become implicated within political realities of conservation landscapes. Forsyth (2003:103–104) mentions strong reasons linking capitalism to environmental politics—he points out that a critical political ecology perspective evolves as explanations on environmental degradation become proximate to political influences. Pointing to increasing undertones of politics in environmental knowledge, Forsyth (2003: 106) seeks to ‘demonstrate how many environmental themes are embedded in wider political and social concerns, and how such concerns also shape explanations of environmental degradation’. Empirical observations on prawn farming points towards the need to explore more, communities as subjects of governmentality and ways in which claims to conservation spaces are projected and politically enforced. Forest workers, as previous sections show, are largely constrained while practicing forest livelihoods, since they fail to position themselves as legitimate claimants and more so, since they have limited representation in the comprehensive politics of belongingness. The community ceases to be a unified group in the making of the politics and collective demands towards attribution of rights. A range of burgeoning literature have rescaled state-community conflicts on conservation and ecologically wise knowledge patterns as ideally constitutive

Forest-based livelihoods 105

of ties with nature (Robbins 2000; Purcell and Brown 2005). These literatures have focused on a complex political analysis, explaining people’s contemporary relationship with the forest by rejecting ‘the local trap’ and ‘the assumption that there is something inherently just or sustainable about the local scale’ (Purcell and Brown 2005: 280; also Willems-Braun 1997; Jeffery and Sundar eds. 1999; Sivaramakrishnan 2000). To this end, there is an urgent need to look into ‘regional accounts’ and the role of external structures in exacerbating the growing challenges of the Anthropocene (Black 1990: 35). Most of the contemporary scholarship on political ecology reveal contradictions within the representation of ‘communities’ as innate nature conservers and state as the prime enforcing body in conservation, with a ‘single chain of commands’, as Gupta (1995: 387) points out. Marginalized communities have been increasingly integrated into the capitalist sector, ‘forcing them to extract an unsustainable surplus from the land itself, and abandon traditional conservation practices which prevent environmental degradation’ (Black 1990: 36). Reflections from prawn collection and farming in the Sundarbans help us explore how humanenvironment interactions are animated through political-ecological forces, far greater than the ethos of sustainability and increasingly manifested within national and trans-national interests of capitalist production (Bryant 1991). To make a living, people consort to varied engagements with the nature, which ‘strains against the usual discourses of environmentalism’ (Baviskar 1997: 195). Prawn-seed based livelihoods in the Sundarbans make one such case for understanding how, to ensure livelihoods amidst widespread resistance, ecological agendas and issues of social justice are at stake, opening up space for discourses on the role of the ‘local’ as a community. Rather, such livelihoods make visible how specific rural actors consolidate and replicate the bureaucratic power and reconstruct an image of the state in the rural areas, allowing representation of the state apparatus as a disaggregated entity (Sivaramakrishnan 2000). A more realistic image of the community can be witnessed by tracing a common set of interests rather than focusing on traditions. Community has an integral role to play within the process of ‘state-making’. Sivaramakrishnan (2000: 434) discusses the idea of the ‘state-making’, by explicating the events in the public spaces influenced by local self-government, technocratic bureaucracies and the solidarity of the regional movements. Gupta (1995: 375) refers to this process as the presence of the state in the everyday life and discourses. I draw upon the network of forest-dependent communities to represent how relations forged by state-making between different segments shape a ‘politics of the community’ (Baviskar 1995: 107)—ways in which people who collectively inhabit an endangered ecology, strategically negotiate with the state. Drawing on Chatterjee (1998: 281–282): Individuals have to pick their way through a terrain where they have no standing as citizens; rather their strategies must exploit on the one hand, the political obligations that government have for looking after poor and underprivileged sections of the population, and on the other, the moral

106  Forest-based livelihoods

rhetoric of a ‘community’, striving to build a decent social life under extremely harsh conditions. The most significant feature of the survival strategies adopted in the last few decades by thousands of marginalized groups is the way in which the imaginative power of the traditional structure of a community including its fuzziness and capacity to invent relations of kinship has been wedded to the modern emancipatory rhetoric of autonomy and equal rights.

Prawn collection and farming: are communities ‘organic’?

Prawn collection and farming has largely proliferated in the low-lying islands over the last few decades. The rivers provide excellent breeding ground for the female tiger prawn. The best place where they lay eggs is near the river banks—when eggs hatch, seedlings are found in abundance. This catch provides the mainstay income of a majority of marginal people inhabiting the three villages. The collection is mainly done by women and children, daunting life risks of tiger, crocodile and river sharks. Prawn seed collectors say that it is a side income for their family especially in cases where their husbands have migrated to other places for labour work. A large no of women, many of whom are widows (mostly tiger widows) also depend on the income from prawn seed collection for living. Using a triangular shaped mosquito net, many women and children are seen wading day long along the bank of the river in waist deep water, pulling nets. Nets are usually pulled during high tide, which brings most of the shrimp seeds in the estuaries along with the current. According to the women, money earned by prawn seed collection supports family needs. The thin mesh mosquito net is triangular in shape and bounded by three bamboo sticks on three sides. It allows capturing the seedlings easily, when drawn on the opposite side of the current. Once the seedlings are caught, they are counted sitting on the banks of the river. Counting is done either by the women themselves or by their family members. As with the prawn seeds, a lot of other variety of juvenile fish is also caught. These fish species are dumped into the river banks, after carefully segregating the prawn seeds. The methods of collecting prawn seeds, the price and the selling procedure has already been discussed in the previous section. But the process which follows the collection is intriguing since this mark the initial contact with the global business of tiger prawns. Tiger prawns are of high demand in the international market. Although the seedlings are collected from the rivers by the poorest fishers, culturing and processing of the prawns for the global market is a complex phenomenon. Prawn farming implies possession of economic resources, labour strength, regulatory powers, political connections and contact. This is not a very unruffled and tranquil zone—regular scuffles between the local people and the prawn farmers are common in the villages since land is forcefully captured as well as destroyed, exploitation is frequent, enticements

Forest-based livelihoods 107

and illicit activities are widespread and people are massacred and even murdered (Mukhopadhyay 2016). The middlemen who purchase seeds from collectors, sell them to the aratdaars at a higher price than they give to the collectors. These middlemen and the aratdaars are from the same village mainly. The arats are the local landing centres where the prawn seeds are finally deposited and there are 6/7 arats per village. Aratdaars although staying in the same village and belonging to the same caste, are usually better off economically than the collectors. Most of them possess some landholdings. The aratdaars culture the seedlings in brackish water for around fifteen days so that the spawns grow a little bigger in size. They then sell these spawns to the tiger prawn farm owners who have bigger brackish water ponds called bheri. These fisheries are curved out of many places and there are contestations regarding the land used for this purpose, usurpation and contamination of fish and water and the deleterious effects of the bheri on the adjacent agricultural fields. Most of the bheries are curved out of previous agricultural lands. These agricultural lands have gradually become unfit for rice cultivation, being salinized regularly by brackish water intrusion. Usually in a period following environmental disasters like floods and cyclones, a large part of the agricultural field gets salinized. This ultimately prompts the agriculturalists to lease out their lands for the purpose of prawn farming. Thus, large areas of land become converted to fisheries. Canals (also sluice gates) are usually constructed for the inflow and outflow of saline water to inundate the fields. The big farms, ranging between 400–500 bighas (80 hectares) are found mostly in the stable deltas of the upper islands. Smaller farms of 100–200 bigha (16–32 hectares) can be found in lower islands like Basanti and Gosaba (Mukhopadhyay 2016). Following 1980s and 1990s, most of shrimp investors, who were lured by the large economic incentives of the multinationals, usurped agricultural land from the poor farmers. These lands were then converted to bheries within a day and the farmers were rendered landless. After the notification of the Supreme Court 1996 demanding the closure of the big aquaculture farms within 500 m of the high tide line, most of them in Sundarbans closed down Jalais (2010: 129). Eventually small farms were formed in the villages. According to Chatterjee (2006: 16), these small farms ranged nearly from 100 to 1500 per block covering an area of 5–30 bighas (0.14–4 hectares) each. He mentions a five-tier process of the corporate network of aquaculture in Sundarbans. First, the seedlings are purchased from the collectors by agents or directly by the aquaculture farms. Secondly, the fishery farms sell the prawns to the agents of the big companies. These agents include B.B. Enterprise, Baisakhi Enterprise and 4 Star, etc. These enterprises are attached to big business houses like Magnum, IFB, ITC, Sundarban Sea Food, Coreline, Simpo, etc. Thirdly, these prawn companies have prawn processing facilities whereby they are processed. Those who do not have the processing facilities deliver them to those companies having the facilities. Fourthly, after processing and packaging, the prawns are delivered to international freighters who deliver them to international corporate houses in USA, UK, Hongkong, Japan, etc.

108  Forest-based livelihoods

The international corporates are fed by the countries of south and South East Asia like India and Bangladesh, while the prawns cater to the Western countries. Interfaces of market and capital have been implicated at large within the network of prawn seed farming in the villages. It involves different individuals with disparate positions in the socio-economic hierarchy, generally driven by the incentives generated at the end. As Lele (1998: 7) points out, villages are much more integrated into the exchange economy, engaged in producing for larger product markets and participate in larger and sectorally specialized labour markets. Prawn seed collection does not involve traditional methods of fishing as described in the previous sections. It employs reasonably harmful techniques which endangers the natural environment. Prawn seed collection poses a threat to the habitation as well as to the ecology by destroying the natural siltation process. While, on the one hand, the state promotes a prominent standpoint on the need to restrict the destructive prawn seed farming, it is also complicit in reinforcing the farming itself. The people who possess aquaculture farms reclaim the mudflats adjacent to the river embankment or acquire agricultural lands from the marginal farmers—usually those whose lands have been rendered unfit for agriculture. The process of conversion of these agricultural lands into fisheries is fraught with violence, conflict and power play (Mukhopadhyay 2016: 132–142). In most cases, agricultural fields are intentionally destroyed by breaching adjacent embankments and allowing saline water inundate the fields and destroy the crops. Enticements with the political parties are quite common in this regard (ibid.). These fisheries put the local people at loggerheads against each other in a constant effort to destroy each other’s farms and maximize individual profit (ibid.). Jalais (2010: 154) terms the occupation of prawn farming as a ‘lottery’, whereby violence and risk are indispensable. Local political parties and lower-level state-functionaries are aligned with the illegal land reclamation process and are greased by the prawn farm owners at large. Since the turnover and the acquisition of land for prawn culture is backed by party-based politics, conversion of large tracts of land into salt water fisheries get unnoticed by the local panchayats. Salt water entering the rice fields from the bheries are not always inadvertent, but pre-meditated by people. Small semiintensive bheries are now widespread in the lower islands which have established a huge network involving the political parties, corporate and multinationals with active sponsorship from the state. The state, through its local functionaries, reinforces the practice of prawn farming, to augment its share of profit from the international market. In cases of conversion of an agricultural land into a fishery, an agreement called ‘Amolnama’ is signed between the farmers and the fishery owners. According to the agreement, the latter agrees to pay annually INR 5000 per bigha (0.16 hectares) of agricultural land to the farmer. Most of these farmers migrate out to cities in search of labour works. The payment for the lease however varies from place to place. In villages like Patharpara, the payment per bigha is as low as INR 2700.

Forest-based livelihoods 109

Figure 4.5  Small fisheries in interior villages of Sundarbans

A fishery has a boundary wall made of linear earthen heaps along the four borders of its length. A sluice gate is set up connecting the fishery with the river, which helps brackish water enter the fishery twice during the high tide and also flushes water out. A small earthen hut is built on the boundary wall of the fishery, usually known as the alaghar (locally called an ala). A person is usually appointed by the fishery owner to keep a check on the fishery against potential risks like poisoning, theft of fish, etc. and to open and close the sluice gate during high and low tide. This person stays in the alaghar throughout the day and looks after the fishery for a monthly payment of around INR 4000–4500. Wayib Laskar, one fishery owner having a number of big and small fisheries mentioned that he has two fisheries of 16 hectares each, for which he had taken lease from 37 tribal farmers in the village. He mentioned that prawn seeds are released in the fisheries in July-August, during monsoon and harvested during winter, in November-December. He uses seeds purchased from hatchery owners more than the seeds collected from the prawn seed fishers in the village, since prawn seed collection has decreased over time in his village. Seeds are purchased at around INR 500–600 per 1000, although the price varies. He says that hatchery produced seeds are more susceptible to virus attacks than those caught directly from the river. This is one of the reasons for which the harvest of prawns is depleting over the years. He narrates an incidence five years back when someone from the village, presumably another fishery owner from his neighbourhood, tried to contaminate

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his fishery by poisoning the harvest of the prawns. Although lime and salt were sprayed immediately after noticing the contamination, the prawns could not be spared. The harvest for that year was damaged. According to Wayib, the person appointed in the alaghar to look after the fishery slept off at night, which led to the damage of his harvest. However, Siuli, whose husband worked before in the alaghar of Wayib, says that workers with him are often not paid. Such incidences are quite common, which leads to conflicts between the fishery workers and the owners. The farmers, from whom land has been taken on lease, are also not paid regularly. Fishery owners usually try to evade off citing loss in his harvest. In lieu of the irregularity in payment for the leases, many farmers from the village now want to cultivate their lands as before and demand the closure of fisheries. Big fishery owners like Wayib, who have their children educated in well-known schools and universities of Kolkata, are closely aligned with the leaders of the political parties. Siuli mentions that the neighbourhood knows how Wayib ingeniously sells off his harvest of prawns at the dark of night and then deceits his payees by standing up to his claim of incurring loss. Since political leaderships and party funds are largely fed by these fisheries, the poor farmers and people like Siuli do not enjoy allegiance from the leaders. Prawn farmers not only exhibit a hierarchical economic and social structure in the village itself, but also acts to the detriment of the physical ecology of the villages. The continuous incursion of saline water through the sluice gates renders the embankment fragile over time, leading to floods and brackish water inundation. Siuli says, as soon as a fishery is set up in a village, the functionaries of the Irrigation Department of West Bengal (who looks after embankment construction and maintenance) stops visiting the village for embankment repair works. The functionaries of the department are dodged by incidences in the past where goons of the party leaders had abused the officials physically when they came for inspection. Most of the fisheries are unauthorized and set up without the consent of the Fisheries Department. She recalled how one night a group of people from the village brought a wheeled excavator and tried to enclose around 3 acres of land at the riverside to set up a fishery. Riverside mangrove trees were felled to clear land. While some villagers tried to contact the Department of Irrigation and Waterways, the officials from the department refused to visit. Finally, with the intervention of the police, the fishery was stopped. Villages nearby the forest areas have crab fisheries or ‘chambers’ as they are locally called, which are smaller in size usually occupying an area of 2–20 bigha (3.2 hectares) at the riverside. The crab chamber owners lease lands from the people who inhabit villages at the riverside. They encircle the plots either at the riverside mudflats or little away from the river, by making sluice gates. The crab fishery owners purchase crabs from the collectors and raise them in the fisheries to make them bigger in size. Crabs which weigh 100 g fetch them a price of INR700 in Kolkata. The female crabs which weigh 150–180 g are purchased from the crab fishers at around INR 1000–1200, and are released

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in the chambers, fed 5 kg trouts per quintal two times a day. After 20–25 days, when the crabs grow bigger in size and are laden with eggs, they are sold at around INR 80,000–100,000/quintal during winter. Crab chamber owners take the crabs to Kolkata from where they are further exported. As pointed out by Baviskar (2003: 284), ‘market is not an outside force but an intimate presence which is hard to banish from the village’. Crab chambers also need regular tidal inundation, which renders the adjacent areas unfit for cultivation of rice. Many hamlets in the vicinity of the crab chambers complain about the decrease in the return from farm cultivation of vegetables like pumpkin and watermelon, due to regular brackish water release from the chambers. Prawn and crab farming techniques and the actors involved at the various levels of these activities redefine local communities as organic stewards of natural resources. Prawn seed collectors and the crab collectors continue to depend on the natural resources for their livelihood. However, they have little leeway to subscribe to sustainable norms of extraction. Through recurrent embankment collapse and brackish water intrusion into the villages, we can observe that the issues of sustainability remain concessional. The techniques involved in prawn collection, prawn culture and crab fisheries, which are ecologically detrimental, allows one to deliberate on the dissonance between the academic depiction and the everyday lives of the communities (Baviskar 1995: vii)—how a local community is constituted as an internally fractured collective, who outwit each other to pursue their specific ends. Aligning with the political parties presents the fishery owners with a prospect of livelihood in the marginalized and endangered landscape. It was observed that the economically elite sections of the village that usually set up the prawn farms have a direct influence in mobilizing the support base of the state functionaries. While fisheries are set up illegally at the riverside destroying the protective embankments and mangrove plantations, the fishery owners can summon the clout of the politically powerful leaders to stop the officers of the Irrigation Department from intervening in the issues of embankment collapse. This bringing us to the complex interactions between the state and the civil society and demands a critical inquiry of the local political actions. According to Mukhopadhyay (2016: 63), political parties cease to be discrete entities within a liberal democracy. Rather they are important agents implicated in the ways in which governmental power is exercised and rule is consolidated (ibid.). Sivaramakrishnan (2000: 433) brings in the insights of two scholars: one which Appadurai (1996: 54–55) points out as the creation of ‘new localized communities based on constructed notions of local autonomy and resource sovereignty’ and the other which Mitchell (1991: 95) conceives as the departure from the conception of the state as a ‘freestanding entity’, located apart from and opposed to another entity called society. The account of prawn farming sustained in the villages through the auspices of the political parties, explains ‘how the state is manifested in the activities of its lower level or field-level officials’ (Mukhopadhyay 2016: 47). The ways in which the community secures a place in the society under such circumstances is dependent on its ability to

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operate within a field of strategic politics’ (Chatterjee 1998: 281) as well as its ability to negotiate with the local functionaries of the state. The collection of prawn seeds from the rivers of Sundarbans has been one of the most unsustainable techniques of livelihood generation. It poses severe detriment towards the fragile mangrove ecology. Several juvenile fish species perish in the collection process, as the collectors abandon them after successfully segregating the prawn seeds. The continuous treading of the collectors along the riverside hampers the natural siltation process of the mudflats within which the roots of numerous species are bound. The fine meshed nylon nets employed for catching the fish seeds obstruct the siltation process through the mouth of the river (Datta 1993). These issues constitute one of the domains of discord within the environmentalist narratives sustained on behalf of the forest-dependent communities. The deleterious effects of the prawn fisheries have already been discussed before. Prawn harvesting and culturing contravenes the ways in which local ecological knowledge is usually conceived. For instance, Dudgeon and Berkes (2003: 91) points out that local ecological knowledge has been developed over millennia and does not fit the world of top down decision-making. Traditional ecological knowledge focuses not only on the social relationship between various cultures and those within the ecosystem, but also upon the different relationships between the two (ibid., 76). Other studies have revealed that conserving biodiversity is not a scientific endeavour but is cumulated through a long history of relationship with the environment (Escobar 1998). These kinds of local environmental knowledge based on the resilience and reverence for the forests, have been undermined in the British and pre-British era of conservation policies, leading to large-scale conflicts and social movements across spaces. However, the gradual integration of the market and the aspiration for economic mobility has rendered universal assumptions about ecological wisdom, problematic. The ways in which the local community in the villages attempt to outwit each other for vested interests reveals the ‘different levels of politics’ (Baviskar 1995: 48) implicated within the everyday life of the people. Human beings treated to be in ‘eternal equilibrium’ with nature are considered as myths (Cronon 1995: 13). In the light of the observations, it can be said that the contemporary understanding of forest-based resilience has been transformed. In this context it is also important to say that the linkages between subsistence-based livelihoods and ecologically sustainability are not always neatly defined, but are marked by changes and contradictions. There are conflicts at different levels, often acted out within the community itself for the assertion of rights and staking claims over the others (Chhotray 2016). This complex politics of making claims to landscapes, as in the case of Sundarbans, goes beyond a universalized representation of cultural politics, in understanding politics of belongingness as a chequered process, effected by the contemporary forest governmentality—raising questions on ‘who can and should belong in such wildlife-demarcated zones’ (Menon and Karthik 2019: 201). Paying specific attention to regionalities is an imperative in recognizing a politics of belonging, effected by governmentality.

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Notes 1 See ‘Indigenous Peoples and United Nations Human Rights System’ (2013). 2 BLC implies a registration certificate to be issued to all registered fishers by the government to carry out fishing within the permitted water bodies inside SBR. BLCs can inherited through ancestral lineage but are non-transferable. However, they can be rented to others. 3 These people have escalated their economic status over the years and have given up on fishing. 4 In Sundarban, arat or khoti is a trading camp that governs the fish trade. It is usually located in the villages inhabited by the fishers along the riverbank. Aratdaars manage or own these fishing camps and are economically wealthier than the forest fishers. 5 Janata Personal Accident Insurance is fetched from National Insurance Companies to people going for fishing and honey collection below 60 years of age. An annual premium of Rs 100 is collected from the people for getting this insurance (Ghosh 2014). 6 According to Mukhopadhyay (2016: xii), paikars are traders who buy fish from the aratdaars and sell them to the business people in the city of Kolkata. 7 Jalais (2010) refers to bawaleys as tiger charmers. 8 Tiger attacks and subsequent deaths are usually referred to as accidents by the people. 9 In the three tier Panchaytai Raj (local self-governance) system administering the villages in India, the district councils form the highest level, situated at the individual districts. District councils are followed by block level councils in individual blocks. Village councils are formed in individual villages, referred to as gram panchayats.

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114  Forest-based livelihoods Bryant, R.L. 1991. Putting politics first: the political ecology of sustainable development. Global ecology and Biogeography Letters, 1 (6), 164–166. Capistrano, D. 2010. Indigenous people, their livelihoods and fishery rights in Canada and the Philippines: paradoxes, perspectives and the lessons learnt. New York: United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea Office of Legal Affairs. Chacraverti, S. 2014. The Sundarbans fishers: coping in an overly stressed mangrove estuary. Chennai: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF). Chakrabarti, R. 2009. Prioritizing the tiger: a history of human tiger conflicts in the Sundarban. Current Conservation, 4 (4), 44–47. Chatterjee, P.  1998. Communities in the east. Economic and Political Weekly, 33 (6), 277–282. Chatterjee, P. 2006. Corporate abuse in Sundarban. Kolkata: Society for Direct Initiative for Heath and Social Action. Chatterjee Sarkar, S. 2010. The Sundarbans: folk deities, monsters and mortals. New Delhi: Orient Black Swan. Chhotray, V. 2016. Justice at sea: fisher’s politics and marine conservation in coastal Odisha, India. Maritime Studies, 15 (4), 1–24. CMFRI (Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi). 2010. Marine fisheries census, 2010. Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi and CMFRI, Kochi. Corbridge, S. 1988. The ideology of tribal economy and society: politics in the Jharkhand, 1950–1980. Modern Asian Studies, 22 (1), 1–42. Corntassel, J.J. 2003. Who is indigenous? ‘Peoplehood’ and ethnonationalist approaches to rearticulating indigenous identity. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 9 (1), 75–100. Cronon, W. 1995. The trouble with wilderness. In W. Cronon (ed.), Uncommon ground: rethinking the human place in nature (pp. 69–90). New York: W.W. Norton and Co. Datta, K. 1993. Large prawn fisheries damage the Sundarbans. Down to Earth. Available at: www. downtoearth.org.in/coverage/large-prawn-fisheries-damage-the-sundarbans-30696 DISHA. 2009. Traditional fishers in the Sundarban Tiger Reserve: a study on livelihood practice under protected area. Kolkata: Direct Initiative for Social and Health Action. Dudgeon, R.C. and Berkes, F. 2003. Local understandings of the land: traditional ecological knowledge and indigenous knowledge. In H. Selin (ed.), Nature across cultures: view of the nature and the environment in non Western cultures (pp. 79–96). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Eaton, R.M. 1990. Human settlement and colonization in the Sundarbans: 1200–1750. Agriculture and Human Values, 7 (2), 6–16. Escobar, A. 1998.Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity, conservation and the political ecology of social movements. Journal of Political Ecology, 5: 53–82. Forsyth, T. 2003. Critical political ecology: the politics of environmental science. London: Routledge. Forsyth, T.J. 2005.The political ecology of the ecosystem approach for forests. In J. Sayer and S. Magginis (eds.), Forests in landscapes: ecosystem approaches to sustainability (pp. 165–176). London: Earthscan. Gadgil, M., Berkes, F. and Folke, C. 1993. Indigenous knowledge for biodiversity conservation. Ambio, 22 (2/3), 151–156. Gadgil, M. and Guha, R. 1995. Ecology and equity: use and abuse of nature in contemporary India. New Delhi: Penguin. Gadgil, M. and Rao, P.R.S. 1995. Designing incentives to conserve India’s biodiversity. In S. Hanna and M. Munasinghe (eds.), Property rights in a social and ecological context (pp. 53–62). Washington, DC: The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics and the World Bank.

Forest-based livelihoods 115 Ghosh, P. 2014. Subsistence and biodiversity conservation in the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, West Bengal, India. Ph.D. dissertation. Lexington: University of Kentucky. Greenough, P. 2001. Naturae Ferae: wild animals in South Asia and the standard environmental narrative. In J. Scott and N. Bhatt (eds.), Agrarian studies: synthetic work at the cutting edge (pp. 141–185). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Gupta, A. 1995. Blurred boundaries: the discourses of corruption, the culture of politics and the imagined state. American Ethnologist, 22 (2), 375–402. Gurr, T.R. 2000.Peoples versus states: minorities at risk in the new century. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Harris, R.H. 2010. Rangeland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau: a review of the evidence of its magnitude and causes. Journal of Arid Environments, 74 (1), 1–12. Hunter, W.W. 1875. A statistical account of Bengal: district of the 24 Parganas and Sundarbans. London: Trubner & Co. Jalais, A. 2010. Forest of tigers: people, politics and environment in the Sundarbans. New Delhi: Routledge. Jeffery, R. and Sundar, N. (eds.). 1999. A new moral economy for India’s forests: discourses of community and participation. New Delhi: Sage. Karthik, M. and Menon, A. 2016. Blurred boundaries: identity and rights in the forested landscapes of Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. Economic and Political Weekly, 51 (10), 43–50. Lanzano, C. 2013. What kind of knowledge is ‘indigenous knowledge’? Critical insights from a case study in Burkina Faso. Transcience, 4 (2), 3–18. Lele, S. 1998. Godsend, sleight of hand, or just muddling through: joint management in India. Paper presented “Crossing Boundaries: The Seventh Common Property Conference, held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada on June 10–14, 1998 (subsequently revised and published as “Godsend, Sleight of Hand, or Just Muddling Through: Joint Water and Forest Management in India”, ODI Natural Resource Perspectives, No.53, Overseas Development Institute, London. Li, T.M. 2000. Articulating indigenous identity in Indonesia: resource politics and the tribal slot. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42 (1), 149–179. Mallick, N. 2014. Control of human tiger conflict in Sundarban tiger reserve. Available at: www.teriuniversity.ac.in/mct/pdf/assignment/NILANJAN-MALLICK.pdf. Accessed on 3 February 2017 Margulies, J.M. and Karanth, K.K. 2018. The production of human-wildlife conflict: a political animal geography of encounter. Geoforum, 95, 153–164. Menon, A. and Karthik, M. 2019. Genealogies and politics of belonging: people, nature and conservation in the nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu. Conservation and Society, 17 (2), 195–203. Mitchell, T. 1991. The limits of the state: beyond statist approaches and their critics. The American Political Science Review, 85 (1), 77–96. Mukhopadhyay, A. 2016. Living with disasters: communities and development in the Indian Sundarbans. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Peluso, N.L. 1993. Coercing conservation? The politics of state resource control. Global Environmental Change, 3 (2), 199–218. Purcell, M. and Brown, J.C. 2005. Against the local trap. Scale and the study of environment and development. Progress in Development Studies, 5 (4), 279–297. Ray, T. 2013. Indigenous fishing knowledge of Sundarban. Lokaratna, V & VI, 1–11. Robbins, P. 2000. The practical politics of knowing: state environmental knowledge and local political economy. Economic Geography, 76 (2), 126–144.

116  Forest-based livelihoods Sen, A. and Nagendra, H. 2019. The role of environmental placemaking in shaping contemporary environmentalism and understanding land change. Journal of Land Use Science, 14 (4–6), 410–424. Sen, A. and Pattanaik, S. 2015. Alienation, conflict and conservation in the protected areas of urban metropolis: a case study of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai. Sociological Bulletin, 64 (3), 375–395. Shahabuddin, G. and Rangarajan, M. (eds.). 2007. Making conservation work. Uttaranchal: Permanent: Black. Sivaramakrishnan, K. 2000. Crafting the public sphere in the forests of West Bengal: democracy, development and political action. American Ethnologist, 27 (2), 431–461. STR (Sundarban Tiger Reserve). 2014. Annual report 2013–2014. Available at: www. sundarbantigerreserve.org/news/Annual%20Report%202013-14.pdf Trudeau, D. 2006. Politics of belonging in the construction of landscapes: place-making, boundary-drawing and exclusion. Cultural Geographies, 13 (3), 421–443. Vyas, P. 2012. Biodiversity conservation in Indian Sundarban in the context of anthropogenic pressures and strategies of mitigation. PhD Dissertation. Saurashtra University. Willems-Braun, B. 1997. Buried epistemologies: the politics of nature in (post) colonial British Columbia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87 (1), 3–31. Wilmer, F. 1993. The indigenous voice in world politics. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Woodroffe, R., Thirgood, S. and Rabinawitz, A. (eds.). 2005. People and wildlife: conflict or coexistence? Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.

5 Decentralizing conservation processes through rights-based frameworks Forest Rights Act and Joint Forest Management

Abstract: This chapter broadly analyses the political agenda of rightsbased forest governance, drawing on recent initiatives of the state in decentralizing forest conservation. Drawing on the (non) implementation of Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 and JFM in the Sundarbans, the chapter highlights key strategies at the national as well as subnational levels towards implementing multi-stakeholder approaches through a networked interplay of power and subjectivities. The chapter highlights how implementation of decentralized frameworks is not solely operationalized by the state, but is deeply implicated within contending political interests. It underscores how instead of ascribing meaningful executionary powers to the forest community in terms of conserving the forests, decentralized forest governance allows significant scope for the dominant political interest groups to align with provincial, sub-district and national powers, which play instrumental roles in recentralizing resource administration.

Decentralizing conservation Socioecological transformations and shifts in forest governance structures from centralized regulations to decentralized and participatory frameworks were integral institutional resource management arrangements in the post liberalization period (Tacconi 2007; Castree 2008; Büscher and Fletcher 2019). These redistributive approaches advocated that local people dependent upon the natural resource-base have a discrete knowledge-system, supporting conservation across generations (Büscher and Dressler 2007: 589). Decentralization also conferred significant powers and responsibilities to local governance units, municipalities and civil groups in redistributing rights (Larson 2002). Conservation methods were largely decentralized since in several parts of the world, enforcement of restrictive measures became increasingly difficult, due to the collective resistance from forest dwellers for ban on their customary rights (Agrawal 2005: 168). Recent protectionist measures, like militarization of DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-5

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conservation to tackle risks of poaching and trafficking, also led to large-scale infringement of rights of forest-dependent communities (Duffy et al. 2019). Increasing challenges to the interest of the forest communities due to various prohibitive conditions in entering forests as well as policy statements issued by several international conservation agencies in favour of indigenous rights pushed towards the implementation of rights-based approaches in conservation (Kashwan 2013: 613). Management of forests by devolving powers to user groups were also conceived to address poverty alleviation and sustainable management (Kumar 2002: 763). As pointed out by Agrawal (2003: 246), decentralized policies of forest conservation prescribed that the state can no longer coerce the communities to subscribe to state-led policies of conservation. One major development in the realm of forest governance in India has been the introduction of rights-based ‘democratic’ provisions of conservation since the 1980s, to ensure participation, social justice and recognition of customary resource management patterns. FRA recognized the ‘historical injustice’ towards forest communities and guaranteed a list of usufruct rights to STs and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) who has for three generations or more (75 years) resided in a particular forest. JFM as a collaborative method of forest management mandated involving forest dependents along with functionaries of the Forest Department, for conservation. However, in the last two decades, exhaustive academic and policy critiques of rights-based frameworks pointed towards large-scale subversions and a lack of democratic spirit in the actual implementation of many of these community-oriented approaches across the country (Manor 2004; Agrawal 2005; Sundar 2000; Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012; Kashwan 2013). These critiques informed how forest policy reforms, as initiated by individual states, remained largely vested within ‘political-historical trajectories’ of regulation and shaped a forest governmentality, which, by transcending centralized regulatory mechanisms, subjectified local communities through newer technologies of power (Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012: 665). A range of conditions, primarily political-economic, impeded the rights-based decentralized approaches to conservation, minimizing chances for eradicating social-ecological conflicts and power asymmetries between state agencies and forest communities (Kashwan 2013, 2017; Lele and Menon eds. 2014). The rationale underlying these rightsbased policies thus remained partially fulfilled in some cases and incredibly wasteful in others. Livelihoods of most of the forest communities continued to remain intimidated by statist control, elite interests and socioecological injustice. The discussion in this chapter largely draws from two rights-based frameworks in Sundarbans—FRA and JFM, and analyses the extent to which governance reforms performed towards transfer of rights to supra-local actors, by altering centralized arrangements. Sundarbans forests have a global prominence worldwide—efforts have been made to legalize the forest as a protected ecology since 19th century. STR occupies an area of 2584.89  km² within the comprehensive forest area of SBR. Within the STR, Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary, notified as per sub-section (1) of section  18 of the WLPA (53 of 1972), Sundarbans National Park notified as per clause (b) of section 21 of the WLPA, a CTH (1699.62  km²) as per sub-section  4 of section  38 (V) of the WLPA, along with a buffer area (885.27 km²) are demarcated as inviolate

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zones. The entire core area where human activities are prohibited measures 2062.04  km², out of 2584.89  km². It is only the buffer area of the STR excluding SWLS, occupying (2584.89–2062.04) =522.85 km², where human livelihood needs are permitted. Management efforts had maximized the area of the core since 2007 by extending 1330.12–1699.62 km² as a CTH to save the tiger population. WLPA, which has demarcated the core area as a national park, wildlife sanctuary and CTH have also made them inviolate zones where human activities are legally prohibited. Decentralized forest governance in the region can have significant merits in terms of emphasizing a people-centric approach to conservation, since Sundarbans have historically been a human-oriented landscape, despite being globally recognized as an exotic wilderness (ChatterjeeSarkar 2010; Jalais 2010). This chapter, expanding on the mainstreamed critiques mentioned before, largely draws on a political-ecology of rights-based forest governance, integrating ‘localities’ into the discourse—role of long-standing political networks and aligned power relations in influencing implementation. Forest Rights Act in the Sundarbans: a political agenda

A day before the West Bengal assembly elections of 2016, The Telegraph1 (29th April 2016) reported that fishers inhabiting six assembly constituencies of the South 24 Parganas district namely, Gosaba, Sagar, Patharpratima, Kultali, Basanti and Raidighi, without preference for any political party, decided to vote for candidates who have promised to implement FRA in Sundarbans. Apart from Raidighi, all the other five constituencies fall within the SBR and are located on the southernmost blocks of the district, bordering the forests. Out of the 31 assembly constituencies in the district, Gosaba, Basanti and Kultali consists of SC members and are regarded as reserved constituencies. Considerable sections of population from these three constituencies are dependent on forest livelihoods for subsistence. All three constituencies were under the rule of Left Front government2 until 2011. All India Trinamool Congress (TMC)3 took over Gosaba since 2011, securing 51.24% of the total votes in the constituency, while Basanti and Kultali remained dominated by the Left Front parties of RSP and CPI-M till 2016. One day before the assembly elections of 2016 in South 24 Parganas, Telegraph reported that the secretary of Sundarban Jana Sramajibi Mancha (SJSM), a non-profit organization mobilizing for implementation of FRA in Sundarbans, has announced, We demand immediate implementation of FRA in the Sundarbans and will support only those candidates who have been sympathetic to our causes in their campaigns in public. Our members will support TMC candidates in Sagar, Patharparatima and Kultali, and the Left-Congress alliance candidates (known as ‘jot’ (tie) in West Bengal) in Basanti, Gosaba and Raidighi. We expect most of them to win as we have a significant presence in these constituencies. We took the decision after several meetings with the candidates from all parties. Though almost all of them expressed solidarity in private, we are only supporting those who have spoken in favour of our demands in public meetings.4

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The illustration underscores collective mobilizations by forest-dependent people and the civil society organizations in Sundarbans, for implementing FRA through interventions of local political forces. The illustration also informs that implementation of FRA in Sundarbans can be mediated by political-party interventions. FRA has been considered as a landmark statutory law in terms of recognizing and vesting historically denied forest rights to the STs5 and the OTFDs6 in India. It succeeded a range of forest laws which disenfranchised communities from their rights to the forests which they inhabited and the resources on which they subsisted (Gadgil and Guha 1995; Guha 1990; Saravanan 2009; Sen and Pattanaik 2015; Lee and Wolf 2018). FRA was notified for operation from 1 January 2008, through a statutory mandate towards regularizing lands under subsistence cultivation and habitations in areas which are officially considered as forests (Kashwan 2013: 617). According to the Act, inviolate conservation areas or ‘Critical Wildlife Habitats’ (CWH) can be constituted only with the informed consent of the forest dwellers and in such cases, a secure livelihood package to the affected communities and approval of the concerned village assembly (gram sabha)7 is compulsory (Ministry of Tribal Affairs/ MoTA 2006). The cluster of individual and community forest rights which the Act confers to the STs and OTFDs include8: (i) rights of living in the forest land under individual or common occupation for habitation or for self-cultivation for the livelihood of a forest dwelling ST  or OTFDs, (ii) community rights such as Nistar (iii) right to own, collect, use and sell Minor Forest Produce (MFP) collected within or outside the concerned village, (iv) collective rights of fishing, grazing, and traditional resource collection by nomads and pastoralists (v) security of community tenures and rights of habitation for primitive tribals and preagricultural communities (vi) rights over disputed lands in any state (vii) rights of conversion of ‘pattas’ or leases issued by the state governments, to regularized legal titles (viii) rights of settlement of all forest villages into revenue villages (ix) rights of conserving and protecting community forest resources which the forest dwellers have been traditionally protecting (x) rights recognized by the state laws as well as any customary rights of the tribe (xi) rights of access to biodiversity and community rights to intellectual property and indigenous traditional knowledge (xii) customary traditional rights excluding activities like hunting, trapping or extracting body parts of animals (xiii) rights to rehabilitation where they have been illegally evicted. The range of forest laws which existed in India before the enactment of FRA were vested with centralized bodies, which excluded forest-based subsistence claims, culminating in a top-down approach. FRA transcended the exclusionary politics which encompassed these laws, by granting legal recognition of the aforementioned cluster of rights to the forest-dependent communities. The Act mandates the gram sabha to examine the nature and extent of individual and community forest rights claims and identify the area under each claim. Claims verified and approved by the gram sabha are passed on to committees at the sub-divisional and district level for further processing (Sarin 2014: 127). Under

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the ‘Recognition of Forest Rules 2007’, gram sabhas from individual villages should elect amongst its members, a committee of 10–15 people to constitute a ‘Forest Rights Committee’ (FRC) for settling claims. In each FRC, at least one third members shall be STs and not less than one third of the members should be women. In sum, the FRA secures settlement and livelihood rights of the STs and OTFDs. However, there were contentious debates and disagreements between rights-based activists and wildlife conservationists for a considerable period prior to the enactment, in terms of the outcomes that the Act would entail with its implementation (Sarin 2005; Bose 2010; Saravanan 2009; Sarin and Springate Baginski 2010; Kumar and Kerr 2012; Kashwan 2017). More than a decade now following its implementation, FRA is perceived to have considerably failed in accomplishing many of its intended goals across various regional contexts. Before analysing the potential limitations of the Act, it is imperative to mention that forest laws in India have historically witnessed complex manipulations between their ‘making’ and ‘working’, since the principles of such laws eventually get incarcerated in the wider political economy of development (Menon 2008: 205; Kashwan 2013). The institutional reforms in forest governance mandated by FRA witnessed similar misrepresentations by the states, to maintain unhindered regulatory control over the forest and its resources (Sarin and Springate-Baginski 2010: 31). FRA has been conceived as an Act impeding industrial development and forestland diversion for the purpose, by involving the consent of the gram sabha in the process (Kumar et al. 2017: 42). Disregarding rights to the forest dependents, the forest bureaucracy have therefore repeatedly diverted forest lands for non-forest purposes, during the process of recognition and vesting of rights under the provisions of FRA (Das and Kothari 2013: 168). Drawing on the limitations of the Act, Kumar, Singh and Kerr (2015: 7) argues that mere enactment of empowering legislations cannot guarantee effective and uniform recognition of rights, considering the ‘historically structured power asymmetries’ and the influence of the dominant social groups persuasively undermining implementation. These power asymmetries are rooted in the prolonged state monopoly over the forests, which commenced with the creation of the Indian Forest Service in 1864 and continued even in independent India (Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012: 669). The empirical observations of this research add to the existing body of critiques on FRA which address the limitations of the Act in diverse contexts. These critiques acknowledge the fact that being marred by bureaucratic interventions, FRA failed to recognize the rights of local communities. My observations allow me to argue that in addressing the loopholes of implementation, the bureaucracy is less to be understood as discrete and polarized from the local political processes. It is imperative to analyse the ways in which the bureaucracy is constituted at particular locales and affects the implementation of the Act. In doing so, I contextualize the micro-politics of implementing FRA within contemporary methods of forest governance, characterized by transfer of rights and powers to the communities (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001; Johnson 2001; Ribot 2002; Larson and Soto 2008; Kumar, Singh and Kerr 2015). In analysing the political agenda of implementing FRA in Sundarbans, I take into account a local, which constitute parts of the network of forest-dependent

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communities: forest workers, fishery owners, agriculturalists, landowners, party leaders and functionaries of rural development, panchayat, etc.9 In critiquing the Act, I thus provide an understanding on how the bureaucracy is often constituted in conjunction with the local to influence the implementation of the Act in practice. I would also highlight the impact of universalized legal frameworks on diverse situations, which frequently translates into legal impositions and misrepresentations in particular contexts. In substantiating so, I draw on the contextual limitations in translating FRA into practice in the Sundarbans through two fundamental questions—how does one understand the process of ‘politicization’ in implementing FRA? How uniformly can the impetus of implementing FRA be traced within the stakeholders inhabiting a particular settlement with considerable dependence on forests? Where is the ‘politics’? A representational background

The purpose of answering the questions necessitates underscoring relevance of decentralization, political economy and the modes of statist intervention encumbering the effective implementation of FRA—an ideal rights-based approaches in forest governance. Decentralization, in the words of Agrawal and Ribot (1999: 475), refers to ‘any act in which a central government cedes powers to actors and institutions at lower levels in a political-administrative and territorial hierarchy’. Decentralization can be of two ideal categories, based on the nature of power transfer: administrative and democratic (or political). While administrative decentralization refers to transfer of power to the lower level functionaries of the central government who remain upwardly accountable, in democratic decentralization, powers are transferred to local bodies that are downwardly accountable to the local people (Larson 2005; also see Yuliani 2004). FRA can be conceived as a form of democratic decentralization; since the Act empowers the actors involved in local governance ‘to make decisions that are significant to the lives of local residents’ (Larson 2005: 33). It confers rights and authority to the forest dependents with a reasonable scope for democratic inclusion and democratic contestation (Kumar, Singh and Kerr 2015: 7). In conserving Indian forestlands, the state throughout the last decades has been instrumental in devising decentralized forest management, typically imagined as an institutional reform within a network of otherwise exclusionary and centralized forest governance (Bawa, Rai and Sodhi 2011). Initiatives to decentralize forest management in India are often driven by marginal groups and civil society organizations to increase responsiveness of the government towards their voices and aspirations (Kumar and Kerr 2012: 752). FRA was enacted following widespread political mobilizations and campaigns, sparked off by the decision of the Supreme Court in 2002 to evict millions of forestdependent people from the legal forests (Kumar, Singh and Kerr 2015: 4). Such persuasions for enactment are ‘prompted by external or domestic pressures to facilitate transfer of power close to those who are most affected by the exercise of power’ (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001: 487). The range of individual and community rights that FRA guarantees, not only recognize the ‘historical

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injustice’, but also mandate the empowerment of the right holders in conservation processes and protection of the forests (Lee and Wolf 2018). Under the Act, rights are linked with the ‘authority’ for conserving the forests, in an attempt to strengthen local methods of conservation while ensuring livelihood claims (Sarin and Springate Baginski 2010: 8). However, closer observations over a span of time pointed out that in actual implementation, substantive changes in decision-making and local management powers are quite limited and the concept of decentralization in itself is ‘political’ (Agrawal and Ribot 1999; Jeffery and Sundar 1999; Sivaramakrishnan 2000; Johnson 2001; Ghate 2009; Larson and Dahal 2012). This political project has been manoeuvred in different ways. Sivaramakrishnan’s (2000) empirical analysis on JFM explains decentralization as a political project animated by the contending social forces. Hereby, the bureaucrats, village councils, forest protection committees and the like, reproduces mechanisms of centralized governance and animate a micro-politics of regional implementation overriding marginal groups (ibid: 438; also Jeffery and Sundar eds. 1999; Ghate 2009). In several cases, the policy reform of FRA has been utilized towards the making of ‘conservation subjects’ to enable local communities act within a neoliberal model, by ‘self-mobilizing and empowering themselves’ in conserving the forests (Anand and Mulyani 2020: 106). Johnson (2001: 525) points out that decentralization has achieved little success in reducing poverty and recognizing rights, partly due to the limited capacity of the poor in recognizing their entitlements and engaging in the formal political processes. He also points out that decentralization empowers the local elites, who enjoy the substantive benefits at the expense of the poor (ibid). Despite collective efforts, transmitting rights to forest-dependent communities failed to succeed in the post implementation period of FRA. Sahu, Dash and Dubey (2017: 44) points out the implications of three factors, which jointly indicates a political-economic agenda operating to dilute provisions of the Act: the limitations of the state agencies, obstruction from the Forest Department and the pressures from non-state actors. Extension of inviolate conservation zones like CTH10 without the informed consent of forest-dependent communities is observed in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, among others, after the implementation of the Act (Taghioff and Menon 2010). In Chhattisgarh, forest departments are involved in rejecting claims in the pretext of conserving ecologically fragile zones. For considering claims, sub-divisional committees join the forest departments in extorting forest offence documents from the claimants (Bandi 2012). In Gujarat, the FRCs are constituted at the panchayat level than at the village hamlet level, mainly from the JFM committees (ibid). There are also efforts to incorporate community forest resource titles within the forest areas demarcated under JFM, to retain bureaucratic control over the forests (Kashwan 2016: S105; Sahu, Dash and Dubey 2017). Deprivations from rights and entitlements include widespread non-recognition of community rights, arbitrary inclusion of STs in some places while leaving out large majority of others and keeping bulk of the OTFDs out of the purview for their failure to establish evidences of 75 years of settlement (Sarker 2011; Sarin and Springate

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Baginski 2010; Sarin 2014). Despite the notification by MoTA (2008)11 clarifying the scope of the term OTFDs and the kinds of rights they are entitled to, a large number of forest-dependent communities are not treated as ‘forest dependents’ since they are not ‘forest dwellers’, thereby denying recognition under the act (Sarin and Springate Banginski 2010). Bureaucratic opposition to FRA is motivated by the anticipation that the Act can be amended in future and augment the decimation of the forests (Bandi 2016: 17). A recent group of studies demonstrate the ways in which forest rights under the Act, both at the national and the local level, are recognized through what Kashwan (2017: 13) calls, the ‘mechanisms of political intermediation’. Recollecting the backdrop of the Act allows one to ponder upon similar political interventions pledging for institutional changes. According to Kumar and Kerr (2012: 767), the nationwide coalition movement for implementation constituted by both ‘place-based’ and ‘national level’ interest groups, made a significant use of the politically opportune situation with the newly elected UPA government at the centre.12 To reach the government and influence policy making, this powerful coalition articulated narratives of injustice and exclusion by using ‘astute advocacy and politics’ (ibid). Tribal votes emerged as a bone of contention between contending political parties preceding the national elections of 2004. On the other hand, recent examples from diverse localized contexts indicate the ways in which different political actors claim recognition under FRA by struggling to identify themselves as potential claimants. Karthik and Menon (2016), in the context of Gudalur in Tamil Nadu points out a similar politics of local context, where multiple actors stake their claims towards FRA over other groups. Referred to as the ‘politics of claim making’, the authors explain how different actors organize mobilizations to articulate their ‘legitimacy’ and prioritize their claims to FRA over others. Similar issues on claim making and struggles for establishing legitimacy of rights have been observed within the Bengali and Odiya fishers in coastal Odisha (Chhotray 2016). Resembling a ‘politics of differential engagement’ as termed by Karthik and Menon (2016: 44), the enactment and the implementation of the Act is seen as contingent upon the political capacity of several actors. While at the national level, larger coalitions created pressure on the government to implement the Act, at the local level, claiming recognition under the Act is cast at large through what Bose, Arts and Dijk (2012: 665) terms as the ‘politics of identity’. Politics of identity refers to the struggles of the different communities to establish their identity as an authentic claimant, by invoking their cultural practices and associations with the forest. The implementation of FRA thus ‘does not fit into the coherent and theoretically ordered structures of political articulation’, to quote Baviskar (1995: 135), which are symptomatic of a merely naive analysis of political movements and protests, pitting forest-dependent communities against the state. An inquiry into the multiple levels of politics is necessary for a better appreciation of the ways in which the implementation of the Act is translated into practice. The Act, as Kashwan (2013: 616) explains, ‘placed the instrumentality of forest

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rights within the political-economic context characterised by the conditions of widespread regional asymmetries’. Following the careful assessment of the Act by the aforementioned scholarships, the context of Sundarbans is explored, which established the fact that a comprehensive critique of the Act should incorporate a more nuanced understanding of politics. While considering the bureaucratic dominance encumbering the Act, the state should not be conceived as a ‘free standing entity’, but as a factional institution, imbibed with the powers to penetrate rural society to ‘exact compliance’ (Sivaramakrishnan 2000: 433). The critique of the Act is to be understood through contemporary lived realities of the local, in this case the forest dependents, whose everyday life is not uniformly contingent towards the pursuit of implementation. Political drivers influencing the (non)implementation of FRA in Sundarbans

In this section, it is worth explaining how the role of party-based politics remains entrenched within the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans. However, before the substantive discussions from the field, a short history of the electoral politics in West Bengal, which along with other concerted mobilizations surmounted pressure on the central government to pass the Act, would better explain the context of the argument in this section. The preceding communist government of West Bengal played an intrinsic role in commencing the implementation process of the Act in the country, for a year after the enactment in 2006. Through the popular writings of the CPI-M leaders in weeklies like People’s Democracy, the leftist party showed its commitment and steadfast role in implementing the law nationwide. On 12th September 2007, in a letter to the former Prime Minister of India, CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat wrote, This is to draw your urgent attention to the delay in notification of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006. The announcement of the Act without its notification has led to a serious situation for tribals in many areas. Forest officials who have been responsible for denial of tribal rights have taken advantage of the delay between the Act and its notification to evict tribals from many areas. Land cultivated by tribals for decades is being dug up for plantations by the forest department in some states in an obvious attempt to pre-empt the recognition of the tribal rights on that land. At the same time there are reports of connivance between land mafia and officials to take illegal possession of land. This is a most untenable situation.13 The CPI-M Party even criticized the ruling UPA government at the Centre for restricting the coverage of the Act from the forest dependents having revenue lands.14 In an atmosphere of pervasive criticisms following the land acquisitions in Singoor and Nandigram,15 the leaders of CPI-M were exceptionally sceptical of the political consequences of denying forest rights to a considerable

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section of forest dependents, who own and cultivate revenue lands. A political party so persistent in its effort to implement the law nationwide however subverted its agenda gradually in the years following implementation. In West Bengal, where the party was in command for a few years after the implementation of the Act, FRCs remained structurally constituted and dominated by the communist leaders of the gram unnayan samiti (GUS)16 under individual gram sansads,17 side-lining marginalized forest dependents to seek their rights. The TMC-led government which dislodged the CPI-M and came to power in the state in 2011 following its pro-people struggle over the land acquisition issues, extended its political base further by guaranteeing implementation of FRA. Backward Classes Welfare Department (BCWD), the nodal agency responsible for implementation in the state, identified 11 districts for implementation of the Act. However, North and South 24 Parganas districts, which accommodate the inhabited areas of SBR, remained excluded from the coverage. The implementation remained likewise bleak in the state as was the case during the rule of the previous leftist government (see CFR-LA 2016). Following the transfer of power, several incidents were reported where titles were distributed hastily in districts like Midnapore, Bankura and Coochbehar, through sudden orders to the district magistrates. In districts like Bankura and Medinipore, where the Act is implemented of late and quite half-heartedly, only Record of Rights18 were distributed instead of land titles. In other places like in North Bengal, the FRCs are not even recognized as institutional bodies settling forest rights, since they are formed primarily by the marginal forestdependent communities who have little or no voice in local administration and governance. My interviews with functionaries of BCWD revealed similar apathy of the state government in implementing the Act in Sundarbans. According to the functionaries, the deputations for implementing FRA in North and South 24 Parganas have been overruled repeatedly by the district magistrates and the Forest Department, considering the global prominence of Sundarbans as a World Heritage Site. The functionaries also cited that forest of Sundarbans are overstressed by significant anthropogenic pressures and FRA would further debilitate the dwindling resource base. They stressed that fishing and honey collecting rights are already permitted in the buffer areas of STR with a licence, hence necessitating no ‘special’ Act for the purpose. The other reasons for denial as cited, include the fact that the inhabitants are not indigenous residents, but are migrant ‘settlers’ without records of 75 years of settlement. In Sundarbans, debates over implementation is thus also acted out over issues of ‘authenticity’, since the state refuses to recognize the stakeholders as genuine claimants of the Act, given that they are migrants. To substantiate, it is worth including the comment of Upen Biswas, minister of BCWD, who earlier stated: ‘villagers who live in the Sundarbans are not traditional forest dwellers. Hence, they need to take permission from the concerned authorities to collect forest resources’ (The Statesman, 12th June 2013). All these concerted reasons reflect the standpoint of West Bengal Government in subverting the national

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provisions of FRA and resisting implementation of the Act in Sundarbans by reinforcing subservience of the communities to bureaucratic powers. However, the plight of non-implementation sustained by the bureaucracy does not stand in isolation to the political processes operating at the localized context. The bureaucratic interventions against the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans are not discrete instances, but are essentially exercised through factions of the state bodies, reproducing the exclusionary policies of governance. To substantiate, it is imperative to unfold practical realities around the issue of (non) implementation in the context of our study. Despite having a dominant electoral base in the 14 GPs of Gosaba block, TMC party workers from many GPs strongly detest the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans. In 2012, SJSM organized a 14-day boat campaign as well as a land-based campaign near Satjelia GP office, to raise awareness about FRA in Sundarbans. The campaign was attended by forest workers from many villages that fall under Satjelia GP. On the fifth day of the campaign, police from the nearby police station of Choto Mollakhali suddenly appeared and tried to impede the meeting. The police tried to communicate to the forest workers that these organizations like SJSM have no authorized standing and that they were ‘dissuading villagers by making “inflammatory” remarks on the incompetence of the state government towards development affairs in the village’. Unsuccessful in their attempt to garner support, the police made random arrests of the attendees, including the secretary and the joint-secretary of SJSM. It was later revealed that the elected head (pradhan) of Satjelia GP played a central role in suppressing the campaign through police forces, since it was organized immediately before the panchayat elections of 2013. However, the pradhan was mainly persuaded by two influential TMC party workers from his village, who also work under the close auspices of the Forest Department. One of them owns the biggest ‘eco-hotel’ in Gosaba. Since TMC is in control of Satjelia GP, the pradhan had reasons to reconcile his interests with the party workers. The political leaders have reasonable grounds to be anxious if FRA gets implemented in the Sundarban. For instance, the aforementioned eco-hotels, quoting Mukhopadhyay (2016: 133), ‘are a locus of patron-clientelism’, since they are mostly established under the auspices of powerful political lobbies, after paying a ransom to the local party offices. Party workers liaise regularly with the Forest Department in upholding their electoral interests, since much of their power and influences are sustained through associations with the state machinery (Kashwan 2017: 141). Since FRA requires active consultation with the gram sabhas while using forested areas for any purpose, forest workers would need to consent in setting up these eco-hotels. A growing primacy of the forest workers would dislodge the monopolistic electoral sway of the local leaders in the regional constituency as well as challenge the intentions of the Forest Department in rendering the act quiescent. Two similar instances provide us further insights on the political disaffection circumventing efforts to implement FRA in Sundarbans. In 2014, in a village under Satjelia GP, a meeting was organized with the forest workers

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on behalf of the SJSM, to encourage them in participating in the movements for implementation of the Act. However, the meeting was largely unsuccessful, since very few forest workers showed up. On pursuing the issue, many of them admitted that in their respective sansads, the functionaries of Satjelia GP privately advised many forest workers not to participate in meetings organized by any ‘unauthorized’ organizations. Some forest workers even reported that they were discursively threatened by the TMC party workers, of political antagonism and denial of rights. The second instance centred on the first public hearing on FRA implementation, organized on 31st January 2016 at the island of Rangabelia in Gosaba block of Sundarbans.19 This public hearing was attended by over two hundred people from the different forest fringe islands of Sundarbans as well as over 100 people from different civil groups and organizations in the state. In the hearing, the forest workers made their depositions to a panel consisting of eminent academicians, activists and legal advisors. The issues ranged from denial of livelihood claims, abuse by the forest guards, insufficient number of boat licence certificates20 and justifications for implementing FRA in Sundarbans. However, the public hearing was organized amidst political oppositions. The pradhan of Rangabelia GP was under pressure from the regional TMC party office to forestall the public hearing. A day before the event, he even denied the premises of the nearby high school building where the hearing was scheduled and the event finally happened in a small school in Bagbagan, amidst political scuffles. While most of the TMC party workers apparently supported the cause of implementation when I asked, aforementioned instances represent converse realities of political pressures inhibiting FRA in Sundarbans. From our recent discussions with the secretary of SJSM, it was learnt that although some of the panchayat functionaries have recognized the need of the Act in Sundarbans lately, they have limited representations in campaigns organized to mobilize the forest workers. As pointed out by Mukhopadhyay (2016: 63), instead of conceiving political parties as discrete entities at work in liberal democracies, we need to conceptualize them as agents implicated within the exercise of governmental power and consolidation of rule. The political processes as explained, also enunciates the practice of ‘statemaking’ in a rural society; one where the policies of governance are relegated downwards by the local actors, to ‘exact compliance and invoke commitment’ (Sivaramakrishnan 2000: 433). By impeding on campaigns for the implementation of the Act, the party workers and the panchayat functionaries in Sundarbans reconstruct the regulatory power sustained by the bureaucracy in denying stakeholder access. The TMC party workers share similar concerns with the state in circumventing the law, since the grounds of empowering the forest dependents simultaneously translates into challenging their established electoral exercise in the region (Banerjee, Ghosh and Baginski 2010: 26). If the rights of the forest dependents are recognized through FRA, it would act as a major blow to the established vote banks in the village as well as to the incentives which the different cadres of the political parties presently leverage in the villages.

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In the context of Sundarbans, Kashwan’s (2017) argument appears to be compelling. According to him, statutory environmental legislations in India, irrespective of being inclusive or exclusive, are largely effected through the influences of populist politics. His analyses explain the political history of forestbased legislations as well as the contemporary institutional reforms deployed by the state; the later lending a scope for examining the intermediations of electoral politics between the rights-based demands and the policy processes. Such intermediations can ‘both define and destabilize interests and identities’ (Sivaramakrishnan 2000: 438). Political parties have used FRA as an instrument to secure their vote base during politically adverse conditions. Quite conversely, in Sundarbans, averting the law secures their established vote banks as well as the incentives which their different cadres presently leverage in the villages. Politically influential leaders, as the aforementioned cases show, benefit from the ‘gate-keeping powers’ that they possess, to ensure selective application and enforcement of laws (Kashwan 2017: 8). In a larger sense, bureaucratic powers are entangled with and mediated by the local political parties, in holding back the implementation of the Act in Sundarbans. The local politics of implementing FRA

The limitations of FRA implementation are grounded in the critique of a political economy of forest conservation, which does not stand in isolation to the politics of the local actors. I had observed that the capacity of an institutional reform to reduce issues of inequality are often marred by the locally dominant elites, who strive to reinforce a ‘veiled exercise of state power’ (Karthik and Menon 2016: 44) at specific locales. This exercise remains central to the efforts of the state in constructing ‘environmental subjects’ or ‘people who care about the environment’ (Agrawal 2005: 162). In the theory of governmentality (Foucault 1991), subjectification is identified as the process of ‘ruling and controlling others by shaping their self-determination’ (Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012: 665). The point in my exercise is to explain how techniques and mechanisms of the forest bureaucracy reshape perceptions of individuals on forest rights and conservation in a local context. In doing so, the making of environmental subjects becomes implicit. The state persistently makes efforts to dilute the provisions of FRA and maintain an unabated control over the forests; an effort which extend beyond their functionaries to the locals at large. In the previous section, I provided an understanding on the hidden exercises of state powers in encumbering the Act, through its well-defined political processes. To sustain the mechanisms of governance, local cadres of the TMC-led government repeatedly intercede into the efforts of mobilization for implementing FRA. In this section, I  explain how sections of the local have been positioned as ‘environmental subjects’ and how closely they embody bureaucratic intentions. Here, I also disentangle the preoccupations with bureaucratic interventions as the prime detriment in implementing FRA. I indicate practical ways in which the common interests of the local elites and the state bodies converge in subverting the Act in Sundarbans.

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The Emilibari JFM committee (JFMC), with a membership of 331 households, constitutes one of the 26 JFMCs in Sundarbans, registered under STR. Several rounds of discussions with the forest workers in the village revealed that in the name of co-management, the present nine-member executive committee of Emilibari JFMC is formed by the village elites, under the auspices of the Forest Department. The committee is also actively aligned with the cadres of TMC. As the forest workers point out, the committee representatives were selected hastily through poorly publicized meetings, without any democratic election procedure and has no representation from the forest workers. The five village-level representatives of the committee are mainly agriculturalists, fishery owners or service job holders, with no associations with forests. I met the joint—convenor (village level head of the committee) of the JFMC for validating the information. Interactions revealed that before joining the committee, he worked closely with the Forest Department as a tourist guide and was an active leader of TMC in the village. In the past, he also indulged partially in crab fishing for livelihood, as was evident from the narration of his personal experiences. However, by virtue of his present political position as well as his earlier position as a lower-level functionary of the Forest Department, he reinforced his leading role in the JFMC. This role and the material privileges that it granted gradually escalated his economic conditions and he ceased to enter the forests any more for livelihood. As the committee leader, he now shares close allegiances with the range officers of STR. Fitting closely into the statist discourses on non-implementation, his dissent against FRA is on the pretext of conserving the delicate ecological heritage of Sundarbans. He comprehends the Act to be further debilitating on the already endangered forest and considers the growing anthropogenic pressures to be the potential adversaries. Further drawing on his narrative: the inception of the JFMC in the village has made the forest department less intrusive on spotting offenders since the committees from respective villages now perform the official task of rendering close surveillance on the forest workers who enter without licences and into the core areas. I have myself lodged seven cases of offense with the local police station against the forest workers who extracted fuel-wood from the Baen (Avicennia officinalis) trees planted at the riverside. Also, I have reported to the department against those fishers from my village who cut through the nylon fencing at the forest-side to reach the fishing spots in less time. His narratives explicating a growing concern for conservation of the forests follows from his recent position in the JFMC, which is largely under the regulatory rule of the forest bureaucracy. His role as a member is implicated within the monitoring practices rendered by the state. He has abandoned forest-based livelihoods by modifying his self-perceptions on the need of forest protection, projecting his position as an ‘environmental subject’. However, in this case, subjectification is attempted more through the functioning of a

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‘neoliberal environmentality’, whereby rather than inculcating ethical norms of conservation, individuals are ‘incentivised’ by the state to ‘behave in conservation-friendly ways’ (Fletcher 2010: 176; also Goldman 2001). As discussions revealed, the JFMC members are routinely enticed by the department, apparent from their well-built houses with painted interiors and relatively exquisite building materials. The joint convenor was able to educate his children in premier institutes in the city, while his kindred are service job holders in the city like banks managers, municipal corporation employees, etc. He also owns around 3 acres of land, while the average landholding of the forest workers in Emilibari is less than an acre. In addition, he also owns a poultry farm as well as a personal irrigation pumpset. The narrative demonstrates how a political economy of conservation operates through the incorporation of locally dominant interests, working against the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans. It also informs about an internally unequal collective inhabiting Emilibari and a lopsided drive towards implementing FRA. The co-option practised by the Forest Department through the JFMCs and the close monitoring that the committees render upon the forest workers, implies a range of local intervening agencies employed by the state bodies, which reinforce opposition to FRA. The intentions of the Forest Department against the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans are thus not discrete instances, but are essentially exercised through their representatives and agents in the village. Opposition of the JFMC members against FRA reinforces the narratives of WBTDCC and renders an exemplar of the ‘everyday practices of the local bureaucracies and the discursive construction of the state in public culture’ (Gupta 1995: 375). The implementation of FRA in Sundarbans would not only recognize legal rights to forest-based livelihood claims, but would also falter the established patron-clientele ties between the committee members and the forest bureaucracy, rendered under JFM. JFM is contended to be under potential threats from the implementation of FRA, since gram sabhas can claim statutory rights to control the forests allocated under JFM (Sarin and SpringateBaginski 2010: 25). Within this internally inequitable collective, the forest workers, despite constituting a significant numerical strength in the village, fail to demonstrate a requisite political action for implementing FRA. As pointed out by Johnson (2001: 525), the limited ability of the marginalized people to comprehend their entitlements to laws, policies and rights can be a consequence of their meagre ‘political tools’ like money, power, information and literacy that they possess and can leverage. Decentralization perpetuates this incapacity in seeking rights by ‘entrenching [the] local elites’ (Kumar, Singh and Kerr 2015: 7), as the narrative of the JFMC leader suggested. Furthermore, the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans implies the constitution of FRCs at the level of the gram sansads. Gram sansads in West Bengal are politically powerful bodies formed in lines of electoral politics. They replace the gram sabha in administering individual hamlet villages. They are headed by the elected functionaries of the GPs and work under the auspices of the TMC party workers. Presently in the gram

132  Decentralizing conservation processes

sansads of Sundarbans, the people like landowners and agriculturalists, who practise occupations other than working in the forests, outnumber those who are involved in forest related occupations. FRCs at gram sansad level contravenes the provisions of FRA, since the Act mandates formation of FRCs at the level of gram sabha, in the hamlets of the ‘forest villages’.21 Thus, even if FRA is implemented in Sundarbans, the FRCs from individual hamlets would remain largely subservient to the political elites administering individual gram sansads, outwitting the demands of the forest workers. Instances of FRCs being dominated by village elites with little interest in recognizing forest rights have been discerned in other contexts as well (Sarin and Springate Baginski 2010: 19). As shown in the following text, a strategic connection can be assumed between a section of the locals and the GP functionaries in restricting the Act from getting implemented. Discussions were held with a segment of the forest dependents, whose words resonate with the bureaucrats and the panchayat functionaries in keeping the implementation inoperative. The tiger-prawn (Penaeus monodon) and crab (Brachyura) fishery owners in the village constitute an integral part of the network of forest dependents, since their fisheries are sustained by a steady supply of prawn seeds and small crabs. Poor women from impoverished households daunt their lives against tigers and crocodiles and pull fishing nets daylong for prawn seeds, wading through waist deep water along the bank of the river.22 Forest fishers similarly enter the narrowest river creeks inside the forests, presumably tiger dens, for a catch of small crabs. Prawn seeds and crabs are eventually sold to the fishery owners who culture them in brackish aquaculture ponds before exporting them international freighters and deliver them to the corporate houses in United States, United Kingdom, Hongkong, Japan, etc. Aquaculture farms are set up by reclaiming the mudflats adjacent to the river embankment or by leasing agricultural lands from poor farmers, who lose their lands to floods and brackish water intrusion. However, the process of conversion of these agricultural lands into fisheries is not seemingly inadvertent but is premeditated, fraught with violence, feuds and power play between contending actors (Mukhopadhyay 2016: 132–142). In most cases, agricultural fields are converted into fisheries by intentionally breaching adjacent embankments and allowing brackish water to enter the fields and destroy the crops (ibid). Forest workers reveal that negotiations and enticements with the panchayat functionaries are quite common in setting up and sustaining these fisheries, since most of them are not registered with the Fisheries Department. Although fishery owners do not directly engage in working in the forests, their livelihood is sustained by the forest resources. Yet, when asked about FRA, they said that land titles are not essentially required for them since they all possess lands around the outskirts of the city of Kolkata (in nearby suburbs like Sonarpur, Bidyadharpur and Gourdaha). Also, they were apprehensive of FRA since a prevalence of forest fishers in FRCs might work against prawn seed collection. Forest fishers are opposed to the prawn seed collectors since a large variety of juvenile fish perish in the process of collecting prawn seeds, which

Decentralizing conservation processes 133

are eventually dumped or thrown away by the collectors after segregating the prawn seeds carefully. Aligning with the panchayat functionaries presents the fishery owners with a prospect of livelihood in the marginalized and endangered landscape. Such ongoing ‘transactions’ between the local administrative institutions and the economically privileged elites like the prawn farmers makes it apparent that struggles for implementing FRA cease to be a concerted mobilization among the forest-dependent communities in Sundarbans. Compared to other states, the civil society initiatives on organizing collective mobilizations for implementation are negligible in Sundarbans. On enquiry, it was revealed that SJSM (which we already introduced in the beginning) is highly constrained by funding limitations to organize awareness campaigns across the dispersed islands. It is able to mobilize a collective of 6000 forest workers, who joined the organization paying a membership fee of Rs 50 ($0.78) yearly. As told by the secretary of SJSM, We have to mainly undertake campaigns in boats to reach out to the distant forest fringe villages along the rivers. Organizing such campaigns on boats throughout the day requires travelling long distances and involves high costs which we cannot always bear. Drawing on Johnson (2001: 525), the costs of political action, like that of travel and communication often deter these groups from engaging in unremitting political movements. Constrained by the limitations, such civil society initiatives have to rely on the political parties for intervening in the implementation process, as the illustration in the beginning of the paper reveals. SJSM is successful in bringing only a handful of forest workers under collective mobilization, attested by the fact that many impoverished forest workers in Emilibari and Patahrpara were unaware about the Act. However, there are more reasons for the disconcerted mobilizations in SBR. As pointed out before, forestdependent population are mostly found in the villages adjoining the forests. In the northern part of SBR, people have no associations with forest-based occupations, since being placed near the city; service jobs are more common in these blocks (Jalais 2010). Conservation of Sundarbans have been recognized as a global cause. If FRA is implemented, gram sabhas would intercede in the colossal financial assistance, which is presently at the sole discretion of the Forest Department without any documentary evidences available on its allocation. Enacting FRA would also dislodge the authority of the forest bureaucracy not only by conferring rights in the core forest areas but also by restricting its coercive practices and attempts to divert forest lands without informed consent. Recent instances from Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh elucidates how the forest bureaucracy revokes community forest resource titles to approve mining industries in forest areas, in the pretext of creating ‘pro-investment climate’ and ‘ease of doing business’ (Sahu, Dash and Dubey 2017: 46). Since FRA entitles rights towards collection and sale of MFPs, honey collected from the forests of Sundarbans would

134  Decentralizing conservation processes

be at the discretion of the forest workers. Devolution of powers of management would entitle the forest dependents towards unfettered collection of forest resources (Saravanan 2009). Limitations of a universalized legal framework

Apart from the political processes challenging the implementation of the Act, specific instances from SBR illustrates that the universalized framework of the Act and its blanketed provisions become legal impositions at diverse localized contexts. Drawing on Nayak and Berkes (2008: 707), such universalized frameworks can be labelled as a ‘one-size-fits-all approach’ with pre-packaged objectives, having limited applicability to specific locales. According to the notification by MoTA (2008), the provisions of FRA also extend to the forestdependent communities, who do not inhabit the forest, but are dependent upon them for bona fide livelihood needs. However, for the forest-dependent communities in Sundarbans, individual land titles for ‘habitation’ or ‘selfcultivation’ are redundant. The forest is used only for purposes of fishing, honey collection, etc., for certain span of time, without necessitating any purpose of residence in the forest land beyond the duration of the activity. In contravention of the provisions of the Act, many states have rejected the claims of such communities over the forests, since they do not inhabit the forests (Das and Kothari 2013). Quite similarly, the officials from WBTDCC infer that Many forest workers also work as wage labourers to supplement their income during fishing lean seasons, thus without absolute dependence on the forest and needs of habitation therein! Additionally, the villages are occupationally diverse and it is needless to grant forest rights for those who do not depend on forest for livelihoods. The comprehensive clarification issued by MoTA (2008) regarding the ‘consideration of revenue land under the occupation of the STs and OTFDs’ for determining the area of land title, is primarily oriented towards ‘habitation’ or ‘self-cultivation’ in the designated forest land. It doesn’t consider occupational patterns like that of Sundarbans, where rights are not required for habitation. None of the forest workers stay inside the forest areas. The demand for FRA in Sundarbans is mainly centred on exacting unobstructed rights towards forest-based occupations like fishing and honey collection, which are presently thwarted by the Forest Department. Such rights, mostly relating to usufruct community rights and rights over MFPs, cannot be exercised through ‘selfcultivation’ (Sarin and Springate Baginski 2010: 21). Considering the occupational pattern in Sundarbans, community forest rights make a more compelling case than individual forest rights, since the former implies ‘rights over forest produce’ than ‘rights over the land’ (Sarin and Springate Baginski 2010: 24). In Sundarbans, mobilizations towards enactment of FRA indicates an appeal for community forest rights only, based on collective occupations like fishing, honey collection, dry wood and shell collection. However, here forest workers

Decentralizing conservation processes 135

from multiple villages jointly enter the forests for livelihood purpose. Since most of the northern villages in SBR have scarce or no composition of forest workers, the constitution of FRCs is difficult there, owing to the aforementioned heterogeneity in constitution. Apart from the forest fringe villages of some blocks adjoining the forest area, others have few or no households with dependence on forests. The universalized framework of the law has limited relevance in Sundarbans, also because the gram sansads here replace gram sabhas. According to the FRA, gram sabha is to be constituted at the village hamlet level and the FRC is mandated to be formed under each gram sabha. In Sundarbans, gram sansads administer village hamlets. As mentioned earlier, gram sansads represent politically dominant leaders, who would occupy a central place in the FRCs if FRA gets implemented in Sundarbans. But the Act requires the FRCs to be autonomous from the bureaucracy as well as the political elites. In general, it can be said that the idea of the FRA was framed under the pretext that all the people residing in a particular forest-dependent village are equally reliant on the forest for livelihoods. Instances of local politicization impeding the Act in Sundarbans adds to the existing body of academic critiques on FRA. Although the pressures to implement the Act nationwide has been a ‘politically fraught process’ as Karthik and Menon (2016: 44) explains, we observed that at specific places, the struggles for implementation are disconcerted. In Sundarbans, political parties resist the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans to sustain their established vote banks. In Emilibari, the political elites like the JFMC members and the fishery owners are able to turn to their advantage, the non-implementation of the Act. Although they are partly sustained by the forests and its resources, their pejorative stance towards the Act traces the internally fractured impetus within the stakeholders towards implementation. The political agenda of FRA in Sundarbans therefore offers an insight into the ways in which the bureaucracy pervades into the local contexts to influence implementation. FRA must be understood more locally, keeping in mind the larger political economy sustained by the bureaucratic networks, within which it operates. Johnson (2001: 522) points out, that decentralized management can be achieved by challenging the popular control of the bureaucracy, through instituting regular elections by voting and through the civil group pressures. However, in the case of Sundarbans, the constituency of the forest workers is insufficient to challenge the existing political scenario, which is largely under the control of the official state bodies. Here, the bureaucratic governance structure does not stand in isolation to the context, but is integrally linked to the local administration through its entrenched factions, represented by the locally powerful committees and influence of electoral politics. Thus, the politicization of FRA in Sundarbans does not simply imply bureaucratic interventions towards dilution and subversion of the Act’s provisions. It simultaneously entails an engagement with the ways in which the bureaucracy aligns with the local in denying the Act. As the observations reveal, the bureaucracy formed in conjunction with the local elites pursues strategies towards making the Act dysfunctional in the region. Also, given the wide diversity of inhabitants in the inhabited areas of

136  Decentralizing conservation processes

Sundarbans, a miniscule of which is dependent on the forests for livelihood, forest workers do not constitute a significant vote bank to contest the political elections for enactment. Hence, apart from bureaucratic involvement, what further encumber the implementation of the Act are the disaggregated livelihood interests in the region. The powerlessness of the forest workers in Sundarbans and the pervasive sway of the political parties within the social structure of the villages have infested the implementation process in the region. JFM in the Sundarbans

Since a long period of time, forest conservation-based legislations have been a threat to customary collective rights of the local communities, owing to largescale evictions from forestlands and inappropriate compensatory mechanisms (Gadgil and Guha 1995; Kothari 2013). Participatory approaches to conservation, like JFM were mandated to recognize community interventions in forest management and institutionalize customary rights. CBNRM refers to the ‘collective use and management of natural resources in rural areas by a group of people with a self-defined, distinct identity, using communally owned facilities’ (Fabricius 2009). CBNRM emphasizes that involving, if not privileging local communities is essential for successful natural resource management and that doing so can simultaneously ensure environmental sustainability, social justice and development efficacy (Menon et al. 2007: 1). CBNRM however differs from JFM. In CBNRM, local management practices derived from community initiatives are used in the management of forest while in JFM, government interfaces and local communities collaboratively conserve the forest (Datta and Sarkar 2010). The basic principle of JFM as well as CBNRM lies in recognizing customary rights and enabling successful participation of local communities within forest management. according to the World Bank Reports of 2006, enabling conditions of community forestry would involve providing communities secure resource tenure, effective institutional models, better systems for efficient forest monitoring and greater access to efficient markets for goods (Bhattacharya, Pradhan and Yadav 2010: 477). Since implementation of the policy had been vested with individual state bodies, there were large-scale variations in institutionalizing the collaborative principles of the policy—instances of power asymmetries between various usergroups were widespread, exacerbating social and political conflicts over forest resources (Gauld 2000: 229). Drawing on observations from the two villages where fieldwork has been conducted, this section is an attempt to understand JFM as a political tool in decentralizing forest management practice, raising the following questions (1) how do forest dependents perceive principle of co-management? (2) what are the realities of participation and recognition of ‘non-indigenous rights’ under JFM? (3) to what extent JFM rescues the customary rights involved in managing the forests? In accordance with the NFP 1988, JFMCs were constituted in South 24 Parganas of West Bengal for the purpose of development of degraded forests in the district. The beneficiaries were identified as economically backward people

Decentralizing conservation processes 137

living in the vicinity of the forests. According to notification no. 5971 of 2008 of the Government of West Bengal,24 a joint membership for each beneficiary household was notified—one hamlet village should have one JFMC and the members from each beneficiary household will have a joint membership of both the spouses. It was notified that each JFMC will have an executive committee for appropriately carrying out activities assigned to the committee. Constitution of JFMCs along with the executive committee needs approval by the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), on recommendation of the Bonobhumi Sanskar Sthayi Samitee of the concerned block level panchayat. The composition (members) of each executive committee will be the head or any member of the Bonobhumi Sanskar Sthayee Samitee, Karmadhakhya, Gram Pradhan or any member of the local Panchayat Samitee, elected representatives of beneficiaries, usually three to six (of which one should be a woman and a tribal) and one head forest guard or forest guard to be nominated by the range officer. The member secretary includes the concerned beat officer, or his nominee in the rank of head forest guard. These members should elect a president in each meeting. The representatives of the beneficiaries should be elected in each year in the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the committee, where the concerned range officer will be the observer. The functions of the executive committee are: (1) to ensure the protection of forests and wildlife, (2) to prevent trespass, encroachment, grazing, fire poaching, theft or damage, (3) to assist the forest personnel in apprehensions of such persons committing any of the violations of these rules, (4) to ensure smooth and timely execution of forestry and involve every member of the committee in the matter of protection of the forest, (5) to ensure that usufruct rights allowed by the government is not in any way misused by any of the members, (6) to ensure forests or plantation sites are kept free from encroachment and (7) to prevent any activity in contravention of the provisions of IFA and WLPA, as amended from time to time. The usufruct benefits include fallen twigs, grass, fruits, flowers mushrooms, seeds, intercrops raised by JFMC (but not those within the PAs), medicinal plants, 25% of net sale proceeds of firewood and poles and entire Sal seeds collection to be deposited with the WBTDCC Ltd. Apart from that, the beneficiaries are entitled to 25% of the entry fee receipts (Rs 10/day per person in the case of Sundarbans) from the visitors. Many of the representatives of beneficiaries are employed as tourist guides—they run eco resorts, sell local handicrafts and provide home-stays to the tourists. JFM has been taken up in Sundarban Reserved Forest since 1991 in the form of Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) and in the STR since 1996 in the form of Eco Development Committee (EDC). However, efforts to implement JFM in Sundarbans started in 2001 after the killing of tigers by a mob during a tiger straying incidence in Pakhiralay and Kishorimohonpur in Gosaba block (Vyas 2012: 129). It has been a general assertion that after the implementation of JFM in Sundarbans, human–wildlife conflicts have been reduced considerably in the villages. This marks a difference from the atrocities shown towards tiger straying before the implementation. The JFMCs under STR and their status have been listed in Table 5.1.25 23

Sajnekhali Dayapur

Sajnekhali Pakhiralaya

Sajnekhali Dulki

Sajnekhali Sonagaon

Sajnekhali Jamespur

Duttar

SWLS

SWLS

SWLS

SWLS

SWLS

SWLS

Lahiripur Chargheri

Beat/Camp Name of the JFMC

Range

Table 5.1  JFMCs at STR

04.05.98

04.05.98

04.05.98

04.05.99

04.05.98

04.05.98

2000

650

700

640

480

960

Jhilla 4 & 4

Pirkahli I

Pirkahli I

Pirkhali I/II

Pirkahli I

Pirkhali I

Registration Area Name of the Date Protected Block (in ha)

328

347

68

189

517

326

Total Members

Proper survey map missing Proper map missing Proper map missing Proper survey map missing Proper survey map missing Proper survey map is missing

Whether Having Survey Map

No

No

No

No

No

No

Whether Review of JFMC Members Are Done or Not

Last meeting No on 04.04.2015

Last meeting Yes on 12.07.2014

Last meeting No on 09.09.2007 Last meeting Yes on 15.07.2014 Last meeting Yes on 27.01.2014

No

No

No

no

No

No

Good

Very good

Very good

Very good

Average

Very good

Whether Microplans Average Done or Rating New Executive Not Committee Formed Every Year or Not

Last meeting Yes on 23.7.2014

Whether Regular AGM of JFMC Done or Not

138  Decentralizing conservation processes

Amlamethi

Bally

Hemtalbari

NP (W) Bidya

NP (W) Bidya

Basirhat Bagna

06.05.98

05.05.98

05.05.98

Satyanarayanpur 05.05.98

NP (W) Bidya

05.05.98

04.05.98

Mathurakhand 05.05.98

Lahiripur, Santigachi

04.05.98

NP (W) Bidya

Duttar

SWLS

Aanpur, Rajatjubilee

Bijoynagar

Duttar

SWLS

Bidhan Colony 04.05.98

NP (W) Bidya

Duttar

SWLS

500

770

500

800

550

680

2400

700

520

227

Jhilla 2 & 3

Pirkhali 2

Pirkhali 4

Pirkhali 2

Pirkhali 4

Pirkhali 2

376

258

170

580

519

471

Panchamukhani 328 2

Panchamukhani 155 1&2

Jhilla 3 & 4

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Proper survey map is missing Proper survey map is missing Proper survey map is missing Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

no

No

No

Last meeting on 19.06.2014 Last meeting on 31.12.2013 Last meeting on 28.01.2014 Last meeting on 20.02.2014 Last meeting on 20.06.2014 Last meeting on 09.03.2014

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Last meeting No on 30.03.2015

Last meeting yes on 10.08.2014

Last meeting No on 06.04.2015

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

no

No

(Continued)

Good

Good

Good

Good

Good

Good

Very good

Good

Good

Decentralizing conservation processes 139

Kalidaspur

Emilibari

Bhuruliapara

Adibasipara Kumirmari

Mitrabari

Bagnapara

Basirhat Bagna

Basirhat Bagna

Basirhat Bagna

Basirhat Bagna

Basirhat Bagna

Beat/Camp Name of the JFMC

Basirhat Bagna

Range

Table 5.1 (Continued)

06.05.98

06.05.98

06.05.98

06.05.98

06.05.98

06.05.98

500

360

875

567

580

300

Jhilla 2

Jhilla 3

Jhilla I

Jhilla I

Jhilla 2 & 3

Jhilla 3

Registration Area Name of the Date Protected Block (in ha)

389

425

360

455

331

573

Total Members

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Whether Having Survey Map

No

No

No

No

No

No

Whether Review of JFMC Members Are Done or Not Last meeting on 03.05.2014 Last meeting on 26.02.2014 Last meeting on 14.12.2013 Last meeting on 01.03.2014 Last meeting on 26.12.2013 Last meeting on 06.12.2013

Whether Regular AGM of JFMC Done or Not

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

Good

Good

Good

Good

Good

Good

Whether Microplans Average Done or Rating New Executive Not Committee Formed Every Year or Not

140  Decentralizing conservation processes

06.05.2007 2100

06.05.98

Basirhat Jhingekhali Kalitala perghumti

Basirhat Jhingekhali Hemnagar

2220

2077

06.05.98

Basirhat Jhingekhali Samsernagar

2584

06.05.98

Gobindapur

Basirhat Bagna

Arbesi II

Arbesi 1

Arbesi 1

Jhilla 2

200

266

417

273

Yes

Yes

No

No

Proper No survey map missing Yes No Last meeting Yes on 05.07.2014 Last meeting Yes on 02.12.2013 Last meeting Yes on 07.12.2013

Last meeting Yes on 07.06.2014

No

No

No

No

Good

Good

Good

Good

Decentralizing conservation processes 141

142  Decentralizing conservation processes

During the period of fieldwork, there were 25 active FPCs under STR and 40 FPCs under South 24 Parganas forest division (Reserve Forest Area outside STR), making a total of seventy JFMCs under SBR.26 Under the government resolution no 2063-For/6M-28/02 dated 25/10/2014; these FPCs were renamed as JFMCs, to ensure uniformity in the access to the usufructuary benefits. A 26th JFMC named Adhor-Para in Kumirmari have been constituted by the STR on 25th May 2015, after several incidences of tiger straying in the village. According to the STR estimates, the no of revenue villages covered under the JFMCs are 32 and the no of family members involved include 8558. The no of SC families covered include 7689 (89.84%) while the no of ST families involved include 362 (4.23%). The total forest area covered under the supervision of the JFMCs in STR is 25,194 ha while under the South 24 Parganas forest division it is 10,801 hectares. Dayapur, Pakhiralay, Jamespur, LahiripurChargheri, Sonagaon, Aanpur-Rajatjubilee, Lahiripur-Santigachiand Emilibari, are the JFMCs which fall within the island of Satjelia. Bhuruliapara, Adhor-Para and Adibasipara-Kumirmari fall within the island of Kumirmari. My observations draw from Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC and Emilibari JFMC. A range of observations revealed corruption, lack of benefit sharing and instances of surpassing actual target groups to whom the benefits must accrue. Membership within JFMCs revealed power play and political relations, animated by the ability of a person to align with the dominant political groups in the village. The marginal and landless forest workers, who should apparently be the beneficiaries of JFM, are mostly left out of decision-making. According to the forest workers, through the JFMCs, the Forest Department strategically tried to employ new means of income generating activities. This include providing domestic livestock to the households like roosters, goat, granting irrigation pump sets, duckery, piggery, providing van rickshaws to generate local employment, agrocropping, rice trading and making brick roads for the beneficiary families. Benefits almost never accrue to the forest workers, but only to handful elites from the village. For instance, in Patharpara, which falls under the Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC, a member of the executive committee himself has established a reasonably big poultry farm, denying usufructs entitled to the forest workers. It is surprising that none of the forest working households in Patharpara have any such farms. As evident from the living of the executive committee members of Emilibari JFMC, like the physical interiors of their household, they appear wealthy compared to the forest workers. Observations further inform how unaccountable governance structures facilitated concentration benefits in the hands of local political elites (Nelson and Agrawal 2008). This has inhibited attempts to address mismanagement of resources. The transition in state forestry regulations can also be understood through representational political-institutional forces operating in the region, accounting significantly for major transformations in the ways in which communities participate in JFM as beneficiaries (Kashwan 2017). According to Mriganka Mondol, a forest worker from Emilibari: In the name of JFM, Forest Department have coalesced with the power elites in the village, to employ their own representatives. These

Decentralizing conservation processes 143

powerful elites spy over forest workers in their occupation and report to authorities about the offenders who enter the core areas of the forest for fishing. The elected representatives of the beneficiaries, who form the present executive committees of the JFMCs, mostly belong to the cadres of the ruling political party. Most of them have no associations with forest-based livelihoods. Memberships in the committees are formed through contacts with dominant leaders in the village. People from opposition currently have no representation in the committees. There is no transparent election procedure, as mandated by the rules of constituting executive committees. Committee members establish their positions by supplication and patronization and also act as local reprimands in case a forest worker breaches the ‘forest rules’. For instance, the forest workers in Patharpara mention that mangrove plantations generated at the riverside by the Forest Department are under strict surveillance of the convenor of AanpurRajatjubilee JFMC. Principally these plantations are generated to meet the local demand of small wood and fuel wood. The annual report of STR (2013–2014) states that ‘to meet the local demand of small wood and fuel wood, mangrove plants are artificially regenerated on the mud-flats adjoining the fringe villages of the tiger reserve’ (p. 17). However, villagers unanimously proclaim that once forest grows at the riverside, it ceases to cater to local subsistence demands. Offenders are verbally abused by the JFMC committee members. JFMCs, as Menon (1995: 2110) observes, by gaining overriding rights to particular forest areas, are denying rights which might have existed previously to others or those which do not fall within the domain of these committees. According to the villagers who are dependent upon fuel wood, these incidences of monitoring the forests at the village-side is a relatively new phenomenon, with the advent of the JFMCs.

Asutosh from Emilibari narrates an incidence when last year three of them went to fish crabs inside a forested creek, which falls within the core area. They had no licence with them. The joint convenor of Emilibari JFMC got to know about them and reported to the concerned forest guard. Alerted by the sound of the approaching patrolling boat, Asutosh and his fellows desperately entered a very narrow creek to hide. However, being regular fishers, they had an idea that patrolling boats usually do not enter those creeks, thus being a reasonably safe fishing spot for fishers without permits. While hiding, Asutosh could overhear a conversation of the forest guards over the phone as they were saying: ‘you have given us the wrong information. There is nobody here’. After some time, the patrolling boat went away. Asutosh and his fellow fishers were convinced that committee members from his village had informed about their entry to the forest without a permit.

144  Decentralizing conservation processes

JFMCs are constituted with the view of having participation of the forest dependents in conserving the forests, especially those who are actively associated with forest-based livelihoods. However, in Sundarbans, it reveals a lopsided picture. According to the notification no 5969 of the Government of West Bengal, the executive committee of each JFMC is to be constituted by the forest beat officer, the head forest guard nominated by the range officer. These are apart from the elected representatives of the beneficiaries and the panchayat pradhan. The notification further mentions that coordination for proper functioning of JFM requires the formation of coordination committees at the beat and the range level. The composition and function of these coordination committees should follow guidelines to be prescribed by the principle chief conservator of the forest. Thus, these committees’ function under close monitoring of the state with very little discretion of the forest workers. According to Nayak and Berkes (2008: 715), ‘the JFM arrangement is heavily biased towards a strong executive council in which the forest officer is designated the secretary’. If ‘local involvement’ has to be taken into consideration, there has to be an urgent need to understand that the present setting reveals a lopsided version of its rationale. In Patharpara village, I had a conversation with Ranajit Mondol, a CPI-M leader who was previously the joint-convenor of the Aanpur Rajatjubilee JFMC.27 This JFMC covers an area of 700 hectares in Panchamukhani block I and II and has a membership of 155 people. The committee was formed in 1998. Ranajit is an ex-joint-convenor of the committee. Among others, he was in charge of the formation of self-help groups in his village, monitoring payments to the group members to avail loans in times of need. Self-help groups are an attempt to hold back people from forest work by granting them alternative livelihoods. According to him, one of his most significant contributions towards the committee was the construction of two tube wells in Patharpara in the year 2005, a reasonably water-scarce village. He says that these two tube wells helped the entire village survive the acute water contamination issues in the aftermath of cyclone Aila. He praises the contribution of the Forest Department for extending financial help to convert an ‘unsuccessful area’, to be fraught with water. Apart from that, a public water tap was constructed during his tenure, transporting water to Patharpara. The Aanpur-Kalashkhali irrigation canal which he inaugurated has largely helped the agriculturalists. Construction of 5 feet wide concretized roads in the market area were also initiated during his tenure in the JFMC. According to him, this made possible walking to the market area along the muddy roads during the months of monsoon. He also emphasized that on his persuasion, the Forest Department regularly helped through providing roosters and goats to a large number of forest workers. However, Ranajit says that the last committee formed by the TMC party since 2013 is dysfunctional, since no development work has been carried out in last few years and no committee meetings have been held publicly. The present joint-convenor of Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC, Suranjan Mandal, is an active member of TMC. He says contrarily that the committee has

Decentralizing conservation processes 145

a cordial relationship with the Forest Department and accuses the previous JFMC headed by the CPI-M leaders like Ranajit as corrupt. According to him, they stole bricks sanctioned for the purpose of making market roads and appropriated at large, governmental aids like rice, pulses and edible oil which were allocated for marginal households in the post Aila period. From their personal narratives, membership in JFM appears to be implicated in a political party-based rivalry within the two opposite camps. Ranajit’s and Suranjan’s words also speak about incommensurable positions that one occupies in the villages. Ranajit, who was once a tourist guide and then an active JFMC member, contravenes his position by the fact that he also once indulged in working in the forest. He thus served two disparate positions of being a forest worker himself and a JFMC member later on, taking positions both for and against the forest workers. Suranjan also joins hand with the conservationist vision of the Forest Department in dissuading people from entering forests. Despite political rivalries and corruption, both compromise in recognizing the forest-based livelihoods. On the contrary, they align with state functionaries to pursue individual interests. While in power, the members of a particular committee usually act in a partisan manner by safeguarding the rights of its own political faction and opposing those of its opponents. The re-designing of mere institutional categories would not ensure success since historical trajectories of monopolistic control increase complexity of implementation (Lele et al. 2010: 5). It was generally observed that in the name of JFM, Forest Department takes decisions unilaterally with the help of few selected villagers, usually the politically powerful leaders of the village. The forest workers have little or no representation in the JFMCs. TMC leaders in the villages use JFM to fill their party funds and establish political clienteles in the village and, as pointed out by Sundar (2000: 276), ‘ordinary people have little or no say in a whole range of critically important policies; they are limited to voting for politicians imposed from above by centralized, undemocratic political party structures’. Most of the initiatives taken by the JFMCs, like street lighting, communication and transport facilities, are visibly poor in their implementation. Community based conservation practices have transformed in the villages with the advent of JFM. The collection of dry fuel wood from the forests, which was banned all of a sudden from the year 2013, constituted an integral resource for the marginals in cooking, making house shafts and fencing. Ban on dry-fuel-wood collection simultaneously implied ban on the cleaning of the forest, which the forest workers say, was done earlier regularly by collecting dry woods which came afloat the river. Forest workers mention that collection of dry wood keeps the forests clean and promote re-growth. Nipa and Garjan trees are not regenerating due to lack of shoot-cutting. One of the principal ways in which dry fuel wood helped the forest workers was to cook inside the boat, while on a fishing or honey collecting expedition. Compared to the costs of kerosene, fuel wood served their purpose both economically as well

Nil 30

2 Nil

Kalidaspur under BHT Range, Emilibari and Nil Satyanarayanpur Construction of raised tube-wells Bagnapara and Bhuruliapara under BHT Range, 6 Lahiripur Chargheri under SWLS Range and Mathurakhanda under NP (W) Range Making water and pipeline Rajatjubille under SWLS Range Nil arrangements (nos) Solar street lights All ranges 80 Jetty Kalitala Pargumti, Dayapur, Pakhirala,, Nil Kalidaspur, Duttar Mangrove interpretation centre Sajnekhali Nil Irrigation canal Adhorpara Basirhat, Emilibari Basirhat Nil

5.89

Nil

Nil 3 2 9 3 1 Nil

Nil 10.99 Nil 7.5 Nil Nil Nil

28.17 Nil

1.8 13.48

8.2

5.58

Nil

Nil 2.56

37.92

2.6 Nil Nil Nil

1 1

Nil 5

Nil

Nil

3

Nil Nil

0.39

Nil Nil Nil 25

12.5 6

Nil 10.7

Nil

Nil

9.68

Nil Nil

3.38

Nil Nil Nil 8.13

Nil

Samsernagar, Kalidaspur, Rajatjubilee, Dayapur, Nil Sonagaon, Mitrabari, Dakshinpara Sudhanyakhali under SWLS Range 1 Sajnekhali and Basirhat Nil

13 Nil Nil Nil

Nil

2 3 1 Nil

0.68

10 200 20 Nil

22

JFM areas under STR JFM areas under STR JFM areas under STR BHT, SWLS, NP (E) & NP (W) Range

3.17

24

Bidya under NP (W), Sajnekhali under SWLS &Jhila BHT range, NP (E) & NP (W)

Advance work and maintenance of work under decentralized people’s nurseries (ha) Small pump machines (nos) Spray machines (nos) Paddy thrasher machines Creation of mangrove plantation (ha) Construction of brick paved road (kms) Improvement of mangrove park Construction of vermicompost units Shallow tube-well

2015–2016

Quantity Expense* Quantity Expense Quantity Expense

2014–2015

Location

2013–2014

Items of Work

Table 5.2  Work under JFMCs of STR carried out between 2013 and 2016

146  Decentralizing conservation processes

JFMC share distributed Total expenditure for JFMC beneficiaries

Training for staff and nature guides Training and supply of ducks, goat, hen and medicine

Training to local youths for combating tiger straying Holding medical camps in collaboration with state health dept. as well as NGOs Vocational training and supply of inputs: poultry, duckery, beekeeping and training Conducting veterinary camps in fringe villages Maintenance of tourist spots including fencing

Gitanjali Housing Scheme Re-excavation of irrigation channel (kms) Livelihood support activities

Pond

Nil Nil Nil

SWLS, BHT &NP (W) Range

All over STR

SWLS, BHT, & NP (W) Range

All over STR

Anepur-Rajatjubilee under SWLS Range, Kalitala, Samsernagar under BHT Range and Mitrabari under NP (W) Range

Nil 341

Nil

Sajnekhali under SWLS Range and Jhingekhali Nil Buridabri under BHT range and Netidhopani under NP (W) Range All over STR Nil

Nil 42.5

9

Nil

Nil

1

Nil

2

1

Nil

Nil Nil

Nil Nil

Nil

Nil Nil

Nil

Basirhat rnage and Lahiripur, SWLS Range, Lahiripur and Sonagaon under SWLS Range and Emilibari, Bagnapara and Satyanarayanpur under BHT Range All ranges Bhuruliapara and Gobindapur under BHT Range Bhuruliapara JFM area under BHT Range, Adibasipara JFM under Basirhat Range All over STR

21 175

Nil

Nil

4

14

2

25

Nil

20

Nil Nil

Nil

52.1 170

Nil

Nil

9

1.82

2

1.98

0.48

2

Nil Nil

Nil

25 473

Nil

2

Nil

14

LS

25

Nil

Nil

343 3

26

56.1 941

Nil

1

Nil

2

2

2

Nil

Nil

809 7

10.8

Decentralizing conservation processes 147

148  Decentralizing conservation processes Table 5.3  Community rights under JFM Community’ rights

Conditions under JFM

1. Forest maintenance

* Completely binned, including dry wood collection * Certain mangrove trees like Hental. Golpata md Garun ne not allowed to cut. thus suffering from early deith. * Mangrove regeneration declined due to Lack of seeds flow. * Thinning and shoot cutting completely abandoned. * Rivet dredging abandoned. 2. Forest witching * Forest workers are not involved in checking piracy. * Forest depletion owing to piracy, large tracts of mangrove cleared and used as fish drying spots. 3. Usufructuary * Shared only within selected beneficiaries.  benefits * Most of the forest workers ate out of its purview. * Local culture being marketed for commercial use in ecotourism. 4. Stakeholder * Biased towards political affiliation.  participation * Ruling party groups and village elites hare better contacts to government contracts and wage opportunities. * Not free from centralized supervision since Forest Department plays a pivotal role in executive councils. * Land owners and agriculturalists who have no association with forests, form representatives of beneficiaries in executive councils. * Poor and marginal forest workers are unaware about JFM benefits, have no sav and enjoy no privilege. 5. Infra structure and * Inner village roads, river embankments, marginal fisher households money in deplorable condition. * Mangrove plantations at village side for subsistence needs like fuel wood, fodder are not done regularly. * Lower income and vulnerable housing reconstruction benefits arenever implemented, high inflow of money from government, but mishandled in the implementation. * Budget allocation for making irrigation canals, inland aquaculture, sluice gates, etc. are never released fully, commissioning the panchayat members, local party is fervent. * Government sponsored funding entice different political parties and the poor are usually subjected to the power play. 6. Community * Differential access to benefits eroded age old ideas of reciprocity.  linkages * Hierarchies defined along political power affiliations than along traditional power relations based on caste, class and kinship.

conveniently, since inside the forests, it is easier and faster to cook using fuel wood than by a stove. Kerosene costs involved for stoves are not affordable by many forest workers. The case of Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC

In this section, I  elaborate on specific instances illustrating the challenges associated to rights-based forest governance, drawing on observations from Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC. This JFMC includes Patharpara. The committee underwent a structural change following the panchayat elections of 2013. After

Decentralizing conservation processes 149

the victory of TMC in most of the panchayats of Gosaba, Lahiripur GP, which administers Aanpur-Rajtjubilee JFMC, changed its constituency into 14 TMC members, 1 RSP member and 1 CPI-M member. Membership and formation of the executive committee of JFMCs was always designed in the lines of political party preference. This is evident from the long-drawn involvement of the communist leaders of the village in the previous committees before 2013. In the pretext of development activities, it is imperative to observe how JFMC members make money through financial assistance granted for JFM. The previous committee members of Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC allege that the present committee has been formed with an uninformed consent. The members mention that there was no democratic election process while selecting the beneficiary-representatives. According to Himangshu Mondol, who was the joint-convenor of the committee from 2008–2013, the takeover process and transfer of the duties from one committee to another in 2013 was not done amicably, but by the intervention of the Forest Department and the block-level panchayat. None of the former committee members were invited on the day the new committee was formed in 2013. No public announcement was made in the village regarding the election process. Himangshu also added that the amount of infrastructural work that he had undertaken during his tenure was noteworthy. He mentions the canals dug at Hazrakhali, Kartikkhali, Mitekhali and jetties in Luxbagan, Rajatjubilee and plantation works in the breached areas of the riverside. There were 12 self-help groups under the JFMC during his tenure. The ‘flood centre’ which lies close to Patharpara village was also set up during his tenure, with an expenditure of Rs 12 lakhs. He says that in terms of funding and other opportunities, a JFMC can draw a large number of tenders for infrastructural works in the village, compared to what a panchayat can execute in a year. Majority of the roads and jetty construction in the village has been done under the JFMCs. He further states that the present committee members are inherently corrupt. Among others, he cites the example of the illegal extension of a market in Lahiripur, which was set up cutting a forest of over hundred mangrove trees at the riverside. He says that the beat officer from the Forest Department does not want to get involved in the local scuffles. According to Himangshu, the market extension involved acquisition of land from tribals, since the tribal hamlet of Tilpigheri borders the market area. The former committee members also alleged that the irrigation pump-sets which are distributed by the Forest Department last year to the present committee have not reached the targeted beneficiaries. On the contrary, it is kept at the joint convenor residence. Solar lights, which are installed along the riverside of Patharpara to reduce tiger straying continue to be dysfunctional for days but are not replaced. Himangshu says that the batteries of the dysfunctional solar lights are appropriated by the joint convenor and is kept at his home for his personal use. The plantation work which commenced in 2016 in the village of Patharpara had a budget of 26 lakhs.28 However, the saplings didn’t grow into trees since most of them didn’t endure. Three consecutive rounds of plantation were done in the village

150  Decentralizing conservation processes

under the pretext that the previous plantations were unsuccessful. According to Himangshu, these are only opportunities for making more money. However, Himangshu, along with the other members of his committee were agriculturalists and have never practiced forest-based livelihoods. I also met Suranjan Mondol, the present joint-convenor of Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC and an active TMC leader in the village of Patharpara. He confirmed that the present elected representatives of the committee are five in number: three SCs and two STs. Both the STs are women and the SCs are men. These five members are from the village of Patharpara and Aanpur villages collectively. Like the previous committee members, their occupation is also agriculture and labour work, with no reasonable association with forest-based livelihoods. However, their predecessors were regular forest workers. Apart from the five elected representatives, there is the MLA representative from the block, the pradhan of Lahiripur GP and the head of the panchayat samaiti of Gosaba block. The Duttar beat officer is the convenor of the team. This makes the committee of nine members presently. Suranjan stated that he owns around 1 acre of agricultural land. In addition to being an agriculturalist, he is a regular performer of music, narration and theatre groups during different festivals and is also a sculptor. He says that since the commencement of his tenure, the Forest Department and the committee have on occasions jointly organized several training camps and awareness programmes to dissuade forest workers from entering the forests to earn livelihood. Suranjan remembers that few days back, he and the other committee members along with three forest workers from Patharpara village were taken for a training programme organized by WWF and the Forest Department. In the camp, the forest workers were advised to practice alternative livelihoods like aquaculture, livestock raising, etc., instead of forest work. To incentivize them, they were given some roosters, goats and fish seeds. Under this JFMC, there are presently 24 housing allowances distributed under Gitanjali Housing Scheme, with a budget of Rs 1.94 lakhs each. Suranjan states that 22 houses are almost complete and the remaining two are partially built. However, contrary to what Himangshu alleged, Suranjan commented that he has almost completed a brick road measuring 930 feet in Patharpara, which starts from the jetty and continues till the other end of the embankment. He agrees that irrigational canals have not been set up till now primarily because such canals are presently appropriated by many households as personal ponds. This is because the canals pass through some individual homestead areas. He is sceptical that claiming the canals for irrigational purpose can detonate further conflicts in the village. In addition, he has also proposed to install three solar lights under the jurisdictional area of his JFMC, within which one should be at the river jetty. He said that his committee has started to plant a mangrove nursery at the riverside of the village in collaboration with the Department of Irrigation and Waterways. He refuted Himangshu’s comments and said that roosters and ducks are provided regularly to the self-help groups within the JFMC. However,

Decentralizing conservation processes 151

he refrains from distributing goats since they eat up the mangrove saplings at the riverside. Regarding allegations of undemocratic election process while selecting representatives of beneficiaries, Suranjan stressed that the previous committee members were completely absent during the day of election when the new committee was formed. This is the reason why the present committee was unable to discuss with them. JFM lies at the heart of local rivalries and conflicts since memberships in JFMCs reveal intensified contestations. People try to outwit each other in their efforts of establishing patronage with the state officials. In the face of the allegations brought against his present tenure in the committee, Suranjan asserts, The previous JFMC has only mishandled money. The bricks used on the riverside road did not cover the surface properly. Since earth was not added to the embankments for a long period during this time, the riverside road on the embankments eventually became fragile. The bricks which were thus placed on the road arbitrarily were sold off by Himangshu to meet personal expenses. Suranjan says that the road from the jetty would have been completed by now, provided the bricks were there, as has been the case in Lahiripur and Parashmoni. He also brings up the example of the aftermath period of Aila. He states that the previous JFMC appropriated and sold off most of the aid that was made available by the Forest Department towards the affected people in the form of rice, pulses, edible oil, medicines, polythene, etc. Himangshu however refuses to accept such allegations. He adds, What kind of road construction is he talking about? Did he also tell you how the road was built? Practically no manual labour was used in the road building. The road was built by machine-vehicles, spending Rs 1500 per hour. The entire duration of the work was 30 hours. Rs 15, 000 was allocated for the little labour work used. Within the total budget of Rs 3, 25,000, the rest Rs 2, 65, 000 is appropriated by the committee. Suranjan mentioned that he has tried to raise awareness in the village against activities like felling of Byne trees from the riverside for local fuel wood needs and has also registered cases at the local police station against seven people from his village who have indulged in such activities. He says that after the formation of JFMCs in the village, felling of trees from the forest has been completely stopped due to the close surveillance rendered by the committee. Compared to the past, the Forest Department has to strain much less now to keep an eye on the incidences of felling. Suranjan says that he also keeps a close vigilance on the forest workers who try to cut through the nylon net fencing at the forest side or uplift the fencing to enter the creeks secretly for fishing. Cutting through the nets helps in reaching the fishing areas in less time. In such cases Suranjan never encourages the Forest Department to release the forest workers

152  Decentralizing conservation processes

off the charges, since he is aware of the fact that by causing damage to the fencing, the villagers are endangering their own protection against tiger straying. Suranjan says that he always advices landless forest workers to migrate to the cities and labour, for earning livelihood. He thinks that forest work constitutes a perpetual threat to the lives of the forest workers as well as to the forest itself. Drawing on Ruud (2001), I suggest that strategizing for the collective good is essential for local politicians to improve their personal appeal. In doing so, dominant local leaders (ibid. 2001: 201) retain control over different levels of bureaucracy as well as allocations of money and other material benefits. Quite interestingly, the forest workers in the village of Patharpara refer to the techniques of inspection that is practiced upon them by the committee, as being ahead of the Forest Department officials! By creating JFMCs in the village, the Forest Department has strategically incentivized the politically and economically powerful elites in the village to monitor the activities from individual villages which they regard as ‘defiant’. The ban on felling Byne trees planted at the riverside, used for local livelihood purposes, provides an example. Instances from the JFMC and the close monitoring it renders upon the forest workers reminds us of what Foucault (1991: 92) refers to as ‘surveillance and control’; a kind of governance mechanism which employs a range of entrenched intervening agencies. The ‘eco-governmentality’ of JFM in Sundarbans resembles ‘productive relations of the government’ in terms of mediating community relationship to the nature—the attempts to debunk the centralized structure of the state into factional powers enable self-regulatory mechanisms among the environmental subjects (Goldman 2001: 500). Environmental subjects are defined as those who ‘change their behaviour from initial resistance to state regulation to pro-active participation in forest management’ (Agrawal 2005 in Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012: 666). Committee leaders and their patrons maintain allegiance to politically powerful cadres of the ruling party, but move up the social ladder by virtue of their political clientelism. It was evident from the discussions with Suranjan that they not only exercise allegiances with politically powerful cadres of the party, but they are economically wealthier by virtue of their political clienteles. Suranjan’s only son studies in a reputed college in Kolkata while his daughter has completed graduation from the same city. Suranjan’s brothers and sisters are permanent service job holders in the city and employed in banks, Municipal Corporation, etc. Few of the forest workers from the same village can think of such established jobs in the city. Further discussions with the other members from Patharpara village revealed a lopsided reality of the benefits accrued through JFM. The 24 households which are entitled to the Gitanjali Scheme are not among those which belong to the landless forest workers. The allocated households have substantial landholdings. However, even the beneficiaries stated that in most cases, the household allowances were obtained only after enticing the JFMC members. The training and awareness programmes under JFM, which accrue benefits to the people in the form of livestock distribution, are appropriated by those who extend patronage to the committee members.

Decentralizing conservation processes 153

Within the five elected members of the committee, the two women who belong to the STs says that they are never invited by the joint convenor and the two other SC members for collective decision-making during the committee meetings. The two women mentioned that they had attended only one of the five meetings which were held during the last year. Inauguration of the village roads happened on several instances in the absence of these two women. According to Sulata Sardar, one of the two women, the joint convenor and the other men in the committee think that since the women are mostly busy in housework, involving them in the committee is ineffectual. The committees themselves are thus constituted by token representations from deprived groups. In the functioning of JFM in Sundarbans, political leaders can be conceived as mediators between the apparatus of the state and society and as agents who can mobilize resources (Ruud 2001: 115). Local villagers perceive themselves

Figure 5.1  Unfinished brick road at the riverside in Patharpara

154  Decentralizing conservation processes

as ‘subjects of the local political players operating in the midst of the maze of a massive state apparatus’ (ibid., 131) and try to attract political attention. Political tensions and conflicts at several levels are endemic within JFM, a technique that has been devised on the principles of decentralization, to increase participation of the locals in the process of forest management (Lele et al. 2010: 96). JFM has a significant transformatory potential in ensuring equity and social justice in forest management. Yet, they suffer from the lack of formal institutional arrangements as well as bureaucratic interventions. The observations from this section specifically highlight the ways in which an internal segmentation within the community impact participatory conservation methods. It shows how everyday negotiations for affording chances of participation within the JFMCs enables local communities construct their individual versions of dissent against the functioning of participatory methods. Conclusions

In view of the observations on the functioning of FRA and JFM in Sundarbans, I argue that policy reforms can be effected through a combination of institutional support networks, state and non-state mobilizations and commitments to enforce redistributive policies by dominant political forces. Central governments, as Libert-Amico and Larson (2020: 2) points out, ‘controls investment policy and set the nation’s goals for growth’, while sub-national governments significantly influence national policies and hold reasonable sway over regulations of state protected areas. In global conservation landscapes like Sundarbans, sub-national actors consolidate power structures, circumscribing to ‘popular’ narratives on efficacy of forest resource conservation (Kashwan 2017; Libert-Amico and Larson 2020). JFM and FRA in Sundarbans helped us to understand decentralization of forest governance as a socio-political process, where sub-national and local political cadres play key roles in institutionalization of community involvement. The observations also make visible how in analysing recent trends of decentralization, overarching narratives of the homogeneous community can be found as falling short analytically. Li (1996) points out that the task of conceptualizing communities must draw not from generalized contexts of collective struggles, but from the specific place-based instances of contests around claims to resources. Local politics significantly undermines ‘primordial loyalties’ (Ruud 1997: 15), which had earlier led to community being characterized as homogenous. The ways in which local actors are involved in rights-based policies of governance are also representative of significant reorientation of their knowledge-systems, values and conducts, towards shaping a contemporary ‘governmentality’ or a ‘green political action’, as pointed out by Luke (2016). As Darier (1996: 585) observes, most of the recent efforts of rights-based conservations are oriented towards disciplining local population in instilling norms of environmental conduct and creating an environmental citizenship, rather than capacitating them as resource stewards. In state-driven reform policies like

Decentralizing conservation processes 155

the FRA, contextualized observations, like those from Sundarbans make visible how subject making is articulated by competing political groups through relative agencies and organizations in ‘monitoring’ redistribution and participatory democracy. Similarly, in case of JFM, local political elites can be seen implementing ‘distinct governmental discipline’ and reconstructing state power at specific local spaces (Sivaramakrishnan 2000: 438). The key highlights from these two rights-based frameworks informs us how decentralized conservation networks, created under the auspices of neoliberal governance structures, have limited potentials in effecting forest restoration and empowering actors towards transforming authoritative systems of management.

Notes 1 An English daily published in Kolkata. 2 Left Front government represents coalesce of the left-wing parties. In West Bengal, the coalesce includes the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M) which forms the largest part, followed by Communist Party of India (CPI), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and All India Forward Bloc. They came to power in 1977 and had a historic rule for 34 years in West Bengal till 2011. All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) is the opposition party and presently the ruling party in the state. They came to power since 2011, winning 190 out of 294 seats in West Bengal Legislative Assembly. 3 TMC is a regional political party in West Bengal, formed in the year 1998. They won the assembly election of 2011 and are the present ruling party in the state. 4 Refer to the link: www.telegraphindia.com/1160430/jsp/bengal/story_83100.jsp 5 According to Article 366 of the Constitution of India, ‘the STs are such tribes or tribal communities, or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be scheduled tribes for the purpose of this constitution’. The criteria which specify a community as ST includes primitive traits, distinct culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact and backwardness (Ministry of Tribal Affairs/ MoTA, Government of India). 6 Under the section 2 (o), FRA mentions that OTFD means any member or community who has for at least three generations prior to the 13th day of December, 2005, primarily resided in forests and who depend on the forest or forest land for bona fide livelihood needs (MoTA 2006). 7 According to FRA, a gram sabha consists of every adult member of a village, whose population does not exit a total number of 1500. Villagers elect the representatives to form members of the village self-government or the gram panchayat. 8 Refer to FRA, Chapter II, Section 3 (1). 9 In the given context, all of the mentioned categories inhabit the same physical space and depends directly or indirectly on forest-based livelihoods, although the extent of dependence largely varies. 10 There are differences between a CTH and a CWH. CWHs are introduced by the FRA, while CTHs have been introduced by the Wildlife Protection Act 2006. While both mandates the introduction of inviolate zones for conservation, with active consent of the stakeholders and the village assembly, there are subtle differences between the two. For details, see Broome, Desor, Kothari and Bose (2014: 193, 194). 11 This notification clarifies that ‘the implication of the phrase “primarily reside in and who depend on the forest or forest lands for bonafide livelihood needs” appearing in section 2(c) and section 2 (o) of the Act should be seen in reference to the term “bonafide livelihood needs” under section 2 (1) (a) of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Rules 2008. In light of this

156  Decentralizing conservation processes definition, the implication of this phrase is to include those Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, who have been mainly living in or depending upon the forest land for meeting the needs of their self and family, irrespective of whether their dwelling houses are outside the forest or forest land.’ 12 UPA government refers to the United Progressive Alliance coalition of Centre and Left parties, led by Congress. 13 “Notify Forest Act immediately,” 12 September 2007 Press release, available at http:// cpim.org/content/notify-forest-act-immediately. 14 According to the notification issued by MoTA (2008), claims for habitation and self cultivation can only be made in the ‘forest land’, as defined under the act. No revenue lands would be considered for determining the claims. 15 The land acquisition controversies in Singoor and Nandigram of West Bengal centred on the efforts of the CPI-M government to expropriate forcefully, agricultural land from poor farmers, for the pursuit of industrial development. It was one of the major instances of political turmoil which faltered the roots of the 34 year-long ruling government in the state of West Bengal. 16 According to the West Bengal Panchayati Raj Act 1973, a gram unnayan samiti is constituted by a gram sansad, for ensuring active participation of people in implementation, maintenance and equitable distribution of benefits within the members of the particular sansad. 17 Village or ‘gram’ in West Bengal represents an entire area under a gram panchayat, with a constellation of hamlets, not a single one. According to the West Bengal Panchayati Raj Act of 1973 (p-3), gram sansads are recognized as the electoral constituencies of gram panchayats, while gram sabha refers to a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls of the entire ‘gram’ which falls under a gram panchayat. Such gram sabhas are essentially large, with a constitution of people from several hamlets which forms a particular gram panchayat. Legally, the gram sansads instead of the gram sabha represent hamlets in West Bengal. 18 Record of Rights, also known as khatian, is a document testifying the amount of landholding possessed by a person. It also notes the revenue payable against the land, use of land and other interests on the land like barga, easement etc. 19 For details on the public hearing, see the following website : http://sanhati.com/ articles/16092/ 20 Boat licence certificate implies a registration certificate to be issued to all registered fishers by the government to carry out fishing within the permitted areas of inland water bodies. 21 According to FRA, ‘forest villages’ mean settlements established inside the forest area by the forest department for forestry operations, or those converted into forest villages through the forest reservation process (Chapter I, Section 2 (f)). 22 Prawn seed collectors are usually not included within the group of forest workers, since prawn seed collection can be accomplished by pulling nets along the riverbank of one’s own village and does not necessitate entry inside the forest. 23 West Bengal was the first state where the first successful JFM method was introduced in 1972, in the district of West Midnapore. Arabari, a forest range in the district was selected for implementing the method of JFM, where local villagers played a pivotal role in transforming degraded forests into valuable and well conserved plantations. Ajit Kumar Banerjee, a forest officer, was instrumental in initiating efforts to integrate the knowledge of the local people in forest management, which rendered 1272 ha of forest lands usable through sustainable harvesting. See Sivaramakrishnan (1998). 24 Refer to www.westbengalforest.gov.in/update_06-080-09/5971_For_Dt._03.10.2008.pdf. 25 A full list of all the JFMCs of SBR south 24 Parganas can be found at www. sundarbanbiosphere.org/html_files/eco-development_committees_24pgs.htm. For the representation of the field work area, the JFMCs of STR have only been listed. 26 From 2014, all EDCs have been transferred to FPCs.

Decentralizing conservation processes 157 27 The committee which represents the village of Patharpara. 28 For planting 400 saplings, Rs 138,422 is allocated by the panchayat.

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6 A political ecology of non-human subject making in forest conservation

Abstract: Political ecology has often been considered as human-centric and critiqued for its human exceptionalism, since it analyses interplays between nature conservation and social justice. Another larger critique of political ecology is that it analyses human-oriented environmental justice frameworks. I  argue that such a narrative is unqualified, since a myriad range of documented cases reveal how human communities have specific associations with non-humans and both are often seen to be associated in social-cultural assemblages. However, the chapter also puts forth the claim that political ecology has a significant scope in enhancing justice frameworks—to this end, the chapter explains how non-humans are constituted as political subjects in the processes of forest conservation. Drawing on observations from the Sundarbans, it aims to use a political ecology framework while elucidating how, like humans, tigers are also subjectified within a network of regulation, control and subjugation and how justice frameworks in political ecology can reconstruct interspecies subjections. I argue that political ecology can enhance the scope of justice frameworks by accounting for subjective representations of non-humans in a political process embedded not only in power relations but also co-produced ideological practices.

Introduction In this chapter, I  intend to explore how ‘non-humans’, alongside humans, can be significant agents in the subject-making process by the state, to sustain the politics of forest conservation. Subject making implies a process by which state technologies of power and regulatory strategies govern human behaviour (Agrawal 2005). Since the engagement of political ecology with the ways in which forest communities are made subjects of power and political action around forest conservation have been explored exhaustively (Agrawal 2005; Bose, Arts and Dijk 2012; Fletcher 2017; Anand and Mulyani 2020), it would be intriguing to shed some light, using a political ecology framework, on the DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-6

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subject making of what Srinivasan and Kasturirangan (2016) recently called the ‘non-human world’. Their work argues that political ecology is embedded in human exceptionalism, while being essentially silent with regard to subjectification of non-humans and its consequences in reinforcing existing power relations in conservation. Although the work has been critiqued for its understanding of political ecology as ‘fancying’ humans over the non-humans (Menon and Karthik 2017), there is scope to expand further the said differentiation in the subject making of humans and the non-humans. In this chapter, I aim to understand the efficacy of political ecology in explaining subject making of non-humans alongside humans, and the processes of the state in utilizing images, behaviours and characters of non-humans in making them subjects, thereby consolidating conservation goals. I would also explore how such subject making enables a popular image of non-humans as human adversaries. This chapter would largely provide a roadmap to revisit discourses on conservation politics, through emerging debates on cross-species linkages and up and coming strategies to govern collective species as subjects in conservation. To this end, I draw on the subject making of Bengal Tigers in Sundarbans and aim to show that the pervasiveness of tiger representation in the global world as ‘exotic’ and ‘wild’ is a part of such a subject-making endeavour, perpetuated and utilized by the modern state for forest conservation. The broader argument of this chapter is to show how a political ecology of forest conservation can explain that exigencies of forest livelihoods are effected not primarily through governmental stewardship but also through classification of non-humans as environmental subjects. The aim is to encourage a larger body of prospective studies explaining multiple and crosscutting forms of species subjectivities implicit within forest conservation and to show how non-human representations can be produced through forms of hegemonic power, to perpetuate threats to human life and delegitimize forest-based livelihoods. In doing so, I dispute the claim that political ecology is human-centric and argue that the forms of subject making that state indulges in are diverse, affecting both humans and non-humans in myriad ways. Also, human subject-making process is alike significantly, since they, unlike animals, ‘can “self-govern” their own conservation practices for the benefit and wellbeing of valued nonhumans’ (Hodgetts 2017: 18). While many of these actions are meaningful since they are ‘tangible’, it would be a misnomer to ignore the role of animals as political subjects and the long-standing governance mechanisms associated with the constitution of animal identity, in understanding the centrality of power in newer neoliberal discourses of conservation. An exploration of the spatial process of nonhuman subject making can speak to the larger critique, which contests the fact that political ecology is human-centric—animals in the discourse ought to be viewed as ‘dynamic beings, inextricable to political processes, and integral to the formation and operation of the political networks that regulate, protect and exploit them’ (Hobson 2007: 250). It is therefore imperative to explore how political ecology can conceptualize human and non-human subjectification in a more integrated manner and how current constructions of non-human nature, in contexts of politics/power, reproduce approaches to conservation that marginalize local and indigenous communities. Political ecology, as I would finally

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argue, is not epistemologically human-centric, but rather a comprehensive analytical category (Menon and Karthik 2017: 90) to map disaggregated power relations inherent in natural resource management. The framing is instrumental in explaining political dimensions of natural resource management and ecological distribution conflicts through spatial processes embedded in diverse conservation landscapes.

Constructing frameworks for understanding non-human political ecology There have been significant variations in understanding challenges of the Anthropocene, if we take into account the evolving scale of discourses and political struggles surrounding environmental governance mechanisms and their ways of addressing vulnerabilities (Nightingale 2018). In growing contexts of vulnerability, environmental and social justice framings, as recent studies argue, can play integral roles in capturing material realities of comprehensive species ecosystems, including non-human lifeworlds (Schlosberg 2014). Justice frameworks can elucidate clearly, meaningful proximities between humans and non-humans in their everyday lives as well as subjective convergences in disenfranchisement experiences of both. A contemporary approach in this direction is understanding ‘more than human geographies’—bringing in role of non-humans while shaping advanced conceptualizations on environmental stewardship (Panelli 2010; Kirksey and Helmreich 2010; Notzke 2013; Barua 2013; Gesing 2019; Deb Roy 2020). Environmental studies exploring multispecies relationship with their embedded geographies as well as with humans are largely interested in approaches beyond anthropocentrism—they bring in entangled approaches on diverse intersections and forms of life in co-constituting worlds (van Dooren, Kirksey and Münster 2016). Multispecies ethnographers study organisms whose lives and death are linked to human communities (Kirksey and Helmreich 2010: 545). A strong reason for studying multispecies geographies and coexistence patterns is a substantial increase in human–wildlife coming into contact with each other in the recent years, owing to incidences of climate change, habitat conversion, species recovery and reintroductions (Pooley, Bhatia and Vasava 2020: 2). However, as a very recent study indicates, coexistence have been often too engaged with costs and benefits of cohabitation and conflicts, rather than focusing adequately on cultural, emotional and ecological contexts in which human–wildlife interactions occur (Pooley, Bhatia and Vasava 2020). Anthropologists, studying newer patterns of cultural lifeworlds ought to pay special attention to the dynamics of co-constituted worlds and companion species of the planet (Kirksey and Helmreich 2010: 549). In this regard, it is imperative to mention that political ecology as an analytical category is not oriented towards human exceptionalism. For instance, a study analysing the role of ‘materials’ in human-non human conflicts advances political ecology to a hybrid and symmetric analysis of vital cross-species assemblages (Barua 2013). Others argue that while political ecology epitomizes social and environmental justice in environmental discourses, it does not indeed romanticize humans—neither does it promote a human-centric approach (Menon and

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Karthik 2017). This critique of human exceptionalism can be substantiated by a range of reasons. Firstly, although not engaging outright with non-human subjectification, there has been an exhaustive literature which has shown that the uniform image of the local people as organic communities imbued with an ecological wisdom needs a reversal (Greenough 2001; Purcell and Brown 2005; Baviskar 2011; Chhotray 2016; Sen and Pattanaik 2019). Secondly and quite contrarily, a wide range of works in social anthropology, on the embeddedness of forests in contexts of culture and power demonstrates bonds between humans and non-humans and the fact that both are entangled in social-cultural assemblages (Jalais 2010; Barua 2013; Govindrajan 2015; Margulies 2019). Findings from these studies and similar others help to establish that political ecology is not a categorizing framework, but has a larger ethnographic focus on species’ entanglements in cultural contexts. The framing, through its unparalleled focus on political economy of natural resource management as largely capitalizing on economic valuation of natural spaces (Menon and Rai 2019), establishes that global conservation goals are oblivious of the dynamisms within prevailing social-cultural linkages. Jalais (2010: 176–201) observes how a ‘cosmopolitan’ image of the Sundarbans tiger, jointly forged by the Forest Department as well as by the middle-class elite, was instrumental in reinforcing a representation of the forests as an exotic wilderness and augment global value. She also points out (2008: 25–26) that the prominence of the cosmopolitanism of Sundarbans tiger emerges from an urban perspective, influenced by the universalism of Western conservation discourse, which do not make room for local representations of animals and largely operates to nullify individuals’ relationships with it, abstracting image of the tiger from the local context. Govindrajan’s (2015) engaged multispecies ethnographic analysis speaks about affective interspecies kinship ties, where animals identify with humans through protracted assemblages of care and violence. Barua (2014) discusses the ‘dwelt politics’ of human-animal cohabitation and observes how ecological landscapes can be reanimated through such cohabitations. In co-habited landscapes, animal lifeworlds have often been witnessed to be inextricably linked to community lived-spaces, through social, cultural and symbolic linkages (Cormier 2013; Govindrajan 2015). Representing insects like white ants as subjects of colonial power, Deb Roy (2020) traced the persistence of governmental legacies towards subjecting both animate and inanimate non-humans into ubiquitous control mechanisms. Drawing on an account of entomopolitics within the colonial empire, he shows how a predominance of anthropocentricism within environmental history obscured the realm of nonhumans, like insects, as subjects of political power. According to Menon and Karthik (2017: 92), political ecology significantly exhibits both the humans and the non-humans ‘within the entangled assemblages that they constitute’ and advocates for integrating such assemblages within frameworks of conservation. Also, a range of studies have employed political ecology in critiquing how state policies aim to redress human–wildlife conflicts emphasizing separation of people and non-human spaces (Massé 2016). There is thus an underlying contradiction within the claim that political ecology is restricted in its analysis of non-humans.

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However, there can be distinctively better ways in which political ecology can explain how in the production of wilderness-scapes, human and the non-human subject making correspond to each other (Barua 2014; Hodgetts 2017). Political ecology, while largely focusing on ecological distribution conflicts around stewardship methods, have been often critiqued of representing environment and society relations, with major epistemological limitations in analysing the role of non-humans within the discourse of justice (Staddon 2009; Srinivasan and Kasturirangan 2016). Hobson (2007: 255) captures reasonably clearly, the fact that although political ecology explores in detail issues of human–wildlife conflict and reversal of social justice commitments, it does not engage with animal welfare as a part of the justice discourse. Non-humans (mostly wildlife) have been widely represented as detrimental to communities and human settlements, in contexts where humans suffer livestock and resource loss, destruction of assets and also displacement due to wildlife encounters. The material practices through which non-human discourses are constructed and represented by the state enables an explicit political portrayal of wildlife as potential adversaries for humans. Such a portrayal makes worth discussing how successful are ‘wilderness-based conservation areas’ and strict demarcation zones for humans and wildlife are successful in mitigating human–wildlife conflicts (Massé 2016). Margulies (2019) analyses the ways in which animals such as the tiger are represented by the state as ‘man-eaters’ as they transgress into human habitats and cause a series of human causalities, embodying a micropolitical process of agentializing the state in constituting animal identities as inimical to humans. State-based principles on ‘governing’ non-humans are evident from enclosing their spaces into designated boundaries, incarcerating them as bio-political subjects of administration, which largely dismisses justice as vital for non-humans (Margulies 2019: 156–157). Representations of the non-humans as abstracted from the humans is another part of the process of reinforcing strategies of centralized resource administration and agentializing authority—this process is multilayered and manoeuvred by economic as well as the cultural capital leveraged by various networks of actors, ranging from state actors, urban environmentalists, tourists and so on (Srinivasan 2014). Techniques of conservation subjection had been different historically. There have been distinct evidences towards the way in which the 19th century conservation conflicts were the results of imperial dominance, whereby hunting, wildlife extinction was practiced within the colonial forest management regime. But in the contemporary era, we find a paradigm shift in the environmental stewardship where conservation is more centred on an aesthetic value. Conserving forests and other ecological services of biodiversity now operates through demarcation of scientific regulatory zones, which limits subsistence uses for humans. Presenting tigers as man-eaters is integral within the essentially top-down nature of forest regulations, since this also provides the state with a leeway to challenge customary institutional practices of taming the wilderness through culturally informed ways. Within the available framings on the political ecology of forest conservation, there is a limitation in understanding how struggles over non-human subjectification are shaped differently. Experiences of differential subjectification of

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human and non-humans can be integral in shaping political strategies towards reinforcing preservationist strategies. Margulies (2019) analyses the ways in which the tiger is represented by the state as ‘man-eaters by habit’, for maintaining territorial hegemony in the name of conservation. While there is a little factual evidence of tigers having a ‘natural’ predilection for humans as prey (Jalais 2010), such a process helps the state to reinforce their agency in prioritizing other species and species spaces over the lives and spaces of the humans and discount human casualties caused by human wildlife conflicts. A reasonably uncorroborated reality underlies the fact that wild animals can be conserved best by assigning specific inviolate administrative zones to territorialize them. There have been clear examples showing how the phenomenon of animal ‘straying’ has been a political construct, since historically, wild animals have been akin to creating and exploring newer habitats, transgressing designated wildlife boundaries (Govindrajan 2015: 34–35). Margulies (2019: 156) points out how such incidences of wildlife straying into human habitats reinforces imaginations of tigers as man-eaters by habit, instead of realizing that such incidents are ‘chance encounters’, considering need for large spaces owing to their growing numbers. The politics of forging non-humans as subjects of a disciplinary power is thus instrumented through current administrative practices, some of which Hodgetts (2017) likewise points out, operates through structuring demarcated animal spaces as inviolate and rendering differential values to species. In most cases, conservation groups and state bodies blame human action as the primary cause of decline of wildlife species. Although patterns of forest governance have been transformed, perceptions on co-habitation, mobilities and cross-species conservation are more often than not considered to be utopias, without any considerable prospect. Several studies explain contemporary conservation as perpetuated through technologies to wield regulatory powers on human subjects through distanced vigilance, an essential attribute of neoliberalism, which according to Foucault, departs from an exclusively disciplinary governmentality (Leffers and Ballamingie 2012). Such a vigilance implies an ongoing stewardship by controlling human access to the forests, reinforcing techniques of resource control and regulating social practices linked to the ecosystem. A branch of other different studies has utilized Foucauldian theories of biopower, or control over species’ lives, and governance and analysed conservation biopolitics as significant for understanding animal geographies (Philo and Wilbert 2000; Cavanagh 2014; Biermann and Mansfield 2014; Hodgetts 2017). There can be multiple ways in which biopolitics can be significant in analysing how animals are incarcerated within disciplinary and governmental power. As Hobson (2007: 251) points out, the fundamental political practices of making animals subjects can be witnessed as a part of our everyday living, through consumption and regulation of animal trade—our overall interactions with animals as ‘commodities’. A political ecology reflection on the industrial forms of livestock production can help us understand the political, social and ecological factors embedded in rearing and utilizing animals for global trade (Emel and Neo 2015). According to Biermann and Mansfield (2014), biopolitical strategies differentiate between humans and non-humans in its

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instrumentality—non-humans are controlled as entities with differential ‘values’, to make biodiversity conservation meaningful. A scientifically tempered view of biodiversity conservation aims towards augmenting the integrity and adaptability of non-humans, through advanced techniques of studying organisms and their lives and controlling trends of growth (ibid.: 269–270). Margulies (2019: 156–157) points out an urgent need for a better understanding of lived spaces of non-humans by the state, rather than incarcerating them as ‘biopolitical subjects’ into designated administrative boundaries—he draws attention to the fact that animals, like tigers, inhabit multiple spaces which are mostly at odds with an idealized ‘conservation territorialization’, a much politicized inviolate space without taking into account dynamisms in species movements and habitational patterns. Drawing on a rather direct exposition on ‘love’ for animals at the zoo, Chrulew (2011: 138–139) defines animals as biopolitical subjects, not through an essentially ‘negative operation of power’, as Foucault defines, but through an operational of intensive care for species, which might always not be successful. As shown in the paper, the zoo, in this particular case, is often misdirected towards the care of exotic species, primarily due to an enforced conservation biopolitics, which aimed towards monitoring and disciplining animals in captivity (Chrulew 2011: 142). Geographers necessitate reframing of the process of subjectification, drawing on the fact that animals, often represented as ‘less than humans’, tend to be neglected or ignored in terms of their fate as political subjects (Hobson 2007: 251). Others have used the framework of ‘necropolitics’ to analyse how the relative exaltation of the non-humans and the institutionalization of forest as inviolate translates into a process by which ‘populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead’ (Mbembe 2003: 40 in Cavanagh and Himmelfarb 2014: 2). At the heart of the conceptual framework of necropolitics lies the agency of the sovereign in deciding who has the right to live and who is liable to succumb. Necropolitcs is a characteristic of the liberal democracy, whereby resistance, subjugation and forms of authority translates into conditions of death. Much of this theorization draws on Michael Foucault’s concept of biopower, an authoritarian agency which is utilized in making subjects as well as governing lives. According to Mbembe (2003: 40), necropower, although differing considerably from biopower, is a close variant of it, resembling the techniques of sovereignty in proliferating violence and creating ‘death-worlds’ or ‘new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead’. By instilling a necropower within administrative control, the subjective representation of the non-human by the state creates a repressive ‘death world’ for the communities, so as to situate the material destruction of human lives within a narrative of ‘naturalness’ of non-human predilections. Drawing on fieldwork from Gudalur in Tamil Nadu, Margulies (2019: 155) explains how a political economy of tea estate plantations induce life-threats from animal attacks to marginals—migrants, repatriates and dalit tea plantation labourers, whom he terms ‘necropolitans’, are predisposed to violent wildlife encounters during their work on the plantations at odd hours, which corresponds to the active hunting time of the animals in the vicinity. The forest

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wildlife is represented through myriad forms of hegemonic power, to perpetuate threats to life and delegitimize forest-based livelihoods. Cavanagh and Himmelfarb (2014) applies necropolitics to understand green grabbing as a form of ‘environmentally justified land grabbing’, extracting indigenous resource users from their land and resources. The conceptual framework provides two distinct ways in which political ecology can enhance its scope to explore complex multispecies subjectification in valorizing global conservation landscapes. Firstly, although political ecology incorporates affective multispecies intimacy and a misconstrued production of human–wildlife conflicts, it still has prospects to account for animal welfare and justice as integral framings within subjectivities. Secondly, it can explain how capitalist political economies of natural resource management are reinforced by the constitution of human and non-humans as ‘conservation subjects’ alike (Margulies 2019: 159). Drawing on Sundarbans, I seek to address these lines of critique, by trying to explore how flagship wildlife species like tigers are utilized as subjects, to sustain the politics of conservation.

A ‘non-human’ political ecology of forest conservation Sundarbans as a global conservation landscape is renowned for its habitat of the Royal Bengal Tiger. However, the popular imageries and different representations of the tiger can largely be seen as embedded in power (Jalais 2010: 9). The colonial image of the tiger was a power-ridden representation, whereby the animal largely bespoke attributes of strength and valour and was popularly seen as ‘killers’, ‘kings’ etc.; in other words, the colonial image of the tiger embodied a symbolic ‘royalness’, which in many cases instigated a form of prestige in hunting and killing them and thereby earning reverence for those who won against an ‘equal’ in terms of strength (Jalais 2010: 28). As Chakrabarti (2010: 45) points out, colonial imageries represented tigers as ‘dangerous maneaters’, since alongside animal prey, tigers killed 1600 people per year by the second half of the 19th century. Colonial writings by Ralph Fitch and Francoise Bernier, who visited the region in 1580s and 1665 respectively, provided important accounts on the representation of Sundarbans’ wildlife as ferocious and notorious in terms of their power (Chakrabarti 2010: 45). During the postcolonial period, the legal provisions under which wildlife conservation was prioritized led to a veritable shift in the imagination of the tiger, from wild and dangerous species to potential ‘stewards’—they came to be seen as gatekeepers of the forest, and their conservation as an ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ prerequisite (Jalais 2010: 8) if the forests are to be prevented from resource liquidation by humans. For Chakrabarti (2010), the representation of the Sundarbans as a ‘mystic tropical forest’ and the glorification of the tiger reinforces each other, a process rooted in the colonial and postcolonial history of valorizing the forests as a wilderness. Contemporary dispossessions of the humans from the forests are a result of such imaginations, rooted in the colonial practices of appropriation. The framing of species extinction as implicitly caused by humans has also been called into question by recent studies (Biermann and Mansfield 2014: 265). The

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‘making’ of the tiger has thus been a statist discourse and according primacy to the tiger has been a subtle way of isolating humans from their relationships with the environment. The current project of tiger conservation is implicated in a global narrative of necessitating distinct species spaces for limiting conflicts, cross-species hostilities and casualties. Apart from few recent anthropological works (Jalais 2010; Chatterjee-Sarkar 2010), what has been explained less are the ways in which imageries of animals have been embedded uniquely in the local cultural-religious context of Sundarbans. As has been explained in the earlier chapters, the folklores on local deities like Bonbibi and Dakshin Ray epitomizes how forest conservation norms have been articulated and inculcated through the local belief system and how these systems inform livelihood patterns. A growing emphasis on tiger conservation sets the context to discuss nonhuman political ecologies—how an overarching focus on distinct ‘wildlife spaces’ helps envisage regulatory mechanisms as distinctively embedded in stronger capitalist processes, with little deliberation on animal well-being. The first management plan of STR was laid down by R.K. Lahiri, a state wildlife officer, from 1973–1974 and from 1978–1979. Following this initial plan, subsequent management plans emphasized use of GIS in management, creation of landbased camps for conservation works, police camps and regulation in coupe areas (Naskar, Mukherjee and Ghosh 2012). During 2012–2013, STR had set up the process of camera trapping as a part of tiger estimation exercise in the Indian Sundarbans. Two organizations covered this. WWF covered Sajnekhali, National Park East and Basirhat and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) covered National Park West. The camera trap revealed the presence of 17 tigers in Sajnekhali, 27 in National Park East, 13 in Basirhat and 22 and one cub in National Park West, during the same period.1 During this time, implementation of e-patrolling in forests and the introduction of wildlife management drone (UAV) came into practice.2 Over the years, STR has attempted minimizing incidences of theft and poaching by augmenting patrolling and required infrastructure like increase in number of patrolling motorboats and launches. Use of human-masks, electric human dummies, etc. are also believed to have contributed in controlling maneating by tigers. Measures for combating wildlife intrusion into human areas, like nylon net fencing at forest side and solar illumination at villages, were implemented to reduce the incidents of tiger straying. The youth in the villages have been trained to play an appropriate role in controlling tiger straying into human habitats. According to the last tiger census conducted by the Forest Department of West Bengal, the number of tigers in Sundarbans have increased to 96, from the count of the preceding census, which was 88, while the 24 Parganas (South) Division has 23 tigers, the number of tigers in STR is 73.3 However, conservation goals, which were largely thought to achieved through spatial demarcation and fixed administrative boundaries for tigers—extending areas of protected forests (without considering recent trends with respect to their habitational needs) and considered to be the best way in which tigers can be ‘preserved’, remained partially fulfilled. There can be multiple reasons accounting for human–wildlife interfaces, even if fixed conservation territories are designated for them—such interfaces and human killings cannot justify each

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other. In one study, as Das (2018: 1) points out, prey-predator ratio by weight can be estimated at 1:111, which means 10,000 kg of prey can sustain only 90 kg of predators. The author also mentions that animals like tiger require a disproportionately larger size than their prey—a reason which accounts for their territorial transgression and encounters with humans, specifically in Sundarbans, where tiger habitats are shrinking over the recent years. Das (2012) in a detailed analysis of tiger straying incidents, analyses factors like width of river creeks, age and physical conditions of the tigers as significant factors influencing tiger straying into human habitations, while nylon net fencing, increased patrolling and JFM committees as having no impact on reducing human–wildlife interfaces. One of the key reasons why tigers transgress onto human habitats is shrinking forests—a range of different reports point out how ongoing climate-change threats to the mangrove ecosystem would largely impact tiger population and their habitat, leading to more incidences of human–wildlife conflict (Mukul et  al. 2019). Keeping development as a process central to the political economy of forest conservation, there has been a persistence of a host of activities challenging ecological sustainability of the fragile delta. Sundarbans has been designated as a ‘Critically Vulnerable Coastal Area’ (CVCA), under the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, which was introduced in 1991. Contraventions to provisions like CRZ have been noticed on multiple cases. The recent spurt of tourism operators and resort owners, a rise in river cruising as well as on and off shore partying by urban clients account for large-scale environmental risks and is one of the major contraventions of CRZ. Large tourist vessels spill gallons of diesel into water. Piles of plastic bags and wastes clog the rivers and pose a large risk to the wildlife. River pollution has an adverse impact on fishing—it compels forest fishers to venture into prohibited core area, leading to more cases of human killings by tigers. However, Forest Department encourages tourism citing that they generate jobs for the local youth. There are other instances. During the fieldwork for this study, an unfinished four storied hotel construction at Godkhali ferry ghat led to protests by environmental activists—the hotel was being set up by the district council itself for use as an office and lodge. However, the project was scrapped, after protests from a local environmental activist led to National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2015 ordering demolition of the structure—NGT also stated that areas outside the Sundarbans forests are also CVCA since they are ecologically sensitive. The state government responded claiming that the building would be converted into a desalination plant—which again led to resistance from environmental activists, who claimed that the structure would be incapable to accommodate a desalinization unit, since it has been built for tourist purposes.4 Such unsustainable projects and consumption trends, rather than population growth, are key challenges accounting for the collapse of vital ecosystems including wildlife habitats; they can be strongly attributed as factors explaining a political ecology of animal conservation, disregarding welfare of species, alongside humans. Most of such species, which are considered by the state as immensely critical in terms of maintaining the ecosystem balance, are themselves subjected to perilous threats of extinction, owing to declining environmental standards, a phenomenon propelled by the spill-over effects of political economy.

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There is a visible lag in maintenance of ‘key infrastructure’ which are considered as best methods to eradicate human wildlife conflict. STR estimates a total 85 km nylon net fencing covering SWLS, NP (W) and Basirhat Range, which protects the forest fringe villages from tiger straying. The STR Annual Report (2013–2014) points out that there is 15 km long nylon net fencing in the National Park West, from Belegudam Khal to Pirkhali Khal, 30 km of nylon net fencing in SWLS covering Belegudam, Lalitkhali, Ranjit’s Khal, Duttar Beat, Kakmari camp to Bijaybharani and 40 km of nylon net fencing in Basirhat along Shamsernagar to Jhingekhali Beat and Jhilla office to Kakmari Camp. The height of the net fencing is mentioned to be 10 feet minimum for new nets and 8 feet minimum for old nets. However, 80% of nylon net fencing in the Sundarbans is damaged by splits and uprooting of bamboo poles—this situation has been further exacerbated by the occurrence of AMPHAN, a super cyclone which happened in May 2020 and caused large scale damage in mainland and deltaic West Bengal. Continual rotting of the nets due to contact with saline water also gets unnoticed. Reports by National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) provide evidence that more than 20 acres of mangrove plantations have been cleared by the timber mafias—nearly 300 large trees and 4000 small mangroves have been cleared by timber mafias and converted into dry fishing spots in March on the same year. Despite repeated memorandums sent to the local beat officer, no resolution has been witnessed. The larger question that remains is despite ‘best conservation efforts’ to save Sundarbans tigers, as disseminated by the state, why tigers face threats of extinction. It is this central question that has significant prospects to define tigers as ‘political subjects’ in the process of conservation. A neoliberal production of conservation transforms forests as ‘capitalist spaces’, where tigers, as emblematic of organic valour and an exotic naturalness, enable scope for better economic valuation of forests and promotion of economic activities like tourism and profit (Fletcher 2010) on the one hand and the creation of a narrative of tigers as human averse, on the other. In other words, neoliberal conservation brings people and animals into newer political economies, by subjecting them into a range of contemporary injustice patterns (Celermajer 2020). This process necessitates commodification of formation of non-human spaces as discrete by the production of ‘animality’, linking their territories to contexts of power (Hobson 2007). Moralizing perspectives on wildlife conservation and the ideological basis of imagining predators are thus political processes, ultimately linked to production of territorial hegemony and processes enabling capitalintensive regimes. The unique ways in which tigers are constructed and produced as political subjects in conservation correspond to institutional contexts of power and their role in entrenching landscapes with animal identities and nature, zonal demarcations and administrative spaces. State intervention transforms global species like tigers into ‘objects of political control’ towards their own agendas of reinforcing corporeal power (Deb Roy 2020). Subsequently, the representation of tigers as political subjects calls into question the justice as a subject of inquiry with animal political ecology. The moral ethics of forest conservation and wildlife protection laws safeguarding heightened security and status of animals are contradicted by the growing challenges imposed by political economy and little countrywide focus on ecological resilience. While

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aestheticizing non-humans through classification of spaces and protecting nonhuman lives through legislations, their real lives and material ethical claims to agency largely remain embedded in biopolitics, sovereignty, territoriality, urban landscapes, consumption and conservation (Deb Roy 2015: 72). Political ecology as a framework can enhance understandings on a range of conservation process, since animals owe justice as opposed to mere moral concerns about them as valued entities (Garner 2013). What remains the larger goals of this framework is to elucidate animal interests as integrally represented within ideals of environmental justice and a better appreciation of human and non-human subjections while politicizing environmentalism.

Notes 1 For details see S.K. Das, P.K. Sarkar, R. Saha, P. Vyas, A.A. Danda and J. Vattakavan. 2013. Status of tigers in Sundarban biosphere reserve: 24 Parganas (south) forest division, West Bengal India. New Delhi: WWF India. 2 UAV refers to Unmaned Aerial Vehicle which can get nearer to animals than human beings. These include the wildlife monitoring drones which can fly either autonomously or through remote controls to capture videos of wildlife activities. 3 Refer to https://thelogicalindian.com/environment/tigers-sundarbans-96-21005? infinitescroll=1 4 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/ngt-fines-state-for-sunderbansplant-delay/articleshow/67859245.cms

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Non-human subject making 173 Chhotray, V. 2016. Justice at sea: fisher’s politics and marine conservation in coastal Odisha, India. Maritime Studies, 15 (4), 1–23. Chrulew, M. 2011. Managing love and death at the zoo: the biopolitics of endangered species preservation. Australian Humanities Review, 50, 137–157 Cormier, L. 2013. Kinship with monkeys: the Guaja foragers of eastern Amazonia. New York: Columbia University Press. Das, C.S. 2012. Tiger straying incidents in Indian Sundarban: statistical analysis of case studies as well as depredation caused by conflict. European Journal of Wildlife Research,  58 (1), 205–214. Das, C.S. 2018. Pattern and characterization of human casualties in Sundarban in tiger attacks. Sustainable Forestry, 1 (2), 1–10. Deb Roy, R. 2015. Nonhuman empires.  Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 35 (1), 66–75. Deb Roy, R. 2020. White ants, empire and entomo-politics in South Asia. The Historical Journal, 63 (2), 411–436. Emel, J. and Neo, H. (eds.). 2015. Political ecologies of meat. London: Taylor and Francis. Fletcher, R. 2010. Neoliberal environmentality: towards a poststructuralist political ecology of the conservation debate. Conservation and Society, 8 (3), 171–181. Fletcher, R. 2017. Environmentality unbound: multiple governmentalities in environmental politics. Geoforum, 85, 311–315. Garner, Robert. 2013. A Theory of Justice for Animals. Animal Rights in a Nonideal World. New York: Oxford University Press. Gesing, F. 2019. Towards a more than human political ecology of coastal protection: coast care practices in Aotearoa New Zeeland. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2514848619860751 Govindrajan, R. 2015. “The goat that died for family”: animal sacrifice and interspecies kinship in India’s central Himalayas. American Ethnologist, 42 (3), 504–519. Greenough, P. 2001. Naturae ferae: wild animals in south Asia and the standard environmental narrative. In J. Scott and N. Bhatt (eds.), Agrarian studies: synthetic work at the cutting edge (pp. 141–185). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Hobson, K. 2007. Political animals? On animals as subjects in an enlarged political geography. Political Geography, 26 (3), 25–267. Hodgetts, T. 2017. Wildlife conservation, multiple biopolitics and animal subjectification: three mammals’ tales. Geoforum, 79, 17–25. Jalais, A. 2008. Unmasking the Cosmopolitan Tiger, Nature and Culture, 3 (1), 25–40. Jalais, A. 2010. Forest of tigers: people, politics and environment in the Sundarbans. New Delhi and Abingdon: Routledge. Kirksey, S.E. and Helmreich, S. 2010. The emergence of multispecies ethnography. Cultural Anthropology, 25 (4), 545–576. Leffers, D. and Ballamingie, P. 2012. Governmentality, environmental subjectivity and urban intensification. Local Environment, 18 (2), 1–18. Margulies, J.D. 2019. Making the ‘man-eater’: tiger conservation as necropolitics. Political Geography, 69, 150161. Massé, F. 2016. The political ecology of human-wildlife conflict: producing wilderness, insecurity, and displacement in the Limpopo National Park. Conservation and Society, 14 (2), 100–111. Mbembe, A. 2003. Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15 (1), 11–40. Menon, A. and Karthik, M. 2017. Beyond human-exceptionalism: political ecology and the non-human world. Geoforum, 79, 90–92.

174  Non-human subject making Menon, A. and Rai, N. 2019. The mismeasure of nature: the political ecology of economic valuation of Tiger Reserves in India. Journal of Political Ecology, 26 (1), 652–665. Mukul, S.A., Alamgir, M., Sohel, M.S.I., Pert, P.L., Herbohn, J., Turton, S.M., Khan, M.S.I., Munim, S.A., Reza, A.H.M.A. and Laurance, W.F. 2019. Combined effects of climate change and sea-level rise project dramatic habitat loss of the globally endangered Bengal tiger in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. Science of the Total Environment, 663, 830–840. Naskar, K.Y., Mukherjee, S. and Ghosh, A. 2012. Sundarbans tiger reserve in West Bengal: the facts and figures. In S.K. Mukherjee and G.G. Maity (eds.), Proceedings of the international seminar on multidisciplinary approaches in angiosperm systematics, Nadia, West Bengal. (pp. 541–553). Nightingale, A.J. 2018. The socioenvironmental state: political authority, subjects, and transformative socionatural change in an uncertain world. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1 (4), 688–711. Notzke, C. 2013. An exploration into political ecology and non-human agency: the case of the wild horse in Western Canada. The Canadian Geographer, 57 (4), 389–412. Panelli, R. 2010. More than human social geographies: posthuman and other possibilities. Progress in Human Geography, 34 (1), 79–87. Philo, C. and Wilbert, C. (eds.). 2000. Animals spaces, beastly places. London: Routledge. Pooley, S., Bhatia, S. and Vasava, A. 2020. Rethinking the study of human-wildlife coexistence. Conservation Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13653 Purcell, M. and Brown, J.C. 2005. Against the local trap: scale and the study of environment and development. Progress in Development Studies, 5 (4), 279–297. Schlosberg, D. 2014. Ecological justice for the Anthropocene. In M. Wissenburg and D. Schlosberg (eds.), Political animals and animal politics. The Palgrave Macmillan animal ethics series (pp. 75–89). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sen, A. and Pattanaik, S. 2019. A paradox of the ‘community’: contemporary processes of participatory forest conservation in the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR) region of West Bengal. Environmental Sociology, 5 (1), 33–46. Srinivasan, K. 2014. Caring for the collective: Biopower and agential subjectification in wildlife conservation. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32 (3), 501–517. Srinivasan,  K. and Kasturirangan, R. 2016. Political ecology, development, and human exceptionalism. Geoforum, 75, 125–128. Staddon, C. 2009. Towards a critical political ecology of human-forest interactions: collecting herbs and mushrooms in a Bulgarian locality. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 34 (2), 161–176. Van Dooren, T., Kirksey, E. and Münster, U. 2016. Multispecies studies: cultivating arts of attentiveness. Environmental Humanities, 8 (1), 1–23.

7 Conclusions

Using a political ecology framing, this book is an attempt to rethink about the ways in which humans and nature associate to each other and situate acts of positioning themselves in geopolitical conservation landscapes. The book reflects on a sociality influenced by new environmental conservation agendas and their transformational roles in bringing local actors closer to forest governmentalities. Newer forms of environmental governance, which Agrawal (2005) terms ‘intimate governance’ and aligned political systems established in conjunction with the normative structure of conservation redefines lived relationships in these conservation landscapes. It leads us to envision how new identities and concerns for environment are shaped within a community and how a range of intervening actors play critical roles in dispersing ways of control (Fletcher 2010). The book explores new political economies and newer contexts of power associated with recent sub-national and national arrangements in augmenting capacities of existing conservation institutions. It argues that while decentralization has been the recent practice in new environmental regulations, local rights are still disproportionately recognized. As observed, recognition of forest rights and collaboration with administrative units, which these decentralized policies are aimed at, does not involve participation of local communities in decision-making, but only in labour (Lele 2014). Decentralization devolved responsibilities but failed to recognize rights (Chhotray 2016: 6). Institutional transitions in forest management redefine identities and ways in which environmental subjects1 organize their lives and interests around the policy reforms. In most cases, as Lele (2014: 53) observes, decentralized forest policies are means to ‘co-opt the village elite and generating more resources from donor agencies’. New institutional reforms in managing forests remain impaired, as even the most committed civil society organizations fail to address socioeconomic inequalities that shape how marginalized groups engage in resource politics (Kashwan and Lobo 2014: 352). The two villages, primarily inhabited by lower caste people, lead to a rethinking in determining structural hierarchies—land locations and choice of occupation influence perceptions on social standing and status. People who stay in better interiors depend more on land-based activities and do not engage directly with forest work. For them, forests at their best need to be ‘returned DOI: 10.4324/9781003007852-7

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to the tigers’ (Jalais 2004: 18). As ‘environmental subjects’, their perceptions on conservation are aligned with practices of enforcement and regulation. Contemporary social relations in the forest fringe villages help in framing shifting meanings of environmentalism, rendering important perceptions on the ways in which power relations inhere forest-based lifeworlds. Being located at the corridors of the forest and being inhabitants of a difficult and a hostile landscape, coupled with resistance from the state towards subsistence-based livelihoods, communities are subjected to an inexorable web of poverty, marginalization and vulnerability. The traditional rights of the forest workers are highly constrained due to the fencing approach of conservation. However, the book argued that shared experiences of exclusion and material realities of poverty do not linearly transform people into organic communities with identical ideological framings and ethical claims. People tend to outwit each other to meet ends. Individuals having political and economic clout swank their socioeconomic status as being superior to the forest workers. Worshipping supernatural forces associated with the forests is more impinged on the need of the forest workers to negotiate existence than to conserve, rather protect their life and livelihood from the risks associated with the forest. While the forest workers who have marginal or no land are exposed to the risks associated with the forests in earning livelihood, communities like the agriculturalist, the aratdaars and the school teacher stay away from the forests. As a dominant community, they also have a significant stake within electoral politics. The settlements away from the forests tend to have a pejorative stance towards the forest fringe villages. All these observations lend scope for analysing how environmental thinking is contested across a space which is usually referred to as a corridor to the forest. Although extended kinship networks (gotra) might bind a forest worker and a wealthy agriculturalist, they are internally disunited by their unequal share of assets. Village elites subscribe to an environmentalist ideology of conservation, replicating implicitly on the material privileges that they possess over the forest workers in terms of their assets. They also make evident the political connections and their established contacts with the city. All these reflect on their eager prospect of accommodation within the ‘environmentally engaged’ middle class, ‘representing cultural shifts in what constitutes a ‘good life’ or a ‘desirable change’ (Mawdsley 2004: 86, 90). It is imperative to reflect that the local governance functionaries and rural elites like the panchayat members, school teachers, aratdaars, political leaders, shop owners etc. never enter forests for livelihood, despite many of them having a strong ancestral lineage of forest-based occupations. However, for the forest worker, forests remain consecrated and revered. In order to obtain livelihood needs, they should be pure in their spirit and detest any form of abuse or violence against each other in the realm of the forest. But beliefs about nature do not address ecological degradation due to the unaffordability of such concerns in the context of impoverished livelihoods (ibid.). Although Bonbibi preaches virtues of sustainable usage and equitable distribution, practical experiences of poverty often do not afford conforming to these

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virtues. To earn a living, the forest workers time and again enter the core areas of the forest, which are legally closed off to them. This is despite their natural trepidation of the resource crisis that they are likely to face in the future. Constant struggle for livelihood indulges them to use the forest resources in unsustainable means. Almost all the forest workers admitted that numbers of forest fishers are increasing over the years, leading to scarcity of resources. Most of them do not have licences. The forests of Sundarbans are distinguished repositories of the Royal Bengal Tiger, a predator who is known for its valour in man-eating trait. Newer regulations on forest management cut off large areas from livelihood spaces of the forest workers, for which they often fall back unsustainably on the resources from the closed areas. The rationale for closing off majority of the forest has however no scientific reason. There is no stock estimation available between the departments, which can ascertain extent of forest depletion. In course of patrolling, the offender boats which have entered ‘illegally’ into core areas are confiscated of their catch, fishing equipment and even boats and drinking water. Certain livelihood practices like prawn seed collection and the associated network which sustains harvesting and marketing of prawns embody an area of coalesced political interests. This is often marked by political rivalries and violence, where the ideas of ‘sustainable traditional methods’ of livelihood goes challenged. Prawn seed collection and harvesting endangers the mangrove ecology of the region in several ways. Yet it is practised by a section of the forest workers as well as the elites in the village who are seemingly opposed to the livelihoods based on forests. The prawn seed collectors constitute those impoverished class of forest workers whose meagre income earn them a day’s food. Poverty restraints their morale of employing sustainable methods to catch prawn seeds. The results lie at the detriment of the ecology that they inhabit. However, for the rest of the network marked by economically wealthier aratdaars, fishery owners and the like, culturing and trade of prawn provides important contexts of political and economic returns. The state, contrary to its major idealizations against prawn farming, is omnipresent within the political-economic process itself. In most cases, it is instrumental in ‘sponsoring’ local prawn farms. The role of the political parties is implicit in the proliferating prawn farming, often compromising on the reasonably fragile infrastructures of protection in the village like the embankments. In explaining the ethnography of the state, Gupta (1995: 376) takes into account a large number of actors which constitutes the ‘image of the state’ within the rural contexts. He emphasizes that these actors: ‘the village level workers, land record keepers, elementary school teachers and other rural development functionaries’ who form the bureaucratic pyramid render the image of the state as a unitary entity problematic. The refusal of the Government of West Bengal to acknowledge scope of implementing FRA in the region and the deliberation, with which the local political parties act to subvert the implementation process in consonance with the state, represents the interests of the state as they entrench themselves at the locale. The implementation of FRA, as writes Karthik and Menon (2016: 44),2

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is a form of governmentality whereby the state forms ‘environmental subjects’ in the process of governing the forests. The JFM committee leaders and the fishery owners are as much opposed to FRA as the Forest Department itself. Much of the bureaucratic opposition towards the implementation of FRA in Sundarbans is also framed on the claims of indigeneity and authenticity, since the inhabitants are migrants and are not treated as ‘authentic locals’. Within the attempts of participatory management of forests, the ‘local’ ends up being incarcerated within the contradictions of ‘harmony’. Collaborative management of forests was initiated following ‘the relative failure of externally introduced development initiatives [that] impelled a shift towards participatory and decentralized motif in development’ (Agrawal 1995: 415). However, in the process of JFM in Sundarbans, the word ‘participatory’ remains derisory, since politically powerful elites in the village and those having contacts with the Forest Department become the members of the executive committee. JFM hardly delegates to the level of ‘participation’ from the marginal forest-dependent communities. The political action of the state in creating local surveillance and avenues of power creates corruption and mistrust. It also erodes age old ideals of reciprocity within the villagers. The continued denial of customary living, livelihood rights and local norms of sustainable extraction have rendered an impasse within the communities to seek ‘identities’, to seek ‘compromises’, even if by aligning with contrasting power relations. Moving out of the ‘supposed homogeneity’ which explains many of the state-community conflicts centring the forests, the observations from the study has attempted to explain conservation politics from a different perspective. It represents conflict between different values, which are equally enduring as well as competitive. The study indicates that for a host of communities in Sundarbans who inhabit corridors of the forest, for whom the opportunities of livelihood generation are limited as well as endangered, the incentives of forest management are little. This is exemplified by the survival strategies of the locals like prawn farming, where they pose a threat to the ecology to earn a livelihood. Here I draw on Greenough’s (2001: 141) critique of the ‘standard environmental narrative of South Asia’: ‘a transition in rural India over the past 120 years from a condition of environmental harmony, distributive justice and material abundance to one of ecological disruption, massive social inequity and widespread misery’. Scott (2001: 5) refers to Greenough’s position as ‘unhorsing the standard postcolonial narrative of environmental history; the narrative of a peasantry whose practices were harmonious with sustainable resource use, until disturbed by colonialism and market forces’. The book also provides an exploration on the ways in which institutionalization of conservation landscapes sets a context to rethink about rights as legitimate or unauthentic. In this context, it is imperative to explore how Beteille (1998) engaged with the need of capturing variations in the definition of ‘indigenous’. The term ‘indigenous’, according to Beteille (1998: 188), has some associations with ‘settlement’. This settlement is necessarily ‘small, dispersed, isolated and homogenous, having very limited contacts with

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the outside world’. Having said this, he subsequently turns towards the need for understanding differences between ‘settled’ and ‘indigenous’ communities. According to him, settlers can be migrants from different territories. ‘Indigenous’ is the signifier of a homogenous identity, having roots to a particular settlement since the past; people of subsequent generations coming and settling in other dispersed locations cannot be termed as indigenous (Beteille 1998: 190). In political ecology, indigenous people are considered to be those akin to the natural environments around them through their harmonious living with nature. They are said to possess a unique knowledge of resource management acquired through protracted associations with nature. This knowledge sustains the resources on which they depend for subsistence. The term ‘indigenous’ brings into its fold, a category of people sustained by deep connections to surrounding ecology and moral commitment to nature. However, such identities on nativized proximities to nature stands at odds to multiple other forms of ecological associations that are non-native yet meaningful towards ecological restoration (Sen and Nagendra 2019). According to Chhotray (2016: 5), environmental imagery was an important means of developing a national consciousness against the British, where ‘self-contained communities’ were believed to be endowed with a ‘special conservationist ethic’. There have been by far major efforts to integrate Adivasis into the category of ‘indigenous’ (Baviskar 1997). Roy Barman’s (1992) definition on ‘indigenous wisdom’ as an essential attribute of the forest dwellers pertains to a similar engagement with indigeneity. ‘Indigenous ecological knowledge’ thus referred to the unique roots of forest management in traditional practices over years at a particular physical context. Greenough (2001: 142) similarly traced the intimate dependence of the indigenous communities with the gifts of nature, in their material efforts to avoid market intrusion and technical innovations. According to Chhotray (2016: 6), indigenous knowledge has been subjected to an ‘overemphasising cultural purity and continuity and in the process marginalizing other poorer groups who may not be able to claim indigeneity defined in such ways’. Also, the preoccupation with the universality of indigenous knowledge as cultural properties of all forest-dependent communities whose livelihoods are embedded in their adjoining environments reveals inconsistencies. Recent scholarship has focused on uncertainties associated with the ‘cultural authenticity’ in defining indigenous. In many cases indigeneity is ‘articulated’ and ‘claimed’ by communities through political strategies (ibid., 5). Irrespective of a ‘natural’ indigeneity, different communities contest the state power by the invocation of indigeneity, ‘to roll back state’s territorial, social and political control’ (Li 2000: 156). As pointed out by Gupta (1998: 18): The effectiveness of indigenous identity depends on its recognition by hegemonic discourses of imperialist nostalgia, where poor and marginal people were romanticised at the same time that their life is destroyed.

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According to Agrawal (1995: 422) ‘in the face of evidence that suggests contact, variation, transformation, exchange, communication and learning over the last several centuries, it is difficult to adhere to a view of indigenous and western forms of knowledge being untouched by each other’. He also suggests that the category of indigenous might get transformed historically under external pressures and infiltrate into other physical and cultural contexts, leaving behind their essentialist traits. The quintessential marrying of the term ‘indigenous’ to that of ecological associations, irrespective of other external factors, is thus debilitating. The population in the villages that I have studied are migrants from places like Bangladesh, Chotanagpur, Odisha, Bihar and Medinipore. They were effectively rural with varied dependence on land, water and forests, when they inhabited their native lands before arriving to Sundarbans. Even if we assume that the general economic condition of the population in these villages worsened with migration due to rapid fragmentation of land-holding and growing reliance on the forest, the present scenario reveal structurally inequitable distribution of assets. The forest workers who were descendants of fisher families in Bangladesh have marginal or no land compared to others in the village. They largely belong to the fisher castes. They inherited techniques of fishing from their forefathers who practised the same profession in Bangladesh. However for the ‘converted forest fishers’ and the ‘flexible forest fishers’, techniques of fishing are mostly ‘locality-specific’3 and not inherited. These techniques are learnt from the growing associations with the forest after they migrated to the region. Within the category of forest workers, there are also marked inequity in assets. The ‘flexible forest fishers’ own land and cultivate them, in addition to fishing or collecting honey. The inhabitants of the villages are thus, in the first instance, ‘settlers’ and not ‘indigenous’, since they constitute a relatively young influx into the region from their natal villages. Most of them adapted to the forest-related occupations. Much of their techniques of working in the forests are learnt through their growing encounters and not inherited generationally. The continuous migrations made the communities dispersed, broken and attached to the factions of the other communities (Beteille 1998: 189). For instance, the tribals, who form a numerical minority in the villages, are now dismantled of their native livelihood patterns. They have become assimilated to the regional occupation, challenging the popular essentialist trait associated with the definition of indigeneity in tribals.4 The worship of Bonbibi is more to seek protection than to achieve spiritual elevation (Chacraverti 2014: 74). When the forest workers fall back upon the fishing reserves of the core area, they are aware of the consequent ecological detriment that is impinged by them on the resources that would sustain them in the future. Since knowledge about practices and methods are more relevant than spiritual revelations, the forest workers although aware of the detriment, do not act to address ecological degradation. On the contrary, they try to master the skills of controlling the risks associated with the forest to acquire nature’s

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assistance and do away with their expeditions. The worship of Bonbibi, the theatre performances of Dukhe-Jatra and the little shrines dedicated to Bonbibi inside the forests point towards the realm of the forest as sacred. Here, if one is to protect himself/herself from the tiger, he/she should utter the name of Bonbibi before entering the forest. The names of pirs and fakirs are also spoken simultaneously to invoke confidence and enter into the forests without potential risks and gain confidence during the expeditions. However, more of such concerns are directed towards protection of livelihoods, not conservation. This is not to say that they do not conform to the sacredness of the forest; the conditions of worshipping the forest deities however ‘does not always translate into a set of sustainable resource use practice’ (Baviskar 1995: 232). It is necessarily the impact of growing marginalization and poverty, without any prospect of economic activities in the region. Addressing depletion is rarely learnt through the narratives of the local people, although equitable distribution and reasons for depletion are well cited. Turning to most of the exemplary instances of indigenous communities residing in and around the forests and the ways of conservation that they employ, it can be said that in Sundarbans, ‘in the context of depleted natural resources, reverence is not enough’ (ibid., 232). In a more or less similar vein, Agrawal and Gibson (1999: 640) also point out that exclusive focus on the shared norms of the community is incomplete, since norms cannot always contest overexploitation of resources. In the persistent efforts of the state to conserve the globally renowned forests and wilderness of Sundarbans, human habitats find little space to accommodate their livelihoods sustainably. While people continue to stake their lives regularly for the pursuit of survival, sustainability is of limited importance. The case of the forest workers does not conform to the category of indigenous, also because of their structural compositions, heterogeneity, history of assimilation and the techniques of livelihood, which although traditional and simple, are acquired through practice and needs, rather than hereditarily ascribed. Similarly, the ethnography of practices like prawn farming, JFM and embankment construction reveal the realities of corruption and feud within the communities which infringe on the virtues of the indigenous. The inhabitants who have migrated to the three villages have no hereditary associations with the land, evident from the fact that most of them aspire to shift their settlements to the upper islands or to the cities. The joint action of the state and the local elite residents in conserving the forests also reveal instances of power play. The influential elites and decision makers from the village work to the detriment of the forest working people. The discourses on indigeneity have often obscured such complexities inherent within the social and political setting of the village life. Many of the popular as well as dominant ideologies which have historically formed the theoretical bedrock of the definition of ‘community’, needs further perusal in view of the emerging contours of empirical knowledge. This also lends opportunities for substantive reworking and analysis. Community

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as an identity has for long defined perspectives associated with people living together harmoniously in small physical spaces. Upadhya (2002) points out the ways in which community has been associated with ‘traditional’ modes of social organization, impervious to the individualism of modern western society which is based on material culture. She draws on Dumont to reflect on the images of community portrayed as a distinct institutional set-up with autonomous and sovereign cultural systems like that of the Jajmani, necessarily opposed to the influences of western market economy (ibid., 34). One of the enduring backgrounds to the understanding of community has been provided by the anthropological studies in the Indian context. These studies for a long time strengthened the central thematic of social systems like caste and the cultural organization associated to it.5 Presently however, much of a growing body of contemporary empirical literature contemplates towards a political and neoliberal formulation of the community. This formulation deviates considerably from the usual preoccupations with primordiality, social status and nonmaterial culture, associated with the amorous construction of indigeneity (Li 1996; Agrawal 1997; Chatterjee 1998; Mukhopadhyay 2016). These studies unanimously argue that communities as loaded with particular cultural ideologies and distinctive ways of living are a part of the convenient production sponsored by the western communitarian thoughts on Indian society (Upadhya 2002). Their scope of applicability is thus strictly limited within contemporary empirical knowledge, without any recourse towards exploring the eloquent political processes which shapes the domains of living. As pointed out by Li (1996: 505), ‘shared resources and livelihood guarantees are characteristics of small groups such as small tribes, neighbourhoods or extended families, but seldom of whole village communities which tend to be rather heterogeneous, factional and stratified’. In this connection, I found Agrawal’s (1997) and Chatterjee’s (1998) position compelling. According to Agrawal (1997), imagining communities as opposed to the state and the market in the context of conservation is simultaneously an attempt to insulate them from the influences of power and exchange. Such assumptions cannot contribute to any usable notions of conservation. He states that the ‘the local and the community often become entrenched in active dialogue with the external’ (ibid.). Treading away from the essentialist definition of the community in the writings of sociologists like Henry Maine, Ferdinand Tonnies and Emile Durkheim, Agrawal (1997) points out that the engagement of the communities in the discourses of conservation were previously based on the belief that the goals of conservation and the interests of the local communities were opposed to each other. He lists the ‘components of coercive conservation’ as initiated by centralized power with little to no local participation, inappropriate design, inefficient implementation, poor follow up, high levels of corruption, local resistance and/or indifference, lack of livelihood alternatives and belief in pristine environments (ibid., 11). However, empirical observations from the present study indicate that the components of coercive

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conservation do not act to the detriment of the community uniformly. It was realized that conservation and environmental governance are political rather than an administrative issue. This is where we need to look into communities and the conditions of its contemporary formation more closely. Chatterjee (2004: 75) defines community as ‘classes of actual population that comes to act together politically’. He says (ibid.), ‘to effectively make its claim in political society, a population group produced by governmentality must be invested with the moral content of community’. He points towards the debate between the communitarian and the liberal individualistic ideology which reflects on the paradox of social attachments and individual preferences. Communities are historically conceived to be ‘primordial’ and ‘spiritual’, in contrast to individualism, which has its base in western materialism. However, specific instances from the present study make a reified notion of ‘community’ available. This version of the community does not attempt to disjoin itself from the institutions of the modern state. Rather, it negotiates with the governance mechanism to ‘break down the supposedly retrograde and parochial institutions of traditional community life’ (Chatterjee 1998: 279). As the study observes, particular economic activities in the villages which are sustained by the resources from the forest are implicitly related to the market economy and are the reasons of local conflict. Prawn and crab farming, for instance, leads to reasonable crop failure for the adjacent lands, destroys agricultural fields and farm vegetables and leads to embankment collapse and inflow of brackish water. However, in order to facilitate such occupations, the farm owners negotiate with the political parties ‘to make their causes amenable to governmental policy’ (ibid., 280). Communities as a form of immutable social organization do not apply in such cases. It is more of the kinds of purposeful associations of people which appeal to the political institutions for claiming individual ends. The inhabitants come together as a ‘community’, driven by their shared experiences of marginalization and habitation at the ‘tiger’s lair’, as Jalais (2004: 16) calls it. Although networks of extended kinships structurally constitute the villages, shared social bonds between the networks are virtually absent due to the inequity in land and assets and differential locations within the villages. At other levels, instances from several incidences reveal the marked disputes and political rivalries within the people who inhabit the same physical location. In the policies like JFM, the people who usually exchange reciprocities with the Forest Department like forest guides, guards, eco-cottage owners, etc. are seen in the authoritative positions of the executive committee. The aim of the argument lies in the fact that the islanders inhabiting the forest fringe areas of Sundarbans are represented as a community concerted in their efforts to adapt and survive the endangered ecology. In the words of Robbins (2012: 217), ‘conservation and governance of nature draw together otherwise disparate communities and interests into collective action and so into collective awareness’. It is symbolic of the ways in which a ‘collective’ of population, which

184  Conclusions

came from different places to settle in the villages without any prior network of attachments, constitutes a ‘community’ to make their experiences heard.6 These collectives cannot be defined as organic, but as a group representing themselves as one, ‘to provide a united front, provoke sympathy, claim collective property and muster their identity against the forces arrayed against them’ (Li 1996 in Robbins 2012: 225). The book demonstrates how survival crisis is manifested not only in terms of restrictions and regulatory practices by the state level but also through corruption mediated by institutionalizing forest governance within the neoliberal framework. The people are structurally organized into three categories, the agriculturalists, the working class and the forest workers. Although the three categories are not mutually exclusive, they are internally hierarchical and dissipate physically through different geographical locations in the villages. While agriculturalists are usually residing in the better interiors of the island, are in possession of land and are less involved in forest work, they are also essentially antagonistic to the people who are involved in forest work. The GP, which is a unit of local self-governance in the villages, is reaped with corruption and political favouritism. The economic incentives earned by the panchayat functionaries and local political parties through the government allowances draw them constantly into the bureaucratic network, where ‘indigenous virtues’ are sidelined. This has resulted in the growing rifts between the marginal forest workers and the politically empowered village elite. The privileged elites in the village no longer depend upon the forests for livelihood, even if their predecessors once reclaimed the forests to make the place habitable and mainly subsisted on forest resources. While the inhabitants in Sundarbans express themselves as a homogenous category, confronted equally with ‘exclusion’ and lack of recognition in a vulnerable island, one needs to observe the ways in which the same collective express divergent claims to negotiate with the state policies. This reminds us of Scott (2001: 2), according to whom, ‘the folk never speak with a single voice, except when states and social movements attempt to ventriloquize on their behalf and seldom do they speak in unambiguous terms’. In the study, the essentialist and primordial images of community evoked in the context of environmentalism have been challenged through a kind of ‘culturally available points of leverage in ongoing processes of negotiation’ (Li 1996: 509). In a context of unequal power, people strive to make negotiations by aligning with the governance mechanism. Apart from the marginal people whose livelihood depends on forests directly, others who have relationships with forest in several ways perceive conservation and developmental activities as a scope for generating economic incentives. Communities cease to exist in harmony; however, reasonable glorification on traditional ways of living are rendered essential for negotiations and political actions. The book has tried to reflect on the functioning of the process of decentralization through the forest management policies like JFM and laws like FRA. In implementing FRA in India, it was the popular mobilizations for

Conclusions 185

the recognition of forest rights which pushed administrative bodies towards an institutional reform within a network of otherwise exclusionary forest governance. FRA is one of the most pervasive forest laws which laid down the rules for recognizing forest rights. The law mandated the authority of the gram sabha in recognizing individual and community rights towards the forest and its resources, with no bureaucratic intervention. Among others, the law was also instrumental in articulating that no forest area should be declared as ‘reserved’ or ‘protected’ without active consultation with the communities who reside therein. In extreme cases if resettlement is indispensable, the communities should be relocated or compensated at the first instance, before the declaration of the area as ‘reserved’ and restricting bona fide livelihood rights. However. the implementation of FRA in Sundarban was seen to be a complex issue. The observations indicate how the locale is contested by different actors, who obstruct the implementation process. The state does not consider the inhabitants of Sundarbans as an ‘authentic’ claimant towards forest rights. The findings also seek to explain how the bureaucracy is often formed in conjunction with the local to reinforce its stance of non-implementation, a process termed by Karthik and Menon (2016: 44) as the ‘veiled exercise of state’s power’. Although JFM decentralized natural resource management, it kept the process participatory by involving the forest-dependent communities along with the functionaries of the Forest Department. As the specific case from the study suggests, efforts of decentralizing forest governance have failed to achieve its intended goal of downward accountability, democratic participation, equity and devolution of the power of the state. The central and state government has failed to cede its powers to the intended beneficiaries of the policies, the result of which has been manifested in quasi-representative institutions which are inherently ridden by power play, local politics and contestations with the communities themselves. The conditions under which devolution fail to happen are however multifaceted. It needs to be explained through factors that influence downward accountability. In case of making downward accountability a function of decentralization, it is necessary to ensure that the factions of the state which are responsible for distributing powers of management and authority exercise their powers even-handedly. Also, while designing a decentralization policy, the provisions need to ensure a uniform fit for its intended beneficiaries. Implementation of FRA in Sundarbans questions ‘whether policy choices being made even constitute decentralization’ (ibid., 474). Certain provisions which underlie FRA have made the Act a legal imposition. Many of its provisions are not suited to specific regional contexts like that of Sundarban, considering the local administrative system. The law primarily assumes that its framework fits all contexts where forest rights have been denied. The tenets of decentralization are therefore context specific in their application and cease to be uniform across the variable circumstances. The observations also show that the analysis of decentralization remains incomplete without understanding the ethnography of the regional political complexities. In Sundarban, electoral

186  Conclusions

politics has a pervasive sway in making the Act dysfunctional. Without taking into account the regional and spatial context where the Act aims to get implemented, we cannot have a comprehensive understanding of the specific rights that the law aims to address. In Sundarbans, the bureaucratic governance is integrally linked to the electoral politics over the implementation of the Act since the local political leaders are not keen to antagonize the existing forest bureaucracy. Also, given the wide diversity of communities, a minuscule of which is dependent on the forests for livelihood, people who have fixed incomes like government pension, school teaching jobs and land near the cities have no interest in implementing FRA. The specificities of the structural organization of the villages, the local administrative units in the form of the gram sansads, the heterogeneity in the occupational organization and the ambiguity in the principle of collective management are unique in the context of Sundarbans for which there are no definitional provisions in the Act. JFM provides another example of the ways in which decentralization fails in its intended goals. The overall picture of implementation of the policy in Sundarbans reflects widespread feuds and conflicts between the committee leaders in terms of demeaning the achievements of each other, over the issue of development and infrastructure in the village. The constitution of the executive committees depends on negotiations between the Forest Department and the political parties. It is important to see that caste does not play an overarching role in the constitution of the committees as much as political and economic power does. Each executive committee tries to suggest that the one they succeeded failed to achieve any development in the village through the proposed monetary assistance schemes of the Forest Department. Instead, money has been usurped to feed individual interests and corruption has resulted in little distribution of usufruct benefits, since the condition of the village and the forests remain as it was before. What the Forest Department has achieved in all this is a local surveillance system thrusted upon the forest workers in their access to the forest and its resources. The Forest Department incentivizes the functionaries of the political party through the executive committee members and maintains cordial relations with them. This system of close surveillance has cut short the role of the department in absolute monitoring, since most of the job of ‘systematizing’7 is now accomplished through its established political patrons in the village. This is referred to as ‘state-formation in community spaces’ by Agrawal (1999: 19) through the incentives granted by the state policies in governing the resources. Gupta (1995: 375) refers to the process as a dialogue with the ‘imagined state’, which documents the everyday practices of the local bureaucracies in rural lifeworlds and their influence in the public culture. In such instances of statemaking as in the context of Sundarbans, the objective of participation does not necessarily yield representation from the marginalized households who are actually dependent on the forests. On the contrary, their providence in the benefits from JFM like housing, agricultural instruments, livestock and irrigation

Conclusions 187

equipment is at the disposal of the economically and politically powerful members of the committee, who despite their dissociations from forest-based livelihoods, enjoy the discretion to ‘select’ beneficiaries through vested interests. The executive committee of the JFMCs is hierarchical, whereby only one or two heads of the committee take decisions. The women and tribal representatives embody a mere face value of the committee to appease the policy makers and international donor agencies. Instances from JFM also reveal how ‘technologies of governance’ transform the communities into ‘environmental subjects’ and influences the assertion of identity (Agrawal 2005). JFM has not only revealed negligible impacts in improving living conditions, but on the contrary have eroded age-old practices of traditional management. JFM has also failed in terms of building a general awareness about global environmental problems which confront the region. It has only confined itself to the regional specific interests of imposing ban on fishing and fuel-wood collection. For example, people have little awareness about rising effects of greenhouse gases. Finally, I  explore the practical experiences of the internally inequitable relationship between the communities who share a vulnerable physical space bordering the forests. The marginal forest workers whose subsistence depends upon the forests are the main victims of exploitation and abuse. Being relatively ingenious, their reliance on supernatural forces is based on their needs of survival against the risks associated with the arena of forest. However, for others, whose dependence on the forest is indirect or partial, the rules of conservation do not appear to be reasonably exclusionary. On the contrary, their living is made through their established and privileged contacts, often through negotiations with the local factions of the state. The book reflects on the fact that in an endangered habitation, where the chances of survival are made and remade through the fad of nature, ascription to indigenous virtues and collective identity is concessional. Rather, people try to make their living in whatever ways they can, irrespective of the preconceived communitarian ethic in environmentalism. The book necessitates an urgent attention towards the anthropology of micro-politics, disaggregating the ideas of an ‘organic community’. It also attempts to articulate the scope of constructing a competing representation of indigeneity, by explaining the micro-politics of bureaucratic alignments which are implicated within rural lifeworlds. In the light of the ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the villages, the book also explains conservation as a multifaceted political project. The empirical observation and the analysis of the study reverse the notion of ‘politics’ in conservation. Inhabiting an ecologically fragile landscape, where chances of survival and livelihoods are meagre and endangered, the residents of the three villages have little choices to eke livelihood sustainably. A  reification of the idealistic images of community and indigeneity is presented in this regard. This reification offers a future scope of exploring the role of traditional ecological knowledge in conservation. In Sundarbans, although the techniques of resource extraction are traditional and are learnt through experience, they are not ‘indigenous’. Also, they do not uniformly conform to the ethos of sustainability. Rather than being

188  Conclusions

ascribed hereditarily through generations, the local knowledge here is learnt and acquired based on needs, mainly to seek protection against the potential threats associated with the forest. It is precisely because of the collective pursuit of protection from tigers, that Bonbibi, despite being a Muslim deity, transcends communal barriers and is worshipped by all the forest workers irrespective of caste and creed. The book also reveals that several occupations which are practiced in the realm of the forest like prawn seed collection are highly unsustainable. It also poses a threat to the endangered ecology of the region. The forest workers are driven by the pursuit of making the most of the available opportunities in an ecologically vulnerable landscape. The political mobilizations of the forest-dependent communities for an inclusive conservation policy are primarily towards demanding a legitimate stake on ecological resources, rather than articulating grievances for cultural identity (Baviskar 1997). In India, the statutory laws on forest conservation since the colonial period had placed a universal primacy on biodiversity conservation allowing no scope for integrating the local knowledge harnessed by the forest-dependent communities. The laws have, on the contrary, denied the traditional rights and livelihood claims of the forest dwellers and displaced the communities as ‘ecological refugees’, to other distant places with no prospects for livelihood. Some worst affected communities include the tribals, who had their own culture, religion and distinct ways of life threatened as a result of the exclusionary conservation policies. Being associated with the forests for several generations, these communities not only depend on the forests for livelihood requirements but also relate culturally to the forests through numerous sacralized practices of worshipping nature. One of the central motives of the Forest Department in denying the traditional livelihoods is to sustain the political economy, pursued by the intention of profit making and capital accumulation (Sahu, Dash and Dubey 2017). Evidences from several PAs suggest reclamation of large areas of the forests to promote industrial and commercial activities for the generation of capital. Deprivations from customary rights largely continue to persist, generating resistance, conflicts and political mobilizations across the country. However, the virtues of sustainability which besiege discourses on humanenvironment relations appear to be inconsistent in course of the present study. Not all livelihood practices which are practiced in association with the forests and the rivers are sustainable. They often involve techniques of extraction which depletes the resources to a large extent (Baviskar 1995: 230–244). These livelihood practices have negative consequences on the ecology as well, but are still practiced by the forest workers in Sundarbans to sustain their living in a place where the opportunities of subsistence are otherwise limited. Concerns with sustainable extraction do not bog the minds of the forest workers as much as the prospect of securing a livelihood. This is primarily because they inhabit lands which are constantly feared to be waning away. A version of resistance against the statist policies of conservation thus does not represent a comprehensive reality of politics. The reality is nuanced than is imagined by the discourses on exclusionary conservation. In economically marginalized locations

Conclusions 189

like Sundarban, the policies of conservation are not always imagined to be quintessentially exclusionary. Rather, aligning with the policies often earns the inhabitants a scope of livelihood. Several studies have explained the ways in which ‘politics’ in ecology can be redefined. According to Forsyth (2003: 160), Social movements or advocacy coalitions may successfully challenge exploitative development from state and industry and may result in greater adaption of environmental policy. But if the new policies and values resulting from this activism replicate environmental discourses and explanations based upon the experiences and agendas of only selected members of the alliance, then this may not necessarily work in favour of groups who are less well represented in these discourses and explanations. He has also stressed (drawing on Bryant and Bailey 1997) that the difficulty in achieving unity in the political alliances of grass-root communities is well acknowledged by writers working on environmental politics in developing countries (ibid., 160). In a similar way, instances from the implementation of FRA in Sundarban reveal that the collective mobilizations are largely disconcerted. Apart from the marginal forest workers, the rest of the collective has little incentive to coerce the state officials for implementation. Close to concluding, the distinctive contributions of the book need to be discussed. Most of the literature on Sundarbans in the early 20th century and before had focused on the uniqueness of the forests and provided a vivid description of the significance of its physical characteristics (Hunter 1875; Ascoli 1934; Pargiter 1934). An account of the region as a human habitat with a distinct socio-cultural system appeared in the later works only (Danda 2007; Jalais 2010; Chacraverti 2014; Mukhopadhyay 2016). Scholarship of the latter kind engaged for the first time, in understanding among others, the specific relations of the people with the ‘tigers’, religious rituals associated with the forest, the fragile and vulnerable infrastructure of the villages and the nature of local politics. These scholarships mostly represented the lower islands. This book complements the latter body of scholarship by investigating the nature of forest conservation in Sundarbans and its impact on the local people. It also attempted to capture the complexities within the recent methods of decentralized forest management—an aspect which has not been researched earlier in the scholarship on Sundarbans. In the forest fringe villages of Sundarbans, livelihood options are difficult as well as intimidating. The lives of the inhabitants are situated amidst the waterscapes and the dreaded forests, in lands where infrastructures and physical amenities are potentially absent. People perceive their settlements in these islands as located at the ‘end of the liveable territory’, neglected and sidelined by the government. May be this is the reason why many of the occupations in Sundarbans are transient and unsustainable. The lands which are inhabited continue to be engulfed by the rivers and force the inhabitants to change settlements frequently, along with the changing course of

190  Conclusions

the river. Many of them thus denied any ‘attachment’ to their land and aspired to move away to the cities or the stable deltas. But what was striking in all the three villages was the fact that the population collectively identified themselves as residing at the corridors of the forest—a fact that was followed by their aspirations to settle in the better-off places and associate themselves with the urbane. Pointing to the same, Mukhopadhyay (2016: 149) points out, that the vulnerability of the island clubs the inhabitants into a collective and makes the government recognize its claims. It is in search for livelihood that the collective comes in relationship with the government machinery, which otherwise marginalizes and disempowers them (ibid.). Within the collective, caste differences were not made as explicit as was made one’s contact with the city and the land possessed in the village. The settlements, sharing boundaries with the forest and being distant from the city and its material entitlements, afford one little opportunity to indulge in caste differences. Rather they express their dissent as a group which shares similar circumstances of marginalization and exclusion. The scholarship on political ecology integrates the issues of ecological restoration along with those of social justice (Sen and Pattanaik 2017: 862). Critiques of conservation are thus consistent with the inequitable distribution of resources, lack of access and rights, denial of cultural attachments and the authoritarian powers of the state in imposing exclusion. However, the findings from this book were not uniformly consistent with this critique. In eroding out settlements, the questions of cultural attachment and sustainability are largely evasive, even if livelihood techniques are traditional. Although the forest workers prioritize their attachments to the forests and treat the forests as a sacred realm, they aspire towards material improvements rather than being incarcerated in the fringe of the forest. For the other inhabitants in the villages who are not directly related to the forest-based livelihoods, such aspirations are even more marked. The apathy of the government to encourage settlements in Sundarbans due to its global recognition as a World Heritage Site has spared little chances of survival, especially in the forest fringe islands. Yet, people continue to ‘live’, partly by adapting to the fragile ecosystem and partly by negotiating with the mechanism of governance.

Notes 1 Environmental subjects are referred to as those who care for the environment (Agrawal 2005: 162). 2 Here they draw on Bose, Arts and Dijk (2012) 3 As termed by Chacraverti (2014: 73). 4 Mukhopadhyay (2016) also shows that the image of the tribals in Sundarban as ‘beldars’ or the workers appointed by the Irrigation Department for mending embankments strains against the popular ideology of the tribals as ‘aboriginals’ and ‘anti-state’, since much of their contemporary living is earned by negotiations with the state functionaries than by the forests. These tribals were not indigenous fishers in their natal villages, although most of them in the villages now depend upon fishing for sustenance.

Conclusions 191 5 Upadhya defined caste more as a socio-cultural unit or an ideological system based on a religious principle of hierarchy. Here the material economic conditions were subsumed under that of status and hierarchy. 6 Taken from Chatterjee’s (1998: 281) analogies on the ways in which a group of migrants came and settled close to the railway tracks in Calcutta. 7 Agrawal (1999) uses the word systematizing in a different context

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. Page numbers followed by ‘n’ indicate a note. 2008 WWF project see Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC 142, 144, 148 – 149; committee leaders, allegiance of 152; corruption of JFMC members 149 – 151; political leaders, influence of 153 – 154; Suranjan’s statement 151 – 152 Abdur Rahim (Muslim poet) 65 Abul-Fazl 26 Act VII (1878) see Indian Forest Act (1878) (IFA) Adivasis 59, 82, 179 administrative decentralization 122 Agrawal, A. 6, 118, 122, 175, 180, 181, 182, 186 agriculturalists 46, 56 – 58, 107, 122, 130, 132, 144, 150, 176, 184 agriculture in Sundarbans landscape 26 Akbarnamah (Abul-Fazl) 26 alaghar 109 Alex, R. K. 71 Alfred, G. R. 81 Alier, J. M. 6 All India Forward Bloc 74n6, 155 All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) 74n6, 74n7, 119, 155n2, 155n3 amabasya (new moon day) 88 Amar Thikana 64 Amolnama agreement 108 AMPHAN (super cyclone) 171 animality 171 animal lifeworlds 164 Annual General Meeting (AGM) 137 apete 81 Appadurai, A. 111

aquaculture farms 132 arat see khoti aratdaars 83, 88 – 89, 95, 107 Arts, B. 124 Asian Development Bank 13 atharo bhatir desh see land of eighteen tides ‘authenticity’ of forest fishers 90 Baan (Anguilla bengalensis) 86 Backward Classes Welfare Department (BCWD) 52, 126 Baen (Avicennia officinalis) trees 130 Bailey, K. D. 54 bait system 85 Ballal Sen (emperor of Sena dynasty) 24 Bandopadhyay, M. 36n7 Banerjee, A. 31 barga 156n18 Baro-Bhuiyans of Bengal 66 Barua, M. 164 Baviskar, A. 53, 58, 111, 124 bawaley see bawalis bawalis 70 – 71, 74n13, 91 beoundi (fixed bagnet) 85 Berkes, F. 72, 112, 134, 144 Bernier, F. 25, 168 Berreman, G. D. 54 Béteille, A. 81, 178 Beveridge 25 bhati (islands of Sundarbans) 16, 26 bheries 107, 108 Bhetki (Lates calcarifer) 85, 86 bhotbhotis 40, 73n2 Bhuiyan (landlord) 35n4 Bhumij tribes 59 Biermann, C. 166

194 Index biodiversity conservation 27 biopolitical subjects 167 Biswas, U. 126 Boat Licence Certificates (BLCs) 82 – 83, 84, 113n2, 156n20 Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) 27 Bonbibi (forest deity) 61, 65, 71 – 72, 91, 92, 169, 176, 188; belief system 68; epic on 66 – 68; literature on 65 – 66; making idol of 70; worship of 68 – 69 71, 180 – 181 Bonbibir Johuranama 65, 66, 68, 69 Bonbibir Pala 66 Bonbibir Palagaan (songs and plays on Bonbibi) 66 Bonobhumi Sanskar Sthayi Samitee 137 Boro Gazi Khan, worship of 69 borshi 86 Bose, P. 124 Brockington, D. 49 Buchanan 28 Buddhism, references to Sundarbans in 25 bunds see embankments Carson, M. 55 caste: caste-based identification of occupation 58; caste-based kinship 61; discriminations 59; fishers 58; organizations 58 Cavanagh, C. J. 168 Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) 82, 83 Chacraverti, S. 58, 61 Chakrabarti, R. 98, 168 Chamars in village of Senapur 62 Chandals 31, 59 Chand Ray 66 Channel Creek 26 channel seine nets 86, 94 Charpata see fixed shore net Chatterjee, P. 8, 57, 105, 107, 182, 183 Chatterjee Sarkar, S. 72 Chattopadhyay, S. S. 23 Chaudhuri, K. 32 Chhotray, V. 179 Chingri (shrimp) 85 Chrulew, M. 167 claim legitimization to conservation spaces 104; community role in ’state-making’ process 105 – 106; prawn collection and farming 106 – 112; state-community conflicts on conservation 104 – 105

climate-vulnerable geopolitical ecology 5 Coastal Regulation Zone Notification (CRZ Notification) 170 cohabitation, sustained 101 Colding, J. 72 colossal financial assistance 133 commercial forestry in Tehri Garhwal 33 Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) 74n6, 125, 155n2 Communist Party of India (CPI) 74n6, 155n2 community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) 6 – 7, 136 community/communities 9, 181 – 182, 183, 184; as ‘autonomous’ group 9; conservation practices 145; in context of intensifying conservation politics 10; forest 17n1, 17n4; interventions 101; key attributes of 8; management 7s; organic 106 – 112; organization in Emilibari and Patharpara 55 – 61; rights under JFM 148; role in ’state-making’ process 105; stewardships 8 Community Development (CD) Blocks 11 conservation: contemporary 166; environmental 13; policies in Sundarbans 13; politics in Sundarbans 5, 32 – 35; predominant narratives of 73; subjection techniques 165; subjects 168; of Sundarbans 133; territorialization 167; see also forest conservation conservation landscapes: belongingness to 82; environmental knowledge 104; institutionalization of 178; multispecies subjectification in 168; survival crisis and politics of belonging in 16; values of 73 converted forest fishers 60 – 61, 180 Cooley, C. 8 Corntassel, J. J. 81 corporatism, party-led 3 corruption: of JFMC members 149 – 151; of political parties 42 crab chambers see crabs (Brachyura)— fisheries crabs (Brachyura) 87; fisheries 104, 110 – 111; fishery owners 132; fishing season 97; harvesting 87 – 89 Critically Vulnerable Coastal Area (CVCA) 170 critical tiger habitats (CTHs) 6, 12, 17n2, 119, 155n10 Critical Wildlife Habitat (CWH) 17n2, 120, 155n10

Index  195 crocodiles attack 103 cultural/culture: aratdaars 107; assets 58; identity 97; indigenous 9; neolithic 24; politics 3; prawn 108, 111; of region 72 Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF) 52 Dakshin Ray 66 – 69, 92, 169 Dampier-Hodges Line 30 Dampier, W. 30 Danda, A. A. 28, 61, 63 Darier, E. 154 Das, C. S. 170 Dash, T. 123 Das, P. 7 de Barros, J. 25 Deb Roy, R. 164 decentralization 6, 7, 122, 131, 175, 185, 186 decentralized conservation 117; conservation methods 117 – 118; rightsbased frameworks 118 – 119; see also Forest Rights Act (FRA); Joint Forest Management (JFM) decentralized forest governance 8, 119 democratic decentralization 122 Department of Irrigation and Waterways 110 depletion 181; forest 177; of mangroves 12; risk of 66 Deulpota mouzas 23 Dewalt, B. R. 53 Dewalt, K. M. 53 Dhanai Mawaley 67 dharmo atmiya see evoked divine kinship dheki (manual wooden machine) 41 diary writing 55 Dijk, H. 124 dinghies 73n2 Direct Initiative for Social and Health Action (DISHA) 52 discourse analysis 52 Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) 137 dowry system 62 Dubey, S. 123 Dudgeon, R. C. 112 Dudley, N. 4 Dukhe 66 – 68 Dukhe Jatra (journey of Dukhe) 66, 104 Durkheim, E. 182 dwelt politics of human-animal cohabitation 164 Dyatne (common carp) 85

East India Company 28 Eaton, R. M. 28, 71 Eco Development Committee (EDC) 137 eco governmentality 3 – 4, 152 ecological refugees 18n9 – 10 ecological wisdom 10 electoral politics 3, 185 – 186 elite environmentalism see environmental(ism)—of affluence embankments 45; construction 181; in SBR 14 Emilibari JFM committee (JFMC) 103, 130 – 131, 136 – 137, 142, 143; executive committee 187; participation of forest dependents 144; under SBR 142; at STR 138 – 141, 146 – 147 Emilibari village 45, 50; approaches and designs of research 50 – 53; dependence on river and forest-based resources 78; exploration of traditional livelihoods in 82; field apparatuses 53 – 55; field navigation 50 – 53; forest fringe areas 47; forest workers in 52; household distribution in 63; housing structure 46; hutments in 45 – 46; indigeneity 79; Munda woman in village near 60; organization of community 55 – 61; people as honey collectors 90; physical structure of 61 – 65; river-bank huts bordering earthen embankments in 46 encroachers 47 – 48 endangered species 98 engine vans 73n3 entomopolitics 164 environmental(ism) 4, 176; of affluence 6; conservation 13; governance 175; plans in Sundarbans 78; political ecology and environmental communities 8 – 10; subjects 4, 129, 130, 162, 176, 178, 187, 190n1; of survival 6 epistemic circulation 73 Escobar, A. 80 estuarine crocodile (Crocodilus porosus) 98 eternal equilibrium 112 ethno-environmental fix 82 ethnography 50, 52, 177; approaches and designs of research 50 – 53; of practices 181; of prawn harvesting 104 evoked divine kinship 61 exclusion, principle of 5 fakirs 26 Fernandez, F. 97

196 Index field apparatuses: diary writing 55; focused group discussions 54 – 55; participant observation 53 – 54; semi-structured interviews 54 Fisheries Department insurance 96 fishery/fisheries 109; business 108 – 109; in interior villages of Sundarbans 109; prawn 112 fishing cat (Felis viverrina) 98 fishing nets 94 Fiske, M. 54 Fitch, R. 25, 168 fixed shore net 87, 94 flexible forest fishers 60 – 61, 180 focused group discussions 54 – 55 Folke, C. 72 forest conservation 2; contemporary contexts of 2; contemporary politics of 9; politics of 5; in Sundarbans 28 Forest Conservation Act (1980) (FCA) 27 forest-dependent communities: infringement of rights of 118; network of 121 – 122; in Sundarbans 82 forest fishers 74n9, 81, 82; converted 180; entering of river creeks 132; flexible 180; prawn seed collectors, vs. 132 – 133; on river 86 forest-fishing 79; BLCs 82 – 84; constraints faced by marginal forest workers 82; crab harvesting 87 – 89; fishing livelihoods 85; fishing techniques 85 – 87, 90; indigenist assertion 90; indigenistregionalist brand of environmentalism 82; indigenous communities 80 – 81; indigenous livelihoods and knowledge systems 81; knowledge of 90; nonindigenous economic and social contexts 81 – 82; non-indigenous forest-dependent community 81; prawn seed collection 89; seasons for 85; verbal abuse 85; see also prawn-framing forestlands in India 5 – 8 forest livelihoods: forest-based livelihoods 45, 65; forest-fishing 79 – 90; mahal practice 90 – 94; marginal livelihoods and knowledge variants 94 – 97; political ecology of 78 – 79; in Sundarbans 79 Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) 137 Forest Rights Act (FRA) 3, 16, 17n2, 103 – 104, 119 – 120, 125; forest rights to STs and OTFDs 120 – 121; implementation of 177, 185; institutional reforms in forest governance 121;

limitations of implementation 121 – 122, 129; limitations of universalized legal framework 134 – 136; local politics of implementation 129 – 134; political drivers influencing (non)implementation 125 – 129; politicization 122 – 125; see also Joint Forest Management (JFM) Forest Rights Committee (FRC) 121, 126, 132 forest(s): collaborative management of 178; communities 17n1, 17n4; governance in India 118; governmentality 118; in India 5 – 8; islands in Amazon Basin 81; management regimes in India 27; neighbourhoods 45; offences and seizure 96; policy reversals 6; villages 156n21; wildlife 167 – 168; see also Sundarbans forest workers 52; awareness of ecological limits 94; from BPL households 64; conversations with 61; designing working area 94 – 95; doing construction work 68; in Emilibari and Patharpara 56; negotiations and enticements with panchayat functionaries 132; venturing into Sundarbans forests 66 Forsyth, T. J. 95, 104 Foucauldian theories of biopower 166 Foucault, M. 3, 152, 166, 167 Foucault’s theorization of power and governmentality 3 four-tier caste system of India 36n8 free standing entity 111, 125 Fronseca, M. 97 Fuller, C. J. 9 gachal (honey collector) 91 galsha system 85 Ganganagar 23 Gangaridai 24 Gangaridais see Gangaridis Gangaridis 23 Gangetic (Platanista gangetica) 98 García-López, G. A. 4, 49 Garjan (Rhizophora mucronata) tree see Hental tree (Phoenix paludosa) gate-keeping powers 129 gemeinschaft 8 Genwa (Exocoecaria agallocha) 91 gesellschaft 8 Ghazi 35n5 Ghazi, M. 26 Ghosh, A. 15 Ghurye, G. S. 58

Index  197 Gibson, C. C. 181 Gitanjali Housing Scheme 64, 74n11 Godkhali jetty 40, 41 Goldman, M. 3 – 4 Golpata tree (mangrove varieties) 31, 94 gon 88, 97 Gopalkhali 101 Gordon, M. T. 8 Gosaba island 40, 41; boats carrying commuters from Godkhali Jetty to 41; peasants in 41; research in 50 – 51; tiger straying incidence in Pakhiralay and Kishorimohonpur in 137 governmentality 183; ecologic 3 – 4; forest 4; Foucault’s theorization of 3 Govindrajan, R. 164 gram 156n17; sabhas 73n4, 120 – 121, 155n7; sansads 73n4 Gram Panchayats (GPs) 11 – 12, 113n9, 184; in Gosaba block 40; in India 17n7 gram unnayan samiti (GUS) 126 Greenough, P. 10, 80, 178, 179 Guha, R. 6, 17n4 gunin see bawalis Gupta, A. 104, 177, 186 Gupta dynasties, references of Sundarbans in 23 Gurr, T. R. 80 habitation 134 Hamilton Abad 41 Hamilton, D. 32, 36n10, 41 – 42 Hamilton, M. E. 41 hamlet villages 40 Harinarayanpur 23 Hastings, W. 28 Henckell, T. 28 Hental tree (Phoenix paludosa) 28, 31, 79, 88, 91, 93, 145 heterogeneity, local 2 Himmelfarb 168 Hindhu Puranas, references of Sundarbans in 23 historical injustice 118, 122 – 123 Hiuen Tsang (depiction of Sundarbans) 24 Hobson, K. 166 Hodges, A. 30 Hodgetts, T. 166 honeybee (Apis dorsata) 91 honey collection 58, 90 – 94, 93; see also forest-fishing honey collectors 69, 93 Hughli River 30

human-animal cohabited ecologies 101 human-centric approach 164 – 165 human-driven artisanal boats 94 human-driven rowing boats see dinghies human-environment linkages 1 human(s): biopolitical strategic differentiation with non-humans 166 – 167; contemporary dispossessions of 168; exceptionalism 162, 164; experiences of differential subjectification 165 – 166; habitations in Bengal deltaic region 22; settlements in Sundarbans 22, 31 – 32, 178 – 179; subject making 162, 165 human–wildlife interactions 163 human–wildlife interface conflicts 137, 170 – 171; crocodiles attack 103; humananimal cohabited ecologies 101; human causalities by tiger attack 99 – 100; interviews with foresters 103 – 104; land reclamation process 98; STR report 98 – 99; tiger conservation 97 – 98; tiger straying, human casualties and human injuries 101 – 102, 102 Hunter, W. W. 25, 28 hypermarginality 9 Ibrahim Fakir (Sufi saint from Mecca) 67 India: forests and forestlands in 5 – 8; JFM in 7; statutory laws in 188 Indian Forest Act (1878) (IFA) 5 – 6, 30, 34 – 35 Indian Sundarbans see Sundarbans Indica book (by Megasthanes) 23 indigenist assertion of forest fishers 90 indigenist-nativist environmental discourse 97 indigenist-regionalist brand of environmentalism 82 indigenous 178, 180, 181; black communities in Pacific rainforest region of Colombia 81; communities 80 – 81; ecological knowledge 179; identity 179; livelihoods 81; people 80, 97, 178; virtues 184 Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) 63 – 64, 74n10 individual narratives 52 inequalities 47; in Emilibari and Patharpara 58; reducing issues of 129 inhabitants of Sundarbans 15 institutional politics in Sundarbans 63 institutional transitions in forest management 175

198 Index international conservation: agencies 13, 95 International Labour Organization (ILO), Convention of 1989 (No.169) 81 intimate governance 175 iron rod (sheek) 88 Irrawaddy Dolphin (Oracella brevirostris) 98 Irrigation Department of West Bengal 110 Jahan, K. 26 Jaina-Tirthankar Adinath 24 Jaina Tirthankar Parswanath 24 Jainism, references of Sundarbans in 25 Jalais, A. 12 – 14, 45, 50, 60, 74n13, 101, 108, 113n7, 164, 183 jalti 88 Janata insurance 84, 96, 113n5 Janata Personal Accident Insurance see Janata insurance Jatar Deul 24, 35n3 Jatirindranath Mukherjee (Indian Revolutionary activist) 41 jele see caste—fishers Jesuits 35n2 Johari, R. 5 Johnson, C. 123, 133, 135 Joint Forest Management (JFM) 4, 16, 103 – 104, 118, 131, 136 – 137, 178, 181, 187; case of Aanpur-Rajatjubilee JFMC 148 – 154; communities participation as beneficiaries 142 – 143; community based conservation practices 145, 148; community rights under 148; decentralization 186; decentralized natural resource management 185; empirical analysis on 123; formation of coordination committees 144 – 145; in India 7; membership in 145; overriding rights to forest areas 143; see also Forest Rights Act (FRA) justice frameworks 163 Kajli (Tenualosa Toli) 86 Karthik, M. 82, 124, 135, 164, 177 Kashwan, P. 2, 4, 49, 124, 129 Kasturirangan, R. 162 kata don (hook and line) 85 Kendall, P. L. 54 Keora (Sonneratia apetala) 91 Kerr, J. M. 121, 124 Khalpata see channel seine nets Khalsi (Aegiceras corniculatum) 91 khatian see Record of Rights kheya parapar 40

khoti 113n4 khotidaars see aratdaars khyapla jal see spreading net King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) 98 kinship: evoked divine 61; networks 62, 176 knowledge: production 4; systems 81; variants of indigenous people 94 – 97 krishnapaksha 88 Kumar, K. 121, 124 Lahiripur GPs 42, 45, 50; distribution of population within 44, 44; mouzas in 42 Lahiri, R. K. 169 land of eighteen tides 65 ‘land of the tiger’ see Sundarbans land reclamation process 98 Larson, A. M. 6, 154 Latour, B. 51 Le Bailey, R. K. 8 Left Front government 74n6, 119, 155n2 legitimate violence 27, 80 Lele, S. 108, 175 Libert-Amico, A. 154 Li, T. M. 10, 154, 182 livelihoods: indigenous 81; of population 14 – 15; practices 177; protection of 181; see also forest livelihoods local institutions 8 locality-specific knowledge of the ecology 82 lower islands in SBR 14 Lowie, R. H. 52 Luke, T. W. 4, 154 maal (soil) 71 MacLean, L. M. 4, 49 mahal practice 90 – 94 Maine, H. 8, 182 Malinowski, B. 53 Mallabarman, A. 36n7 Mallick, N. 97, 103 Mallick, R. 49 Manasavijay (by Bipradas Piplai) 23 Manasa, worship of 72 Mandal, B. 102 Mandal, S. 144 mangroves 93, 171; depletion of 12; Sundarban 11, 28; swamp 33 Mansfield, B. 166 Man Singh 25 marginal communities 1 – 2, 104 marginal livelihoods 94 – 97

Index  199 Margulies, J. D. 165, 166, 167 marriage system in Emilibari and Patharpara villagers 62 Mauryan period, references of Sundarbans in 22 – 23 mawaleys 92, 93 Maynamati-Gopichand legend 26 Mbembe, A. 167 Megasthanes (mention of Sundarbans) 23 Menon, A. 82, 124, 135, 143, 164, 177 Merton, R. 54 MGNREGA project 65 micropolitics 73 migration in SBR 82 Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) 120, 124, 134 Minor Forest Produce (MFP) 120 Mitchell, T. 111 mobilizations towards enactment of FRA 134 – 135 Mohammedans 31 Mondol, H. 149 Mondol, R., conversation with 144 Mondol, S. 150 – 151 Morichjhanpi island 48 – 49 Morichjhanpi, massacre of 48 Morrieson, W. E. 29 Mosse, D. 9 motorboats see bhotbhotis mouzas 17n8; in Gosaba block 40; in Lahiripur GP 42; in Satjelia GP 42 Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary 123 Mukhopadhyay, A. 111, 113n6, 127, 128, 190, 190n4 Mukut Ray 69 multispecies: ethnographers 163; ethnographic analysis 164; relationship with embedded geographies 163 Mundas of Chotonagpur in Bihar 62 Nagarik Mancha 52 Namasudras 48, 59 Narayanan, N. C. 7 National Forest Policy (1988) (NFP) 6, 52, 171 National Green Tribunal (NGT) 170 National Tiger Conservation Authority (NCTA) 17n9 Nayak, P. K. 134, 144 necropolitics 167 neoliberal(ism) 166; conservation 171; environmentality 131; shadows of 4 neolithic period 23, 24

Nipa Palm (Nepa fruticans) 94, 145 Nirgranthas 24 nodi baandh see embankments non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 4 non-human political ecology: constructing frameworks for understanding 163 – 168; of forest conservation 168 – 172 non-human(s) 165; biopolitical strategic differentiation with humans 166 – 167; discourses 165; experiences of differential subjectification 165 – 166; lifeworlds 163; state-based principles on governing 165; subject making 161 – 162, 165; world 162 non-indigenous: economic and social contexts 81; forest-dependent community rights 81; practices 97 non-nativist practices, exploration on 79 – 90 non indigenous forest communities 97 Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) 98 O’Malley, L. S. S. 14, 24, 31 – 32 one-size-fits-all approach 134 organic community 106 – 112, 187 organizational assets 58 Other Backward Classes (OBCs) 56, 59 – 60 Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) 118, 120, 123 – 124, 155n6 paikars 89, 113n6 Pala-Chandra-Varman period, references of Sundarbans in 24 Panchamukhani 99, 144 Panchaytai Raj 113n9 para (hymns) 70 Parganas 28 Parse (Liza Parsia) 85 Parshe 85 participant observation 53 – 54 Patharpara village 50, 148 – 150, 152; corruption of JFMC members in 149 – 151; dependence on river and forest-based resources 78 – 79; exploration of traditional livelihoods in 82; field apparatuses 53 – 55; field navigation 50 – 53; forest fringe areas 47; forest workers in 52; household distribution in 63; house of panchayat functionary at 64; housing structure 46; hutments in 45 – 46; indigeneity 79; inhabitants of 45; organization of community 55 – 61; people as honey collectors 90; physical

200 Index structure of 61 – 65; unfinished brick road at riverside in 153; village embankments bordering river in 47 Patratal 23 patron-clientelism 127 Paundrakshatriyas 26, 31, 59 Peluso, N. L. 13 People’s Democracy 125 Permanent Settlement Act (1793) 29 Piplai, B. 23 piran 66 Pirkhali 99 pirs 26 pods see Paundrakshatriyas political ecology 1, 172; as analytical category 163 – 164; of animal conservation 170; embedded in human exceptionalism 162; engagement with forest communities 161; and environmental communities 8 – 10; exploring complex multispecies subjectification 168; focusing on ecological distribution conflicts 165; forests and forestlands in India 5 – 8; framing 175; and human–wildlife conflicts 164; indigenous people in 179; political ecology of legitimizing claim to conservation spaces 104 – 112; politics in 2 – 5; reflection on industrial forms of livestock production 166; scholarship on 190; Sundarban forests 11 – 15 political economy: of contemporary environmental change 34; of natural resource management 164; of tea estate plantations 167 political/politics 15; of claim making 124; conservation 5; cultural 3; of differential engagement 124; in ecology 189; electoral 3; of forest conservation 5; of identity 124; intermediation 3; party-based 125; patron-clientelism 49; political-historical trajectories 118; in political ecology 2 – 5; politically fraught process 135 politicization of FRA 122 – 125 Port Canning 39 – 40, 73n1 poush sonkranti 68 poverty restraints 177 power: analysis on centrality of 4; in democratic decentralization 122; devolution of management 134; Foucault’s theorization of 3; negative operation of 167; relationships 15; role within local social-ecological contexts 10

Power and Institutions Matrix 4 Prakash Karat 125 Pranabesh Sanyal 98, 104 Pratapaditya’s rule 24 prawn-framing 104; Amolnama agreement 108; deleterious effects of prawn fisheries 112; fishery business 108 – 109; fivetier process of corporate network of aquaculture 107 – 108; political parties, influence of 111; prawn collection and farming 106; seed collection 108, 111; seedlings 106 – 107; see also forest-fishing prawn-seed based livelihoods 104 prawn seed collectors/collection 59, 89, 156n22, 177 primordialities 8 – 9 Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) 101 Prinsep, E. 29 pro-investment climate 133 Project Tiger 12, 17n9, 27, 98 property assets 58 protectionist paradigm 34 Ptolemy (depiction of Sundarbans) 23 – 24 Public Distribution System (PDS) 65 purnima (full moon day) 88 Pyra (Scatophagus argus) 85 qualitative methods 53 – 55 Raimongol 69 Raja Basanta Roy 24 – 25 Rangabelia island 41 Rangeland degradation of Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in China 80 Rayatwari system 29 Ray, T. 94 reclamation: forest 27 – 31; land 98 Recognition of Forest Rules (2007) 121 Record of Rights 156n18 regional panchayat office in Gosaba block 40 Regulation III (1828) 29 religious beliefs of Sundarbans forest people 65 – 73 reserved forest 33 Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) 74n6, 155n2 Ribot, J. C. 6, 122 Ridger, S. 8 Ridout, E. 55 rights-based forest governance 118, 148; see also decentralized conservation Riotwari system 34

Index  201 river: Hughly 29; Khammati 30; Passar 29; pollution 170; Sajna 79; sharks attack 103 river terrapin (Bagatur Baska) 98 Robbins, P. 183 Rogues River see Channel Creek Ross, M. M. 55 Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris) 13, 97, 168, 177; colonial image of 168; conservation goals 169; conservation project 169; as political subjects 171; prominence of cosmopolitanism of 164; see also Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) Roy Barman, B. K. 179 Rudolph, L. I. 55 Rudolph, S. H. 55 Ruud, A. E. 152 Sagar Island 23 Sahu, G. 123 Sajna River 79 Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary (SWLS) 12, 13, 99, 119 Sal (Shorea robusta) tree 94 Samatata 24 Sardar, S. 153 Satjelia GPs 42, 50; distribution of population within 44, 44; inhabitants of 45; mouzas in 42 Satjelia island 39 – 42; administration parts 42; electricity facilities 46; embankments 45 – 47; fieldwork sites within 43, 44; forest fringes 44 – 45; ‘lots’ in 42, 44; Morichjhanpi island 48 – 49; see also Emilibari village; Patharpara village Scheduled Caste (SC) 32, 36n8, 56, 59, 60 Scheduled Tribe (ST) 32, 118, 155n4, 36n9; in Emilibari and Patharpara 56, 59, 60; forest rights to 120, 123 Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (2006) see Forest Rights Act (FRA) Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Rules (2008) 155n11 – 12 scientific conservation 27 – 28 scientific forest management 72 Scott, J. C. 10, 178, 184 self-cultivation 134 semi-structured interviews 54 Shah Janguli 67, 92 Shirish tree (Albizia lebbek) 94 Siculus (depiction of Sundarbans) 23 singhe 90

Singh, N. M. 121 Sivaramakrishnan, K. 58 – 59, 111, 123 social-cultural-environmental conflicts 1 South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE) 52 spreading net 86 Srinivasan, K. 162 Srinivas, M. N. 51 Srivastava, A. 53 state-formation in community spaces 186 state-making process 105 state monopolization of forests 6 statutory laws in India 188 Stolton, S. 4 subjectification 129 subject making 161 – 162, 165 suklapaksha 88 Sundarban Affairs Department (SAD) 13 Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR) 5, 11, 13; inhabited blocks of 11, 47, 82; islands within 73n2; migration in 82; survival and livelihood of population 14 – 15 Sundarban Development Board (SDB) 13, 52 Sundarban Jana Sramajibi Mancha (SJSM) 52, 119, 133 Sundarban Matsyajibi Joutha Sangram Committee (SMJSC) 52 Sundarban National Park 12, 98, 118 Sundarbans 5, 10, 11, 17n5, 98, 118, 168, 177, 178; ancient history of frontier islands 22 – 27; bureaucratic governance 186; conservation of 133; conservation politics 32 – 35; cultural identity 81; demographics and administration 11 – 13; electoral politics in 185 – 186; empire and trajectories of forest reclamation 27 – 31; environmental plans in 78; fisheries in interior villages of 109; forest fringe areas of 183; forest livelihoods in 79; human settlements 31 – 32; inhabitants in 184; institutional politics in 63; religion of forest 65 – 73; representation of 168; tribals in 190n4; water, forests and humans in perilous labyrinth 13 – 15 Sundarbans tiger see Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris) Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) 12, 169; Annual Report 171; beat offices 12 – 13; BLC issued by 84; JFMCs at 138 – 141; PCCF of 101; range offices 12; as tiger conservation landscape 98 – 99; work under JFMCs of 146 – 147

202 Index Sundari (Mangrove varieties) 28 swamp mangroves of lower Bengal 33 Tagore, R. 42 Tamluk 23 tank irrigation in Tamil Nadu 9 Tengra (Pimelodus cenia) 85 – 86 terracotta lumps 23 thaans 69 tiger-prawn (Penaeus monodon): fishery owners 132; seeds 79 tiger(s) 25, 33, 189; attacks 113n8; conservation 12, 97 – 98; as man-eaters 165; prawns 106; straying incidences 45; widows 65; see also bawalis; Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris); Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) Titas Ekti Nadir Naam and Padmanadir Majhi 32 Tonnies, F. 8, 182 Topse (Polynemus paradiseus) 85 traditional ecological knowledge 80, 112, 187 Travels in the Mogul Empire ad 1656 – 1668 (Bernier) 25 Uddin, S. M. 25 UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sundarban forests as 11 – 15, 98 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 13 universalized framework of FRA 134 Unmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) 169, 172n2 Upadhya, C. 182, 191n5 urban migration 57

village see gram water monitor lizard (Varanus salvator) 98 Wayib Laskar (fishery owner) 109 – 110 Wesenwillen 8 West Bengal: electoral politics in 125; fishing castes of 26; JFM method introduction in 156n23; land acquisition controversies in Singoor and Nandigram of 156n15; population of SBR in 32; village in 73n4 West Bengal Forest Department 52 West Bengal Panchayati Raj Act (1973) 73, 156n16, 156n17 West Bengal Tribal Development Cooperative Corporation (WBTDCC) 52, 131, 134 Westland 25 wilderness-based conservation areas 165 Wildlife Institute of India (WII) 169 wildlife management drone 169 Wildlife Protection Act (1972, 2006) (WLPA) 6, 17n2, 27, 118 Wildlife Sanctuary 118 Wilmer, F. 80, 81 Wirth, L. 8 Wooglar, S. 51 World Bank 7, 13 World Watch Institute 4 Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) 27, 52, 74n5, 169 worshipping supernatural forces 176 zamindari: rights 28, 34; system 32