The Sundarbans: Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals 9781138103702, 9781315100876

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THE SUNDARBANS

THE SUNDARBANS Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals

Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar and Manohar Publishers & Distributors The right of Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her 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. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bhutan). 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 A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-10370-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10087-6 (ebk) Typeset in Plantin 10/12 by Eleven Arts, Delhi 110 035

Dedicated to my parents Jyotsna and Santimoy Chatterjee

Contents

List of Tables List of Figures List of Photographs Preface and Acknowledgements Maps Abbreviations

viii viii viii ix xi xiii

1. The Sundarbans: Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals An Introduction

1

2. Fearsome Forests, Rising Tides: A Historical Geography of the Sundarbans

9

3. The Sundarbans in punthi Literature

30

4. Tilman Henckell: An Advocate of Colonial Paternalism

55

5. Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

74

6. Development of the Port at Canning and Gosaba Co-operative

112

7. Tebhaga in Kakdwip

142

8. The Sundarbans in Modern Bengali Fiction

163

9. The Mangrove and the Man: A Conclusion

180

viii

Contents

Glossary Bibliography Index

184 188 199

List of Tables 5.1:

Population Variation (as percentage) in the Sundarbans Police Stations between 1871 and 1951 5.2: Total Immigration from different sources to the 24 Parganas and the Sundarbans, Male and Female (both in absolute figures and percentages): Census 1891 5.3: Division of Sundarbans 5.4A: Changes in Land Use, 1880-1950, for 3 Sundarbans Districts: Khulna and Bakarganj, Bangladesh, 24 Parganas (including Calcutta), India 5.4B: Aggregate Change in Land Use from 1880–1950 5.5: Typical Descent from the Estate Holder to Petty Tenure Holders 6.1:

Ships Visiting Matla Port

75

75 79

95 96 98 116

List of Figures 5.1: 5.2:

Land Use (1880–1950) Population Growth

94 94

List of Photographs Masked Men in boat. Sundarban Trees. Tiger Widows. Major James Rennell's layout of the Sundarbans in 1781. Sundarban Crocodile. Jautar Deul. Dakshin Ray. Tilman Henckell’s letter. The bust of Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton (1860–1939). A duplicate certificate.

2 10 11 13 15 22 34 57 119 128

Preface and Acknowledgements

T

he mystery and remoteness of the Sundarbans—evident even to the first time casual visitor, expressed repeatedly in literary works has made it notoriously hard to write a history of the region. While popular histories, religious and mythological accounts portray the diversity of religious beliefs in the context of a forbidding fauna, official and archival narratives have tended to get bogged down in details of land reclamation, settlement and counter insurgency. Therefore the challenge of retrieving a history of the Sundarbans proved daunting. It was only the inspiration of teachers and seniors in the field that persuaded me to convert my doctoral dissertation into a full length book. The debts that I have incurred in the course of writing this book are many. My deepest debt is to Professor Barun De who supervised my research and was a great source of inspiration. I am grateful to Mrs Romabai De who encouraged me time and again towards the completion of my work. I must express my highest regard for Professor Ashin Dasgupta, who inspired me to take up history as a subject. I am indebted to my teacher Dr Lakshmi Subramanian for being an astute critic and an unfailing friend by inspiring me to finish this work. Professor Basudeb Chattopadhyay, Professor Suranjan Das, Professor Arun Bandopadhyay, Professor Bhaskar Chakraborty, Professor Rajat Kanta Ray, Professor Deepak Kumar, Professor Goutam Sengupta and Professor Atis Dasgupta gave me valuable

x

Preface and Acknowledgements

comments on various stages of my research, for which I am very grateful. I would also like to acknowledge my gratitude to Professor Dietmar Rothermund who took the time to meticulously read the first draft of the book and gave detailed comments. I am also grateful to Nils Harm of Heidelberg University (South Asian Institute), who helped me with the maps. Special mention for Sumanta Sen and Riddhi Sankar Ray. I benefited much from conversations with my friends and colleagues in Kolkata, with whom I discussed my doubts and views. I would also like to thank my students, who kept me going with their enthusiasm. I also wish to record the help that I received from the staff of various libraries and archives: the Library of Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Secretariat Library, National Library, University of Calcutta Central Library, West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta, Central Archives, Communist Party of India, P.C. Joshi Archives, New Delhi, National Archives, Delhi and Rabindra Bhavana Library, Santiniketan. I owe a special word of thanks to the late Dr Gopinath Burman of Gosaba, a trustee member of Hamilton Estate. I am grateful to Esha Béteille, Radha Béteille and Meenakshi Chawla at Social Science Press for their help in publishing this book. I am deeply indebted to my parents, one of whom is no more with me in person but always with me as a presence. I have also to thank my younger sister and mother in law for their invaluable contribution. Debashis was by the side each step of the way. Last but not least, I must make a very special mention of Amitrajit whose impatience with his technologically challenged mother was matched only by his unstinting support for her endeavour. The responsibility for errors remains mine alone. Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar October, 2009

Maps

Map not to scale

Map not to scale

Source: Survey of India, Topographical Sheet, 79B/16 and 79B/11, 1973.

Abbreviations

B.O.R. B.P.K.S. C.B.L.I. C.P.I. Cr.P.C. L.R. N.A.I. No. P.C.S.R. P.H.G.E. Progs. R.D. W.B.S.A.

Board of Revenue Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha Copy Book of Letters Issued Communist Party of India Indian Criminal Procedure Code Land Revenue National Archives of India Number Presidency Commissioner Sundarban Records Papers relating to Hamilton’s Gosaba Estate Proceedings Revenue Department West Bengal State Archives

CHAPTER ONE

The Sundarbans Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals An Introduction

F

or naturalists, the Sundarbans have always held an irresistible charm.1 In common perception, the forests of the Sundarbans, located in the southernmost parts of West Bengal in India and south-western Bangladesh, remain synonymous with the Royal Bengal Tiger and, to some extent, the mangrove forests unique to South Asia.2 For a researcher, the choice of the Sundarbans as an area of enquiry presents some problems, because its popular culture has not yet been vigorously analysed. Its economy and tenurial patterns too require modern interpretation, free from the bias of imperial settlement reports. The principal strands in the story of the region centre around the contest between the tiger and the forest dweller, in other words, the conflict between and co-existence of man and nature. This struggle took the form of reclamation, and of putting the forests to the plough.3 A few questions have been raised regarding what the region was like in the past—physically and socio-economically. What was the nature of the settlements and what kind of changes were brought about by the introduction of various policies of land reclamation? What were the other motives behind the schemes introduced by the British administrators such as the building of a port at Canning and Hamilton’s scheme of a co-operative? Historical studies of the region have tended to be piecemeal in nature, and have generally formed a part of the revenue history of

2

The Sundarbans

the Sundarbans. Pargiter and Ascoli’s accounts of this region were, for example, essentially government catalogues and compilations of land reclamation policies. Satish Chandra Mitra’s, Kalidas Dutta’s and A.F.M. Jalil’s accounts were worth mentioning. Hunter, Westland, Gastrell and Ralph Smyth’s reports were all more or less administrative accounts while Beveridge’s partial account focused on the Sundarbans of Bangladesh. Subsequent secondary writings on the Sundarbans are either ethnographic, ecological or development oriented accounts, such as the works of Amal Kumar Das et al., A Focus on Sundarban, A.K. Mandal, R.K. Ghosh, Sundarban, A Socio-Bio-Ecological Study, Rathindranath De, The Sundarbans, Naskar, Guha Bakshi, Mangrove Swamps of the Sundarbans, Amal Kumar Das, Manish Kumar Raha, The Oraons of Sundarban, etc. Most of these talk about the flora and fauna, and the castes and tribes of the region. Others, separately, articulate the history of population movements, the Tiger Project,4 settlement patterns, etc. In addition to this, studies have been undertaken by NGOs active in this region. More recently the region

Masked Men in boat Men wear masks at the back of their heads to ward off imminent threat from tigers when they go into the dense forests. These masks are caricatures of the human face meant to scare off the tigers.

The Sundarbans

3

and its history formed the subject of an anthropological novel by Amitav Ghosh (The Hungry Tide) which captures evocatively some of the dimensions of the region’s historical experience, constituted by man, beast and nature. But there is perhaps no single account that comprehensively portrays the history of the region based on authentic archival material, available estate papers and less conventional sources like punthi and contemporary literature. This is what led me to undertake the present piece of work. The starting point of my study is the political change in Bengal in the mid-eighteenth century (1757), which brought the East India Company into the region as a new power. The Sundarbans acquired in 1757 with the 24 Parganas soon drew attention. An intensive study on the manner of land reclamation by the early colonial rulers and their motives illustrate a clear picture of the extent of colonial penetration into the life and functioning of rural India. Down the ages there have been several efforts to reclaim forests and set up human habitation in this region. Before the advent of the British rule in India, such efforts were largely individual in nature and did not leave any lasting impressions on the physical and geographical configurations of the region.5 Those made during the rule of the British were largely successful in bringing in people of various origins into the Sundarbans.6 While they ultimately succeeded in reclaiming large tracts and settling down there for good, their efforts towards developing the region as a centre for generating revenue largely failed. Besides, there were a number of setbacks in developing a port at Canning and a co-operative farm at Gosaba. Yet, despite the slow pace of development compared to the rest of West Bengal, the face of the Sundarbans changed forever. Changes in settlement patterns and the stratification of society led to changes in human relations. The purpose of this study is not to knit together accounts of all the islands of the Sundarbans into a story of total social and cultural experience but to give an elaborate description of the land reclamation policy in the districts of 24 Parganas, Khulna, Jessore and Bakarganj. While talking about reclamation, I will give a detailed account of the judge and magistrate of Jessore, Tilman Henckell a pioneer in the efforts to colonize the marshy land, as well as the

4

The Sundarbans

work of Sir Daniel Hamilton (social reformer) who put much effort in settling and bringing change to the area. The focus will narrow down to Canning, Gosaba and Kakdwip (the West Bengal part of Sundarbans), where the changes in social relations were most visible.7 It is here that we see the establishment of a port, laying of railway tracks, formation of a co-operative and the emergence of socioeconomic conflict finally leading to the much-discussed peasant movement of Tebhaga. The present work has been drawn from a variety of sources. Pargiter’s Revenue History of Sundarbans 1765–1870 and Ascoli’s Revenue History of Sundarbans 1870–1920 provided a basic introductory reading on the subject. Both these books deal exhaustively with British efforts at land reclamation in this area, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. These two aforementioned books are essentially government documents and therefore somewhat monotonous and uninteresting. However, this does not undermine their importance as detailed accounts of land settlements and narratives of making arable the vast uncultivated tract of the Sundarbans. The accounts of Pargiter and Ascoli however do not have much to say about the origin, movement and condition of the actual settlers. Who were the people who came to settle in the newly reclaimed areas of the Sundarbans? How did they overcome natural obstacles? Were they given any material help except for the initial rent-free privilege? Was the British reclamation policy a genuine attempt at improving the conditions of the local people? These are questions, which will be taken into consideration during the course of this study. In addition to these sources there are survey settlement reports and old gazetteers of the 24 Parganas, Jessore and Bakarganj. Hunter’s Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, is an important source material for this region. Among the several difficulties in researching the Sundarbans was the inadequacy of source material on the social and political circumstances, and their development in the region. In terms of archival sources a considerable number of English correspondences in the West Bengal State Archives entitled Presidency Commissioner Sundarban Records have been examined.The Sundarban Records cover a short span of time (1829–58). The correspondences

The Sundarbans

5

mainly deal with the Letter Received and Letter Issued series of this particular tract of the country. The tedious task of consulting the Sundarban Records without any index was a long and futile exercise. Most of the proceedings were sent from Jessore and Bakarganj. The reason for this might be that the Sundarbans did not form a separate administrative unit with revenue, magisterial and civil jurisdiction of its own. The collectors of the 24 Parganas, Jessore and Bakarganj exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the local commissioner in the revenue matters of the Sundarbans. The correspondences are not specific about the terms and conditions of the leases given to the settlers. Some of the letters deal with the boundary disputes between the neighbouring zamindars and the grantees of this region. There is a volume of information regarding the boundary lines, which were liable to frequent changes.8 A large number of the European residents of Calcutta were attracted by the prospect of largescale farming and availed of the opportunity. The Sundarban Records throw no remarkable light on the process of development of indigenous landlordism in the area. The documents refer to only some names without any information regarding their rights and liabilities and, above all, their role in the reclamation process of the Sundarbans. Some of the correspondences give an account of the jamma/assessed in some areas after reclamation.9 This shows an increasing trend in the rate of assessment. Probably the rate of rent tended to increase with the development of land and cultivation. This makes it clear that some of the lands, thus cleared, yielded revenue to the state. It has been mentioned earlier that most of the documents of the Sundarban Records refer to reclamation activities only in the Jessore and Bakarganj areas.The process appears to have been facilitated by the availability of more sweet water and labour in the area. The reclamation of the 24 Parganas portion of the Sundarbans possibly had not attracted the attention of the authorities up to the second half of the nineteenth century. The Sundarban Records are inadequate for constructing a general history of land reclamation in the area from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. I therefore had to shift my attention to other sources covering the later period.

6

The Sundarbans

These were the correspondences of the Revenue Department, Land Revenue Branch and Home Political Department in West Bengal State Archives and National Archives, Delhi. Also significant were the letters exchanged between Rabindranath Tagore and Hamilton.These letters are kept at Rabindra Bhavana in Santiniketan. The original estate papers of Daniel Hamilton were found at Gosaba from a trustee member (the Late Dr Gopinath Burman) of the Hamilton Estate. In addition to all these source materials, which are primarily in English, punthis and vernacular literature were taken into consideration to a large extent. The Sundarbans, by virtue of its exotic flora and fauna, exercised a powerful appeal to Bengali literary imagination, both traditional and modern. The punthi literature in Bengali verse, devoted to the gods and goddesses of Sundarbans, thrived in lower deltaic Bengal between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. These deities were not the regular godheads of the Bengali pantheon.They were the gods and goddesses of woodcutters, honey gatherers, beeswax gatherers, boat builders and the most desperate cultivators. In fact, battling with the hostilities of nature was so overwhelming an aspect of the settlers’ lives in these areas that it led to the evolution of deities to whom they could appeal for refuge psychologically during difficult times.These punthis thus offer interesting insights into the characters of past human settlements in the Sundarbans. Other than the punthis, the Bengali prose literature of the twentieth century has also been taken into account. The changes which took place in this marshy jungle after land reclamation is clearly evident in prose.This literature reflected a different perspective and invested the region with a new meaning and a new set of symbols. In prose, nature became a differentiated category in contrast to the old form (punthi), where nature was part and parcel of the undifferentiated mythical and existential world. Religion had been the dominant element in the punthis, so much so that tigers were looked upon with fear and respect, as sons of Banabibi, the presiding deity of the forest. In the Bengali prose literature, by contrast, tigers were depicted along realistic lines and not as mythical godheads (Shib Shankar Mitra, Royal Bengaler Atmakatha). After the reclamation and with the advent of the new settlers, it was no

The Sundarbans

7

longer a battle of gods to whom man paid his obeisance and from whom he sought protection against the dreaded tigers. It was a bloody contest between man and man for more space in a rapidly receding jungle. Stories depicting this change are dealt with in great detail in the book. This I can say I witnessed first-hand during my field work in the region. For if in the morning I had seen the bereaved mourning over the loss of a loved one claimed by the tigers, I would return in the evening to find that the peasants were up in arms in a contest over a plot of land.10 The study is not confined to the limits of a political or revenue history of the Sundarbans. Instead, an exemplification is attempted of Bengali society, as it was in the period of its travails, its inner strength and weakness, its elements of order, and disruption and insurgency as evidenced by peasant uprisings in Tebhaga. Delineating the historical geography of the Sundarbans, this work looks at the material world of the region during distinct phases of colonial rule. It also explores the belief system that emerged in the region and was expressed through different modes of representation. Finally it can be summarized as the story of the mangrove jungle— what it was and what it became in the aftermath of reclamation and settlement. Over the years, the struggle between men overshadowed the struggle between man and beast.

Notes and References 1. Kumudranjan Naskar, Dwijendra Narayan Guha Bakshi, Mangrove Swamps of The Sundarbans. An Ecological Perspective, Calcutta, 1987, p. 1. 2. Tushar Kanjilal, ‘Sunderbane Bhanga Garar Khela’, Sagarmoy Ghosh ed., Desh, 18 May 1996, pp. 106–07. 3. Purnendu Ghosh, Tebhagar Smriti, Madhya Pradesh, 1987, p. 6. 4. Kalyan Chakraborty, Manush-O-Bagh, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 72–7. 5. L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, 24 Parganas, Calcutta, 1914, pp. 26–9 W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal,Vol. I (District of 24 Parganas and Sundarban), First Edition, London, 1874, Reprint edition. Delhi, 1973, p. 327.

8

The Sundarbans

6. , A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 316–20. 7. The names of the places that I have used in this book are those by which they were known during the period under study. 8. W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., C.B.L.I., 20 August, 7 November 1838, Letter to the office of the Commissioner in the Sundarbans by W. Dampier, Jessore. 9. , 22 September, 11, 27 October 1836, Letter to the Office of the Commissioner in the Sundarbans by Pigou, Jessore. 10. Visit to Gosaba, 21 January 1998.

CHAPTER TWO

Fearsome Forests, Rising Tides A Historical Geography of the Sundarbans

T

he very mention of the vast mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, the largest in the world,1 creates an imagery of a dark and dangerous arena, the abode of the Royal Bengal Tiger, snakes, crocodiles and other animals. In these environs lives a community of brave humans whose courage is manifest in their daily battle against nature as they seek to eke out a living, some by cultivating land and others by venturing deep into the forest to collect honey. The latter profession is dangerous as often the moule or honey collector ends up being a victim of the tiger, lord of the jungle. Indeed it is so common to lose husbands in the Sundarbans that an entire village has come to be known as bidhobar gram or Village of Widows.2 Even the rivers fail to provide comfort. Apart from storms, which occur all through the year, the fisherman are always wary of crocodiles even though, back at home, the women perform the kumir brata, a folk ritual aimed at appeasing the giant reptiles. But what rituals can be performed to ward off the pirates who are no storybook characters, but as real as the beasts of prey in the Sundarbans, who have remained so since the days of the Portuguese raiders in the hoary past? In short, the Sundarbans have been and shall always remain synonymous with fear and anxiety. This thought is darkened even further by the fact that daylight scarcely penetrates the thick vegetation where walking is impossible owing to the dense jungle

10

The Sundarbans

Sundarban Trees. This tree is symbolic of the vegetation in the Sundarbans.

and prong-like pneumetaphores (breathing roots) of trees that protrude upwards out of the ground. Before taking a close look at the life in the region, it will be useful to glance at the region’s inhospitable terrain, its rivers and creeks and study the geographical features, as well as delve into its history which is shrouded in myriad controversies. The Sundarbans is the lowest part of the delta formed by three great rivers—the Ganga, the Jamuna-Brahmaputra and the Meghna— which are fed by many smaller rivers. The landscape consists of islands and islets entrapped in an extensive network of estuaries, criss-cross channels and rivers.3 After the Partition of India in 1947, the bulk of the islands, islets, estuaries, channels and rivers became part of East Pakistan which later became Bangladesh in 1971. The diverse and unique nature of this land had struck outsiders long ago. Travelling through the Sundarbans, Francois Bernier (1665–66)4 wrote: 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

Fearsome Forests, Rising Tides

11

person or another falls prey to tigers. These ferocious animals are very 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.5

Nearly three hundred and fifty years have passed since Bernier made his observation. Today, while tigers have been given protection under wildlife preservation laws, not just in the Sundarbans, but elsewhere too, the story of the boatmen is eerily similar to the story of those who had rowed Bernier across the rivers. How did the region get its name? Opinion, as is usual in such cases, is divided. In Bengali the word sundar means beautiful and ban is forest so one school of thought has it that the natural beauty of the region led people to call it Sundarbans or beautiful forests.6 Then there are those who feel that the word sundar refers to the Sundari tree (Heritiera fomes) that abounds in the forests. The third opinion is that sundar is derived from samudra or the sea, an inference that seems a little far-fetched. One thing, however, is clear. The name is relatively modern as even in the eighteenth century the entire region is referred to as just bhati or lowlands subject to the influx of

Tiger Widows. There are several widow villages in the country, but in the Sundarbans, these women have lost their husbands to tigers.

12

The Sundarbans

tides.7 There is however, unanimity over the fact that the Sundarbans is no ordinary forest.

Geographical Co-ordinates The Sundarbans stretch from the Hooghly on the west to the Meghna, the estuary of the Ganga and Brahmaputra, on the east. It covers the southern portions of the districts South 24 Parganas in West Bengal, Khulna and Bakarganj in Bangladesh. There is evidence to suggest that due to geomorphological processes the Bengal basin is tilting, diverting fresh water through the GangaBrahmaputra river system to the east. It was thus only natural that eastern part of Bengal was marked by its greater agricultural produce and greater population growth compared to the western part. This was made possible by the rich silt deposits because of the shift in the river system.8 The Indian part of the delta is thus being denied fresh water from upstream, resulting in increased salinity.9 The entire region is subject to violent storms, particularly during the monsoon months, as the Bay of Bengal frequently sees the development of cyclonic depressions.10 This frequent battle with the elements makes life in the Sundarbans that much more difficult. The northern part of the Sundarbans is dotted with agrarian settlements, the fertile land allowing the growth of rice.11 The northernmost point is the Hooghly where the river widens and its navigability led to the development of many port towns.12 The southern part is the unfinished seaboard where the deltaic formation is yet to be completed. Thus, the Sundarbans stretch out as one vast alluvial plane abounding towards the southern fringes in morasses and swamps, which are now filling up.13 The rivers in the north are stagnant, generally beyond the reach of tides, almost frozen into channels by high banks of silt.14 The principal rivers here are Hooghly, Sattarmukhi, Jamira, Matla, Bangaduni, Gosaba, Raimangal, Malancha, BaraPanga, Marjata, Bangara, Haringhata, Rabnabad, and Meghna.15 A study of maps and charts makes it evident that the rivers have been constantly changing their courses in this region. A comparison

13

Map not to scale

Fearsome Forests, Rising Tides

Source: James Rennell’s Bengal Atlas, 1781

Major James Rennell's layout of the Sundarbans in 1781.

14

The Sundarbans

of Rennell’s Atlas of 1779 with Morrison map of 1811 or of later periods makes this clear. The north has always been more suited for human inhabitation than the south, which posed great threats and challenges to settlers.16 The topography of the Sundarbans changes as one travels east from the Hooghly, towards the Meghna.17 Between the Hooghly and the Jamuna, or Kalindi the water is mostly saline, while east of the Jamuna the water is generally sweet during the rains. The rivers west of Jamuna, which has no headstream or connection with the Ganga, are brackish throughout the year. According to W.W. Hunter, the Sundarbans can be divided into three distinct regions: the area from the Hooghly to the Kalindi and Jamuna, that between the Jamuna and the Baleswar and from Baleswar to the Meghna.18 This third division sees a pleasant change from the hot and dry 24 Parganas and the dampness of the Jessore Sundarbans. Considering the elevation of the land, it is not necessary to have embankments, which are otherwise essential, to protect the crops.19 Thus the Bakarganj portion of the Sundarbans looks more fertile. Here, the farmers have good homesteads with fruit trees and grow winter crops in addition to paddy. As mentioned earlier due to the eastward movement of the delta, the regions in the west receive less fresh water and became moribund. Stagnant water leads to diseases that drain the life-force of the region, unlike in the eastwhere agriculture is predominant and there is large scale human settlement. As geographer R.K. Mukherjee observes: From the fifteenth century, man has carried out the work of reclamation here fighting with the jungle, the tiger, the wild buffalo, the pig and the crocodile, until at the present day, nearly half of what was formerly an impenetrable forest has been converted into gardens of graceful palm and fields of waving rice.20

Vegetation and Wildlife Vegetation in this region is strongly influenced by the amount of salt present in the soil. The soil in the Sundarbans, all along the coastal strip, is marked by salinity.21 It supports the growth of tangled masses of vegetation right up to the edge of the water. The surface soil is

Fearsome Forests, Rising Tides

15

composed of decaying mollusses, annielids, larvae and exuviae of insects and sometimes decomposed plants.22 The soil can be classified as, Matial, Balia, Dhap and Dhal.23 This evergreen forest is the abode of many animals like crocodiles, buffaloes, wild hogs, cats, deer, porcupines, sharks, Gangetic dolphins, water monitor, snakes (king cobra, common cobra, and banded krait), red crabs, oysters, etc. Numerous birds are also found in the region. The open bill stork, little and large egret, grey heron, purple heron, cormorant are local birds and the most common migratory bird is the pelican. The most important animal in this region is the Royal Bengal tiger. It is the biggest predator, occupying the pinnacle of the food web of both the aquatic as well as terrestrial eco-systems.24 The huge riverine tract of the Sundarbans can only be visited through waterways. Channels and creeks carrying saline water divide the area into small islands where the jungle has been made to give way to agricultural plots, thanks to man’s endeavour. The sea level being higher than that of the land, embankments are the only way by which the saline water can be kept away from the fields. Thus the visitor is greeted by cultivable land protected by embankments,

Sundarban Crocodile. The womenfolk in the Sundarbans perform a folk ritual—kumir brata—to appease the crocodiles as the men go out fishing.

16

The Sundarbans

small settlements and fisheries.25 As he travels south, he is met by scrub woods so dense that it is impossible to reach the jungle that lies beyond. There is almost always an eerie silence all around, broken only by the screeching of a parrot, the cooing of a dove, the call of a deer, peacock or the noise of monkeys swinging from one branch to another or even the rustling of the tree leaves. The only humans in this region are the honey collectors and woodcutters, who move in groups through the forest cover,26 cautious not to outlive their stay, while keeping a sharp lookout for the tiger as they go about their task.

Early Settlements: A Debate Marshy tracts, saline creeks, occasional cyclones, large trees and dense undergrowth have characterized the Sundarbans. Here the jungle and wildlife reign supreme, so much so that even the settlements are not permanent. Even as the so-called settlers clear a portion of the jungle to build their huts, they are aware that their stay will not be a permanent one. They know that in time the jungle will reclaim its territory, the tiger and the snake will become their neighbours and then it will be time once again to search for new homes. If it is not the jungle, then it is nature playing havoc through cyclonic storms and rising salinity levels in the water.27 The earliest reference of this land can be traced back to the epic Mahabharata where the eldest and second Pandava brother Yudhistir and Bhima visited Gangasagar during their pilgrimage.28 Vayu Puran refers to the flourishing trade and commerce in the region29 and old Bengali literature speaks of settlements among swamps visited by ships from abroad. The poem of Bipradas dated 1495 describes the voyage of a merchant called Chand Saudagar from Burdwan to the sea, mentioning several riverside villages from Bhatpara to Baruipur.30 It tells us that he passed by Ariadaha, on the east, and Ghusuri on the west, then kept along the eastern bank of the river and passed Calcutta. Then Chand proceeded down the Adi Ganga, which was formerly the channel by which the water of the Ganga found its way to the sea. Chand Saudagar, however, could only have had a glimpse of the mangrove forest as it stood shrouded in mystery. Even the settlement

Fearsome Forests, Rising Tides

17

efforts of Todar Mal in 1582 did not take him beyond Hathiagarh, Mednimal (near Canning), Maihati and Dhuliapur, the four southern most mahals (sub-divisions of districts) recorded in Abul Fazl’s AinI-Akbari.31 Even during the rule of the East India Company, these places constituted the northernmost boundary of the Sundarbans as is evident from Hunters Statistical Account of Bengal.32 Romantic speculation identified the vast swampy terrain as the site of a lost civilization.33 Different authors have tried to draw different conclusive ideas about the nature of the settlements in the Sundarbans from studies of various sites of settlements excavated. Authors like Satish Mitra and Kalidas Dutta are of the opinion that settlement and civilization in the Sundarbans were of the highest order.34 European scholars, however, differ from such a conclusion.35 Beveridge refuses to believe that the Sundarbans was ever highly populated and that its inhabitants enjoyed any kind of an urban existence.36 The available evidence indicated the presence of sparsely populated pockets, their inhabitants struggling against the elements and hazards posed by wild animals. In 1857, Ralph Smyth conceded that there was an old settlement judging from the ruins of several temples and tanks but it was impossible to ascertain their exact age.37 Rennell’s map shows that between 1764–72 very little land was under cultivation38 and scarcely any reclamation work. The villagers complained to the survey team of constant attacks on them and their cattle by tigers.39 Gastrell also saw no reason why the legends of past glory should be believed, as there were only the ruins at Kabadak to support any claim of antiquity.40 Further south, towards the sea, however, there were many clearings, which were made chiefly if not wholly by the Maghs of Arakan.41 These people had crossed over from the Arakans coast and being fearless in nature penetrated deep into the islands,42 cleared the forests and began cultivating the soil to grow rice. In the process they also depopulated the land and together with the Portuguese pirates became an additional scourge which the original inhabitants had to suffer. Reference to Khadi-Visheya or Mandal as a flourishing district in the Sena period (twelfth century AD) which later became a dense forest, and the region between Bishkhali and Rabanabad, which was depopulated by the Maghs, may be recalled in this

18

The Sundarbans

connection.43 In Bakarganj in 1862 there were many small clearings.44 Despite such evidence Gastrell stuck to his theory that the Sundarbans never enjoyed any civilized population and that the settlements were too small and scattered to justify any such tales from the past. The impermanence of some of the settlements, as mentioned earlier, was noticed by Westland, who had also made this point while writing about Jessore.45 The history of Khanja Ali illustrates this. The local tradition at Bagahat and Masjidpur shows that he came to reclaim the lands in the Sundarbans,46 a large part of which again became a jungle after his death in 1458.The land was again reclaimed at a later date.47 While reclaiming such land a second or even a third time, it was natural to come across evidence of earlier habitation, like the brick remains of a bathing ghat or traces of a tank. Oral tradition has it that these were places which had once come under the farmer’s plough but got abandoned, one of the reasons for this being the marauding raids of the Marathas who forced the locals to run away and seek shelter elsewhere. Many such settlements returned to the fold of the jungle.48 Beveridge was always very doubtful whether the Sundarbans was ever heavily populated and well cultivated. He had his reasons for such an opinion. Evidences suggest that large quantities of salt were manufactured in Sandwip. This militates against the view of extensive cultivation, for salt could not have been made without the great expenditure of fuel and this of course implied the existence of large tracts of jungle.49 Du Jarric speaks of Sandwip as being able to supply the whole of Bengal with salt. It seems that in olden times salt was reckoned as the most valuable production from this part of the country. In fact, salt manufacture was always a great obstacle to the clearing and colonizing of the chars and islands in Bakarganj and Noakhali. According to Beveridge, ‘...it is true that Sandwip was cultivated in Caesar Fredericks’ time (1569), so it is now and there is no reason to suppose that its civilization was greater than it is at present.’50 It may have had at that time, as it certainly had some thirty or forty years later, one or more forts, but those were marks of insecurity rather than of prosperity, and they did not exist simply because there was peace in the land (during Beveridge’s time) and the Arakanese pirates were no longer formidable.51

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Beveridge next relates an incident of the terrible hardship which the crew and passenger of the ship Ter Schelling suffered on the coast in 1661. Ter Schelling was a Dutch ship which sailed from Batavia for Angula in Bangla (on the Medinipur coast) on 3 September 1661 and which was wrecked off the coast of Bengal on the 8th of the following month. The narrative of the sufferings of the crew and passengers was written by one named Glanius. The ship seemed to have landed on an island near Sandwip, and the sufferings of the passengers were most terrible. Their only drink was salt water. They saw very few inhabitants and those whom they did come across were almost as wretched as they themselves. The copper plate inscription found at Idilpur in Bakarganj and described by Babu Pratap Chandra Ghosh in the Asiatic Society’s Journal (1838) indicates that the inhabitants of that part of the country belonged to a degraded tribe called the Chandabhandas, a fact which is not favourable to the supposition that the Sundarbans was inhabited by a high caste population in the past. Beveridge has quoted from a letter from Fonseca Jesuit who was a Jesuit priest and who visited Bakarganj and Jessore between 1598 and 1600. ‘The king (of Bakla), after compliments asked where I was bound for, and I replied, I am going to the king of Ciendecan who is to be your Highness’ father in law.’52 Beveridge here concludes that Ciendecan and Chandecan are identical to Dhumghat and Jessore, and the boy king of Bakla can be no other than Ramchandra Rai, who married the daughter of Pratapaditya. Fonseca had also given a description of the route from Bakla to Chandecan which would be used to describe the route from Barisal to Kaliganj near which Pratapaditya’s53 capital was situated. According to Beveridge, Fonseca’s description shows that the Sundarbans was much in the same condition in 1599 as it was during his time.54 He points out the fact that Bikramaditya chose Jessore as a safe retreat, is the strongest possible evidence of the forested nature of the surrounding country. In all probability it was cultivated in the previous century by Khanja Ali; but the experiment had proved a failure and the land had again relapsed into jungle during the time of his successor Chand Khan (sixteenth-seventeenth century).55 Thus the main contention of Beveridge and other Western

20

The Sundarbans

historians was that no civilization worth the name had existed in the Sundarbans. Contrary to the opinion expressed by Gastrell,Westland and Beveridge, nationalist historians like Satish Mitra and Kalidas Dutta firmly believed that the Sundarbans was a well-civilized and densely populated region. The largely unsettled physical condition of this area with subsidence, cyclone and above all, ever changing river courses made many localities vanish periodically along with their populations. Satish Mitra differs sharply from Beveridge and argues that the Sundarbans was inhabited by fairly civilized people. He puts forward many arguments to prove his point. According to him the island Sandwip at that time produced salt in huge quantities and it could annually load as many as two hundred ships. Moreover, the Turkish sultan of Alexandria thought it prudent to get his ships built cheaper from Sandwip. Such a place, Satish Mitra argues, which could build excellent ships and manufacture enormous amounts of salt, must have been inhabited by civilized people. He is of the opinion that people of both higher and lower orders inhabited the place and the manual labour was done by the lower orders who were called Chandabhandas. According to Mitra, the debris of civilization can still prove the glorious days of the Sundarbans with a population of civilized people.56 In addition to this, Mitra has given another example to prove that the Sundarbans had innumerable sites of cities. In December 1868, in a meeting of the Asiatic Society, Rev. Long stated that in 1848 he saw a Portuguese map of India in Paris that had been drawn in 1648. This map pointed out five famous ports in Sundarban area named Pacaculy, Cuipitavaz, Noldy, Dapara and Tipara. According to Mitra, the pronunciation of the Portuguese and the Dutch seriously distorted the name of some places that still existed in the Sundarbans. Pacaculy was a Pargana in the 24 Parganas. He identified Cuipitavaz with Khilafatabad which was associated with Khan Jahan Ali Khan. Dapara was identified with Daspara, a place to the north of Rabanabad. As for the other two ports, Mitra is of the opinion that Noldy could be identified with Nalua near Mathurapur in South 24 Parganas and Tipera was identified with Tripura thereby proving to Mitra’s satisfaction that Sundarbans at that time extended upto Chittagong.57

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Loins or scanty clothing—which was interpreted by Beveridge as indicative of uncivilized people—was defended by Satish Mitra on the ground that in a tropical country, this was usual and normal. In the village Bichhat in Bhuluka Pargana, ruins of a huge dock were found where big ships were built. Near it in Basudevpur, coins of Danujamardanadeva were available. These evidences, as described above, are sufficient to prove the existence of civilized people in the Sundarbans and Mitra firmly sticks to this opinion. The study of the ruins of ports and temples suggests that two hundred years ago the riverbanks were teeming with activity.The relics discovered belonged to the Maurya, Sunga, Gupta, Pala and Sena periods.58 The most important places from where these archaeological findings have been excavated in and around lower Bengal are Chandraketugarh, Harinarayanpur, Deoulpota, Atghetha, Sita Kundu, Karanjali, Roydighi, Tota, Krishnachandrapur, Chandkhal, etc. of which Chandraketugarh deserves special mention.59 Repeated excavations in this area have unearthed a treasure trove of archaeological findings from the pre-Maurya to the Gupta period. Chandraketugarh proved to be a mine of terracotta figurines noted for their beautiful execution and style. The terracotta seals and coins with ship motifs bore a striking resemblance to the coins of Imperial Rome in the early Christian era. Archaeologists have concluded that Chandraketugarh was a flourishing coastal town from the fourth century BC to the postGupta era (fourth to sixth century AD), having trade contacts with foreign countries. Temples belonging to different cults and types were excavated in the area known at present, as the 24 Parganas, throughout the ancient medieval and early modern period. A considerable number of them still survive. The Revenue Survey Report of 1857 mentions the existence of several ruined temples and two huge tanks in this area which Hunter also refers to in his Statistical Account. In the lot no. 22 in Bakultala a copper plate grant of Lakshman Sen was found. Two Jain images, one of a Svetambara and the other of a Digamvara of Adinath have been found some miles northwest of Raidighi. In Mograhat, some relics of a church were discovered. The folk-architecture, as can be seen here, possesses a freshness and charm of its own. The discovery of

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The Sundarbans

Jautar Deul. Shiva temple built in the Pala period (around tenth century AD), near Raidighi, South 24 Paraganas. A fair is held at this site every year in April.

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more archaeological evidence in the course of scientific excavations and accidental findings during the reclamation of the Sundarban delta give us a much more detailed information about the cities, ports, rulers, kings and inhabitants.60

Land and Life The Sundarbans is a tract that is ever-changing and moving usually southward so that what is the Sundarbans now was probably in the Bay of Bengal hundreds of years ago and similarly what is now old lands north of Calcutta was once in the heart of the Sundarbans.61 The deul or monument of lot 116, dilapidated old buildings in ‘G’ plot almost near the Bay, the mosque in lots 129 and 58, the fort of Pratapaditya,62 scattered temples and ancient settlements in the Chandraketugarh epoch lead one to believe that the vast tract designated as the Sundarbans was once thriving villages in an early period. It seems that while we do not need to be as sceptical as the I.C.S. Magistrates, we do not have to accept the local chauvinism of Sundarban nationalists (patriots) either. One point, however, is clear. The people whom the Europeans called Magh pirates, raiding for slaves and booty along ‘Rogues River’ south of Calcutta, were not just marauders but settlers from Arakan63 across the Bay of Bengal, who came as agrarian migrants as well as dacoits. They came to settle but retained their ethnic identity—half Buddhist, half-Muslim without any degree of higher civic discipline and perhaps used slave labour for clearing the jungle for cultivation.64 Such Maghs are still vestigially to be found mentioned in the police records as ‘river pirates’ and only recently, one such gang of kidnappers was wiped out in an encounter with the Border Security Force (BSF) at the point where the Sundarbans forest meets the sea.65 They are mostly Muslim today, similar to the migrants in Bangladesh who are from contemporary Arakan. They form an under-class of criminals in state records and are half shifting cultivators, whose culture does not fit any religious category. Whatever the nature of its population—civilized or tribal, sparse or thick, the Sundarbans with its unique physical features offered a tough proposition to human habitation throughout the ages. Its

24

The Sundarbans

shifting rivers, cyclonic hazards and occasional flooding despite embankments and exploits of animals debilitated efforts of clearing forests for cultivation. On the whole, the situation was clearly inconducive to long-term settlements leading to prosperity and the blossoming of civilization of a high order. In fact, battling with the hostilities of nature was so overwhelming an aspect of the settlers’ lives in the Sundarbans that it led to the evolution of deities in whom they could seek refuge psychologically, though the settlers did not view it as a psychological need. For them it was grounded in reality. These deities were not the regular godheads of the Indian pantheon. On the other hand, they were fashioned from day to day experiences and realities that revolved around conflict and strife. The attributes of the deities reflected the angst of the settlers who battled against nature and whose survival was by no means easy. The deities thus became essentially patron saints whose benevolence could effectively ward off the dangers of the jungle and its dreaded fauna.66 What therefore evolved here was not so much of a civilization as a way of living, but a culture emerging from responses to the challenges of nature in various forms.

Notes and References 1. Kumudranjan Naskar, Dwijendra Narayan Guha Bakshi, Mangrove Swamps of The Sundarbans, An Ecological Perspective, Calcutta, 1987, pp. 3–4. 2. Shyamali Gupta, Aranyer Thaba in Eksathe, (cultural monthly for women, Paschim Banga Ganatantrick Mahila Samiti ) ed, Shyamali Gupta, 1 August 2007, Kolkata, p. 40, Deborah Pasmantier, Maneating Tigers Wreak Havoc on India’s Island of Widows, Daily Times— Leading News Resource of Pakistan, Wednesday, 22 December 2004. 3. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, Districts of the 24 Parganas And Sundarbans, First Edition, London, 1875, Reprint Edition, Delhi, 1973, pp. 286–7, L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, 24 Parganas, Calcutta, 1914, p. 2. 4. François Bernier (1625–88) was a French physician and traveller, born at Joué-Etiau /Anjou. For 12 years he was the personal physician of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. He wrote Travels in the Mughal Empire, which is mainly about the reigns of Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb.

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5. Rathindranath De, The Sundarbans, Calcutta, 1990, p. 1. 6. Shib Shankar Mitra, Sundarban Samagra, Calcutta, 1988, p. 7. 7. L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, Khulna, Calcutta, 1908, p. 198. 8. Richard M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760, Delhi, 1994, pp. 194–5. 9. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 287–8. 10. ibid., p. 335. 11. L.S.S. O’Malley, 24 Parganas, op.cit., pp. 2–13. 12. ibid., pp. 2–7. 13. Kanangopal Bagchi, The Ganges Delta, Calcutta, 1944, p. 67. 14. L.S.S. O’Malley, 24 Parganas, op.cit., pp. 2–5. 15. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 293–9. Other large rivers connected with some of the above (1) The Passar (2) Bishkhali (3) Thakuran (4) Kabadak (5) Hariabhanga (6) Kholpetua (7) Ichhamati (8) Sibsa (9) Bhadra (10) Bhola (11) Buriswar (12) Andharmanik and (13) Bahadur. 16. L.S.S. O’Malley, 24 Parganas, op.cit., p. 2, Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 287. 17. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 287. 18. ibid., p. 287. 19. ibid., p. 288–9. The soil, too, was richer than in the first two sections; and every well-to-do peasant had his thatched hut and granaries, surrounded with a garden of palms, coconut, betelnut and other trees. 20. R.K. Mukherjee, The Changing Face of Bengal: A Study of Riverine Economy, Calcutta, 1938, p. 137. 21. Naskar, Guha Bakshi, op.cit., p. 14. 22. ibid., p. 17. 23. ibid., p. 18. Matial: Clayey soil, loose and light in composition is very suitable for rice. Baliara: Loamy soil reddish in colour. It is able to retain moisture longer than any other soil. Coarse paddy can be grown in it. Dhap is whitish in colour and lies at higher levels than the other classes. Consequently it is not covered with water and the salt is not washed away, unless there is heavy rain. No crops can be grown in it. It only bears ulugrass used for thatching. Dhal is reddish in colour, cracks when dry, and is full of holes in the rain. If there is moderate or scanty rainfall, coarse paddy can be raised in it, but if the rain is early and heavy, it is impossible to bring it under cultivation.

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The Sundarbans

24. Rathindranath De, op.cit., p. 21. In water, the solar energy is converted by the phyto-planktons of creeks, which are consumed by zoo-planktons. The mangrove litters, being wax covered, float for long in the tide water to become permeated by fungi and bacteria giving rise to the formation of excellent, proteinous food for fish. The predator scaly fish are the preferred food for crocodiles and water monitors (salvator lizard) are palatable food for tigers. Tigers also feed on fish, crabs and turtles, apart from their major terrestrial prey, animals like wild boar, spotted deer and monkeys. Thus, the mangrove eco-system is an aqua-terrestrial system where food chains of both land and water are interlinked. 25. C.J.C. Davidson, Diary of Travels And Adventures in Upper India, Vol. 2, London, 1843, p. 199. 26. Water Hamilton, A Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of Hindoostan and the Adjacent Countries, First Edition 1820, Reprint edition, Delhi, 1971, pp. 125–6. 27. A.F.M. Abdul Jail, Sundarbaner Itihas, Dacca, Second edition, 1986, pp. 3–4. 28. Kalidas Dutta, Dakhin Chabbis Parganar Ateet, Vol. I, Baruipur, South 24 Parganas, 1989, p. 27, Kanangopal Bagchi, op.cit., p. 42. 29. Kalidas Dutta, op.cit., p. 23. 30. Ashutosh Bhattacharya ed., Manasa Mangal, Calcutta, 1954, p. 149. 31. L.S.S. O’Malley, 24 Parganas, op.cit., p. 26. 32. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 381. 33. Satish Mitra, Jassahaur Khulnar Itihas, Vol. I, Calcutta, 1914, pp. 68– 73. 34. Kalidas Dutta, op.cit., pp. 19–22, Satish Mitra, op.cit., p. 73. 35. H. Beveridge, The Ditrict of Bakarganj, Its History and Statistics, London, 1876, pp. 169–80, J. Westland, A Report on the District of Jessore, Its Antiquities, Its History, and Its Commerce, Calcutta, 1871, p. 21. 36. , op.cit., p. 169. According to Beveridge, the ‘Bengali mind, as being prone to the past at the expense of the present has answered the question in the affirmative and maintains that there were formerly large cities in the Sundarbans.’ 37. Ralph Smyth, Statistical and Geographical Report of the 24 Pergunnahs District, Calcutta, 1857, pp. 69–81. 38. Colonel J.E. Gastrell, Geographical and Statistical Report of the Districts of Jessore, Fureedpore and Backergunge, Calcutta, 1868, p. 23. 39. ibid., p. 24.

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40. ibid., p. 25. According to Gastrell traces of former inhabitants in the Sundarbans were also found when tanks were being dug on the Morellgunge estate. 41. Walter Hamilton, op.cit., pp. 84–5. 42. ibid., p. 85. Sundarbans have always been regarded as peculiarly adapted for the reception and concealment of river pirates. 43. Jamini Mohan Ghosh, Magh Raiders in Bengal, Calcutta, 1960, pp. 50–1. 44. Gastrell, op.cit., pp. 24–5. 45. Westland, op.cit., pp. 20–1. 46. , op.cit., pp. 11–21, Some of the earliest traditions and some of the oldest ruins in the district of Jessore connect themselves with the name of Khanja Ali. Ruins of Khanja Ali were found near Baghahat on the outskirts of the Sundarbans, the place which was declared by tradition to have been his residence.The largest of Khanja Ali’s buildings was the Shat Gumbaj or sixty domes. Another beautiful mosque was found at Masjidpur. This shows that parts of the Sundarbans were prosperous during the time of Khanja Ali. 47. Westland, op.cit., p. 21. Westland had doubts about the Maratha invaders (who we know never during the bargi raids of the 1740s against Rarhdesa in West Bengal crossed the Bhagirathi river). But he was certain that Maghs once settled in these regions and that they had reclaimed southern portions of Bakarganj area. 48. ibid., p. 21. 49. Beveridge, op.cit., p. 169. 50. ibid., p. 170. 51. ibid., p. 170. Ralph Fitch visited Bakla in 1586, and described the country as being prosperous and fruitful. He did not mention that Bakla was a city. Beveridge dismissed Fitch as being not very observant. His descriptions were often incomprehensive and his itinerary not clearly known. Fitch mentioned nothing about the storm that devastated Bakla only twelve months or so before his arrival. However, the question of Fitch’s credibility and intelligence is not very relevant as there is no evidence to suggest that Bakla was part of the Sundarbans. 52. ibid., p. 175.

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The Sundarbans

53. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, Pratapaditya of Jessore established his kingdom in the Sundarbans. (Nihar Ranjan Ray, Bangalir Itihas) 54. ibid., pp. 175–6. 55. ibid., p. 179. Beveridge, in his History of Bakarganj, states that ‘Chandecan is evidently the same as Chand Khan, which, as we know from the life of Raja Pratapaditya by Ram Ram Basu (modernized by Haris Chandra Tarkalankar) was the name of the former proprietor of the estate in the Sundarbans, which Pratapadiyta’s father Vikramaditya got from King Daud.’ 56. Satish Mitra, op.cit., p. 87. In lot no. 26, two big tanks named Raidighi and Kankandighi were found. There was a temple of Biranchi in lot no. 127. In the lot no. 128, a fort was found which was called Bharat Garh. Near this fort there is a temple of Raja Bharat. The grove of Pir Gorachand can still be seen in Haroa whose annual fair is famous. In between rivers Jamuna and Ichamati in plot no. 165, evidence was found of the existence of the city of Jessore, fort of Jessore and the temple of Jashohareshwari north of Dhumghat. The Dhumghat fort was situated at the south. 57. ibid., pp. 87–90. 58. Kalidas Dutta, op.cit., pp. 28–35. Among relics of earlier times, there were hundreds of silver punchmarked and rectangular cast copper coins, clay models inscribed with Brahmi scripts, a fragment of a small stone pillar with Asokan inscription, Mauryan and Kushana terracotta figurines, and toy carts of animals depicting Jataka stories. These discoveries reveal that this part of Bengal witnessed the development of civilization from the New Stone Age. 59. Bratindranath Mukherjee, ‘Decipherment of The Kharoshti-Brahmi Script’, Monthly Bulletin, Asiatic Society, August, 1989, pp. 1–6. 60. Aparna Mandal, Sundarban, A Socio-Eco-Cultural Study 1757–1947, unpublished M.Phil dissertation, Jadavpur University, 1990, p. 3, A.K. Mandal, R.K. Ghosh, Sundarban, A Socio Bio-Ecological Study, Calcutta, 1989, pp. 94–100. 61. Kalidas Dutta, op.cit., pp. 19–28. 62. Aniruddha Roy, ‘Case Study of a Revolt in Medieval Bengal: Raja Pratapditya Guha Roy of Jessore’, Barun De et al., ed., Essays in Honour of Professor S.C. Sarkar, New Delhi, 1976, p. 146.

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63. Nihar Ranjan Roy, Bangalir Itihas, Adiparva, Calcutta, 1939, p. 46. 64. Tapan Raychaudhuri, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, pp. 83–4. 65. Arun Mukherjee, ‘Crime and Criminals in Nineteenth Century Bengal 1861–1904’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XXI, Number 2, April-June 1984, pp. 164–70. 66. Dulal Chaudhuri, ‘Folk Religion’, Amal Kumar Das et al. ed., A Focus on Sundarban, Calcutta, 1981, p. 74.

CHAPTER THREE

The Sundarbans in punthi Literature

F

or any account of life in the Sundarbans in the early days one has little option but to depend on the punthi. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries there thrived in lower deltaic Bengal punthi literature in Bengali verse devoted to the gods and goddesses of the Sundarbans. This literature reflected elements of the surroundings in which it emerged.1 Its theme was the struggle between humanity and nature. Punthi literature arose to cater to the most marginal sections of the population. Their beliefs stood apart from mainstream Hinduism and Islam.2 Folk religion here, as represented by local syncretic cults, had a distinctive aura of its own. The deities worshipped in the Sundarbans had a standing below that of the Bengali pantheon. They were the gods and goddesses of woodcutters, honey gatherers, beeswax gatherers, boat builders, and the most desperate cultivators.3 They were deities with whom the man in the forest could identify himself. This literature came into existence much before the British became fully hegemonic in Bengal, and was therefore not surprisingly free from colonial influence. In fact, punthi, in particular, is a literature of transition prevalent during late pre-colonial and early colonial Sections of this chapter were presented in the Seminar organized by the University of Calcutta commemorating the Birth Centenary of Professor Kuruvila Zachariah, and later published as ‘Literature and Folk Deities of the Sundarbans’ in Rajat Kanta Ray ed. Mind Body and Society, Calcutta, 1995.

The Sundarbans in punthi Literature

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Bengal. This gives us a view of the mental world and life conditions of the people which is not accessible from other historical sources of the period. The life and condition of the habitants of the Sundarbans are explained here as they were before the advent of British rule in Bengal. It needs to be noted that settlements in the Sundarbans go back to a long antiquity. Recent archaeological findings have proved beyond doubt that ports and settlements had sprung up and disappeared recurrently in deltaic Bengal in the last two thousand years.4 Clearings would spring up from time to time, only to be overtaken by some natural or political calamity.5 It is necessary at this stage to recount the possibilities of calamity in this inhospitable terrain. It is these sources of danger that formed the underlying theme of the Sundarbans punthi literature. The people of the area had not been equipped with firearms to any appreciable extent as late as the end of the nineteenth century. The ground was too swampy to explore on foot. The only routes of communication were the waterways. The land was notorious for its wildlife: tigers, snakes, and crocodiles. The people were always at the mercy of these creatures. Every time a sizeable portion of people developed a regular habitation, the settlement faced constant cyclonic hazards, floods and other natural calamities. Wild animals starved of forest foods, ventured into the inhabited villages in search of prey. The Royal Bengal Tiger of the Sundarbans was said to be a habitual man-eater, unlike other tigers. One of the central motifs of the punthis was man’s struggle against wild animals, especially the tiger, which was idealized as monstrous foe or at times even a subordinate deity. The population of the Sundarbans consisted entirely of marginalized people. ‘Nearly all the inhabitants’ of the Sundarbans were ‘either Hindus or Muslims’ according to Hunter. ‘There were, of course, a few Magh Buddhists and native Christians who also came up with missionary penetration of Portuguese and later British power. The rest belonged to the Hindu and Muslim communities, mostly of low status.’6 The Hindus were mainly of the following Sudra castes: Napit, Kaibarta, Kapali, Pod, Chandal, Jalia, Bagdi, Tior, Dhoba, Jogi, Suri and Kaora. Of these twelve castes, the Pods and the

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The Sundarbans

Chandals were the ‘most numerous’. Next came the Bagdis whom Hunter described as ‘rather numerous’. Thereafter came the Kapalis who were neither ‘numerous nor few’. The others were either ‘few or very few’ in number. All of these castes pursued a mix of occupations, such as ‘cultivation, wood-cutting and fishing’ as means of subsistence. The largest group among the Muslims of the Sundarbans, according to Hunter, was the Shaikhs (cultivators and wood-cutters). The Sayyids and Pathans were higher in status than the Shaikhs.They were cultivators, and were said to be ‘very few in number’. Besides these, Hunter noted, the Mirshikaris (hunters and fisherman), the Sapurias (snake-catchers and snake-charmers) and the Bediyas, all outcastes or gypsy tribes, had ‘professed Muhammadanism’. The native Christians, as recorded by Hunter, were all cultivators.7 There were also other tribes like Santhals, Mundas and Oraons who had come and settled in this area to reclaim the forest. All these people depended entirely on the forest for their livelihood though they had to perpetually struggle against the hazards of nature. As their weapons were woefully inadequate, the people found recourse in divine intervention.8 A superstitious fatalism pervaded the folk cults. The following is a discussion of a few texts originating from this conjucture which also reflects on the woes of the people. The texts dealt with here are the following: i) The Raimangal eulogizing the tiger god Dakshin Ray was written in 1686 by Krishna Ram Das. Later it was edited and published by Satyanarayan Bhattacharya on behalf of the Calcutta University. There is also an incomplete undated manuscript of the Raimangal by Rudradev. This was published in the Sahitya Prakasika, Vol. V, Dwadash Mangal, ed. Panchanan Mondal, Santiniketan, 1966. ii) The Ghazi-Kalu-Champavati-Kanyar punthi was composed by Abdur Rahim. The date of compositon is unknown. But reference to the sub-division in which the author was born makes it clear that the text could not have been written before the Mutiny. It was presumably a late nineteenth-century punthi. iii) The Banabibi Jahuranama is about the mother goddess Banabibi. This was composed by Banayuddin in 1877. There

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is another version of the tale by Marhum Munshi Muhammad Khater entitled Banabibi Jahuranama written in 1287 B.S., Kartik, i.e. 1880. These texts are all written in simple verse. It is well known that the people chanted some verses before they entered the forest so that no danger would befall them. What necessitated the appearance of these texts? Why did they disseminate among so many people over so long a span of time? If the construction of a text is understood as a social function, what kind of investment (aesthetic, moral, religious, or political) valorized these texts? What purpose did they serve that a body of people could use them in the course of their daily lives? At first glance, these texts would appear to be fantastic narratives about gods, goddesses and their interactions with humble men and women. Taken as documents of social reality, such texts would be poor in factual content. But these texts were meant not to depict reality, but to transform it magically. After all, they were meant to be read as ‘mantras’, to be chanted during the propitiatory rites.9 This function is not unique to these texts alone. There is a genre in Bengali literature, the origin of which is lost in obscurity, called the mangal kabya. These verses, as the name suggests (‘mangal’, refers to well-being of the household) were written to be recited or sung in panchali tradition.10 Panchali is written in an easy flowing verse meant to facilitate the act of reciting. It describes the acts of grace of a god or a goddess and is to be read out during or after the act of worship of the deity or idol. The worship and the recitation are meant to transform reality magically, rendering it favourable for the devotee. Thus there are: the panchali of Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth), of Sitala (small pox goddess), of Manasha (snake goddess), and of late, thanks to movies, of Santoshi Ma.Worship of a particular god or goddess by recitation of his or her panchali is meant to ward off a particular kind of evil. Consequently, the texts at hand are replete with verses where promises are made by the god or goddess to confer a particular favour or ward off a particular danger. It is these that are desired by the devotee and attributed to the deity. Let us turn now to the narratives of the texts. Our focus here is on three deities: Dakshin Ray, Barakhan Ghazi and Banabibi.

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Dakshin Ray Dakshin Ray, known as the supreme lord of tigers, is widely worshipped throughout the whole of the Sundarbans in both parts of Bengal (after the Partition of India in 1947, the bulk of the islands, islets, estuaries, channels and rivers became part of East Pakistan which later became Bangladesh in 1971) even today. He is usually seated upon a tiger and is often accompanied by his brother or companion Kalu Ray. Dakshin Ray is worshipped not only as the god of tigers but also as a divine curer.11 According to one of the stories he was the son of Shiva. The head of Ganesa when severed from his body fell in the southern (or dakshin)

Dakshin Ray. The supreme lord of the tigers, is widely worshipped throughout the Sundarbans, even today. According to one of the stories, he is the son of Shiva and legend has it that the severed head of Ganesa fell in a southernly direction and become a deity.

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direction to become a deity.12 This is perhaps how the name Dakshin Ray came into being—as a subordinate alternative to the idea of Ganesa or Ganapati. The Raimangal of Krishna Ram Das relates the following story. Pushpa Datta, a merchant of Bardaha, intended to brave the dangers at sea in search of his lost father. He asked Ratai Baulya to supply the wood for his boats. Dinga gathaiba sadhu patane jaite adesh karilo karya katiya anite chalila shiropa paiya baulya ratai loia pradhan putra ar chhoy bhai .... Katite lagila kastha monomoto jata kiropa pusuri sundri adi kato13 (With the intention to set sail Pushpa Datta asked Baulya Ratai to fell trees for wood. Ratai along with his elder son and six brothers went to fetch the wood. They selected trees in the forest according to their liking—Kiropa, Pusuri, Sundari and began to fell them.)

As they were about to return, they came across a large tree. Dakshin rayer ek briksha puja mani seito bonete achhe keho nahi jani dekhiya dagar gachh sabe meli kate. tilek bilamba kara paramad ghate dakshin rayer krodh ihato janiya adeshila chhoy bagh nikate aniya mamuda kumuda suda bagh tangabhanga bajradanta khan daura chakshu jar ranga samukhe rahila tara kariya pranam hailo rayer aagya bale krishnaram. (There was a tree in the wood which was the abode of Dakshin Ray. Not knowing what it was, they began to fell it as it appeared to be so large. Calamity occurred soon as there appeared six angry tigers with bloodshot eyes: Mamuda, Kumuda, Suda, Tangabhanga, Bajradanta and Khan Daura. Bowing before Dakshin Ray, they stood before him. Ray, says Krishnaram, issued orders.)

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The tigers pounced on Ratai’s brothers and killed them all. As Ratai was about to commit suicide, a heavenly voice asked him to sacrifice his son to Dakshin Ray in order to resurrect his brothers. Ratai obeyed the advice and his six brothers were revived. His son too regained his life. Ratai and his brothers returned and narrated the supernatural powers of Dakshin Ray to the local people. Pushpa Datta then offered a bag of gold coins to the craftsmen to make the boats for him. At the command of Mahadeva the master of heaven, two craftsmen, Hanuman and Biswakarma, descended to the earth in the form of human beings and made seven boats in the next seven days. The best boat was named the Madhukar. Pushpa Datta was ready to set out on his arduous journey. His mother, Sushila, offered prayers to Dakshin Ray and entreated him to save her son from any danger. She advised Pushpa: Jakhan bipak dekho samshay jivan bhabio dakshin rai dukhani charan (Whenever you are in trouble or life is at stake seek shelter at the feet of Dakshin Ray.)

Pushpa Datta began his journey aboard the Madhukar. On the way he worshipped Siva at Barasat and reached Khania where he offered prayers to Dakshin Ray. There he came across an altar of Ghazi Sahab. On enquiry, the boatman explained that in the past there had been a confrontation between Dakshin Ray and Ghazi Sahab. The duo fought so fiercely that neither of them won. Various tigers took part in the battle. The first disciple and most favourite tiger of Ghazi Sahab was ‘Dauda’ and that of Dakshin Ray was ‘Hira’. Prathame ailo bagh nam rupchanda samukher danta tar sona diya bandha mariya boner hati jar ghar bhaksha rakshas palai dare kiba dana daksha kashuya bagher mashua besh kalo sara duta chakshu jale jano akasher tara

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(First appeared the tiger Rupchanda whose foreteeth were enamelled with gold. He killed wild elephants and ate them at home and even the demons were afraid of him. Next came the tiger Kasuya whose eyes were burning bright like stars.)

Realizing that the prolonged fight meant destruction of the whole earth, God appeared in the garb of a saint and mediated between them. In accordance with the agreement, Dakshin Ray and Ghazi Sahab were given two different areas to rule. It was also agreed that every devotee would pay equal respect to Dakshin Ray and Ghazi Sahab. Moving down the lower reaches of the Ganga, Pushpa Datta arrived at its confluence with the sea at Ganga Sagar (Sagar Islands in the Sundarbans). There he heard the story of how Bhagirath had brought the Ganga down to the earth. He sailed along the coasts and at Rajdaha came across a wonderful sight—a beautiful place on the sea. His companions, however, could not see it. Finally, Pushpa Datta arrived at Turanga where he narrated his experience of the wonderful sight to the king. Not inclined to believe his fanciful story, the king asked Pushpa Datta for proof. Since Pushpa Datta could not show him the wonderful sight, he was imprisoned and the king ordered that he be beheaded. Pushpa Datta prayed to Dakshin Ray for help. The next day when he was about to be executed Dakshin Ray appeared with an army of tigers. The tigers attacked the city and the king lost his life. A heavenly voice at the battlefield promised the queen that her husband would be revived; on condition that she worship Dakshin Ray and give her daughter in marriage to Pushpa Datta. The queen consented and the king and his soldiers regained their lives. The merchant’s father who had been imprisoned by the king was released. Pushpa Datta married the princess Ratnabati, and along with his father and newly wed wife, returned to his country.The fame of Dakshin Ray spread far and wide.14 Tabe narapatibar kayabakyamane pujila rayer pad bibidha bidhane ghare ghare jato lok pujila sakal dakshin rayer mane baro kutuhal pitaputra duijane harashita mon pujila rayer pad parama jatan

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(Then the king offered prayers from his heart to Dakshin Ray, worshipping him in accordance with the rituals. In every house, men began to worship him. This stirred Dakshin Ray deeply. Father and son joined in joyous prayer at his feet.)

In addition to Krishnaram Das’s Raimangal there is also an incomplete manuscript of Raimangal by Rudradev. This is notable on account of the depiction of the highly individualized traits of several tigers. In fact each tiger had a well-defined personality in Rudradev’s version.15 ‘Huma Mahateja’, for example, the king of the tigers who headed the eighty-four tigers summoned by Dakshin Ray in the war against Barakhan Ghazi, gave the following account of himself to Dakshin Ray. Kendabane kaidaro sarir dagar baro chalite na pari ati bara nahi kare chalbul pare thake khaler kula keora boner madhye ara dari pai sari gai suye thake khai dai hanoi samai ami asi nidre jai jato neye naker nises peye kachi dhore tani bose bose nouka lagayai bhite lap diye pari tate ghare dhori loi ek jan. (I am the tough one of the Kenda woods. My body is extremely big. I cannot move fast. I do not move about. I crouch in the Keora woods by the side of the creek, waiting for the oarsmen who row down singing the sari song. As they lie down after taking their meals, I come out. The boatmen are asleep and I can hear them breathe through their nostrils [sic]. I am in no hurry as I sit down. Calmly I pull the rope and bring the boat slowly to the mud bank. I jump down upon the boat and seize one of them by the neck.)

Rudradev gives the following description of the tigers’ attack on the fakirs: Gaganer tara jeno nayan ghurai lap diye pare bagh phakirer gai ghar bhenge rakta khai chhire phele mundu kamre phakir that kare khanda khanda.

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(The tiger’s eyes shone like the stars of the sky. It jumped upon the fakir, and drank the blood from his neck after ripping apart his head. It tore the fakir’s body to pieces with its teeth.)

Barakhan Ghazi Barakhan Ghazi, a Muslim deity, is also known as Zinda Pir or Ghazi Sahab in the Sundarbans. Though he is reckoned to be a Muslim pir, the Hindus and Muslims of South 24 Parganas, Khulna and Jessore districts are equally devoted to this saint. His image, worshipped in many places, speaks of his handsome appearance and prowess. Usually fakirs or pirs perform the rituals but there is no hard and fast rule. Even Hindus performed the rituals, praying for the welfare of their children and their domestic animals.16 Ghazi Zinda Pir is referred to in the Maimansingha-gitika and also in the Raimangal written by Krishnaram Das. In the Raimangal of Krishnaram Das, Barakhan Ghazi (which would mean the big Khan, or Pathan, warrior of Islam) was the son of a well-to-do zamindar who left his father’s home to become a fakir. He began preaching Islam among the downtrodden of South Sundarbans. As his popularity spread he had a confrontation with Dakshin Ray who was then the most powerful deity of the Sundarbans. It is said that God himself came down to mediate between Barakhan Ghazi and Dakshin Ray and since then they, and their followers, both Muslims and Hindus, followed a life of amity and understanding, which is a notable social feature of the Sundarbans. The question still remains as to how the conflict between the two deities was mitigated. In fact there was no real contradiction between the followers of the two deities. The downtrodden Muslims of the Sundarbans were converted lower caste Hindus who retained their old beliefs and customs. The followers of Dakshin Ray on the other hand were also lower caste Hindus. They too, were oppressed by the upper caste Hindus in the same manner as the converted Muslims had once been. Apart from this, both the communities lived under the constant fear of tigers. Common origin and the deadly environment impelled the Hindus and Muslims to worship both the dieties, who were regarded as the tiger godlings.17 Both communities had to conjure

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up deities who would protect them and hence saw no contradiction in worshipping one while being the followers of the other. There are numerous versions of the story about Dakshin Ray and Ghazi. One such story is popularly known as Ghazi Kalu O Champabati Kanya-r punthi.18 The story is as follows. There was a king named Sikandar Shah at Biratnagar far away from Bengal. He had two sons Judasujan and Ghazi. He also adopted a boy named Kalu. The elder son married the only daughter of the king of Janga and settled down there. As he did not come back, the king looked to his younger son as his successor to the throne. But Ghazi being inclined towards asceticism did not fall in with his father’s wishes. Sikandar Shah was angry and he tried more than once to kill Ghazi. He threw him on one occasion at the feet of an elephant and on another occasion into a fire. But each time Ghazi was miraculously saved by the grace of Allah. Ghazi eventually became a fakir, and left home. His brother Kalu followed him. Gazi bale chalo ebe jadi ichha thake keha jadi dekhe bhai pariba bipake takhan chalilo kalu gazir sangete chalia samasta rat prabhat kalete birat nagar chhari bhai duijane utarilo giya ek nirjan kanone (Says the Ghazi: Let’s go, if you so desire, we will be in trouble if spotted. Kalu followed Ghazi out of town; after a long night’s walk the two arrived at a deserted place, leaving behind the city of Birat.)

They crossed the sea. Bhromia anek desh bangalate abasesh basilen sundarbanete .... Seikhanete chillalen bane jato bagh chhilo sishya hailo kachhete gazir (Having travelled far and wide at last he came to Bengal and settled down in the Sundarbans. There he let out a fierce cry and all the tigers of the forest gathered before him and became his disciples.)

After staying there for seven years, he and Kalu left the place. At length they reached a settlement called Chhapai. The hostile

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ruler Sridhar chased them out of his kingdom. Enraged, Kalu cursed the king. No sooner did he utter the imprecation than the place caught fire. King Sridhar begged for pardon so Ghazi converted him to Islam. Finding the human habitation uncongenial, the two fakirs journeyed once again into the Sundarbans. They established a kingdom in the forest and settled down there. The place was known as Sonarpur. Sonapure rahe gazi harisho antare anander sima nahi prati ghare ghare gazi ar kalu saha masjid majhe basilen simhasane manohar saje (The Ghazi settled at Sonarpur in a happy frame of mind. At each and every home joy knew no bounds. Richly attired, Ghazi and Kalu ascended the throne in the mosque.)

Ghazi and Kalu went to Brahmannagar next. Champabati the daughter of King Mukut Rai was a woman of exquisite beauty. The fairies united Ghazi and Champabati in their dreams. They fell in love with each other. Champabati was sad to learn that Ghazi was a Muslim for she knew her father would never accept him. Ghazi narrated the affair of Champabati to Kalu. Champabati in turn told her mother everything. The latter said sympathetically: Bidhir jadi lekha hai kapale tomar taha ke khandite pare shakti achhe kar (If it is so destined, no power can undo it.)

Through Kalu, Ghazi sent a proposal of marriage. Mukut Rai was so affronted by this that he promptly imprisoned Kalu. In fury Ghazi marched with his tiger disciples towards Brahmannagar. The king, too, assisted by his army chief Dakshin Ray, prepared for war. There was a great battle between the two armies, and the tigers and crocodiles on both sides achieved marvellous feats. Finally, Ghazi defeated the king. He accepted Islam as his religion and gave his daughter to Ghazi. They lived happily thereafter.19 In this story there are also incidents which exhibit Ghazi’s miraculous powers. Many people were cured of their diseases by his magic touch.20

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Banabibi She is the deity of the forest, the protector of all inmates. Banabibi was perhaps originally known as Banachandi before the advent of the Muslims.21 Even today the idols which are found are of two types: Muslims make the idol in the form of a young girl of a wellto-do Muslim family. The Hindus on the other hand worship idols of a mother goddess. But in both cases the idol is decorated with wild flowers and creepers on her head and neck which is indicative of her roots being in the wild forest. The rituals practised by the people in worshipping Banachandi have no hard and fast rules nor any similarity with those of the Puranic gods.22 In fact, the worship of Banachandi is an affair of the whole community. She can be worshipped at any time of the year and by any man of the community. There is no fixed date or season for the worship of this deity. Whenever the people enter into the forest with the apprehension of confronting tigers, they offer prayers or observe rituals by way of worshipping the goddess. The rituals are more suited to the convenience of the people and their estranged life pattern. This becomes evident from the fact that the poor Muslims who settled in the Sundarbans in Mughal times did not hesitate to accept Banachandi as their goddess. She was transformed into Banabibi in course of time and even today Hindus and Muslims worship her with equal zest.23 In fact, the people of the Sundarbans do not think of Banabibi as an elite deity housed in a temple or a mosque. Instead she is a part of their hard and difficult life wherein the religious differences are obscure and the struggle of life more prominent.24 The fakirs while entering the forests with the woodcutters often used to sing this song.25 Bunobadare dake pakhi joare chhote khal aire ai bandir put katte hoglanal amra age age jai maye smaran kore tora ai khonta kurul benki hate kore bose achhe ekla bone banabibir put ai re tora badar majhe ore nere bhut (Birds chirp in the forest and the tidal waters rush through the creek. Come along boys, come here to cut the reeds. Let us move forward in the

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name of the mother. Follow us with spades, shovels and axes in hand. The son of Banabibi sits inside the forest all by himself. Come, boys, come inside the forest.)

The Banabibi Jahuranama contains two stories. The first story narrates how Banabibi along with her brother Shah Jangli was sent by God from Mecca to the Sundarbans to acquire a place there. At that time the Sundarbans were ruled by the deity Dakshin Ray.26 So Banabibi had to wage a battle against Dakshin Ray. But Dakshin Ray’s mother Narayani declared that only a woman could fight another woman and so she armed herself to face her adversary. In the great battle that ensued just as Banabibi was about to win, Narayani proclaimed that she was her friend. Banabibi accepted the overture and agreed that a portion of the forest would thenceforth remain under the rule of Dakshin Ray. Banabibi and Dakshin Ray shared the realm of the Sundarbans from that time onwards. The other story narrates how a boatman of Kalinga (Orissa coast) named Dhonai set out for the Sundarbans in a boat to collect honey and wax. His nephew, Dukhe, the only son of his widowed mother, accompanied him. As the boy left for the dreaded forests his mother prayed to Banabibi to protect her son.27 Kotha raile banabibi mai abhagir putra dukhe mahalete jai kangaler mata tumi bipadnashinee amar dukhere mago tarabe aponi tomar kadame mata sapinu uhare rane bane banabibi tarabe bachhare (She [Dukhe’s mother] prayed to Banabibi, ‘Where art thou oh mother Banabibi. The son of this unfortunate mother is heading for the forest.You, the saviour of all the poor ones, shall surely save my son. I put my son into your hands; protect him from the perils of the forest.’)

Having rowed past various places, Dhonai and his party arrived at a place called Natakhali. They spent the whole night singing and dancing and Dukhe played on the kettle drum. When day dawned, the party rowed deep into the forest. Dhonai the honey collector landed there with his associates after offering prayers to Dakshin Ray, god of the tigers. Dukhe stayed back in the boat.The tiger godling

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played a trick on the honey-gatherer. Try as he might he could not locate any beehive.The despondent merchant returned to the boat and fell asleep. Dakshin Ray appeared in his dream. Dhonai cried out: Raimoni nibedi charane dinga laye ashiachhi mahal karane dhup dhuna ayojone puja bali lao sat dinga pura more mom madhu dao toma bhabi ashiachhi laiya tarani tomar charan bina anya nahi jani mom madhu diya mor rakhho bachan natuba tomar age tajibo jiban (Dhonai the boatman prayed to Dakshin Ray for his blessings and asked him for seven boat loads of honey and wax from the forest. He worshipped Ray with incense and offered sacrifices. He entreated Ray to fulfil his desires: ‘Either you give me honey and wax or I shall lay down my life.’)

Dakshin Ray promised to give Dhonai enough honey and wax if his nephew Dukhe were sacrificed to him. After a slight hesitation the boatman agreed. His boat returned piled with honey and wax. Raimoni mokam karila sendu bone pujila rayer pad nana ayojane chini pheni malam sandesh kato ar dhup diye gandho puja nana upahar shanibare rayer puja dilo dhona naiya ekkhani chak shese lailo katiya mone mone bale dukhe dilam tomare (Dakshin Ray made the forest of Sendu trees his home. Dhonai made all the arrangements for his worship with incense, sweet meats etc. On Saturday after worshipping Dakshin Ray he cut down a hive and mentally declared, ‘I offer you Dukhe as a sacrifice’.)

On the way back Dukhe was thrown overboard. With great difficulty he managed to reach the bank of the river. Dakshin Ray appeared in the shape of a tiger and was about to devour him when Dukhe started praying to Banabibi. She appeared immediately and took Dukhe in her arms.

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Echham ajam pariya mata gaete phukila samalia dukhe takhon uthia basila (The mother Banabibi chanted hymns in the name of Allah and blew into the pores of his body. Dukhe got back his senses.)

Banabibi summoned her brother Jangli to come to her. Jangli resided within the eighteen lowlands over which she had jurisdiction. Hearing her summons, he armed himself with a club and arrived at the place where his sister was seated with Dukhe on her lap. At the command of Banabibi he drove Dakshin Ray away from the forests. Darete asthir rai kapite lagila gazi jendar hujurete hajir haila bose achhilo barakha gazi kalu dasta jora samnete sat bagh rahiachhe khara pingal baran tanu sonar samiana nuner putul mato sarir kancha sona saha sikandar badshah allah jare raji tahar beta chander chhata saha barakha gazi duniya beriya tambu dilo jei jan manik paras adi besumar dhan chouda hajar bagh achhe sahar prahari mayur murale kalu ray kare gai henokale upanita dakshiner rai (Dakshin Ray began to shake with fear. He went for shelter to the place where Barakhan Ghazi sat with his friend Kalu. Seven tigers stood up right in front of him. Gorgeous to look at, he had a halo of soft gold around him. Shah Sikandar was a devotee of Allah, and his son was no other than Barakhan Ghazi himself. His umbrella was unfurled over the whole world and his wealth had no limit. The handsome Ghazi sat there with fourteen thousand tigers to guard him. Kalu, decked with peacock feathers was in attendance when Dakshin Ray arrived there.)

Ghazi Sahab agreed to mediate. Shuno nek mai tomar hujure mago ek bhiksha chai dakshin ray pare kop karo dur ei khatire ailam tomar hujur

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(Ghazi asked Banabibi, ‘Good mother, grant me this wish. Don’t be angry with Dakshin Ray, pardon him.’)

On the entreaty of Ghazi, Banabibi pardoned Dakshin Ray. Atharo bhatir madhye ami sabar ma ma bale je dake tar dukh thake na samkate pariya jeba ma bole dakibe kadachit himsa tai kabhu na karibe (I am the mother of all beings within these eighteen lowlands. Anybody who hails me as mother gets relief from all sufferings. You must not cause injury to anybody who appeals to me in danger.)

Hearing these words Dakshin Ray filled with remorse made a solemn promise. Shuno shuno mata arja amar satya satya tin satya satya angikar banete asiya jeba ma bole dakibe ama hote himsa tar kadacha na hobe (Listen to my vow: ‘I shall never cause harm to any person who appeals to you for protection’.)

In addition to Munshi Banayaddin’s punthi there is also another punthi of Banabibi called Banabibi Jahuranama written by Marhum Munshi Khater. Both the punthis narrate the same story and the additional evidence in the second punthi makes it possible to identify the personifications of the Sundarban spirits firmly.Thus Dukhe says.28 Rai jabe bagh hoye ailo khaite dayar ma banabibi ailo bonete (When [Dakshin] Ray came as a tiger to eat me, Banabibi, the kind mother, came to the forest [to save me].)

Here the personification is virtually transparent: the reader knows at once that Dakshin Ray is none other than the man-eating tiger of the Sundarbans, whereas Banabibi is the spirit of the forest in its benign aspect. Banabibi saves Dukhe from the clutches of the tiger and sends him home on the back of a crocodile. Dakshin Ray, it is clear, is the fierce spirit of the tiger who must be propitiated; Banabibi,

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on the contrary, is the embodiment of the forest itself, cast in a feminine form. The personification of the forest as a kind mother who protects all woodcutters and honey-gatherers is evident in the manner in which Banabibi allays Dukhe’s fears regarding the crocodile. Bibi bole ore dukhe kumbhire na khabe toke ei bate nahi daro tumi kumbhirer pith pare jaite jadi bhai kare kole niya basibo je ami sune tabe dukhe kai se hoile kiser bhai thaki jadi jananir kole kahe hin kabikar aman nachhib kar banabibi beta jare bole ([Ban] Bibi said, ‘My poor Dukhe, the crocodile will not eat you; don’t have any fear on that score. If you are afraid to ride on the crocodile, I shall take you on my lap.’ Hearing this Dukhe said, ‘If I am on my mother’s lap then I have nothing to fear.’ The poor poet says, ‘Who ever had such good fortune as to be called a son by Banabibi herself!’)

There is nowhere in the text any lengthy description of nature as we find in later novels of the Sundarbans. But incidental references deftly bring out the fearsome, impenetrable character of the Sundarbans. Thus Monai, the boatman, says to his brother Dhonai: Bada bone sunechhi bagher bhai baro ki jani sekhane giya jadi mara paro (I have heard that the low-lying forest is fearsome because of tigers. I am afraid that you may be killed if you go there.)

Dukhe had to go through a maze of waterways in order to reach the most dangerous forest in the world. Ainu heta tin dine bhatisvara bada bone nadi khal kato shato pani

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(It took me three days to reach this low-lying marshy forest. It overflows with rivers and creeks.)

Despite its fearsome character the forest attracted men who came in search of its rich products. These products were regarded as an integral part of nature. Rai bole mom madhu amar srijan atharo bhatir madhye ei more dhan (Dakshin Ray says, ‘Wax and honey are my creation. In the eighteen low countries these are my wealth.’)

In the foregoing legend, we find mention of these Muslim saints and Hindu godlings: Musalmani female saint Banabibi, Musalmani saints Barakhan Ghazi and Kalu Ghazi and the Hindu tiger deity Dakshin Roy or Rayamoni. It may be stated that in many other parts of northern India, sylvan goddesses similar to the Musalmani female saint Banabibi are believed to preside over the forests and jungles. Among these may be mentioned the Hindu goddesses ‘Champavati’ and the ‘Banaspati Ma’.29 It is believed that these goddesses protect the herdsmen and the huntsmen who carried on their respective avocations within the gloomy recesses of the forest. From other sources it is known that Dakshin Ray was the relative and Commander-in-Chief of Mukuta Ray,30 Raja of Brahmanagara in the district of Jessore, and was entrusted by the latter with the administration of the southern portion of his kingdom. For this reason, the former was otherwise called Bhatisvara or ‘the Lord of the Eighteen Lowlands’. Dakshin Ray is believed to have been a very powerful man and is reported to have slain many tigers and crocodiles with his bows and arrows, and other weapons. It is further stated that, on some occasions he fought tigers with bare hands and killed them. It is for this reason that he is worshipped to the present day as a godling who can grant his votaries immunity from the attacks of the tigers of the Sundarbans. It is stated that Banabibi was the daughter of one Ibrahim, a resident of Mecca, and that she with her brother Shah Jangli came to live in Bhatidesa for the purpose of protecting the peasantry from

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the oppression of Bhatisvara. Dakshin Ray was ultimately defeated by Banabibi and became her vassal. In the account of Ghazi, as given in the foregoing legend, he is stated to be the son of Shah Sikandar Badshah and it appears that Kalu Ghazi was Zinda Ghazi’s brother. From the legend we come to know that he had 14,000 tigers as his guard. In Edward Gait’s report on the Bengal Census 1901, the following information is given about Zinda Ghazi. He was from Zindik-i-Ghazi, ‘conqueror of infidels’, who rode on a tiger in the Sundarbans, and was the patron saint of woodcutters, whom he was supposed to protect from tigers and crocodiles.31 He was sometimes identified with Ghazi Mian, and sometimes with Ghazi Madar. Songs were sung in his honour and offerings made after safe return from a journey. Then again it is said the Ghazi Sahab and his brother Kalu were Musalman pirs or saints who exercised absolute power over all living things, and possessed the ability to encompass whatever they desired, and that they too could command tigers. They also rode on tigers to roam the jungles, hence the tigers were called ‘Ghazi’s horses’. These two pirs were so revered by all the Musalmans and Hindus living in that part of the country that, whenever anyone wished to go into the jungle, he first bowed down to the earth and uttered the words, ‘In the name of the Ghazi Sahab’. After performing the little act of reverence, he entered the forest fully believing that this saint would protect him thoroughly.32 Morag murgi rat poale base gachher dale amra dui bhai toder janye nami lona jale asmane uthlo bahar sujji uthlo chale aire baoyal nibi jadi gazir ghora achhe gacher tale (As the dawn breaks, cocks and hens sit on the branches of trees. We, two brothers, jump into the salt water for your sake.The sky shines with splendour as the sun rises to the rooftop. Come, oh Bawal, if you want, the Ghazi’s horse is there beneath the tree.)

The preceding legend of Dhonai is also interesting because it discloses to us a curious admixture of the Muslim and Hindu cults. It shows us how a Musalman (the boatman Dhonai) worshipped

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the Hindu godling Dakshin Ray with Hindu rites and ceremonies; how the Hindu godling, having been punished by a Muslim female saint (Banabibi), sought protection from a Muslim saint (Ghazi), and ultimately acknowledged his own subordination to the female saint Banabibi. The world of the folk deities delineated above offers important insights into the character of past human settlements in the Sundarbans. It tells us that in all probability the land had been sparsely populated. Prosperous cities, as Satish Mitra and Kalidas Datta would have us believe, imply social relations and religious beliefs of a higher order. But in the folk tales of the Sundarbans, the prevalence of tiger gods and goddesses point to a more primordial context. Settlements such as Chandraketugarh were nothing more than trade outposts and were too unstable to survive. The folk gods of the Sundarbans are depicted in the narrative as arbitrary deities, exercising a fearful command over the settlers. The reasons are presumably twofold. First, the deities emerged out of the hard material struggle for existence in an inhospitable terrain. They had to invent the heavenly deities in order to come to terms with the overwhelming forces of nature. The gods and goddesses were personifications of the malignant forces that had to be propitiated. If the ritual propitiation was done properly, then it was calculated that a living could be made out of the forest. And therefore no moral virtue was attached to the gods and goddesses. Secondly, the settlers were all of lowly origin, and the deities were destined to dominate a lesser breed. Therefore, the narrators invest in them all the attributes of the arbitrary master. The most striking common feature of these tales remains the reward-punishment syndrome. Not infrequently the deities were shown by their narrators to be engaged in fierce battles, and the deity who eventually won the duel, drew the largest number of followers. Sometimes, when a potential devotee was adversely disposed to the deity, and declined to deify the latter as an idol of veneration at his homestead, the deity descended upon him, inflicted a crushing punishment, and compelled him to be a faithful follower instead of a recalcitrant opponent. For instance, there is an episode in the GhaziKalu-Champavati-Kanyar punthi in which Ghazi and Kalu brought

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a recalcitrant king to heel. The two brothers reached a place called Chhapai. The king chased them out of his place. In his anger Kalu uttered an imprecation and immediately the palace of the king caught fire. King Sriram understood his mistake and begged to be forgiven. Ghazi and Kalu relented and he was converted to Islam.33 Again, when a devout soul readily accepted the deity’s omnipotence and worshipped him or her in the most mundane manner, the deity showered benefits on him. He or she rewarded the follower with wealth, or social prerogatives, and sometimes with progeny. In the punthi Banabibi-Jahuranama, we see that Dukhe’s mother prayed earnestly to Banabibi for her son’s life. Banabibi protected Dukhe from the clutches of Dakshin Ray. Dukhe went back home with enormous wealth and a prosperous kingdom to rule over all through his life.34 Thus reward and punishment became the twin instruments of domination in the divine order of the deities. Internecine bickering gripped the people and even their godlings. In each and every local tale one invariably notices close encounters between the two communities—the Hindus and the Muslims, and in the process of confrontation communal harmony gets established in the end. This is the natural inference to be drawn from the tales of the deities. The gods and goddesses waged war with one another over the supremacy of the jungle. In the sequel, they either came to an amicable division of rule and understanding among themselves, or a god of a higher order descended from the heavenly abode and mediated the quarrel. The inference from both the cases is however the same. It was, one can argue, a question of survival.The adage ‘survival of the fittest’ was, however, not accepted as a norm here. The people, nay the gods, learnt through experience the wise principle of adjustment and accommodation. The people adjusted to the existence of religious divisions, sometimes voluntarily, but more often under duress. This accommodative principle permeated their religious practices too. A struggling population, with whom the question of survival was of the utmost importance, sought to accommodate one another and to propitiate every god or goddess who held sway in the jungle. Thus admission to a particular religious cult was thrown open to other immigrants. Banabibi, for instance, was evolved in order to

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accommodate both Hindus and Muslims.35 The story of Dakshin Ray and Barakhan Ghazi again was indicative of how religious differences and clashes were resolved to adjust to the realities of the natural environment. The divine history of the Sundarbans may be taken to be symbolic, in some ways, of the actual historical evolution of the human community in the delta. Once Hinduism was able to establish a certain presence among the primitive population of the Sundarbans, and perhaps after a small literate upper caste element became part of the population, Dakshin Ray emerged as the dominant tiger god of the region. His sway was threatened subsequently by the coming of the Muslim settlers, hence the appearance of Barakhan Ghazi. The conflict and compromise between Dakshin Ray and Barakhan Ghazi represented the next phase in the evolution of human culture in the Sundarbans. The two communities acknowledged their differences and came to live as neighbours. Subsequently there evolved the syncretic goddess Banabibi representing yet another phase in the evolution of the culture of the Sundarbans. She was a goddess common to both the Hindus and the Muslims. This implied not merely co-existence but a common set of beliefs and practices. The natural context of the Sundarbans dictated the evolution of a common cult standing apart from orthodox Hinduism and Islam. Given the conditions that men encountered in the forest, it was not possible to compartmentalize the human community into Hindus and Muslims, as was characteristic of the more settled villages to the north. The swamp and the jungle brought about a human intermingling symbolized by the common goddess whose authority every other god recognized. Banabibi in other words was the reigning spirit of the forest.36

Notes and References 1. Gopendra Krishna Basu, Banglar Loukik Dev Devi, Calcutta, 1966, pp. 10–11. 2. ibid., p. 43. 3. Abdul Jalil, Sundarbaner Itihas, Dacca, Second Edition, 1986, pp. 418–20.

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4. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, June 1938, File No. 11R-12(1) of 1937. Report on the Survey and settlement Operations in the District of 24 Parganas. 5. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, District of the 24 Parganas and Sundarbans, Reprint Edition, Delhi, 1973, pp. 382–3, H. Beveridge, The District of Bakarganj, Its History and Statistics, London, 1876, pp. 178–80. 6. , Vol. I, pp. 317–18. 7. ibid., pp. 317–18. 8. Manindranath Jana, Sundarbaner Samaj O Sanskriti, Calcuta, 1984, pp. 100–01. 9. Sarat Ch. Mitra, On Some Curious Cults of Southern andWestern Bengal, Calcutta, 1918, pp. 440–4. 10. Sukumar Sen, Bangla Sahityer Itihas, Calcutta, 1978, pp. 103–5. 11. Gopendra Krishna Basu, op.cit., p. 154. 12. ibid., p. 146. 13. Satyanarayan Bhattacharya ed., Raimangal, Sahitya Sabha, Bardhaman, 1956 (1363), p. 5. 14. ibid, p. 89. 15. Rudradev, Raimangal (incomplete manuscript), in Panchanan Mandal ed., Sahitya Prakasika Vol. V, Dwadash Mangal, Santiniketan, 1966, p. 128. 16. Gopendra Krishna Basu, op.cit., p. 44. 17. ibid., p. 45. 18. Abdur Rahim, Ghazi Kalu Champavati Kanyar punthi, Gaudia Library, Calcutta, Reprinted in 1987, p. 1. 19. ibid., p. 71. 20. Girindranath Das, Bangla Pir Sahityer Katha, 24 Parganas, 1976, p. 239. 21. Gopendra Krishna Basu, op.cit., p. 9. 22. Sarat Ch. Mitra, On an Accumulation Droll from Eastern Bengal—and On a Musulmani Legend about the Sylvan Saint Banabibi and Tiger-deity Dakshina Raya, Calcutta, 1923, pp. 154–5. 23. Abdul Jalil, op.cit., p. 232. 24. Manindranath Jana, op.cit., p. 94. 25. Sarat Ch. Mitra, On Some Curious Cults of Southern andWestern Bengal, Calcutta, 1918, p. 440. 26. Samir Ray, Banabibi-O-Narayanir Pala, Kasinagar (24 Parganas), 1990, p. 23.

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27. Sarat Ch. Mitra, On An Accumulation Droll from Eastern Bengal, op.cit., p. 157. 28. Marhum Munshi Khater, Banabibi Jahuranama, Gaudia Library, Calcutta, reprinted in 1987, p. 35. 29. Sarat Ch. Mitra, On An Accumulation Droll, op.cit., p. 167. 30. Girin Das, op.cit., p. 240. 31. L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, Khulna, Calcutta, 1908, p. 64. 32. Sarat Ch. Mitra, Indian Folk-Beliefs About the Tiger, Part I & II, Bombay, 1908, pp. 22–3. 33. Abdur Rahim, op.cit., p. 14. 34. Marhum Munshi Khater, op.cit., pp. 39–40. 35. Sarat Ch. Mitra, On Some Curious Cults of Southern andWestern Bengal, op.cit., p. 441. 36. Dulal Chaudhuri, ‘Folk Religion’, Amal Kumar Das et al. ed., A Focus on Sundarban, Calcutta, 1981, pp. 74–8.

CHAPTER FOUR

Tilman Henckell An Advocate of Colonial Paternalism

T

he geographical configuration of the Sundarbans marked it off from the rest of the plains.1 The historical experience of the region was also distinctive. The year 1757 marked the beginning of political subjugation of Bengal by the British who were given in perpetuity the region of the 24 Parganas.2 By gaining the Diwani in 1765 the English East India Company acquired rights of revenue collection and thus came to control the economy of the province to a large degree.3 With a keen eye for profits, the English realized that the Sundarbans which were acquired in 1757 with the 24 Parganas could not be ignored even if large parts of it were densely forested, and far too marshy and saline for cultivation.4 The British soon began the process of pushing the forest back through clearance and settlement operations. The receding of the jungle followed the logic of revenue maximization and the rhetoric of improvement. The rationale being that a land ‘covered with impenetrable forests, a hideous den of beasts and reptiles’ could only be improved by deforestation.5 Frontier expansion into the delta’s wetlands accelerated in the second half of the eighteenth century.6

Land Reclamation: The First Years The question of reclaiming the Sundarban jungles acquired in 17577 was taken up in 1770, by the Collector General Claude Russell and

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by Tilman Henckell, Magistrate of Jessore in 1783.The Sundarbans, as a tract was ever-moving southward and had in its northern limits lands whose assessment required special knowledge and effort to ascertain the revenue potential of the areas. The zamindars of the north of the Sundarbans always claimed the forests as their land. Both Tilman and Russell, came in conflict with the claims of zamindars who were eager to add to their estates all such waste lands as they could to bring under cultivation. The Sundarbans as such did not form a separate district, with revenue, magisterial and civil jurisdiction of its own. The Collectors of the 24 Parganas, Jessore and Bakarganj exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the local Commissioner in the revenue matters of the Sundarbans.8 The revenue of all Sundarban estates was paid into the collectorates named above. The magisterial and civil jurisdictions of these districts included the Sundarbans.9 In the initial period, leases were granted by the Collector General, Claude Russell, to individuals during 1770–73 on certain conditions.10 The lands were to be held free of rent for seven years generally,11 after which they were to be subject to a yearly progressive assessment up to the full rate of 12, 8 or 6 annas per bigha12 according to their quality, which was to be determined by a survey conducted on the expiration of the free period. Fresh measurements would take place once in every ten years and necessary adjustments in the rent would be made. The lands which came under this system of grants were known as patitabadi taluks.13 The measurements made in 1775–76 and 1779–80 were, however, not authentic.14 The first proper measurement in the 24 Parganas took place in 1783. It was on the basis of this measurement that the decennial settlement of the district was introduced in 1790.15 The reclamation initiated by Claude Russell was carried out by Tilman Henckell whose name is associated with the development of this region. Legend has it that he was worshipped as a god by the dwellers of the Sundarbans.16 Tilman Henckell was the first magistrate and judge of Khulna, Faridpur, and Jessore with powers to supervise the work of cultivation in the Sundarbans.17 ‘His acquaintance’, writes James Westland, ‘with every subject in his district was intimate.’18 He wanted to adopt measures appearing beneficial for the ryots.19 ‘He was never

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Tilman Henckell’s letter. Dated 15 May 1786, it refers to boundary disputes in the Sundarbans.

unmindful of his employer’s mercantile interests, but he always set this before him as his duty to guard the then almost helpless natives from the oppressions to which they were subjected by the commercial officers of the company as well as by their own zamindars’.20

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Westland, a late nineteenth century British I.C.S., was trying to portray ‘benevolent colonialism’. While dealing with reclamation, Henckell had mainly two objectives in mind—to gain revenue from lands then utterly unproductive,21 and to create a reserve of rice as protection against seasons of famine.22 To achieve his objectives Henckell submitted in December 1783 certain proposals to Governor General Warren Hastings, for granting leases of the forest-lands. His plan was to lease out plots of land to ryots and create a multitude of occupants.23 A ryot would clear his own ‘little spot’, and hold it directly under the government, free from the interference of the zamindar or anyone invested with the management of the collections. Cultivation would drive out the dacoits infesting this area and bring peace and security to the land. He felt that the scheme was feasible because the soil was fertile, and the proximity to the markets of Calcutta was a great advantage. 24 He anticipated difficulties but thought that perseverance would help to overcome them.25 He was also confident about the considerable increase in revenue from this hitherto uncultivated wasteland.26 The Governor General approved the plan in February 1784, and Henckell revised the terms and fixed them by April 1784. 27 ‘Population soon multiplied in the area.’28 The natural products of the soil—timber, firewood, wax and shell lime—furnished the ryot with means of support during the period of clearing the ground.29 Henckell gave away, from April to October 1785, 144 grants between the rivers Raimangal and Haringhata which was his area of jurisdiction.30 The grants, with boundaries specified, were to be held free of revenue for the first three years, and at a rental of 2 annas per bigha31 in the fourth year on whatever land was then brought into cultivation; 4 annas in the fifth year, 6 annas in the sixth year, and 8 annas, the full rate, from the seventh year onward. Provision was made for the assessment at these rates and a deduction of one-sixth was allowed for expenses on the land under cultivation. An estimation was made that 6,00,000 bighas would be reclaimed from which the Government would derive a revenue of 7.5 lakh in seven years. 32 In March 1790, a statement was issued which expressed the progress of the scheme. The grants made were as follows:

Tilman Henckell Year

Area leased out (in bighas)

1785 1787 1788 1789

21,000 13,000 8,113 1,603

59

The names of the grants were given in the same letter; they almost all had names derived from those of the grantees—‘Kalidaspur’, ‘Muhammadabad’ and ‘Bhairabnagar’ and so forth.33 One of the important elements of Henckell’s scheme was the establishment of a convict colony, wherein the convicts were given small grants of land. However, the most heinous offenders were exempt from the scheme and were shipped off to sea.34 Henckell went as far as to apply for drafts in the surrounding districts under his jurisdiction in the event that long term prisoners might come to settle in the area and work. Nothing further appeared to have been done, and this part of the scheme proved to be a failure.35

Stepping up Land Reclamation: Problems and Pressures Henckell took active measures to ensure the success of the land reclamation scheme. In 1785–86, three government outposts were established in central positions,36 and a gomasta was appointed with the charge of each, for the purpose of defining the boundaries of the Sundarbans and encouraging reclamation. The outposts were Henckellganj (named after Henckell and subsequently corrupted to Hingalganj), on the west bank of the Jabuna at its junction with the Kalindi in the west of his jurisdiction, Chandkhali, on the river Kabadak in the middle, and Kachua, at the junction of the Baleswar and Bhairab rivers, in the east.The surrounding lands were cultivated and they were known as ‘khas abads’.37 In 1784, Henckell tried to demarcate the boundary between the zamindari lands and the Sundarban forest.38 Henckell called upon the zamindars to put forward their objections if they had any,39 but they remained silent during the following nine months. However, after the grantees got their leases and commenced reclamation, the

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zamindars lodged claims to their lands as lying within their own estates, and the Committee of Revenue directed him in 1786 to inquire into these claims. Henckell’s inquiry was hindered by want of knowledge of the boundaries and the inattention of the zamindars to the parwanas 40 issued. The zamindars were clandestinely extending their cultivation41, while Henckell was endeavouring to define their boundaries. He deputed vakils 42 and others,43 to ascertain and fix the northern limits of the Sundarbans, and at his request the Committee of Revenue published fresh notices, allowing a fresh period of nearly two months in which the zamindars were ordered to present their claims on the lands.44 On 19 July 1786, Henckell drew up a list of the parganas that bordered the Sundarbans. The party deputed to fix the boundary demarcated it by means of bamboos planted at short distances all along the banks of rivers.45 The line was called Henckell’s Bansgari.46 The demarcation introduced some degree of certainty47 and by July 1787, Henckell granted fresh leases for 13,000 bighas.48 In April 1788, the government inquired how far the plan had been carried out and Henckell submitted his report in May 1788. Applications had been made for large quantities of land, but leases could not be granted as the boundary problem still persisted.49 As a result of the confusion related to the boundary demarcation and the zamindars’ opposition, and also in some cases the neglect to ascertain the situation of grants before their bestowal, the members who had received pattas50 in 1785 returned them and relinquished the scheme. Inspite of best efforts the problem persisted.51 Henckell had estimated that the aggregate revenue of 34,000 bighas leased would amount to Rs 272,500 and expenses would be at Rs 94,776; therefore the net gain to the government would be Rs 177,724. But in reality, the expenses far exceeded the receipts. Though the objectives of the scheme had not been accomplished, Henckell felt that the union of the Raimangal Salt Agency to his district had proved beneficial to the scheme.52 A last notice was issued by the Board in July 1788, ordering the zamindars to define their boundaries within three months.53 The first collections were made in 1788–89,

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and the grantees, though in numerous instances out of possession, paid the revenue in the hope of regaining their lands. But when the quarrels with the zamindars persisted, the collections became impracticable except in the few cases where no disputes arose.54 A large number of grants disappeared, until only about 25 remained in 1790.55 The plan, too, was modified. Instead of ryots holding immediately under the government, as Henckell propounded in his letter,56 the lessees acquired the name and status of talukdars, and their grants were called taluks. The weaker lessees were eliminated, and only the influential men survived. Henckell left Jessore in September 1789, and was succeeded by Rocke, who experienced much difficulty in completing the scheme. After reviewing it in March 1790, Rocke claimed that not just the scheme’s inherent defects but also the lack of data to determine the territorial boundary of the Sundarbans had led to its failure The disputes between the zamindars and the Sundarbans talukdars could have been resolved if the former had defined their boundaries, but by making ambiguous claims that all the land that stretched to the sea was theirs, they made any resolution to the issue impossible. This unsettled state of affairs ruined the whole scheme. The difficulties of the scheme (litigation etc.) and the discouraging pecuniary results (the expense having largely exceeded the receipts)57 induced the government, on the recommendation of the Board, to abandon it in August 1790.58 Thus the scheme failed. From 1792 onward, the sixteen taluks that remained came to be referred to as Henckell’s taluk.59 In connection with this scheme, Henckell set up a court at Chandkhali which he called ‘Cutcherry of Reference’, under one of his assistants, Foster. The court was established for trials of claims made by the zamindars and Foster was directed to collect government dues on wax and honey taken from the Sundarbans, as well as to take cognizance of civil and criminal matters arising within a radius of thirty miles from Chandkhali. He soon came into conflict with the zamindars, who had set up toll stations upon the rivers to collect money from trading boats.60 There were eighteen of these stations within a circuit of fourteen miles from Chandkhali.61

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The Board, once apprised of this situation, passed stringent orders in all cases in which such tolls were levied. Henckell was to insist on immediate restitution and to inflict corporeal punishment on the offender on the spot where the exaction was made. The zamindars were included in this order of punishment but if they were minors, females or incapacitated persons, their managers were to bear the punishment for them. Henckell was therefore firm while he dealt with the administration of the district.62

Attempts to Control Crime Similar vigour was noticed in the supervision of the police. In the early days of British rule, the faujdars, who were practically military commanders, were reduced to the position of superior officers of police, with thanadars (police officers in charge of a thana or police station) and smaller areas under their juridsdiction. There were altogether four thanas in the district, one at Khulna and subordinate to these were several outposts or chaukies. The thana officers were paid, but the chaukies had goindas or informers, who received no salary and obtained their livelihood by extorting money from innocent people.63 This system did not work well. The faujdars oppressed the people, their subordinates worked in collusion with criminals, and when Henckell joined the district, it already had established a band of robbers. Following his appointment, the post of faujdar was abolished and their functions transferred to Henckell who proposed to station, at each of the four thanas, a girdwar or head police officer, who would apprehend dacoits and forward them for trial to Murli.64 The government found this system of policing too expensive, and in 1783 it ordered the abolition of the entire police establishment, except the force at Murli.65 The duties of the police were given to the zamindars. Special arrangements were made for the boat routes through the dense forests infested with dacoits.66 The government established six guard boats to patrol the rivers and escort the ships.67 Since the maintenance of these boats was expensive, the government wanted to put the onus of their upkeep on the zamindars. Henckell’s efforts enabled the force of guard boats

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to be retained in this area. There was at that time stationed at Bakarganj an officer termed as ‘Commissioner for the suppression of robberies in Bakarganj’, who supervised the law and order situation in Bakarganj and the adjacent areas. A few incidents, gathered from the correspondence of Henckell, indicated the state of affairs in the district with regard to crime and police. In a letter written immediately after his arrival, Henckell stated that a notorious dacoit Hira Sardar had often committed the ‘most horrid depredations on ryots’. The nawab of Murshidabad had frequently sent orders to have him arrested, but the zamindars, to save him, had always declared he was dead. Kali Sankar Datta or Ray, the ancestor of the Norail family, was referred to in Henckell’s letters as, ‘a dacoit and a notorious disturber of the peace’.68 On 8 June 1784, Kali Sankar, with his brother Nandu Datta, and an armed band, attacked and plundered a rice boat and wounded the majhi. Henckell sent a band of sepoys under a girdwar, Katbullah to arrest the plunderers. Kali Sankar with his force of 1,500 men was prepared for a battle. The fight lasted three hours which Kali Sankar won, having killed two and wounded fifteen of the magistrate’s forces; Katbullah himself was among the wounded. On receiving the news of this defeat, Henckell sent reinforcements and succeeded in capturing Nandu Datta and other ringleaders but Kali Sankar himself could not be found. He had fled to the protection of the zamindar of Nattore, who, when ordered to deliver him, let him escape to Calcutta, where he was again kept in hiding by the zamindar’s Calcutta agent. Kali Shankar was finally apprehended and brought to Murli under an escort of forty men.69 The famous historian Surendranath Sen in his book Off the Main Track throws light on failures of the administrative process in the Sundarbans in his narrative of a dacoit, Muhammad Hussain, who ultimately ends up at the gallows.70 The focus of the account is not on how an unscrupulous dacoit plundered helpless and poor masses but on his protagonists, on whose intimidation and under whose protection, he used to carry on such acts of looting and plunder. The protagonist in question was Muhammed Hayet, a police officer. However he was not alone.

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The zamindars of the region, wanted to retain a constant inflow of profits in a social structure that started reducing their influence. They reacted directly or indirectly turning patrons of robbers.71 Under the aegis of such socially well placed protectors, the dacoits posed a difficult problem for the British lawkeepers. The situation worsened day by day and towards the end of 1786 both the collector of Muhammadshahi and the resident of Sonabaria (cloth factory) wrote to the magistrate. They complained of the frequent robberies organized by numerous bands of dacoits demanding that the landholders be called on to do their duty. Henckell’s answer to the letter was noteworthy. He wrote that he had sent a force to apprehend the dacoits, warranting information from zamindars of all robberies. Furthermore, he sent a dacoit whose death sentence had approached to the Resident, requesting the hanging to be organized in a conspicuous place near the factory, in an attempt to ‘strike terror into the dacoits’.72 The Revenue headquarters of the east of the district of Jessore had been at Calcutta. Henckell pointed out the inconvenience of this arrangement due to the distance between Calcutta and Jessore and, offered to undertake the duties of Collector without additional salary.73 The government readily accepted his offer and created a collectorship in Jessore. Henckell thus united in his own person the offices of District Magistrate and Collector. In this capacity he could supervise all the departments of the district.

Dealings with the Salt-Workers and Weavers Another important event during his tenure was his dealings with the salt merchants. In the beginning, he evinced little or no interest in the salt department, the jurisdiction of which extended over the south of the district. The department was under Ewart who was stationed at Khulna.74 The salt officials had established themselves in the district before any civil court had been constituted in it, and when a judge arrived without instructions about his relations with the salt authorities, frequent collisions took place.75 The plan that followed with regard to salt manufacture was the appointment of a government salt agent who, along with the malangis

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(salt workers) engaged mahindars or salt boilers (both of them were actively associated with manufacture of salt). The malangis received large advances from the salt agents,76 and in turn gave advances to the mahindars, who proceeded to specified places far south in the Sundarbans, where they gave their personal labour in the manufacture of salt. But in most cases the mahindars were forced to take these advances and the malangis were vested with certain powers to coerce the mahindars to work and to recover the advances. On the one hand, the malangis abused the powers given to them, and on the other, was the gross oppression by the salt officials. When Henckell came to the district, the mahindars appealed to him for protection. The government salt agent resented the interference on the part of the judge, resulting in confrontation between the judge’s bailiffs and the salt subordinates. In 1787, Henckell submitted proposals for the reform of the salt department and offered to undertake the duties of the salt agent.77 The plan would, he said, have the advantage of uniting in the same individual, the power to deal with the claims on the mahindars for rent, and the claims on them that arose out of salt transactions. Governor General Lord Cornwallis approved his proposals and directed him to take charge of the salt agency so far as the Raimangal division was concerned. Subsequently, in December 1788, rules were issued containing all the elements of reform which Henckell had previously proposed. The salt boilers were to be free to engage or not, as they liked, and the salt agent was made their protector instead of their slave driver. All advances, whenever possible, were to be given to them directly, thus doing away with the oppression of the middlemen. Ewart initially refused to give over charge of the transferred division, carried on work there as before, and objected to give up the offices and godowns at Khulna. However, the change was at last effected and this put an end for the time being to the constant quarrels in the salt department. The disagreements between the judge and the Company’s cloth establishments were similar in nature, but not as violent as those with the salt establishments.78 In the case of cloth manufacture, the residents or superintendents of the two factories Sonabaria and Buran within Jessore, made advances through their subordinates to

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The Sundarbans

the native weavers. The weavers were then obliged to give their woven cloths to the factory. Besides, the needs of the Company, it seemed that some of the Company’s officials carried on private trade in this area. Over time, the judge began to receive complaints made by weavers against the commercial Residents, that they made excessive demands on them and were forcing them to receive advances. This irked the superintendents of both the factories so they wrote to Henckell in 1786, complaining that this was an infringement of their authority, and that the judge had no business to summon persons engaged in their department.79 Henckell’s response to these complaints was that he had been in the habit of referring these matters for disposal to the commercial officers, but he found that justice was not done, and he was obliged to decide the cases himself. He also stated that the gomastas were using their authority to oppress the ryots, and that they were not properly controlled by their own officers. Henckell tried to resolve such issues himself to the extent possible. About the time that this correspondence was going on, the government published certain regulations to prevent the clashes between the civil and commercial authorities: probably because similar clashes had occurred in other districts as well.The commercial department did not pay heed to these rules, and a year later, Henckell was found once again complaining of the evil-doings of the gomastas or agents. Henckell tried to get rid of the irresponsibility of the departmental officers. He continued to urge upon the government the necessity of abolishing the system which made the heads of departments’ final judges in all matters affecting themselves. It seemed that the government listened to him and with the governmental aid Henckell dealt with the various problems of the district as long as he stayed there. Henckell left the district and was succeeded in 1789 by Rocke. He apparently began his service in Jessore as Registrar under Henckell and when he succeeded him in his office, he continued to follow Henckell’s policy. ‘In fact,’ writes Sir James Westland, ‘the fruits of Mr. Henckell’s administration are for a long time visible in the history of the district.’80

Tilman Henckell

67

A Benevolent Paternalist or a Pragmatist? Was Henckell caught in the cusp of a transition that saw the Company turn ‘sahib’ from ‘nawab’? Questions such as these seem inevitable when we look at Henckell’s tenure and his attempts to deal with the problem of revenue collection in what was essentially a frontier society but one that had already developed a measure of stratification. The complexity of the situation meant that Henckell had to balance paternalist authoritarian strategy with a more formal structure of revenue and judicial management. In retrospect, one may conclude that Henckell’s administrative tenure (1783–89) in the region had to accommodate various factors at work—Magh piratical incursions, hostility of the neighbouring zamindars, activities of the salt manufacturers and the operations of the weavers.Various kinds of actions and interactions took place among them. The boundary dispute between the neighbouring zamindars and the grantees in this region was not easy to solve. The boundary line was in a state of flux as it was subject to periodic re-definition under the supervision of the various Collector Generals in this area. Henckell wanted to draw the attention of the Board regarding this problem but did not find adequate help forthcoming—the reason being attributed to the heavy expenses the project would entail. Henckell thus failed in his efforts. The grantees who got lands on the bordering areas suffered severely from the hostility of the zamindars. However, Henckell succeeded in making an important and positive impression in the minds of the local people—the ryots who had received lands on lease from the British Government and who were convinced that the Englishmen had their welfare in mind. Thus not for nothing did the people of this part of the Sundarbans consider Henckell to be their saviour and named the place Hingulgunge after him. Henckell’s welfare measures also extended to protect the salt boilers from the hands of the moneylenders who compelled them to take advances for the manufacture of salt. Henckell protected the salt manufacturers when they appealed for justice and took charge of the salt department with the permission of the Board. This made him more popular in the region. The Company’s officials carried

68

The Sundarbans

out private trade in cloth and there were two aurungs (store houses) at Jessore. The weavers were oppressed by the Company’s officials and they also sought protection from Henckell. He tried his best to improve their condition. On being appointed the Collector of this district (Jessore), the overall administration of the district was managed with care and vigilance under his supervision. The district was also protected from dacoits and robbers. Here he did not get the help of the zamindars rather he faced their opposition. Often, the zamindars themselves carried out robberies and gave protection to the dacoits. Henckell made concerted efforts in giving the people of this region fair justice as well as bring about development. Pargiter, Westland and L.S.S. O’Malley were of the opinion that Henckell was indeed the messiah in the Jessore part of the Sundarbans. Actually the significance of Henckell’s settlement lies in the fact that he was the pioneer in colonizing a part of the Sundarbans and set a precedent for later colonial rulers to follow. Tilman Henckell’s land settlements and their concomitants therefore marked a reformative type of colonial development. His measures claiming to benefit the ordinary people, though often unsuccessful in implementation, were nonetheless influential. By professing to make direct settlement with ryots regarding revenue, and by trying to look after the grievances of mahindars and weavers, he succeeded in creating an impression that he was in fact trying to save the people from their immediate oppressors. Probably, when Henckell was working out his measures, he was humanistic in his convictions but being a part of the colonial administrative set-up, he was trapped within the compulsions of an overarching imperialist system. And yet he projected a different image of colonization. For him, the continuance of governing a colony and ensuring a steady flow of revenue to the treasury was only possible through giving the colonial government a paternalistic image. The work of Tilman Henckell in the Sundarbans forms part of the larger story of early British administration in India, the antecedents of which in terms of ideology and practice have been analysed by historians like Eric Stokes and Ranajit Guha. It is ironical that for some reason Henckell escaped scrutiny of scholars working on the making of the

Tilman Henckell

69

Company Raj and its ideological apparatus. He was a pioneer in many ways and played a major role in devising land settlements, engaging directly with the cultivators of the soil and articulated a paternalist position for his own administration. In a very real sense he straddled the two philosophies of Bengal and Madras/Bombay systems effectively. Thus his experiments in Bengal long predated the ryotwari settlement and were predicated on the idea of the Collector being the mai bap of the district assuming functions of watch and ward reflecting tendencies of early utilitarianism and of paternalistic benevolence.81 The task of reclaiming the jungle continued after Henckell and within the twentieth century there was a lot of visible transformation in the Sundarbans.

Notes and References 1. F.E. Pargiter, A Revenue History of Sundarbans, 1765–1870, Calcutta, p. 1, Arkaprabha Sengupta, ‘Sundarbaner Jalkar Ekti Samikhya’, Mahasweta Devi ed., Bartika, July-Sept., 1989, pp. 43–4. 2. Benoy K. Chowdhury, ‘Political History 1757–1772’, N.K. Sinha ed. History of Bengal, 1757–1905, Calcutta, 1967, p. 22. 3. Romesh Dutta, The Economic History of India,Vol. I, First Indian Edition, Delhi, 1960, p. 3. 4. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 1. 5. Goutam Chattopadhyay ed. Bengal: Early Nineteenth Century, Selected Documents, Calcutta, 1978, pp. 95–9. 6. John F. Richards, Elizabeth P. Flint, ‘Long Term Transformations in the Sundarbans Wetlands Forests of Bengal’, Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. VII, Number 2, Spring, 1990, pp. 17–18. 7. Tarapada Maiti, ‘Itihas-O-Sanskriti’, Tarapada Pal ed. Chabbis Pargana, Calcutta, 1972, pp. 39–40, Ashutosh Bandyopadhyay, ‘Suchona-OMukti Sangram’, Tarapada Pal ed. Chabbis Pargana, Calcutta, 1972, pp. 21–2, Radhakumud Mookerji, Indian Land System, Calcutta, 1958, pp. 37–9. Article of the Treaty made on 3 June 1757, reads, ‘All land lying to the South of Calcutta, as far as Kulpi, shall be under the Zamindary of the English Company, and the officers of those parts shall be under their jurisdiction.’ The treaty of 1757 acquired for the East India Company the Zamindary of Calcutta also called 24 Parganas. The Zamindary contained about 882 square miles chiefly south of Fort

70

8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

The Sundarbans William on the eastern side of river Hooghly and included Chakla Hooghly. On 20 December 1757, a parwana or order from the Nazim Mir Jafar directed formation of the new Zamindary in favour of the Company and commanded obedience to the latter’s authority as landholder. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, (district of 24 Parganas, and Sundarbans), Reprint ed., Delhi, 1973, p. 286. ibid., p. 286. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 5 July 1816, Letter from President, Members of Board of Revenue to Sundarban Commissioner. There was, however, considerable variety in the leases. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 28 May 1819, Letter from President, Members of Board of Revenue to Sundarban Commissioner. The Board in the letter referred to say-one, two or three years but see No. 20 of the regulations related to patitabadi lands, dated 16 April 1781 (annexed to Board of Revenue’s letter to Sundarban Commissioner, dated 28 May 1819). The bigha then in the 24 Parganas seems to have been 40 yards square always. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 1. Patitabad means the cultivation of waste or fallow land. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 19 April 1786, Letter from Assistant Collector of 24 Parganas, to Secretary to the Committee of Revenue, W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 11 July 1786, letter from Assistant Collector of 24 Parganas to President, Members of the Board of Revenue. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 1 Sankaranda Mukherji, ‘Historical and Geographical Background’, Amal Kumar Das, et al. ed., A Focus on Sundarban, Calcutta, 1981, p. 9, Calcutta Gazette, 24 April 1788, L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, 24 Parganas, Calcutta, 1914, p. 47. J. Westland, A Report On The District Of Jessore, Its Antiquities, Its History and Its Commerce, Calcutta, 1871, pp. 79–96. ibid., p. 71. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 10 May 1786, Letter written by Collector of Jessore to President Members of the Calcutta Committee of Revenue. J. Westland, op.cit., p. 71. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 328. J. Westland, op.cit., pp. 136–7, Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 328. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 2. J.H. Reilly, ‘The Soonderbuns’, The Calcutta Review,Vol. XXXI, p. 387.

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71

25. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 2–3. 26. J. Westland, op.cit., pp. 135–6, J.H. Reilly, ‘The Soonderbuns’, op.cit., p. 387. 27. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 17 May 1814, Minute by Rocke. It contains a history of Henckell’s scheme. 28. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 2. 29. J. Westland, op.cit., p. 136. 30. ibid., Pargiter, op.cit., p. 2, Henckell’s jurisdiction in the South—to the Bay of Bengal East—Haringhata river West—Raimangal North—Village of Dulyapur 31. The bigha was 55 yards square. This measure was current in Jessore, and generally used there until 1849. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 2, 65. 32. ibid., p. 2. 33. J. Westland, op.cit., p. 138. 34. ibid., pp. 81–2. 35. ibid., p. 82. 36. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 2. 37. ibid., p. 2. 38. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 12 June 1786, Letter from Superintendent of the Sundarbans to President, Members of the Calcutta Committee of Revenue. 39. , 3 August 1786, Letter from Superintendent of the Sundarbans to President, Members of the Board of Revenue. 40. Parwana: A warrant or order from a person in authority to a dependent or subordinate. 41. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 12 June 1786, Letter from Superintendent of the Sundarbans to President, Members of the Calcutta Committee of Revenue. 42. Vakil: One vested with authority to act for another. Agent sent on a special commission. 43. , 10 May 1786, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Members of Calcutta Committee of Revenue. 44. , 15 May 1786, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Members of Committee of Revenue. 45. , 3 August 1786, Letter from Superintendent of the Sundarbans to President, Members of the Board of Revenue. 46. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 3. 47. ibid.

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48. There was a register of Henckell’s Chihit namas, which contained 207 entries but was not completed. 49. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 12 June 1786. Letter from Superintendent of the Sundarbans to President, Members of the Calcutta Committee of Revenue. 50. Patta: Document given by landlord to tenant stating the rights and liabilities of tenancy (i.e. deed of lease). 51. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 3. 52. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 16 May 1788, 27 June 1788, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Members of Board of Revenue. 53. , 11 July 1788, Letter from Superintendent of Sundarbans to President, Members of Board of Revenue. 54. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 3. 55. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 26 March 1790, 28 May 1791, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Member of Board of Revenue. 56. , 10 June 1786, Letter from Collector of Jesore to President, Members of the Calcutta Committee of Revenue. 57. The receipt was Rs 5,332, and the expenditure Rs 53,132. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 4. 58. Westland, op.cit., p. 139, Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 330. 59. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 4–5, L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, Khulna, Calcutta, 1908, p. 41. 60. L.S.S. O’Malley, Khulna, op.cit., pp. 41–2. 61. J. Westland, op.cit., pp. 141–2. 62. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 10 May 1786, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Members of Calcutta committee of Revenue. W.B.S.A., B.O.R. 28 July 1786, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Members of the Board of Revenue. 63. J.Westland, op.cit., p. 72. 64. L.S.S. O’Malley, Khulna, op.cit., p. 42. 65. ibid., p. 42. 66. J. Westland, op.cit., p. 77, L.S.S. O’Malley, Khulna, op.cit., p. 43. 67. op.cit., p. 77–8. 68. ibid., p. 78. 69. ibid., p. 78. 70. Surendranath Sen, Off the Main Track, Calcutta, 1944, pp. 44–5. Muhammad Hussain gives an account or rather confesses to his robbery. In one instance, he gives an account of how he and few other men in his gang robbed a village called ‘Muttulub’ where they plundered 13,000 rupees, silver ornaments weighing about 4 or 5 seer, 12 pairs

Tilman Henckell

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

73

of silver rings, 7 bundles of dhotis, 2 piece of silk chouly, 4 pairs of silver ornaments called ‘Koogrow’. He gives many acounts of his booty. He also says:’Kerritnarain Roy, Zamindar of Pergunnah Ruttendee Calcapore, I am his Ryotte, he sent a peon to my house and ordered me to give him 2,000 rupees or he would disgrace me and take it. He is Zamindar, and I am Ryot—I therefore gave him 2,000 rupees.’ ibid., p. 44. J. Westland, op.cit., p. 79. ibid., p. 94. L.S.S. O’Malley, Khulna, op.cit., p. 43. ibid., p. 44. Balai Barui, The Salt Industry of Bengal, 1757–1800, Calcutta, 1985, pp. 49–51, W.B.S.A., Calcutta Committee of Revenue, 27 June 1775, Letter issued to Governor General in Council, Fort William from Pritchand. J. Westland, op.cit., p. 89. ibid., p. 91. ibid., p. 92. L.S.S. O’Malley, Khulna, op.cit., p. 45. Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India, Delhi, 1959, p. 148.

CHAPTER FIVE

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

H

enckell’s policy met with stiff resistance from the local zamindars who saw in it an attempt to encroach on their rights. They claimed that the cleared lands and indeed all the forest (the Sundarbans) belonged to them, but declined to supply him with any information about their estates that might have enabled him to settle the disputes.1 This resulted in a permanent state of tension that persisted even in the next phase of reclamation when boundary disputes continued to remain the most important issue. Henckell’s administration initially gave the peasant rent-free ownership of land. This brought in peasant settlers—mostly migrants from other Bengal districts2—who cleared the land, constructed embankments, and then planted rice in the alluvial soil.3 Gradually many other people also came into the region There were Oriyas from Orissa and Bunas from Chota Nagpur.4 The Oriyas originally came as salt manufacturers and the Bunas were brought for the purpose of clearing jungles. ‘They brought their wives and families with them’ and settled down permanently as cultivators on their own account.5 People came from Hijli and other parts in the Midnapore district to the Sundarbans as permanent settlers.6 The Santhal, Mundas, Oraons and Mahatos were the other settlers who came and settled in this region.7 Oppression of the landlords and moneylenders prompted the tribals (Oraons, Mundas, Bhumijes etc.) to seek new fortune in the Sundarbans where the terms of settlement were easy.8 Settlers grew some vegetables for personal use, and

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

75

Table 5.1: Population Variation (as percentage) in the Sundarbans Police Stations between 1871 and 1951 1941–51 1931–41 1921–31 1911–21 1901–11 1891–1901 1881–91 1871–81 24 Parganas District Jaynagar Canning Haroa Hasnabad Sandesh Khali Mathurapur Kakdwip Sagar Kulpi

25.6 12.4 25 12.8 25.1

27 19.3 14.4 19.7 27.9

9.6 11.7 13.9 1.9 4.8

6.4 5.7 5.7 18.7 18.7

15 14.7 11.9 21.7 21.7

8.4 18.6 15.7 8.5 8.5

10 19.5 11.9 22 22

5.6 11.4 6 41.5 41.5

46 15.4 12.7 14.5 6.6

36.7 31.9 31.9 42.6 16.9

43.4 22.9 26.6 62 9.3

18.7 23.3 14.5 14.6 14.5

21.7 21.5 12.7 12.7 12.7

8.5 23 26.8 26.8 26.8

22 16.2 18 18 18

41.5 16 20.2 20.2 20.2

Notes and References: Census 1951; District Handbook, 24 Parganas; p. xxxvii; Chaudhuri, Dilipkanti, ‘The Settlers of the Sundarbans—A Historical-Demographic Profile’, Ecoscience, Cressida Transaction, Vol. III, No. II, 1983, p. 151.

Table 5.2: Total Immigration from different sources to the 24 Parganas and the Sundarbans, Male and Female (both in absolute figures and percentages): Census 1891 Immigrants from contiguous districts from other districts of Bengal proper from Bihar from Orissa from Chota Nagpur from other provinces and countries Total

Total

Districts Male

Female

43056 26.63% 33093 20.47% 29141 18.02% 15561 9.63% 10872 6.72% 29948 18.52% 161671 100.00%

26029 60.45% 22127 66.86% 19271 66.13% 11771 75.64% 6604 60.74% 20579 68.72% 106381 65.80%

17027 39.55% 10966 33.14% 9870 33.87% 3790 24.36% 4268 39.26% 9369 31.28% 55290 34.20%

Sundarbans Police Station Total Male Female 7292 18.74% 6882 17.68% 10306 26.48% 6936 17.82% 2710 6.96% 4790 12.31% 38916 100.00%

5085 69.73% 5333 77.49% 9299 90.23% 5051 72.82% 2081 76.79% 3409 71.17% 30258 77.75%

2207 30.27% 1549 22.51% 1007 9.77% 1885 27.18% 629 23.21% 1381 28.83% 8658 22.25%

Notes and References: Chaudhuri, Dilipkanti, ‘The Settlers of the Sundarbans— A Historical-Demographic Profile’, Ecoscience, Cressida Transaction, Vol. III, No. II, 1983, p. 150.

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The Sundarbans

planted coconut, dates, mango and jackfruit on the embankments which protected the homestead from saline waters. The principle crop grown was the Aman paddy, sown in May or June and harvested in December or January.9 Sections of the forest which were not reclaimed provided the settlers with wood and grass for building their houses and also as fuel for their kitchens.10 The East India Company tried hard to solve the problems relating to revenue and land ownership in Bengal. After much debate and experimentation, Governor General Cornwallis introduced The Permanent Settlement in 1793. This settlement did succeed in creating property rights and tax policy. The Permanent Settlement, however, was not put into practice in the Sundarbans.11 The estates that had been recognized by the system bordered on the deltaic forests but the system could not be extended to the interiors. The Board of Revenue believed that since the date of the Permanent Settlement a large tract of the Sundarbans had been reclaimed, and the reclaimers were paying nothing to the government, but from which the government was logically entitled to revenue. It was decided that the state would assert its rights to those lands.12

Formulating Rules for Reclamation, 1800 to 1870 Soon the work of redefining the boundaries was carried out in a more determined manner and Lieutenant W.E. Morrison started surveying this area in 1811–14 with the help of special officers. In 1814, the Board of Revenue affirmed that the whole of the Sundarbans Tract (except areas covered by Henckell’s taluks and similar taluks in 24 Parganas called Patitabadi Mahals) was excluded from the zamindaris and acquired by the state.13 It was considered important for the state to assert its claim to such surreptitiously reclaimed land.14 The enquiry conducted by Smelt (who was appointed the Assistant to the Collector of Jessore) in 1815 was an important operation to assess excess land and unauthorized cultivation.15 As to the course of operations, it was advised to begin the enquiries from the south, where the claims were likely to be less complicated, and proceed gradually northwards to regions of greater intricacy.16

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

77

To achieve better control over the reclamation process, the Bengal government, under Regulation IX of 1816, appointed a Special Commissioner of the Sundarbans whose primary task was to administer the process of land reclamation. The first Commissioner, D. Scott was charged with surveying reclaimed lands, assessing and collecting revenues, and receiving adjudicating claims to land made by local zamindars.17 The government’s right to collect revenue from the newly settled land or to claim the forest as public land continued to be challenged. In 1817, came Regulation 23 which firmly asserted the ‘inherent title’ of the government to a share of the produce of all land in the Sundarbans on the ground that such land was ‘wasteland’ in 1793 and hence did not come under the purview of the Permanent Settlement.18 Controversies, however, did not end. Over the next few years the Commissioner of Sundarbans surveyed all cultivated land, particularly within the jurisdiction of 24 Parganas, which had encroached upon the forest.19 The purpose was not to appropriate the land but to collect revenue. Later in 1822–23 with the aid of Morrison’s map all the forestlands were divided into blocks and numbered. This was the beginning of the Sundarban Lots.20 Still ownership claims continued to be made on the basis of ‘ancient rights’ and it was only in 1828 that the government proclaimed the Sundarbans to be the property of the state.21 The enactment of Regulation III of 1828 was soon followed by the definition of the Sundarban boundary which was carried out by William Dampier and Alexander Hodges.22 The passing of the regulation and the demarcation of the Dampier-Hodges line represented the close of the first phase in Sundarban’s settlement history. All lands brought under cultivation between the Permanent Settlement and 1828 were naturally shown outside the DampierHodges (D-H) line of forest, but the resumption of these areas and their subsequent administration was an integral part of the Sundarban administration.23 The colonial policies in regard to the Sundarbans reclamation moved through several phases. At each phase, the Bengal government became more aggressive and interventionist. In the course of this

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The Sundarbans

period the official policy gradually turned away from bestowing huge land grants on speculative entrepreneurs, favouring smaller grants to less wealthy applicants who would actually manage or even cultivate the lands themselves.24 These changes partly reflected wider currents in official policy and ideology and partly the increasing cost and difficulty of reclaiming remote Sundarban tracts. In 1829, the Bengal government set out terms for grants to be opened in the newly demarcated Sundarban forest. The land grants, free of any revenue demands for twenty years, were made available to individuals who had the means to carry out reclamation.25 Onefourth of the land granted had to be cleared and put under cultivation within five years. At the end of the twenty-year period, three-quarters of the land became liable for land revenue at moderate fixed rates (the remainder being settled and built up or considered to be so). In 1844, an interim report showed slow progress: 95 persons had taken up 138 surveyed tracts totalling 491,000 bigha in 24 Parganas and Bakarganj districts. Most of these speculators hired woodcutters and labourers from Hazaribagh or Magh immigrants from the eastern coasts to develop their grants.26 But after five years, only one-tenth (49,000 bigha) of the granted land had been placed under active cultivation (usually wet rice) by the new tenants. The results did not improve and eight years later, in 1852, only a few additional allotments had been taken up in the Sundarban forests.27 On the whole, work of reclamation advanced, stood still or receded much according to individual character and circumstances. The government tended to view favourably those grantees who had really exerted themselves to fulfill the condition of their grants and whose failure had arisen from circumstances beyond their control.28 In 1853, the government announced revised rule for land grants in the Sundarbans.29 The rules continued to favour prosperous Bengali and British land developers. The areas surveyed and made available for reclamation were generally large and the grantees continued to meet all expenses of clearing and constructing embankments on their tracts. The most important revision lay in reduced land revenue rates which did make the venture more attractive. For the next two decades, clearance and settlement proceeded steadily, though not as quickly as the state would have liked.30

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

79

Next came the Wasteland Rules of 1863 that provided for disposal of wastelands—either by selling them outright, exempted from land revenue, or by allowing landowners to redeem their existing land revenue by an once for all payment of a capitalized sum. This attempt was made for settling Europeans in India.31 The granting out of land was suspended as the price was very high with only capitalists reaping the advantage. Applicants for land, therefore, liked the grant rules of 1853 and wished to go back to them.32 Until 1870, the rules of 1853 and 1863 had resulted in little additional reclamation. The rules remained unpopular and the area leased till 1870, was, 946 square miles, with an ultimate revenue of Rs 177,458. In the report of the Commissioner (1873) the total area of the Sundarbans was divided into four categories. Table 5.3: Division of Sundarbans Land Category Leased/Cultivated Land Leased Forests Unleased Forests Water Total Area

Area

Percentage

2,792 sq. km. 1,562 sq. km. 10,273 sq. km. 4,881 sq. km. 19,508 sq. km.

14.3 8.0 52.7 25.0

The first century of British colonial rule in lower Bengal had but a minimal impact on the delta. Only 14 per cent of the total area was cleared and cultivated.33 By 1870, there was stagnation in land reclamation. Government attention was diverted towards the preservation of forests.

Navigation and Other Issues Reclamation of larger areas and developing these for increased revenue was only one part of the colonizer’s scheme, the produce also had to be sent out to the larger market that waited outside. Hence the navigation system needed to be improved and in 1853, Mactier, Collector of Faridpur, brought this to the notice of the Company. There was a need for a towing path from Calcutta to Khulna. The

80

The Sundarbans

sunken boats caused obstruction, the Baliaghata (now Beleghata in east Calcutta) and other circular canals needed to be broadened, and dredging machines were needed. The proposals were accepted and Smith, the Deputy Collector of the Sundarbans, was entrusted with the job. He was posted at Kaliganj for the purpose of studying in details the state of the canals and the tides and to remove all that obstructed navigation.34 Smith remained there till June 1856 but the outcome of the scheme was not satisfactory. Similarly nothing was done with the fund that had been raised for ‘improvement of Sundarban Lots’. Another issue in this area was the problem with the tigers. It was decided that tigers had to be killed in the interest of life and property and a reward of Rs 10 per beast was announced. In 1860, the reward was doubled, then reduced to Rs 5 and ultimately in 1864, fixed at Rs 8.35

Problem of Embankments Like tigers, the flooding of the land also had to be dealt with. Usually, the zamindars took up the responsibility of building and maintaining embankments in the area. In 1785, the government took over the responsibility of maintaining them. During the decennial settlement in 1791, the government resolved to shift the cost of maintaining the embankments to the zamindars again. They refused and it was agreed that if the government decided to maintain them, the zamindars should be exonerated from all loss that might occur. Henceforth they were looked after by the salt agent till 1803, when they were transferred to the embankment committee that had been constituted. The embankments however, were not properly repaired, and in 1814, the government was obliged to renew them at its own expense. In 1819, again, it was decided that the zamindars themselves should undertake the necessary repairs under the supervision of the Superintendent of embankments. This system prevailed till 1834, when the government ordered that the system of advances from the public treasury for repairs should be discontinued.

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81

The zamindars, however, protested and even threatened to give up their estates rather than spend money on the upkeep of the embankments. Ultimately, in 1838, the government relented and went back to the earlier position. There was a constant struggle between the zamindars and the government as to who would take the responsibility of maintaining and repairing the embankments. After much debate it was decided that the responsibility was to be shared by both the government and the zamindars.

Fishery With the gradual progress of reclamation, the English turned their eyes to other forms of economic activities and fishery was decided upon as a viable option. Before 1859, no lease appeared to have been given for this purpose. But in the same year the government directed that the fisheries along all navigable rivers should be taxed, and the orders were circulated with the Board’s circular order dated 8 November 1859.36 All the Sundarban rivers were to be divided into blocks and farmed out for five years.37 The rivers in the 24 Parganas Sundarbans were divided into seven blocks, five of which were disposed of by public auction for an annual deposit of Rs 3,530; those in Jessore were farmed out in three blocks and sold for Rs 210 and eleven rivers in Bakarganj between the Bhola and Bamna were sold for Rs 453. No bidder could be found for the rivers further east.38 The fisheries in the 24 Parganas were the most valuable, the values of others being inversely affected by their greater distance from Calcutta. There had been an old fishery and fish-drying business at Rabanabad and Char Chapli.39 The people, it was seen, had overestimated the fisheries and the bids had been excessive, the drawbacks being that while some rivers lay amidst dense forest, others suffered from continual traffic and the rest were too far from the markets.40 Four of the farmers in 24 Parganas and all those in Jessore defaulted.The blocks were then sub-divided and each river disposed of separately.41 Problems cropped up and the government decided that further leases of fisheries should be stopped.42

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The Sundarbans

Other than fisheries, notice was also taken of applications for the bankar or the farm of the forest produce of the Sundarbans. However, by 1862 the issue of conserving forests in Bengal came up. A statement regarding the extent of forest at the absolute disposal of the government was prepared and so was a list of trees in the Sundarbans.43 The ungranted land in the 24 Parganas and Jessore was divided into convenient blocks and it was proposed that it should be farmed out through public auction. The bankars or the farms of forest produce were put up to public auction and disposed of for five years. Forty eight blocks were disposed of in the 24 Parganas and in Jessore, the buyers having to submit a year’s rent as deposit.44 The principal buyer was The Port Canning Company (this was formed when a subsidiary port was planned at river Matla) which secured a monopoly of the forest produce. The farms had been most lucrative and the Company obtained a huge profit from them.45

Schiller’s Scheme and Cotton Cultivation In January 1865, Ferdinand Schiller and eight others, European and Indian, applied to the government for purchase of the ungranted wastelands, proposing to raise a capital of not less than one million sterling, and reclaim the lands by means of labour imported from China, Madras, Zanzibar and other places.46 The Bengal government decided in February 1865, that the unalloted wastelands in the 24 Parganas Sundarbans, aggregating 11,86,560 acres, be sold under the Wasteland Rules of 1863 by public auction in Calcutta in one Lot at the rate of Rs 2–8 per acre.47 Schiller then floated a company to reclaim the Sundarbans and tried to have the lease executed in his own name.48 His efforts, however, proved unsuccessful and his scheme was dropped. Other lucrative proposals which would earn money were thought of in this area. Attempts were also made to introduce new cotton staples into the Sundarbans. Three barrels of New Orleans cotton seed were distributed by the Sundarban Commissioner among the grantees in 1860 under the orders of the government and an attempt at cultivation was made at Matla also. But the conditions were not suitable, and the attempt failed; though it was reported that the

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Maghs grew cotton in the extreme east of Bakarganj.49 Further trials were made with cotton in 1867–68, but they do not seem to have been successful.

Reclamation of Sagar Island While talking of the reclamation of the Sundarbans the story of settlement and clearing becomes incomplete if there is no reference to the clearing of Sagar Island. This is the most popular place in the Sundarbans (it has reference in the Mahabharata) where millions of people from all over the country gather during the month of January for the Sagar Mela, to take a holy dip at the confluence of the Bay of Bengal and Ganges, and offer their prayers at Kapil Muni’s temple. There is a famous saying—‘sab tirtha bar bar Ganga sagar ek bar’, (the virtues acquired from visiting other holy places several times is equivalent to the virtue acquired from visiting Ganga Sagar only once). The most popular belief is that you go to heaven once you take a dip in the holy waters of Sagar (sea) during a particular day (makar sankranti) in the month of January. The legend goes that Sagar, the king of Oudh and the thirteenth ancestor of Rama had performed the Aswamedha Jajna (horse sacrifice) ninety-nine times. This ceremony consisted of letting a horse loose and the area covered by the horse freely without any opposition, came under the possession of the king. After the ritual, the horse was sacrificed to the gods. If the progress of the horse was stymied by an enemy, war was declared with the territory at stake. As Sagar made preparations for the hundredth sacrifice, Indra, the king of gods, who had himself performed the ceremony a hundred times, jealous at having been displaced by this new rival, stole the horse and concealed it in his subterranean cell, where the Sage Kapil Muni was absorbed in meditation, oblivious to all the happenings of the world around him. The 60,000 sons of Sagar traced the horse to his hiding place, and, believing the sage to be the author of the theft, assaulted him. The holy man being thus roused, opened his eyes and cursed his assailants who were immediately burnt to ashes and sentenced to hell. At last, a grandson of Sagar, in search of his father and uncles, came to Kapil Muni, and begged him to redeem the souls of the dead. The

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holy man replied that this could only be affected if the waters of Ganga could be brought to the spot to touch the ashes. Ganga was in Heaven, in the custody of Brahma the Creator. The grandson of Sagar prayed to Brahma to send the goddess to earth. He died, however, without his prayer having been granted. He left no issue; but a son, Bhagirath, was miraculously born to his widow, and through his prayers, Brahma allowed Ganga to visit the earth. Bhagirath led the way as far as Hathiagarh, in the 24 Parganas near the sea, and then declared that he could not show the rest of the way, whereupon, Ganga, in order to make sure of reaching the spot, divided herself into a hundred mouths, thus forming the delta of the Ganga. One of these mouths reached the ashes and by washing them away atoned for the sins of Sagar’s sons, and their souls were then admitted into heaven. Ganga thus became the sacred stream of a hundred mouths. It is believed that the sea is referred to as ‘sagar’ after this legend.50 Work on clearing the island had been started by the government in 1811. In 1812, a lease was granted to one European with a revenue free period of ten years to reclaim and bring the area under cultivation. But his efforts met with no success. Trower, Collector of the 24 Parganas, was then instructed to adopt the best means of reclaiming the island. He cleared the central portion, named Trowerland, after him. He found that the purpose of cultivation would be served better by private persons, and convened a meeting of merchants and others in Calcutta in 1818. A committee was formed which proposed that a joint stock company be formed consisting of both Europeans and Indians, with a capital of Rs 250,000. The collector prepared to grant out the island free for thirty years and afterwards subject it to an ultimate assessment of 4 annas per bigha. The Governor General left the Board and the Collector to determine what security should be provided to ensure that the instructions of the Court of Directors were observed for speedy reclamation and to reserve for the government the right to take over in the event of failure.51 A company was started in 1819 under the name of the Sagar Island Society, and the lease was executed on 10 June 1819. The management was in the hands of a committee of at least thirteen trustees.52 The whole island was leased out to the Society by the

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government in perpetuity at an assessment of 4 annas per bigha with an initial revenue free period of thirty years from 1820. Of the estimated 143,500 bighas of lands, the Society undertook the clearance of about one lakh bighas within 10 years. Failure to meet any of the conditions would entitle the government to re-enter the island.53 The Society started reclamation, constructed embankments, cleared the land, dug tanks and settled cultivators. Considerable progress was made in five portions called Mud Point, Ferintosh, Trowerland, Shikarpur and Dhobelat.54 Later four gentlemen, Hare, Macpherson, Hunter and Campbell, bought the four northern portions, Shikarpur, Trowerland, Mud Point and Ferintosh. Storms occurred frequently in this region and inflicted serious damage. In 1864, a cyclone swept over the island with full force and caused havoc. Presidency Commissioner Chapman suggested that high and strong embankments were indispensable in order to guard against the constantly recurring loss of life and property by storms on the island. The calamities drew attention to the need for providing means of safety, especially for human life, for it was clear that the embankments already erected did not provide sufficient protection. After much discussion it was settled that in each estate in the island a central place of refuge should be constructed, consisting of a tank surrounded by an embankment high and strong enough, that no habitation should ordinarily be built more than a mile from the place of refuge, and that embanked paths should be made connecting the place of refuge with the houses. Chapman recommended that the area then under cultivation should be re-granted to the grantees free of revenue for a longer period on condition that they maintained such protective measures. Three seasons were allowed for the construction; yearly inspection was to be made by the Sundarban Commissioner; additional protective works would be required as cultivation extended; and neglect to construct or maintain the work would entail loss of the grant.55 Subject to these and some other conditions, land in the five estates already mentioned, were granted free of rent in perpetuity in 1875. The areas given out as grants were these—Mud Point 11,783 bighas, Ferintosh 15,258 bighas, Shikarpur 7,486 bighas, Trowerland 7,349

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bighas, Bamankhali 3,821 bighas, and Dhobelat 17,726 bighas. The remainder of the island became the absolute property of the state.56 Later a lull in reclamation of the remaining portion of the island followed and continued. The next phase of reclamation followed the Rules of 1897.57 The rules of reclamation were framed keeping in mind the needs of the government. The period of revenue-free land was reduced and penalty for non-clearance was introduced. The government was reluctant to invest but expected high returns from this jungle area, expecting faster reclamation by the grantees. Life and welfare of the people was neglected, nothing was looked after—neither the sanitary conditions nor health.The miserably housed tenants dug a hole within a few feet of the sleeping apartment for fresh water. This was soon filled up with stagnant water and became the source of various diseases.58 The speculators who were in for a fast buck made no attempt at land clearance but realized whatever profit they could get from natural products,59 and sold the lots as soon as they could find a purchaser. The misery of the settlers and the rapacity of the speculators embodied the complex history of land reclamation in the Sagar Island. Inspite of all the difficulties many parts of the island were reclaimed and the place became well populated. Pilgrims came from all over the country in the winter (December-January) to visit the famous Sagar Mela.

Forest Reserves The Sundarbans today is the result of two different forces; the reclamation of forests to cropland, and the preservation of the forests for yield of wood products.There was stagnation in reclamation during the second half of the nineteenth century. The governmental policy which was adopted ran counter to the enthusiasm for reclamation among landlords and revenue officers. Forestry was emphasized which lead to management and conservation of wood resource. The Sundarbans was a very important source for timber and fuelwood for people of south Bengal. The most valuable timber tree in the Sundarbans was the Sundari, a ‘gregarious evergreen tree with buttressed stem and grey longitudinally cracked bark’, common

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to the Sundarbans tidal forest.60 Sundari wood was ‘elastic, strong, and very durable’ and much sought after by boat and carriage builders, and the makers of agricultural implements and furniture. In the late nineteenth century, stocks of Sundari were plentiful. Other species were also economically important: Gengwa (Excoecaria agallocha) for box planking and matches, Keora (Sonneratia apetala) and Bean (Avicennia officinales) for planks and poles, Goran (Ceriops roxburghiana) for firewood in Calcutta, Singra (Cynometra ramiflora), the preferred fuel within the Sundarbans.61 Minor forest produce collected included golpatta palm leaves (Nipa fruticans) and ullu grass (Saccharum spontaneum) for thatching, honey and wax, collected under seasonal permits, as were shells of estuarine mollusks.62 Wood-cutters moved ahead of the reclamation frontier, eluding as much as possible the tigers, crocodiles and other menaces of the tidal forests. Water transport reduced the cost of transporting timber and fuelwood from the delta forests to urban markets. Invariably prices rose and cutting intensified. The regular woodcutters live for the most part just north of the Sundarbans; and when the rains have ceased, their season begins.63 They are generally engaged by a wholesale wood merchant, who enters into a contract with them by which they receive advances from him and agree to sell him their wood. They cut the wood, rough-hew it, and bind it into rafts...when the rafts are ready, some of the party float them up with the flood-tide to the place of delivery, while the rest go on with the wood cutting.

Professional parties like this are specialized in harvesting the larger timbers—especially Sundari. Occasional woodcutters drawn from the ranks of the agriculturalists in the area found it profitable to venture into the dangerous reaches of the Sundarbans for their own needs. As Hunter commented, ‘The demand for wood, and especially for firewood, is so great that it offers ample inducement to cultivators, even when comparatively well-off, to engage in the trade’.64 In 1872– 73 canals and, to a much smaller extent, railways carried 300,000 tons of timber and fuel wood into Calcutta from the southeast.65 As early as the 1860s, the nascent Forest Department first proposed a plan to regulate and tax the flow of timber and other forest produce coming from the Sundarban tracts every year.66 The stagnation in

88

The Sundarbans

land reclamation rules intensified in 1874, by a declaration of policy by Sir Richard Temple, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal.67 Shortly after assuming his office, Temple visited the Sundarbans on tour. He was struck by the value of the forest products of the wetlands. The Sundari trees were used for carpentry and timber work and the shrubs of lower growth for fuel. The Sundari forests supplied wood for boat-building to the 24 Parganas, Jessore, Bakarganj, Noakhali, and other districts, and also furnished wood for purposes of domestic architecture. Temple decided that the tract should be preserved for the supply of wood, timber and fuel for southern Bengal. ‘Reclamation,’ he wrote, ‘is not wanted there. In some places the substitution of rice-fields for jungle may be desirable. But in this particular case the ground already bears produce which is more valuable to Bengal than rice.’68 He merely supported reclamation to the extent required to make the forest tract accessible for human use. Richard Temple’s policy resulted in the creation of the reserved and protected forest in Jessore and the 24 Parganas, and, not unnaturally, the Board of Revenue suspended its endeavours to formulate suitable reclamation rules. Temple’s view converged with that of William Schlich, the Conservator of Forests, who argued, on the basis of a detailed survey of the Sundarban forests that Sundari and other timber were rapidly being depleted and must be protected.69 Schlich’s arguments found a sympathetic audience under Temple’s vigorous direction: the 2,292 sq. km. of tidal forest lying within Khulna district were demarcated in 1875 as the Sundarbans forest division—one of five in Bengal.70 The next year Schlich succeeded in adding an additional 1,802 sq. km. to the reserved area under the control of the Forest Department. However, the Conservator was unable to persuade Temple to transfer the entire unleased area of the Sundarbans to reserved forest status. These actions anticipated the sweeping measures for forest protection. Considerable period of investigation and debate led to the Act VII of 1878 which constituted ‘Reserved’ and ‘Protected’ forests for every province in British India. The newly formed Forest Service busied itself in surveying and mapping government forest areas throughout the subcontinent. The Sundarbans came under this new regime. To the Reserved forests classification, the Forest Department added the ‘Protected’ category. These were lands that

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could only be opened for reclamation by consent of the Forest Department. By 1890 there were 4,095 sq. km. of Reserved Forest in Khulna district, and Protected Forest totalling 4,480 sq. km. in 24 Parganas; Khulna also possessed 65 sq. km. of Protected Forest.71 By designating the 24 Parganas tidal forests as Protected rather than Reserved, the Forest Department left itself an option. It could either lease these lands for clearing and conversion to rice, or it could transfer them to timber production and management as Reserved forests.72 The area classified as Protected Forest stayed relatively constant from 1890 through the 1930s at between 4,400 and 4,500 sq. km. In other words, approximately 60 per cent of the Sundarban area in the district was administered by the Forest Department. The latter formed the basis of the West Bengal Sundarbans Forest Reserve. The state preserved these mangrove forests for ensuring a continuous supply of timber and other forest products. The classification of Reserved or Protected forests was an intervention designed to protect the Sundarban forests against the market forces and reclamation pressure. The Sundarban forests became and remained a production unit run as a state monopoly in lower Bengal. Throughout the last century of Forest Department Management the state either produced directly or licensed the cutting and sale of large quantities of timber, bamboo, and other products from its reserved as well as its protected forests.73 In more recent years, the value of forests and forest products has increased relative to rice lands.

Regulations from 1878 to 1915 By 1878, however, the limits of the forest reserve had been fixed, and as a considerable area of wastelands had been excluded and was still available for reclamation, the Board again engaged itself with the task of formulating reclamation rules. Under its instructions a set of rules was submitted by the Commissioner of the Sundarbans, on 22 September 1877.74 The Government of Bengal insisted on a reference to the Conservator of Forest, in order to prevent sporadic reclamation. In 1879, the revised rules were accepted by the government and new wasteland rules for the Sundarbans were promulgated (published in the Calcutta Gazette on 12 November 1879).75

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The Sundarbans

Blocks of 200 acres or more were leased for forty years to large capitalists who were prepared to spend time and money in developing them. Plots not exceeding 200 acres were leased to small capitalists for clearance by cultivators.76 The government reserved for itself all rights to mineral resources. In the case of having more than one applicant for the same land, the sale was decided by auction amongst the applicants.These regulations opened up the Sundarbans for direct land claims by wealthier peasant farmers. Larger speculators and smaller men were both offered long-term forty-year lease. Subject to payment of the assessed land tax, rights to leased lands were heritable and transferable. Between 1870 and 1904 the officially recognized area of the Sundarbans diminished by 13.3 per cent.77 This shrinkage reflected cultivation and settlement in the area. New lands were leased, cleared and cultivated over the past three decades. These figures, however, conceal a counter process of failure and land abandonment. Grantees beset by financial problems threw up their leases; cultivators unable to sustain their lands left in frustration. Every year revenue officials had to initiate legal action to rescind grants whose holders had failed to clear and cultivate successfully as per the required proportions. Cyclones and storms discouraged many peasant farmers and grant holders. However, despite setbacks, the agricultural economy of lower Bengal displayed remarkable strength and resilience in this period.78 The Bakarganj district rather than 24 Parganas or Khulna was the area most favoured by settlers. After 1879, a stream of settlers poured into the fertile lands of Bakarganj. Here the conditions for rice cultivation were generally more favourable than in either of its neighbouring districts. Land was higher and better drained. Embankments were required to prevent salt water from flowing into the new fields but they needed only to be of modest height.The waters in Bakarganj streams tended to be less saline, with direct access to the main river. As a result, the district was over 90 per cent occupied and reclaimed in 1904.79 In parts of the eastern Sundarbans, clearings and cultivation extended almost to the sea face. Keen to utilize the district’s lands to the fullest extent possible, the British government in Bengal adopted a radically new approach to reclamation. A committee appointed by the Board of Revenue in

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1903, decided that it was essential to abolish the system of lease to capitalists, large or small, and to have direct settlements with cultivating ryots, because the former system involved heavy loss to the government both during the period of the original lease and thereafter on renewal. Hence it was decided by the Board of Revenue in 1904 to introduce ryotwari settlements as an experimental measure.80 Small areas (maximum 75 bighas and minimum 10 bighas) were let out to actual cultivators, whom the government assisted by means of advances, by constructing tanks and embankments and by clearing jungles.81 The new rules for ryotwari or ‘peasant wise’ leases and taxation, permitted individual cultivators to pay revenue directly to the government instead of rent to a landlord. The government also chose to offer reclamation loans and to invest in the construction of irrigation tanks.82 For this new experiment, the Bengal government aimed at the last remaining tracts of undisturbed forest in the lower delta of Bakarganj and 24 Parganas. It was proposed that Fraserganj (24 Parganas) should form the first centre for ryotwari colonization. It was estimated that the total cost of reclamation, including embankments, clearance of jungle, construction and maintenance of drinking water tanks, and advances to cultivators, would not exceed Rs 23,000 per square mile or approximately Rs 22 per bigha. However, to those experienced in Sundarban reclamation, Fraserganj seemed a difficult area to experiment with; the reclamation of the whole area at the time involved enormous outlay of capital.83 The work of reclamation commenced in the year 1904–05 under the superintendence of Sundar, who from 1905 was Deputy Collector and Settlement Officer in the Sundarbans. By the end of the first year’s work, twenty-five colonists had settled on the cleared portion of the island. Applications for settlement in this area poured in. Huge expenditure was incurred for this scheme.84 The abnormal expenditure and the failure to show any adequate returns for the enormous outlay very soon disheartened the government. In September 1909, the Government of Bengal finally decided to abandon the scheme, mainly for financial reasons and proposed that Fraserganj should be leased out under the rules of 1879 subject to certain alterations.85 Later, the lease of the Fraserganj government estate was given to Maharaj Manindra Chandra Nandi of

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The Sundarbans

Cossimbazar.86 This change in the Fraserganj policy was severely criticized. According to many the Fraserganj scheme despite its extravagance would have been profitable for the government in the long run. It is worth mentioning that during 1904 the Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Revenue and Agriculture, in one of his letters, wrote ‘In this connection I am to forward the papers which explain the system under which state land has been so successfully colonized in the Punjab, and to ask that the rules and conditions embodied in them may be taken into consideration in framing the new lease rule for the Sundarbans.’87 During the second half of the nineteenth century, Punjab experienced significant economic growth under British rule. The ensuing agricultural settlement transformed the previously barren lands of Punjab into one of the most important regions of commercial agriculture in South Asia.88 The British regarded the agricultural prosperity that they had brought to the Punjab as one of the crowning achievements of their participation in Indian history. They therefore wanted to adopt similar set of rules in the Sundarbans for the development of the region. The construction of an extensive network of canals in Punjab was the story behind the success, whereas natural hazards, salinity and flood hindered the progress in the Sundarbans. However, this did not stop the process of reclamation which was carried out extensively and it converted large forest tracts into rice fields.

Progress and Prospects As a result of these policies of reclamation the area was divided in a north-south way and a north-east, south-east way into abad and patitabad. Within the reclaimed areas certain tracts were notified as forests. With peasant cultivation, reclamation and settlement spread into the marshes and jungles of the Sundarbans. Reclamation was fast and rapid in the Bakarganj area. A specially appointed colonization officer, armed with wide powers and resources, favoured settlement of the Maghs who were engaged in salt smuggling in this area.89 Some of the most forbidding remnants of Sundarban jungles were transformed into fertile rice fields. Schools, dispensaries, post offices, markets and co-operative credit societies adorned the young

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settlements. The turbulent Maghs became worthy peasant farmers. Government officials hailed this new policy as a success.90 As early as 1910, Bakarganj was almost entirely reclaimed and cultivated. In 24 Parganas and Khulna, new policies prevented wholesale leasing of the remaining wetland forests. The year 1915 was the turning point in the history of the rules for reclamation in the 24 Parganas. The change in policy was initially due to administrative changes of 1912, which enabled the revenue authorities to apply the experience gained in Bakarganj to the western district. In 1915, C.J. Stevenson-Moore, after an extensive tour through the Sundarbans, recorded a note on the development of the area.91 Describing the great success achieved in the colonization of the Bakarganj Sundarbans he proceeded to show that the failure of the Fraserganj experiment had not been a sufficient justification for the abandonment of the ryotwari system in Khulna and the 24 Parganas.92 He objected to a revival of the system of lease to lotdars and propounded a scheme for ryotwari colonization. In forwarding the draft rules to the government, it was proposed that while ryotwari settlements should be the ordinary method of reclamation the Board of Revenue should be authorized to make settlement with capitalists in special cases. The Government of India accepted the proposal and the new rules were published. These rules were enforced soon afterwards, and ryotwari settlements ordinarily became the means of reclamation in the whole of the Sundarbans.93 A seventy-year history of land use for the three districts in which the Sundarbans are situated (24 Parganas, including the city of Calcutta, in West Bengal, India and Bakarganj and Khulna in Bangladesh) reveals massive transformation of the land. Between 1880 and 1950, cultivated land in these districts expanded by 45 per cent. Natural processes added to the alluvial wetland formations along the water channels and at the sea face of the Bay of Bengal. During this period, the human population of these districts increased from 5.6 million to 12.9 million persons (see Figs 5.1, 5.2 and Tables 5.4A and 5.4B).94 Large-scale land clearance occurred between 1940 and 1950—cropland increased by 23 per cent. This reflects a response to two large-scale traumatic events—the Bengal famine in 1943 and the massive movement of refugees in both directions across the newly created India-Pakistan border following the 1947 Partition.

94

The Sundarbans Fig. 5.1: Land Use (1880–1950)

Fig. 5.2: Population Growth

1890 1191.1 93.4 1284.5 108.9 0 0 19 0 19 94.1 169.2 0 169.2 0 4.7 0 59.1 63.8 242.5 6.2 993.1 1241.8

1880

Temporary Crops 1185.1 Permanent Crops 89.7 NET CULTIVATED AREA 1274.8 SETTLED, BUILT-UP, etc. 99.8 Coniferous Forests 0 Temperate Broadleaved Humid 0 Temperate Broadleaved Humid Forest 20.2 Tropical Dry Forest/Woodland 0 FOREST/WOODLAND 20.2 INTERRUPTED WOODS 99.7 Grassland/Shrubland 105.5 Cold Grass/Stunted Woodland 0 GRASS/SHRUB COMPLEXES 105.5 Tundra 0 Degraded or Semidesert Shrub 3.7 Desert Communities 0 Unvegetated 53.4 BARREN/SPARSELY VEGETATED 57.1 Marsh/Herbaceous Wetlands 253.2 Peat/Swamp Forest 6.7 Mangrove/Tidal/Littoral Forest 1029.1 WETLANDS 1289

Sundarbans (3 districts combined) 1248.4 99.4 1347.8 119.9 0 0 16.4 0 16.4 86.4 158.6 0 158.6 0 7.1 0 64.8 71.9 250.7 5.3 952.9 1208.9

1990 1382.6 102.8 1485.4 131.1 0 0 14.5 0 14.5 70.7 153.9 0 153.9 0 8.2 0 59.9 68.1 239.2 4.6 870.9 1114.7

1910 1930 1940

1281.9 1350.8 1387.6 107.3 123.2 114.8 1389.2 1474 1502.4 137.3 150.7 185.6 0 0 0 0 0 0 15.6 15.9 14.5 0 0 0 15.6 15.9 14.5 65.2 64.8 60.3 246.1 238.2 220.5 0 0 0 246.1 238.2 220.5 0 0 0 7.1 6.6 10.8 0 0 0 61.5 64.6 63.3 68.6 71.2 74.1 256.4 196.4 216 4.9 4.8 4.3 866.1 863.5 816.9 1127.4 1064.7 1037.2

1920

Table 5.4A: Changes in Land Use, 1880–1950, for 3 Sundarbans Districts: Khulna and Bakarganj, Bangladesh, 24 Parganas (including Calcutta), India 1950

(contd...)

1737.9 105.1 1843 204.9 0 0 13.4 0 13.4 67.5 40.7 0 40.7 0 6.3 0 52.9 59.2 161.9 3.9 701.2 867

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century 95

(Table 5.4A contd...) 851 2981.3 3832.3 6175.6

1890 822.4 3009.9 3832.3 6815

1990 793.9 3038.4 3832.3 7451.6

1910 782.9 3049.4 3832.3 7965.4

1920

1274.8 99.8 20.2 99.7 105.5 57.1 1289 2946.1 886.2 5655.6

1880 1843 204.9 13.4 67.5 40.7 59.2 867 3095.7 736.6 12875.5

1950 568.2 105.1 –6.8 –32.2 –64.8 2.1 –422 149.6 –149.6 7219.9

Change 44.6 105.3 –33.7 –32.3 –61.4 3.7 –32.7 5.1 –16.9 127.7

Change in percentage

1930 752.8 3079.5 3832.3 8922.1

Table 5.4B: Aggregate Change in Land Use from 1880–1950

886.2 2946.1 3832.3 5655.6

1880 1950

737.7 736.6 3094.6 3095.7 3832.3 3832.3 11532.6 12875.5

1940

Notes: The land use data and the population data shown in Figures 5.1 and 5.2 and here represent revisions from the estimates from:John F. Richard, Elizabeth P. Flint, ‘Long Term Transformation in the Sundarbans Wetlands Forests of Bengal’, Agriculture and Human Values, Spring 1990, p.22; Hunter, Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. 1; Jack, Bakarganj Settlement Report; the L.S.S. O’Malley series of Bengal District Gazetteers. Important information for the 1940–50 decade is included in H.S.M. Ishaque, Agricultural Statistics by Plot to Plot Enumeration in Bengal, Part-I, Alipore, 1946; A. Mitra An Account of Land Management in West Bengal, 1870–1950, Alipore, 1953. Other estimates are from M. Mukhafarul Islam in Bengal Agriculture: 1920–1946: A Quantitive Study, Cambridge, 1978, p. 42.

Net Cultivated Area Settled Area Forest/Woodland Interrupted Woods Grass/Shrub Complexes Barren/Sparsely Vegetated Wetlands Total Land Area Surface Water Total Population

SURFACE WATER TOTAL LAND AREA TOTAL AREA TOTAL POPULATION

Sundarbans (3 districts combined)

96 The Sundarbans

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97

Change in Landscape and the Formation of Undertenures Visible changes were seen in the landscape of the Sundarbans. After reclamation the Sundarbans now displayed a landscape of embanked paddyfields and farmsteads. The homestead clusters and their gardens of areca palm mingled with coconut and tamarind looked graceful. The most enthusiastic proponents of expansion into the Sundarbans were the district officers charged with collecting revenue from agricultural production and with peacekeeping duties One model was that of the improving, energetic landlord who would invest both energy and capital into reclaiming the wastelands of the Sundarbans. W.W. Hunter offered an account of the growth of a river port called Morrelganj on the Panguchi river in Jessore (later Khulna) district. Two Englishmen, Morrel and Lightfoot, purchased an estate from the Government of Bengal in 1849 and proceeded to clear and settle the ‘dense Sundarban Forest’ along fourteen miles of riverfront.95 The partners employed ten thousand labourers brought from nearby Bakarganj and the costs averaged Rs 20 per hectare of cleared land. After the initial phase, many of the original workers settled on assigned plots in the estate lands and took up rice cultivation under fixed rents. The Morrelganj tenants produced 1,128 metric tons of rice and 261 tons of betel nuts for shipping out in the half dozen river boats leased by the partners each year. In recognition of its commercial importance, the Government of Bengal classified Morrelganj as a river port in 1869, set out buoys and markers and assigned a customs officer to collect excise duties on the exported commodities. Morrelganj may have been one ideal model, but it was not typical. Bengali investors in land were more than willing to apply for and purchase leases for land to be reclaimed from the wastelands of the Sundarbans. However, they were less inclined to take up the direct management of large estates. Landlords might organize and fund the clearing of a portion of their leases, but rarely the entire tract. Commonly they sold the rights to sub-lessees who might themselves

98

The Sundarbans

be interested in organizing and financing tracts of lands or who might sublet their leases in turn to smaller operators. There is a clear description of the organizational structure of this tenurial system by Ram Sankar Sen, Deputy Collector of Jessore, in 1873.96 ‘As soon as a Sundarban grant is settled with an applicant called abad talukdar, the land is apportioned by him among subordinate tenants called haoladars, who undertake the clearance. To keep the damages caused by wild animals limited to the furthest edge of the farm the haoladar needs to create buffer farms and that need leads him to sublet portions of his holding to other tenants called nim haoladars. The nim haoladar undertakes the same process of clearing. During the years of reclamation three men are there in the field to organize the whole operation. They are the talukdars who financed, the haoladar who directly engaged himself in clearing and the nim haoladar who cultivated land.’ J.C. Jack diagrammed a typical descent from estate holder down to 160 petty tenure holders who in turn collected rents from 360 cultivating peasants.97 Table 5.5: Typical Descent from the Estate Holder to Petty Tenure Holders Zamindar

with an estate of 2000 acres and paying a revenue of Rs 200 4 Talukdars each with a subordinate taluk of 500 acres and paying a rent of Rs 100 to the zamindar 20 Osat Talukdars each with a tenure of 100 acres and each paying a rent of Rs 50 to one of the 4 talukdars 80 Haoladars each with a tenure of 25 acres and paying a rent of Rs 25 to one of the 20 talukdars 160 Nim Haoladars each with a tenure of 12.5 acres and paying a rent of Rs 20 to one of the 80 haoladars and he has sublet in turn to two cultivators in an ordinary raiyati lease stipulating a payment of Rs 15 rent apiece

All contemporary observers agree that even in this extreme case the Bengal tenure system did not inhibit, but rather encouraged reclamation.98 From one perspective it permitted investment in land by smaller investors. They stood to gain modestly and steadily from

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their investments without running any overwhelming risk. They were not required to spend energy or possess managerial skill to make a profit. The system was virtually self-sustaining. It enabled the cultivators to clear forests, build embankments, and plant paddy in the realization99 that they would possess ownership rights even at bottom of the chain. When opportunities for land reclamation contracted in various parts of Bakarganj, the pattern of chained tenures did not end. Rather they became a form of liquid investment that could be freely bought and sold.100 One aspect of the system was that most of the land holding remained concentrated in the hands of absentee land holders who stayed in Calcutta but never directly got involved in reclamation and development of the region.101 Abad operations (cultivating the jungle lands) were often led by zamindars themselves in benami (not in their own names).102 The practice of benami engagement for a patitabad grant flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century. Thus in 1918, the collector of Bakarganj reported that in his district ‘all native staff working at the revenue and judicial offices possess land grants benami’.103 A study of the occupational background of successful applicants for land from 1861–71 in Bakarganj district shows that, out of 1141 patitabad grants made during the period, 792 were held by legal practitioners and the rest were distributed among landholders, tenureholders, merchants and traders, zamindari amla, and so on.104 Evidently, legal practitioners of the deltaic districts, where litigations were common, were emerging as a dominant social force. The mass entry of legal practitioners into land control did not continue for long. From the 1880s the government distributed grants to the educated Muslims and Hindu bhadraloks (gentlemen). The bhadralok allottees in this region did not move to the location in person but instead created under-ryoti tenures to cultivate those lands.105 It would be important to identify those tenureholders and other participants who actually applied to undertake abad activities in person. The talukdars and their local holders were looking for agriculturists. Land hungry agriculturists came in contact with the abad haoladars and at first held lands from them on easy term. The success of one group of colonizing peasants persuaded their counterparts from other villages to migrate and settle on the cleared estates. Upper caste

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population came last of all. L.R. Fawcus in his settlement report of Khulna is of the opinion that the untouchables (Pods and Namasudras) had ‘cleared the way converting the jungle into paddy land’.106 Demographically Bengal, and especially deltaic Bengal, was gaining population from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The two factors, rise in prices and population growth, contributed to an acceleration of the reclamation movement.107 Similar economic stimuli launched a large-scale reclamation movement in Britain during the period of Napoleonic Wars. But what is remarkable is that while reclamation in Britain was accomplished by capitalist farmers, in Bengal it was achieved by a long chain of subinfeudatory interests. Reclamation through hierarchic tenurial interests was encouraged by the Mughal Government and this tradition continued down to the British period. It could not be otherwise, because agriculture of Bengal, unlike that of Britain was still conducted not primarily for the market but for subsistence, and it was carried out not through paid labour, but through unpaid family labour.108 The landless daily labourers who were brought into this region with the temptation that they would own their own land very soon became bhag chasis or (sharecroppers). During the nineteenth century, as subinfeudation expanded, the numbers of share-croppers on the khas lands of tenure-holders increased.109 In 24 Parganas the men of substance who had leased government Lots in the Sundarbans for reclamation were somewhat similar to the big jotedars (rich tenant) of the north. The Lots were large blocks of land held at easy rents progressively enhanced as reclamation proceeded, and subject to forfeiture if clearance conditions were not fulfilled. Often speculators and land-jobbers obtained such lease and sublet to smaller leases on cash payments with the result that the work of reclamation was actually carried out by small peasant cultivators paying rack-rents.110 The process of dispossession of what was initially a relatively free peasantry and their conversion into near-serfs paid with a share of the crop began in these areas and gathered pace during the first half of the twentieth century. The cultivators in the Sundarbans were generally an oppressed lot. What worsened things for them was that the leases or tenure holders, stayed away from the estates which were run by unscrupulous and ruthless agents [naibs] who subjected cultivators to oppressive demands. Besides rent these hapless people

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were made to pay a number of illegal cess. These were: (a) road cess (b) tahari or Collector’s fees, (c) agaman or nazar (collected whenever a new naib or superior officer visited the cutchery), (d) malik basha kharcha (for zamindar’s chair), (e) mela kharcha (fee for the fair), (f) parbi (fee for Puja expenses collected every where in the Parganas), (g) proja kharcha or tol kharcha (fee realized from the peasants for permitting them to sit in the cutchery) and (h) dakhila kharcha (fee for rent receipt).111 Such payments were compulsory and failure to pay would mean torture. Whatever be the changes that the Sundarbans underwent during the period late eighteenth to early twentieth century, it needs hardly to be stressed that the welfare measure for the peasantry were minimal.Their erosions in all respects continued further till the widely fermenting discontent broke into the final outburst of the Tebhaga Movement before the Indian independence.

Overview The work of reclamation was thus a complex process involving constant changes in policy. Colonization of the Sundarbans dates back to 1770, when Claude Russell, the Collector General, started granting leases to individuals with the object of reclaiming forests. The idea was to prevent the operations of smugglers and pirates and to convert their natural shelters into revenue-yielding tracts.112 At that time, the natural river route between Calcutta and the eastern districts via Kachua, Khulna, Chandkhali and by the river leading past Kaliganj was constantly under the threat of piracy. Around 1783, Henckell, the first English Judge and magistrate of Jessore, took up the task of reclamation and also established three market places along the inhospitable route. These were located in Kachua and Chandkhali. The third location was later called Henckelganj, after Henckell, and subsequently came to be known as Hingalganj. Since then a series of experiments were carried on and rules of grants framed from time to time to lease out wastelands for reclamation and cultivation. From 1783 to 1904, sets of rules were framed for the purpose of issuing grants. Government policy and the settlement of the Sundarbans wastelands varied from the temporary capitalist to the ryotwari system.

102

The Sundarbans

The clearing of the Sundarban forests with its intertwining trees and an impenetrable undergrowth of brushwood was always considered to be an arduous job, not only because of the number of labourers required but also due to the danger from wild beasts. Another potent danger was the surprisingly quick growth of the reeds (nal) which would spring back as soon as the land was rested. The soil had to be cultivated for at least ten to twelve years in succession before the danger finally disappeared.113 The danger from cyclones was also one of the major obstacles faced by the early colonizers as also the salinity of the soil. The presence of salt in the surface and sub-surface layers of the soil as well as in the river water is and will remain, at least for some time in future, a serious constraint to efforts for a fuller and more intensive utilization of the land and human resources of this region. These factors reveal that the reclamation of Sundarbans was really a tough job. The people who purchased the Sundarbans grants were generally men working in the offices of the Revenue Department of the government. Some of them were Europeans. The zamindars of permanently settled adjoining districts also purchased holdings in the Sundarbans. The reclamation and cultivation of swamp-ridden jungles involved costly, sustained and vigorous efforts in the first few years without any gains. So the responsibility of clearance, cultivation and induction of tenants for these purposes was shifted by leaseholders on to the middlemen.114 This sub-infeudation of land limited the 24 Parganas Sundarbans to only two grades above the cultivators compared to ten or more in Bakarganj district.115 Land jobbing and speculation had adverse effects on the relationship between landlords and tenants. Some of the lessees were in the habit of inducting tenants to take up the load of reclamation on easy terms under invalid documents and of ousting them to make room for new tenants willing to pay higher rents once the land was cleared.116 The lessees were non-residents, who administered their estates through kachharis (office) managed by naibs (manager), gomastas (agent, village officer of zamindar)—everyone exploiting the peasants.117 Although embankments were all important for the Sundarbans cultivation and their erection and maintenance were obligatory on the part of the lessees. There were many cases of neglect on their part. It resulted in frequent inundations and loss of crops. The

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damage done by the disastrous cyclone of 1870 led to the extensive abandonment of holdings in the Sundarbans.118 To overcome the financial onslaughts, sometimes the men of moderate holdings also took recourse to subletting their lands for higher rent in cash or half of the produce in kind. A new grade of land tenure, i.e. the Bargadar System, grew out of this impasse in the land market in the Sundarbans.119 During the years of scarcity owing to the severe cyclone, inundation of the cultivated lands by salt water and the consequent loss of crops, the misery of the cultivators knew no bounds. During one such year of scarcity in 1864, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the great novelist of Bengal then Deputy Magistrate in Baruipur took over charge of Diamond Harbour subdivision temporarily and carried out relief works in villages.120 The condition of peasantry in the Sundarbans remained deplorable and even today it does not appear to be very different in the absence of any proper developmental policy implementation.121 Though there were difficulties, the dense forests of the Sundarbans were nevertheless cleared and the fear of the tiger also receded. The whole scenario of this region changed. The effort was pioneering since such reclamation processes that took place elsewhere in South East Asia, such as in Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, were subsequent to the experiment in the Ganges delta. What happened in the Sundarbans was also markedly different from deltaic development in other countries. It was the only place where the state, while encouraging reclamation, created a barrier to agricultural expansion, and the forest was kept intact on a scale that has not been seen outside colonial India. Reclamation and preservation was carried out simultaneously. The English even planned a port in the region and as a corollary laid railway lines for better connectivity with Calcutta which also led to an increased influx of people. The establishment of the port at Canning brought in further changes in the mangrove island.

Notes and References 1. L.S.S.O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, Khulna, Calcutta, 1908, p. 41. 2. Rabindra Kumar Sengupta, ‘Importance of the Sundarbans Region in West Bengal’s Economy’, in Kanan Gopal Bagchi, Sunil Kumar Munsi,

104

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

The Sundarbans and Rabindranath Bhattacharyya eds., The Bhagirathi-Hooghly Basin (Proceedings of the interdiciplinary Symposium), Calcutta, 1972, p. 310. Ajit K. Mukherjee, ‘The Sundarban of India and its Biota’, Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 72, (I), 1975, pp. 1–20. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account Of Bengal, Vol. I, Districts of 24 Parganas, and Sundarbans, Reprint ed. Delhi, 1973, p. 318. ibid., pp. 318–19. ibid., p. 51. Sankarananda Mukhopadhyay, A Profile of Sundarban Tribes, Calcutta, 1976, pp. 9–18. S.C. Roy, The Oraons of Chota Nagpur, Ranchi, 1915, p. 206. According to S.C. Roy ‘We may add that the obstacles now thrown by the landlords in the way of their increasing the area of their holdings with the increase of their family, lead many an Oraon family to emigrate to Assam, the Duars or the Sundarban etc.’ And on the oppression of the money lenders Roy again writes, ‘Once an Oraon gets into the clutches of this Indian Shylock it becomes extremely difficult to extricate himself from his grip. The paltry initial debt goes on selling enormously by a process—which the simple Oraons can never understand’. S.J. Curtis, Working Plan for the Forests of the Sundarban Division, Calcutta, 1933, p. 23. John F. Richards and Elizabeth P. Flint, Long term transformations in the Sundarbans,Wetlands Forests of Bengal, in Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. VII, No. 2, Spring 1990, p. 18. F.E. Pargiter, A Revenue History of Sundarbans from 1765 to 1870, Calcutta, 1934, pp. 4,12. W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., C.B.L.I., 18 March, 1836, Letter written to J.C. Erskine by Commissioner of Sundarbans,W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., C.B.L.I., 8 April 1836, 13 June 1836, 20 August 1838, Letters to the Commissioner of Sundarbans by Dampier, Jessore, W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., C.B.L.I., 20 August 1838, in this letter Dampier writes, ‘...I must say that I consider many proceedings to have been extremely injudicious but that the several of this form appears to me to be most erroneous and likely to produce serious loss to the Government. ...There are lands of which the farmer has not acquired possession but cultivates them and does not pay any rent to the government.’ , op.cit., pp. 6–7. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 28 October 1814, Letter from President, Members of Board of Revenue to Governor General in Council. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 8. W.B.S.A., B.O.R. 13 March 1816, 6 May 1816, Letter from Collector of Jessore to President, Members of Board of Revenue.

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16. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 7. 17. W.B.S.A., B.O.R. 20 August 1816, Letter from President, Members of Board of Revenue to Sundarban Commissioner. 18. , 17 October 1817, Letter from Governor General to President Members of Board of Revenue, W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 11 November 1817, Letter from President, Members of Board of Revenue to Sundarban Commissioner, Pargiter op.cit.(year), p. 12. 19. , 23 March 28 May 20 July, 3 September 1822, 29 January, 23 August 1823, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner, to President, Members of Board of Revenue, W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., Letter Received, 24 May 1843, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 20. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 16. 21. ibid., p. 22. 22. W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., C.B.L.I., 28 August, 30 October 1828, Letter to Presidency Commissioner, from Sundarban Commissioner. 23. F.D. Ascoli: A Revenue History of the Sundarban from 1870–1920, Calcutta, 1921, pp. 2–6. 24. John F. Richards and Elizabeth P. Flint, op.cit., p. 20. 25. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 23. He writes, ‘In the bestowal of the grants, however, the European residents of Calcutta largely predominated, and few, if any, were given to the border Zamindars.’ 26. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 318–19. 27. Pargiter op.cit., p. 90. 28. ibid., p. 57. 29. Anil Ch. Lahiri, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of 24 Pargana 1924–33, Calcutta, 1936, pp. 112–13. The salient features of 1853 rules were: 1. grants were made for ninety nine years, and were sold to highest bidders, 2. the revenue assessed on them was reduced to about six annas per acre and did not become fully payable till the 51st years after a long and gradual enhancement commencing from the 21st year, 3. reclamation was more carefully provided for, the grantee being required to have of his grant fit for cultivation in five years, 1/4 in ten, 1/2 in twenty and the whole in thirty years under pain of forfeiture. The earlier grantees had the option to give up their old leases and take fresh leases under the new rules. To protect the interest of the salt agencies new clauses were prescribed by the government. 30. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 92–6. 31. Sankarananda Mukherji, op.cit., p. 12.

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32. ibid., pp. 12–13. 33. Hunter, op.cit., p. 330, John F. Richards and Elizabeth P. Flint, op.cit., p. 20. 34. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., Lower Provinces, 16 May 1853, No. 113, Letter from Presidency Commissioenr to Sundarban Commissioner, W.B.S.A., P.C.S.R., C.B.L.I., 15 July 1854, No. 141, Letter from Presidency commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 35. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, 2 August 1864, No. 64, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 36. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 111. 37. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, 25 November 1859, No. 44, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 38. , 15 March 1860, No. 179, 1 March 1861, No. 195, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner, W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, 18 April 1861, No. 38, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 39. , 24 May 1860, No. 25, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 40. , 9 August 1863, No. 77, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 41. , 24 November 1863, No. 139, 27 April 1866. No. 316, 11 October 1866, No. 163, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 42. , Memo No. 2, 23 November 1867, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 43. , 23 August 1864, No. 76, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. , in the letter written by the Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner 24 September and 24 November 1864 it was seen that the ungranted lots contained 8,81,836 acres of forest. 44. , 28 January 1866, No. 243A, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner, W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, 23 July 1866, Memo No. 72, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 45. , 24 November 1868, No. 155, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 46. , 23 June 1865, No. 55. Letter from Junior Secretary to Government of Bengal to the Under Secretary to the Government of India.

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

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47. Sankarananda Mukherji, ‘Historical and Geographical Background’, op.cit., p. 13. The sale advertisement was drafted for all the lands mentioned except six Lots which were included in the prospectus of the Port Canning Company. 48. W.B.S.A, R.D., L.R. Branch, 5 July 1867, No. 104, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 49. , 3 July 1860, No. 40, 27 March 1861, No. 209, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 50. Kalidas Dutta, Dakhin Chabbis Parganar Ateet, Vol. II, p. 81, Kamal Chowdhury, Dakhin Chabbis Parganar Itibrittya, pp. 118–26 Rathindranath De The Sundarbans. Calcutta, 1990, p. 60. 51. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 23 October 1818, No. 1073 Letter from Secretary to the Government of Bengal, to President, Members, Board of Revenue. The Governor General left the Board and the Collector to determine what security should be provided to ensure that the instructions of the Court of Directors were observed for speedy reclamation and to reserve for the Government the right to take over in the event of failure. 52. Correspondence relating to the Settlement of Sagar Island, Bengal, 1869, Appendix, p. 1. The names of the original Committee members’ (The thirteen trustees) were Charles Tower, Commodore John Hayes, John Palmer, Joseph Barretto, Hurry Mohun Tagore, James Young, Robert, Mc Clintock, Leith Alexander Davidson, Ramdollal Dey, James Kyd, William Richardson, John Hunter, and Gopee Mohun Deb. 53. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., 23 November 1856, No. 228, Letter from Presidency Commissioenr to Sundarban Commissioner, W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, 24 December 1863, No. 161, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 54. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, 24 December 1863, No. 161, Letter from Sundarban Commissioner to Presidency Commissioner. 55. , 21 March 1871, Memo No. 201, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commissioner. 56. Pargiter op.cit., p. 118. 57. A.C. Lahiri, op.cit., p. 120.The following were the chief conditions, 1. The grantees should have right of a temporary tenure holder for the settlement of 20 years in place of 40 years. 2. The provision for the construction of protective works was omitted. 3. The initial revenue-free period was reduced from 15 to 5 years.

108

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71.

72.

The Sundarbans 4. The ultimate rate of assessment became annas 12 per bigha in place of annas 4 per bigha. 5. Penalty of annas 4 per bigha would be inflicted for non-clearance. Here it is also mentioned that the following grants were made according to the rules of 1897. Acres 1. Trower land (2) .... Mouza Mahandraganj Mouza Nagendraganj 2. Shikarpur (2) .... Mouza Kaylapara Mouza Haradhanpur 3. Goalia Chak (2) .... Mouza Chandipur Mouza Bishnupur Mouza Natendrapur Mouza Narayani Abad The remaining three portions of Sagar Island (Touzi Nos. 2938 and 2968), Ramkarer Char (east) and Manasadwip (2nd portion) were kept under the Khas management of the government which was settled under the colonization rules of 15 February, 1919. J.H. Reilly, ‘The Soonderbans’, The Calcutta Review, Vol. XXXI, No. 62, pp. 388–9. ibid., p. 389. R.S. Troup, The Silviculture of Indian Trees 1, Oxford, 1921, p. 153. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 306–9. S.J. Curtis, Working Plan for the Forests of the Sundarban Division, Calcutta, 1933, pp. 23–5. Hunter,Vol. 1, op.cit., pp. 309–11. ibid., p. 310. ibid., p. 311. Ascoli—op.cit., p. 55. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, Minute of 12 September 1874, from Secretary to the Bengal Government to Secretary to the Government of India. ibid. Ascoli, op.cit., p. 56. ibid., pp. 56–7. India, Bengal Presidency, Forest Department, Annual Progress Report of Forest Administration in the Lower Provinces of Bengal, 1890–91, Calcutta, 1891, p. 22. Government of Bengal, Forest Department, Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration in the Presidency of Bengal for the year 1937–1938, Calcutta, 1939, p. 58.

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73. John F. Richards and Elizabeth P. Flint, ’, op.cit., p. 27. 74. Ascoli, op.cit., p. 15. The rules of 1853 had been discarded, and the new rules were based on the draft rules of the committee of 1871: they were the origin of the Large Capitalist Rules of 1879. 75. Ascoli—op.cit. p. 16. 76. Maitreya Ghatak, ‘Kakdwip 1946–50’, Mahasweta Devi ed. Bartika, 1986, p. 10, A.C. Lahiri op.cit., pp. 114–15. A comparative statement below show the differences in the salient features of the leases under the Rules of 1853 and 1879. Period of settlement Revenue-free period Maximum area Area excluded form assessment Maximum rate of revenue Clearance conditions

1853 99 20 Unrestricted 1/4th of the total area

1879 40 10 5,000 bighas 1/4th of the total area

annas 2 per bigha from the 51st year 3/4ths to be cleared

Rs 4 to Rs 8 per bigha 1/8th to be cleared at the end of 30 years and fully cleared at the end of the 5th year

77. The 1870s figure is from Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 330–1. The 1904 value is from the Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, 26 Volumes, Oxford 1908, See Sundarbans, 23, p. 140. 78. Imperial Gazetteer, op.cit., Sundarbans, pp. 144–5. 79. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 288–9. 80. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, October, 1904, File No. 30-S/16(11,12), Progs. No. 34–36, Letter from the Secretary to the Government of Bengal to the secretary to the Board of Revenue. 81. , 26 July 1904, File No. 30-S/16(11), Progs. No. 34, Letter from the Secretary to the Government of Bengal to the Secretary to the Board of Revenue. 82. L.S.S., O’Malley, District Gazetteer, Bakarganj, Calcutta, 1918, op.cit., p. 54. 83. Ascoli op.cit., pp. 134–5. 84. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, June 1910, File No. 5-W/10 of 1909, File No. 5-W/5 of 1910, Progs. No. 67–68, Letter from Commissioner Presidency division to the Secretary Board of Revenue Lower Provinces.

110 85.

86.

87.

88. 89. 90. 91.

92.

93. 94. 95.

96. 97.

98.

The Sundarbans , March 1911, File No. 5W-2, Progs. No. 29–31, Letter from Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Lower Provinces to the Secretary of the Government of Bengal. , 6 April 1915, File No. 2–1/10(1), Progs. No. 21–22, Letter from Secretary to the Board of Revenue Lower Provinces to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal. , October 1904, File No. 30-S/16(11–12), Progs. No. 34–36, Letter from Secretary to the Government of India to the Secretary Government of Bengal. Imran Ali, The Punjab under Imperialism, 1885–1947, Delhi, 1989, p. 29. Ascoli—op.cit., pp. 101–12 gives a full description. ibid., pp. 109–223. There is a brief description of each of the colonies. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, File No. 2–1/10(1), Progs. Nos. 21–22, 6 April 1915, Letter from Secretary to the Board of Revenue Bengal to the Secretary Government of Bengal. , File No. 3-W/2 (1), Progs. Nos. 50–51, 26 April 1915, Letter from Secretary to the Board of Revenue to the Secretary Government of Bengal. , File No. 14S-2, Progs. No. 97–100, June 1916, Letter from Secretary to the Government of Bengal to the Secretary Board of Revenue. John F. Richard, Elizabeth P. Flint, op.cit., p. 22. W.W. Hunter, Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. 2 (Districts of Nadiya and Jessore), p. 232–9. When this account was written, the modern district of Khulna was a part of Jessore. The town of Morrelganj bears the same name today. R.S. Sen, Report on the Agricultural Statistics of Jhenaidah Magurah and Sundarbans in the District of Jessore, Calcutta, 1873, pp. 43–5. Sirajul Islam, Bengal Land Tenure, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 55–61, J.C. Jack, Final Report on the Survey Settlement Operations in the District of Bakarganj 1900 to 1908 Calcutta, 1915, p. 52, John F. Richard, Elizabeth P. Flint, Long Term Transformations, op.cit., pp. 21–2. J.C. Jack, Final Report on the Survey Settlement Operations in the District of Bakarganj op.cit., p. 48, Jack attributes the convolutions of the Bakarganj land tenure system to the process of land reclamation. The haola tenures, in his view were designed for purposes of pioneering in the forests when tracts were split by rivers and streams and could not be readily managed. Many of the investors were upper caste men who were prevented by caste rules from cultivating. They found direct management difficult, hence the chain of undertenures.

Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

99. 100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

108. 109. 110. 111.

112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

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Jack also suggests that most of the landlords in the district came from Bikrampur town, near Dacca and followed the same practices. ibid., p. 46. Tapan Raychaudhuri, ‘Permanent Settlement in Operation: Bakarganj District, East Bengal’, in R.E. Frykenberg, ed. Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History, Madison, 1969, pp. 163–74. Sirajul Islam, Bengal Land Tenure, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 58–9. ibid., p. 58. ibid., p. 58. ibid., p. 59. ibid., p. 60. L.R. Fawcus, Final report on the Survey Settlement Operations in the District of Khulna.,1920–26, Calcutta 1927, p. 47. Sirajul Islam, op.cit., p. 115, Dietmar Rothermund, ‘A Survey of Rural Migration and Land Reclamation in India, 1885’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, April, 1977, pp. 230–3. , op.cit., pp. 114–15. Radhakamal Mukherjee, Land Problems of India, London, 1933, p. 99. Sugata Bose, Agrarian Bengal, Cambridge, 1984, p. 16. Amit Gupta, ‘Forest Fire in the Sundarbans: The Communists and the Kakdwip Rising, 1946–50’, Occasional Papers, On History and Society, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, November 1985, p. 8, Ashim Mukhopadhyay, ‘Peasants of the Parganas’, in A.R. Desai ed. Peasant Struggle in India, Paperback edition, Delhi, 1981, p. 637. F.E. Pargiter, A Revenue History of Sundarbans, 1765–1870, Calcutta, 1934, p. 1. ibid., p. 335. A.C. Lahiri, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of 24 Parganas, 1924–33, Calcutta, 1936, p. 70. Hunter, Vol. I, pp. 340–1. L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, 24 Parganas, Calcutta, 1914, p. 175. A.C. Lahiri, op.cit., p. 94. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Oxford, 1908, Vol. 23, p. 372. Report of the Land Revenue Commission, Bengal,Vol. VI, Calcutta, 1940, p. 145. Kalidas Dutta, Dakhin Chabbis Parganar Ateet, Vol. II, Baruipur, South 24 Parganas, 1989, pp. 59–60. Prakash Gupta, ‘Sundarbaner Adibasider Sahagyar Name Prahashan’, in Sundarban Jagaran, September-October 1989, pp. 71–6.

CHAPTER SIX

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s the British began to consolidate their hold on Bengal, first through the East India Company and later directly, they began to look for a second port, an important instrument in the expansion of trade and economy. More outlets to the sea were essential if they had to make their dream of an Asian colony come true. There was already a port in Calcutta but it was felt that its navigability was on the decline.This was a major problem as Calcutta had a rich hinterland providing the materials needed for export trade. The decision to establish an alternative port located in the adjacent banks of the mangrove swamps was part of a long-term concern of the imperial administration. The plan was to develop a subsidiary port to complement the one in Calcutta.1 The process of building the new port reveals a story about the expansion of settlements in the jungle areas of the Sundarbans and how it represented a new turn in the relationship between man and nature. As early as 1853, the Bengal Chamber of Commerce drew the attention of the government to the difficult and dangerous state of navigation on the Hooghly river rendering access to the port impracticable for vessels of even the smallest tonnage. Immediately after the 1857 revolt, the British authorities turned their attention to develop a new port to the east of the city in the 24 Parganas part of the Sundarbans. It was to be named after Lord Canning—the

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initiator of political and economic reorganization which followed the suppression of the revolt—as an alternative as well as a supplement to Calcutta.

Towards a New Port: Concerns and Considerations Calcutta served as the principal channel for trade with Great Britain and other foreign countries. The threat to Calcutta’s prominence came not from internal political challenge but from the natural decline in navigation capability of a riverine port whose channel was becoming moribund. In the 1820s, several plans were discussed for the construction of wet docks in Calcutta and Diamond Harbour, but nothing came of these proposals. The devastating cyclone in 1842, which damaged the ships anchored in Calcutta Port, once again revived the discussion. The issue of modernizing the port was sidetracked by an attempt to establish a new port on the Matla.2 Any discussion on the theme of actual or apprehended silting of the Hooghly river, and opening of a port at Canning raises interesting questions: Who mooted the matter of silting first? What exactly was the idea behind the opening of the new railway line to Canning? And why did the project fail in the 1870s? Official sources illuminate the process of policy decisions regarding Port Canning quite clearly. Unfortunately these documents throw no light either on the questions of motivations and responsibility raised above or on the broader aspects of the investment boom in the Sundarbans land, labour and development, or on the social and ecological consequences, which must remain to an extent, a matter of speculation. The attempt to create an auxiliary harbour to complement Calcutta dates from 1853 when there was a talk of the deterioration of the Hooghly. A committee was appointed to examine whether the Matla river should be developed as a possible alternative outlet to the Bay of Bengal. In 1853, the Chamber of Commerce represented to the government the necessity of establishing a port on the Matla which would be connected with Calcutta by railways or canals.3 There was a major controversy regarding the

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formation of railways or a canal. Ultimately, it was decided that the railway project would have an advantage over a canal route.4 The East India Railway got busy promoting its case as such construction would have meant immediate cash benefits for its investors. The railway company insisted that a rail link would help in the export of rice to the Straits and mentioned companies like Allan Defell & Co., Schoene Kilburn and Company who were prepared to help in its construction. It was also pointed out that a rail link would be cheaper than constructing a canal and so the decision went in its favour. There were other reasons behind the formation of a port at Matla. A section of British officials felt that bulky articles like rice, oilseed, etc. for which freight proved expensive, would be cheaper if shipped from the Matla than from Calcutta.5 It was seen that the river was sufficiently deep close to the banks; as a result the vessels would be able to receive and discharge cargo along the wharves, which would reduce shipping and landing charges. The tides at the Hooghly travelled at a speed of 7.5 miles per hour, whereas the velocity of the tidal waves at Matla was only 4 miles per hour. This would help the vessels to safely ride as well as anchor in open water, even during the rains. Therefore Matla appeared to be a fine open river port, much suited to the growing commerce of the city.6 It was thought that with railway and better road communication, the trade in Calcutta would flourish. With moderate port charges there was nothing to prevent the Matla from becoming an important seat of rice trade.7 Other than this it was felt that salt would find a market in this region. This would stimulate the trade in the new port. Decisions were also taken for the erection of temporary ‘floating Golah’ for salt.8 These considerations were responsible for giving the government sufficient inducement to press forward for the measure. Soon a team was sent with Lieutenant Ward surveying the river in 1853. While visiting the Matla, E.D. Kilburn gave an account of the area. He named a place Ellengunge which had only one pucca house and Mallee Khal was a dense jungle at that time.9 Kilburn wanted the Mallee Khal to be the starting point of the port and wanted the immediate clearance of the jungle.

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Location, Logistics and Planning Once it was decided to construct the port the question of selecting a town that would connect to the port became important. Soon Messrs A.R. Young, H. Yule and Robertson wrote to the Secretary of Bengal that Lot No. 54, situated at the junction of the rivers Bidyadhari and Matla, was a suitable site for developing into a port town.10 Soon the government passed orders to have Lot 54 cleared and conduct all operations there.11 The expenditure for the clearance of the Matla lots during 1860–63 was made from a fund called the ‘Mutla Town Improvement Fund’. In 1863, the government’s proprietory right on the land was made over to the municipality in trust for the town of Canning, subject to the control of the government as to the manner in which the lands were to be disposed of for the benefit of the said town and port.12 Rules were also framed empowering the Commissioners to grant leases and borrow money on the security of the land, but the government itself declined to grant any loan.The balance of the Matla funds on 1 January 1863 (comprising sale proceeds of town lands, and rents accruing thereon) was made over to the Commissioners, and the works in progress under the Public Works Department, in connection with the city, was also transferred to them. In connection with the Port Canning scheme, a company was started called the Port Canning Land Investment, Reclamation and Dock Company Limited, for the purpose of purchasing and reclaiming the wastelands bordering on the river Matla.13 The company also floated shares for raising funds which rose in value at an unprecedented rate. It was soon found, however, that the genuine expectations of projectors and speculators were not likely to be realized, and the shares fell as rapidly as they had risen. Following dissensions between the directors and the shareholders, the management of the company was transferred to other hands.14 A dispute also took place between the company and the municipality. In 1870, the Secretary of the company addressed the government urging it to redeem the debentures the municipality had failed to meet. The government of India, in reply, declined to shoulder any

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obligation, and refused to provide the Municipal Commissioner with funds to repay their debt. The receipts and disbursements of the municipality from 1864 to 1871 clearly revealed that the expenditure incurred did not produce any result capable of yielding profit.15 ‘Most of the money has been spent in piers and protective works, or in constructing metalled roads.’16 The principal jobs undertaken and executed, either partially or completely, by the company, were, (a) a 3,500 by 400 foot wet dock for the accommodation of country boats, (b) the protection from erosion of the Matla foreshore, (c) seven landing wharves and iron jetties, each capable of accommodating two ships at a time, (d) goods sheds and tramways in connection with the jetties, (e) a gridiron and graving dock for repairing vessels, (f) lastly, the rice mills, constructed on an extensive scale, capable of husking and turning out about 90,000 tons of rice a year and from which high profits were expected.17 However, gradually many of these works had fallen into disrepair, and became to a large extent unserviceable. The number of ships that visited the port since its opening in 1861–62 fell towards the close of 1870–71 and are as follows:18 Table 6.1: Ships Visiting Matla Port Year 1861–62 1862–63 1863–64 1864–65 1865–66 1866–67 1867–68 1868–69 1869–70 1870–71

Number of Ships Nil 1 11 14 26 20 9 1 2 Nil

Evidently there was a remarkable increase in shipping between 1865–68, after which there was a decline in shipping activities leading to a collapse in 1869. In March 1869, the company applied to the government, asking for suspension of port dues and charges. The request was granted, and a government notification was issued

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declaring Canning to be a free port, and stating that six months’ notice would be given before the charges were re-imposed. This notification, however, had no effect because since February 1870 no ocean-going ship arrived at the port. And the arrivals of 1867–68 may be looked upon as the last response of the mercantile community to the endeavours made by the company, aided by the government to raise Canning to the position of a auxiliary port to Calcutta. The last effort of the company to develop the rice mills having proved financially unsuccessful, the only remaining source of revenue was the landed estates. At a meeting of shareholders in May 1870, it was agreed upon to appoint a committee for the purpose of preparing a scheme of voluntary liquidation and reconstruction of the Company. The head office was shifted to Bombay. The mills were stopped until such time as they could be leased out or could work profitably. The operations of the company were confined to the increase of revenue from their landed estate. At a subsequent meeting of shareholders held in August, 1870, it was resolved that further calls would be made to pay off existing debts, and to transfer and sell, under certain conditions, the whole of the property and rights of the Port Canning Land Investment Reclamation and Dock Company, to the new Port Canning Land Company Limited.

Port Canning: Aborted Scheme The port establishment had been a heavy and unprofitable expense to the government. Considering the position and prospects of the company and the hopelessness of the establishment of trade which would justify the retention of a port on the Matla, in June 1871 recommendations were made that the earliest opportunity should be taken to officially close the port. The recommendations further sought to withdraw the establishments, with the exception of the facility for light vessels outside, which would be of use to ships from the east, and might occasionally guide a vessel to an anchorage in rough weather. These recommendations were adopted and the port officially declared closed.19 Although the Bengal Chamber of Commerce had originally associated itself with the Matla project, it finally reached the

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conclusion that fears regarding the Hooghly were exaggerated. And instead of putting money and effort into Port Canning the authorities would be better advised to enlist the highest engineering and hydraulic skill in maintaining the principal channel of the Hooghly in navigable condition.20 The idea of dredging was being discussed and in 1867, the steam dredger Agitator was put to work in the Hooghly and the result of this experiment was satisfactory.21 What was gained from the Canning scheme was the decision that a railway in this area be operated to connect Calcutta to Matla. The Calcutta and South Eastern Railway linked Calcutta to Port Canning in 1863 and to Diamond Harbour in 1883.22 Two trains ran daily to and from Calcutta and people came and settled in this area. Later when the ships did not go to Matla and it was found that the deterioration of navigability in the river Hooghly was not much of a bother, the British lost all their interest and Port Canning remained an abandoned port in the southern parts of Bengal.23 The port was abandoned but the entire exercise was not seen as altogether futile. Canning with a permanent railroad became a buzzing town with a brisk business of rice and other eatables. The railway which came up turned out to be the only viable communication to the southernmost hinterland of the Calcutta port. The whole aspect of the country around Canning changed over the years. Instead of the dense forest there sprang up a town connected to Calcutta—only one and a half hours away. On both sides of the railway tracks there sprang up patches of cultivation, miles and miles of paddy fields now stood in place of the saline forest which impeded entry into the area. It is not possible to pinpoint the precise time when the country around Canning came to bear this new aspect but this is how the land will appear to casual visitors today.24 There are villages all the way to Canning on both sides of the railway tracks and in Canning itself once every year there is a crowded fair called the Sundarban Mela.

The Gosaba Experiment The establishment of Port Canning brought change in the region’s socio-economic profile. Middle class migration moved through

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The bust of Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton (1860–1939). This can be seen in front of the Gosaba Kacharibari.

Canning towards the formation of more heterogeneous settlements. With large-scale reclamation people began to flock to the region and participate in its economic activities. This attracted the attention of Daniel Hamilton, a social reformer who felt that the Indian economy needed self-reliant villages functioning under the cooperative system. So he decided to settle down in the region and give shape to his ideas.25 From Henckell to Hamilton, the wastelands witnessed many changes because both of them had the benevolent paternalist image in common. The island of Gosaba went for a total transformation under the stewardship of Daniel Hamilton.

Early Years of Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton was born in December 1860 into an old and established trading family of Helensberg, a town in the Island of Arran in western Scotland. His training in trade and commerce started very early, as at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to the Scotland office of the family firm MacKinnon & McKenzie Company.26 At the age of twenty, he was sent to the company’s

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Bombay office in India.27 Mackinnon Mackenzie was to become in the twentieth century the leading shipping firm in Britain, running the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation (P&O) Line, with its great liners moving British Indians, Australians and Britons on the famous passenger shipping route from Sydney and Perth through Colombo, Bombay, Port Said, Marseilles and Gibralter to England. Very soon Sir Daniel was transferred from the Bombay office to the Calcutta office in Fairlie Place. Soon after coming to Calcutta he started publishing articles explaining the need for developing co-operatives.28 He was determined to establish a model firm which would put into practice the theories he strongly believed in.29 Incidentally, the P&O Lines with their relatively vast crew and passengers were famous even as late as 1954 (when this writer’s teacher, Dr Barun De travelled on one of them The Strathaird to study at Oxford) for their twenty-one course lavish menus in which all were provided huge amounts of meat, fish, green vegetables and fruits. These were supposed to be supplied from farms the company maintained, one of which was then supposed to be near Canning in the Sundarbans. One wonders if such work-experience inspired Hamilton’s co-operative efforts.

Towards a New Project To transform his ideas into reality Sir Daniel took 9000 acres of land in the Sundarban areas on lease from the government. It covered the isle of Gosaba and Lots no. 143 and 149.30 This area was then covered by dense jungle teeming with wild fauna, the most fearsome of which were the Royal Bengal Tiger and the crocodiles.31The settlers who came in the beginning had to sleep on bamboo platforms erected on trees, with a ring of fire around them to keep the wild beasts away. The rivers there were saline,32 so they had to carry not only foodstuff, but also drinking water. Sir Daniel’s first task was to clear the jungles and raise the level of the marshy land, so that it would become arable. To prevent the saline water from inundating the lands, dams were built. He faced acute labour shortage as most people were afraid of travelling so far down south into the deep woods.33 Most of the labourers who came at this initial stage later settled down there.34

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While the task of making the area habitable and the land arable was on, the scarcity of drinking water became an acute problem. A water purifying machine was bought and also agreements were then made to get drinking water from a nearby settlement called Masjidbati.35 The person from whose tank the water for Gosaba was to be collected got 50 bighas of land in exchange. Daniel also started to have drinking water tanks dug up in the villages under him. Trees were planted on the banks of these tanks to resist erosion from saline exposure It took five years (1903–07) to complete the task of erecting dams and raising the level of plots (gheris) nos. 1 to 5 of Gosaba and of plot (gheri) no. 1 of Banshgheria, adjacent to Gosaba. By this time, most of the land in these plots had become arable, as saline layers had been gradually washed away by the rains. But as soon as the first stage of reconstruction was more or less over a flood in 1907 broke down most of the dams, bringing back salt water and thus making the soil unfit for cultivation once again. This incident took place when the project was under the supervision of Mr Locaine, a Professor of the London Missionary Society, to whom the whole project had been entrusted. He resigned from his post just when this disaster struck. Sir Daniel decided to bring in Indian experts and in 1908, Mr Nalin Chandra Mitra was appointed manager for the project. His first task was to repair the dams that had collapsed and construct new ones. Soon after this Sir Daniel retired from MacKinnon & MacKenzie Company and left India leaving instructions for the work that remained to be done. In 1909, it was estimated that there were 900 people in Gosaba, of them 600 were labourers, a few members of the estate staff and the rest were settlers. In 1910, Sudhangshu Bhusan Majumdar joined the estate as assistant manager. The need for a doctor was felt and in 1910, a charitable dispensary was established for which a qualified doctor and a compounder were brought over. The doctor was to make personal calls at every household. No fee was to be paid to the doctor by the patients. He was to be given a salary from the estate and was to reap the harvest of 10.5 bighas of land.36 By this time, a free primary school had been set up in Gosaba which after a considerable increase in the number of students became a middlelevel English school. In 1920, Hamilton arranged for an award to be given to any student from the Scottish Church College of Calcutta

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on his writing the best essay on the co-operative movement. It was his firm belief that this would inspire students to know more about co-operative economy.

Expansion and Success In 1912, while Sir Daniel was there in Gosaba several settlers approached him for help because they were being ousted from their lands by the local money-lenders on the pretext of being unable to clear their debts, despite spending years in repaying only the interest.37 Arrangement was made for farmers to get interest-free loans from the estate and it was believed that it would in due course stop the practice of usury in Gosaba.38 Later in 1924, the Gosaba Central Co-operative Bank was established and new rural branches were formed.39 Panchayats, comprising members elected by the residents were also set up in different villages to act as a mediating body in case of disputes over priority in getting bank loans as well as settling other issues.40 The Governor of Bengal, Sir John Anderson, went to visit Gosaba to inspect the success of the co-operative movement and he was highly impressed by the way the co-operative banks, charitable dispensary, free school and panchayats were run in the estate.41 Other than the bank, the Gosaba Co-operative Store was established to supply the residents with all their needs at a fair price.42 This move freed the residents from the need to depend on outside traders who charged exorbitant prices for their commodities and additionally, each one got a rebate on his total yearly purchase. The literacy programme went on in full swing. Free primary schools had already been established in most villages and now, arrangements were made to have night schools for illiterate adults. These night schools were established in each primary school building. The teachers of the primary schools took charge of running the night schools as well. The cost of kerosene and other necessary accessories were provided from the estate funds. Circulating libraries were also established to further the cause of literacy.43 Each primary school teacher was allotted 3.5 bighas of land adjacent to the schools. These plots were to be used to provide agricultural training to the students.

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The teachers were also granted ex-officio ownership of 10 bighas of land.44 A supervisor from St Margaret School of Calcutta, Miss White, was brought over to supervise the overall functioning of the schools. A school for weaving furnished with both Indian and English looms was also established. Teachers from the Srerampore Weaving School were recruited to train students and gradually, weaving also included in the curriculum. A central model farm was started to experiment with vegetables and fruits and especially to research on paddy and demonstrate the results with branch model farms attached to schools in every village.45 At Gosaba, a distinct variety of paddy known as Gosaba 23 Patnai was developed from a good ordinary Patnai strain, secured from the Chetla market. In the test carried out by the Rice Research Department of the Government of Bengal, the strain stood first in yield.46 It bore distinct characteristics of withstanding drought and disease. This single achievement had no doubt revolutionized the financial position of the farmers on the estate, as the new strain yielded an average of 10 maunds per bigha, while previously the yield never exceeded 6 maunds. It also had a good foreign market. The variety covered most of the paddy tracts at Gosaba and had been propagated even to distant parts of Bengal. Another distinct strain known as Gosaba 198 was under culture and the experts were of the opinion that it had immense possibilities. Among others, several Burma paddy strains were also experimented with.47 The estate, not content with just improved varieties of rice, distributed seeds of successful vegetables every year free to all cultivators. As a result winter crops, including vegetables and both rabi and kharif crops were grown by almost all the people. Longstaple cotton was grown in the higher areas and the cultivation of fodder crops like Guinea and Napier Grass had been introduced.48 As an incentive for better production an annual competitive exhibition of agricultural products was held and rewards in terms of money were given to the best producers of any crop. The first exhibition was held in February 1928.49 No scheme for improvement of agriculture could be completed without simultaneous improvement of livestock. This had been attempted, though with uneven result. Without any past experience to serve as guide, the estate imported

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large herds of Montgomery, Nellore and Ayrshire bulls and cows in its early days on the recommendation of the Bengal Veterinary Department and tried to raise a herd therefrom and to diffuse the breeds by selling the cattle among the peasantry at nominal prices.50 The scheme failed as the breeds could not stand the climate. The land being marshy the buffaloes did well. Attempts had been made to improve the local breed of chicken. But the climate being moist, the place was not ideal for chicken, though, on the other hand, the marshy land was ideal for ducks.51 The inhabitants of the village had organized themselves into a weaving society on co-operative lines. Weaving had been taken up as a profitable cottage industry, and the silk and wool were not of average quality.52 As an impetus to weaving, the estate declared a subsidy of 3 paise per yard of goods woven by the people. The preparation of lemon squash and tomato ketchup had been introduced on a commercial scale and the products had a good market in Calcutta. A co-operative centre for the sale of rice was also established. This centre used to buy all the produced quantity of rice crop from the farmers at the current market price. It also gave advances to the peasants as and when necessary. These advances were to be paid back only after the produced crop had been sold. Members of the centre also had a share in the profits made through the sale of the crop in the Calcuta markets. Later a Central Rice Crop Selling Centre was established in Calcutta, through which the rice produced in the Gosaba estate could be sold all over India. The Jamini Rice Mill was established in Gosaba, also under co-operative ownership.53 By this time the entire system in the Gosaba estate worked as follows: before each harvest season, the panchayats produced a complete list of the debts of each member either to the co-operative banks or to the rice buying centres. This was submitted to the Central Co-operative Bank and the Central Rice Crop Selling Centre. The estate also submitted a record of the rent due from the farmers to both these bodies. After the crops were sold and the profits distributed among the members, all the dues were deducted first. The rest of the money remained with the Central Rice Crop Selling Centre and members could take it as and when they required it.

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In 1934, the Rural Reconstruction Institution was established.54 The basic aim of the institute was to train rural youths in the ways and means for self employment.55 It was really the first Indian institute for training in small scale engineering activities. In 1938, an English medium high school was opened under the management of the institute. Along with the standard school curriculum, this school also included training in agriculture, weaving and various small scale and cottage industries. It had approval from the Calcutta University and had hostel facilities. The co-operative storehouses for rice crops were established in each village. The estate put in as much rice crop as was collectively put in by the residents in each storehouse. These were to work as a sort of insurance against possible mishaps. Peasants could also loan rice from these storehouses in times of need. The amount taken as loan was to be repaid after the sale of harvest along with one-fourth of the profit made. During the famine of 1943, these storehouses saved the lives of many Gosaba residents. With a view to increasing the purchasing power of the peasants, Sir Daniel introduced a one rupee paper note in Gosaba.56 He always felt that co-operative society was the ideal solution for a country like India.57 This is amply evident from his various lectures on the issue. One particular consideration noticed quite often was that Hamilton’s presence in Gosaba helped in the successful running of the estate. Once, during an epidemic of cholera in the village of Rangabelia, the estate’s doctor refused to visit the area. When Sir Daniel heard the news from his manager, Mr Majumder, he immediately set out along with him. Sir Daniel’s presence at the site of the epidemic compelled the doctor to be present there. Others also refrained from fleeing their homes and participated in the necessary activities for prevention of the disease.58 Gosaba thus became a role model for India. ‘Where the jungle law reigned 30 years ago, now reigned small village societies.’59 The Board of Directors of the co-operative banks, who looked after the welfare of the villages and governed them, acted as courts of justice. There was a panchayat at each village which decided all disputes, provided common amenities and formed a valuable link between the village and the landlord. As a result apparently there was not a single criminal or civil case within the

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estate for over thirty years, and even the government survey and settlement operations recorded not a single dispute. Not only had marsh and jungle been converted into cropped paddy fields, an important feature of life at Gosaba was that there was no mahajan or money lender. The entire agricultural indebtedness was in the form of loans to co-operative societies. The agriculturists in Gosaba held, on an average, 30 bighas per head. In addition, almost everyone owned his own house and a plot for growing vegetables.60 Each family was assured of his paddy for food and a good supply of vegetables. All the official sources were of the opinion that everything worked successfully in the estate. The agriculturists did not experience any difficulty in getting the necessary finance for cultivation. The Central Co-operative Bank made advances at the beginning of the crop season. Funds were pumped in, whenever necessary, by Sir Daniel himself. The co-operative spirit had been instilled in the population both with regard to purchase of stores and sale of paddy and the entire colony took full advantage of specially designed institutions. There was no toddy shop in the estate. The only thing a few were addicted to was tobacco. Once a marsh, Gosaba now was far from being water-logged. The place became healthy. The men who had initially come to Gosaba had brought with them nothing but lota and a spare dhoti. On the wages paid, they found that they could save and buy land. Thus, they were transformed from labourers to tenants. As a tenant, the cultivator realized the value of co-operation in various ways, e.g. he could get finance as and when necessary. Step by step, the agriculturists had been made to realize that a fuller and happier life was in their own hands.61

Problems A very important incident took place in the model farm when Father Mesaric came from a place called Basanti in this area. 62 He started giving loans to members which was against the rules of the co-operative estate, thus striking an inevitable blow at the solidarity of the co-operative institutions.63 Another serious allegation against

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Father Mesaric was that he was propagating Christianity and making forcible conversions.64 This was strongly dealt by Hamilton and in one of his letters to Father Mesaric he wrote, ‘You are interfering with the business management of my property, which I strongly resent, and you are also interfering with the management of the Cooperative Societies which the co-operative offices of Government strongly resent.’65 Hamilton never allowed the people of his cooperative to build a church on the land which had been given for cultivation and did not interfere with anyone’s religion.66 Soon Bistu Pade Bose moved an application before the Superintendent of Police 24 Parganas praying for an enquiry into the allegations against Father Mesaric and for taking such steps as may be found necessary. It was established that Father Mesaric and five other members of his party were involved directly or indirectly in disturbing the peace in the co-operative farm and were penalized. Conflict arose between Christianity and more secular social welfare. The matter, however, was resolved promptly.

The Final Departure of Sir Daniel Hamilton In February 1938, he returned home in Scotland from Gosaba and passed away in December 1939. Discussing the rural question, Reverend Hodge referred to the Gosaba Co-operative Commonwealth and said, ‘In Gosaba we see a master purpose—the manufacture of souls of good quality—united to a master method.’ As villages came into being, they promptly organized into co-operative societies.67 ‘In every village a bank and in every village a school’ was the slogan. ‘Gradually co-operation moved beyond banking into a united endeavour to meet the needs of all men, consumer and producer alike. Gosaba stands for a rural philosophy. Will the achievement last? The question is inevitable and while the final word cannot yet be spoken, the experiment is there for all to see.’68 It was suggested that the Gosaba experiment could be profitably extended to cover the entire subcontinent to settle the problem of Indian rural poverty and be used as a model for the resettlement of land in postwar Britain.69

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Hamilton also carried out the same experiment in Mayurbhanj estate in a princely state of Orissa. He took lease of 633.34 acres of land in 1910 and 244.03 acres of land in 1935 at Mouzas Chancho near Baripada town, Ketphal and Rajabhasa from Maharaja Mayurbhanj.70 As in Gosaba, he had to reclaim jungle land and at the very outset introduced a free education system with the establishment of lower and upper primary schools for fighting illiteracy and building up the character of the people and opened Baripada Branch of Gosaba Rural Reconstruction Institute in the year 1934.71 Students from Baripada used to come down to Gosaba for taking courses in agriculture, dairy, cottage industries, hygiene, book-keeping, etc. and the students from Gosaba used to go there for training in horticulture and sericulture. He also established a model farm at Baripada for research in horticulture and sericulture. Co-operative societies were functioning, but the development of Baripada did not attain the same comprehensive character as that of Gosaba because the quantum of land was small and scattered in different mouzas and the income from land was inadequate. Baripada had to depend on Gosaba for its proper functioning.72

A duplicate certificate. Issued by the Rural Reconstruction Institute, Gosaba, to a student of the Art of Independent Livelihood.

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Sir Daniel Hamilton believed that ‘the rayat is India’s key man, but he is bankrupt, and it is because the rayat is bankrupt that the provincial purses are bankrupt, what the viceroy calls the riddle of India is an economic riddle, which only the rayat can solve’.73 He often said, ‘government and co-operation are the laws of life’.74 He emphasized that it was important for the people to sit down and frame a co-operative constitution based on co-operative finance, which would train them in the art of village self-government. Hamilton was the member of the Co-operative Credit Act Society formed by Lord Curzon. In 1905 when the anti-partition movement reached its climax the government felt the need for some constructive-reformative work to keep the youth of this country busy. Hamilton realized the situation and tried his best to bring in young people to join the co-operative movement. He brought convicts from Andaman and allowed them to settle in this region.75 He made them do some hard work and trained them on co-operative principles. Rabindranath Tagore came closer to Hamilton in ideological agreement when he said, ‘I have my trust in individuals like yourself who are simple lovers of humanity, whose minds are free from race prejudice.’76 Tagore agreed to Hamilton’s idea of setting up a centre in Santiniketan for the training of young men on co-operative terms.77 Hamilton had been to Santiniketan while Tagore78 visited Gosaba to see his estate. Both of them agreed about organizing India on cooperative terms. Gandhi also came very close to Hamilton and strongly supported co-operative principles. He believed that half of India’s labour was lost between sowing and harvesting, and he would harness this idle labour to the spinning wheel and the handloom, and to the development of village industries among wholesome surroundings rather than in the Bombay chawls.79

Failure of the Co-operative Movement As long as Hamilton was alive the co-operative estate at Gosaba functioned completely under his supervision. After his death Lady Hamilton took over as guide and leader.80 Though contemporary accounts praise the efforts of the Gosaba co-operative estate, the later accounts differ in perspective. These help in scrutinizing the

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co-operative movement more comprehensively. In order to form an idea of the life and conditions prevailing within the society in the later period (i.e. after the death of Hamilton) one has to rely on the Inspection Book and Panchayat Minute Book both of which are available in part. From the available records we can draw a somewhat lucid picture of what happened to the money forwarded as loans and hence try to infer why and how the co-operative society played an important role (in the forwarding and servicing of loans) between the bank and its members. Other than this there existed a court of justice trying to resolve any law and order problem within the society. In the published few references we find that there was no problem prevailing in the estate. But this was far from the truth. All was not well in this society. The discussion in the panchayat meetings mostly centred round problems of disbursement of agricultural loans from the bank and servicing of such debts by members. From the very beginning, the tendency to default could be noticed. In fact, default was prevalent during good harvests too.81 This was indicative of the poor economic condition and lack of responsibility among the debtors. From the very beginning in 1920 until very late in 1946, this phenomenon persisted82 and continued to be a source of constant headache for the society and even embarrassment when the Secretary himself was found guilty of such offence.83 Rescheduling, complete or partial waiver of debts was common. Initially the society appealed to the panchayat to raise money for repayment through the selling of domesticated animals of such members, who were wilful defaulters.84 Much later on, the trend continued and the defaulters increased in number.85 Such defaults led to the bank gradually becoming thriftier regarding loan proposals from the society.86 However in many cases reservicing was necessary following failing harvests. But wilful default seemed to be more prevalent showing a lack of co-operative spirit among the members. Another widespread phenomenon was to spend the money received as loans for purposes other than what they were allocated for.87 In the beginning such offenders were punished by having to pay fines.88 But later on, we do not find mention of such penalties.

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It might well have become too common and recurrent a problem which demanded more effective remedies. We further find a mention of a marriage loan given by the bank to the father of a minor groom.89 The amount of such loans was quite high. As a result, the auditor in his report blamed the panchayats of such anomalies in order to prevent such misuse of funds. On the whole, the ryots living here gradually became burdened with debts as time went on.90 There were few signs of the kind of prosperity that could have been thought of as an objective of the cooperative society. In fact as late as 1945 ryots borrowed from moneylenders to service debts incurred from the bank.91 The event vividly shows how self-defeating the entire process of setting up of such a co-operative actually became. A very striking feature of the Gosaba co-operative society was the function of the panchayats as an independent law and order body, which dealt with problems ranging from thefts to division of property among members of the family of the deceased.92 It is interesting to find how one of the members used his public declaration and its subsequent record in the minutes of a generalbody meeting as an instrument to divide his property among his sons. In turn, the sons also gave statements acknowledging their fathers’ rudimentary wills, declining any right whatsoever. Another example of amicably dividing the properties of a man between his two wives following his death was be found recorded in the proceeding.93 The gradual waning of the co-operative spirit became evident. Petty thefts occurred and items such as blankets and goats were pilfered. The panchayats held a meeting not only to find out by way of crossexamination and subsequent discussions who the culprits were but also to fix the amount of fine.94 There was also stealth of paddy from the gravern. Various incidents of violence also took place in the estate. One member was once physically assaulted and attacked by somebody with a sickle. Having fled, he complained to the panchayat for justice.95 The assailant, who was not a local person and perhaps had come to visit his friend, also a member, was ordered to leave the estate at the breakof dawn, never to come back again. His friend, an accomplice, got off with a strict warning from the panchayat.96

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In another case, a girl was hit with bamboo sticks on the head when she went to free her cow from a neighbour’s premises where it had grazed and eaten away some vegetation.97 There was, in a report, a hint of molestation of a local woman by a member.98 Another incident shows a buffalo being killed inside the co-operative society, the owner having come to the panchayat for justice. In yet another event a member killed his neighbour’s goat for having grazed in his fields.99 In fact one also finds the emergence of groupism and partiality on the part of the Secretary and the Chairman of the Society regarding the forwarding of loan proposals to the bank.100 In one of the letters written by the members of the estate we find that there is a clear indication of the people being oppressed by the Manager of the estate. They all complained to Lady Hamilton against the ‘Zoolum of Sudhangshu babu’ the then manager of the estate. 101 The complaints were mainly as follows: (a) they were not being allowed to sell their goods; (b) they were not getting free treatment in the charitable dispensary and were even being asked to pay for their medicines and (c) the Central Bank was not issuing them loans. They were helpless and could not repay the loans as they did not have grain in their stock and children were not allowed in school. According to them ‘we left our native homes long ago and settled in your estate with happiness but now we shudder to imagine what will be the condition of our families and children at the oppression of Sudhangshu Babu.’102 The whole estate was in a very disturbed condition. A few people even threatened to kill him. This was not all. The members of the estate had other complaints too. These were: i) The co-operative rice mill in which they had shares was being mismanaged; ii) The employees in the mill were being recruited at a high salary and were the relatives of Babu Sudhangshu Majumdar instead of tenants; iii) Rice of superior quality was being stocked in the warehouse in Calcutta for a long time which and then was sold at a lower rate resulting in heavy losses;

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iv) The authorities of the rice mill compelled the peasants to sell their produce to the said mill at a rate lower than the prevailing rate thus causing great pecuniary loss to them; v) The measures and weights with which the grains were weighed had been found to be stuck with cement and iron and that these false weights had occasioned great loss to the cultivators; vi) They were not able to cultivate all their lands for want of funds. Loans were not distributed properly.103 This gives us a clear picture of the dissatisfaction of the tenants in the estate and we see that the ideals of Hamilton did not fructify. He always stressed on the co-operative movement for social development and acted upon the principles of mutual co-operation and help, advocating a lively interaction between man and nature.104 He put in much effort to give his ideals a successful outlet in Gosaba.105 Ultimately he was unable to achieve his goal. The question that remains to be addressed is why the co-operative movement failed? Perhaps one of the most important reasons behind its failure was the absence of Hamilton from the estate. People did not have the true spirit of co-operation.106 The managers during his absence could not run the estate as he had done. The ryots had become more dependent on him than on their sense of initiative. The number of defaulters in the Central Bank increased.107 With credit losses, wealth of the members of the estate diminished. Participation of members in the panchayat meetings decreased and even the law and order problem could not be solved.108 The farm ceased to be really a co-operative in the holistic sense of the term. The middle class participation here was a predominant feature. They came here to make economic profits. A few selected people among them were put at the helm of affairs. The functioning of the farm rested more on them than on participation of the general members. Hence it was more dependent on the educated milieu than on actual co-operation. There was more top-level control than participation at the grass roots level. The inmates were not trained to run the cooperative on their own. Had such a thing occurred the vested interests of the educated managers would have well been at stake. It is not unknown that these managers amassed personal fortunes capitalizing

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on their official status and the general members’ ignorance about their rights. Hence, not only did the basic objectives of the cooperative remain unfulfilled, but also the functioning became heavily dependent on the middle class managers.The problems led gradually yet steadily to the erosion of co-operative ideas and to the decline of the movement. Hamilton’s purpose was defeated. All in fact he succeeded in was to settle a few people in this region and engage them in some constructive work. His effort to bring in some co-operative spirit among people, who earlier used to fight with the ferocious beasts to eke out a meagre living, and provide them better living conditions with a self-sufficient village-type economy, ended only in futility as they started fighting among themselves. Thus the Gosaba Co-operative Society, which was founded to bring new hopes with its new ideas for the people living in the forests, slumped to a quiet burial. This had become the fate of Henckell’s mart of the eighteenth century now Hingalganj. Hamilton’s cottage is still there at Gosaba. But outside Gosaba, the ‘mahapran’s’ memory has faded away.

Beyond Gosaba Hamilton’s tenure from 1903–38 (approximately) in the region had to accommodate various factors at work—inclement weather, jungle reclamation, bringing in workers from different places and dealing with the nationalist upsurge which reached its height during his times. The objective behind setting up of the co-operative was not just humanitarian upgradation of the standard of living of poor Indians in the Sundarbans. He used natural and human resources, otherwise lying idle, for productive purposes. He also made the detenues of the Andamans settle here and introduced to them co-operative farming as an alternative way of life. This helped to divert nationalist passion to other interests. A fully functional co-operative farm would evidently make the inmates better off. The anger, arising from deprivation and frustration, against foreign rule would thus be diffused.The Hamilton farm with its manifold social welfare projects provided the necessary safety valve against discontent. The projects, in fact, might not have

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been construed to that end, but nevertheless his endeavours unwittingly brought in the desired results in the initial years. An older contemporary of Hamilton, Allan Octavian Hume developed the idea of the incipient Indian National Congress being a ‘safety valve’ for a second mutinous uprising in the nineteenth century. Would it be too far-fetched to surmise that Sir Daniel played the same role ultimately in Curzon’s Bengal and after? Whatever might be his designs, the transformation in the marshy land was complete and with the moving in of the settlers in the co-operative farm there was a significant change in the rural society. Hamilton may have been successful in diffusing the nationalist upsurge to some extent, but he was incapable of stopping the uprising of the peasants in the area. With the spread of the cooperative movement, expectations among the ryots soared high. There was realization among the masses that there can be mutual co-operation and actions pursuing a common interest culminating into breaking of the shackles that had persisted for centuries. Also there could be a life, perceivably a better one, without the traditional dependence on managers or moneylenders. Ultimately however, discontent grew, as it had to and found expression in the Tebhaga Movement, in the Kakdwip Island. Thus Kakdwip replaced Gosaba in the Sundarbans heritage.

Notes and References 1. Nilmani Mukherjee, The Port of Calcutta: A Short History, Calcutta, 1968, p. 9. 2. ibid., p. 16. 3. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., Lower Provinces, 27 May 1853. Letter from Secretary to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce to Secretary to Government of Bengal. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., Lower Provinces, 26 August 1853, Letter from W.E. Baker (Consulting Engineer to Government of India) to Secretary to the Government of Bengal. One of the officials (Major Bakers) stated that he has no hesitation to show his preference for railways. 4. , 30 November 1855, Letter from John Borradaile and Co. to R.M. Stephenson Managing Director and Agent of the E.I. Railway.

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5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

The Sundarbans One of the official of a company (Borraidaile) felt that. ... ‘If your powerful company were to amalgamate as one the proposed Railway line from “Mutlah” to Calcutta with their other lines, now in course of construction, thus co-operating with those parties who are most anxious to see fresh outlet opened to the growing trade of Bengal, this not only would tend to accomplish quickly the object aimed at, but likewise prove of great benefit to the Railway enterprises of India in general as it would give a new, and we believe, unprecedented stimulus to the relations of this empire with the mother country.’ Papers relating to the formation of Port Canning, on the Matla River, extending from 27 May 1853 to 11 March 1865, Calcutta, 1865. ibid. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., Lower Provinces, 18 March 1856, Letter from E.D. Kilburn to Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. ‘Labour was cheaper, the soil equally bountiful, and if the wants of Europe had brought the export of rice in five years from 65,000 tons to 200,000 tons, there was nothing to prevent another production of 200,000 tons in the Sundarban grants to be shipped from the Matla.’ , No. 229, 8 July 1856, Letter from J.H. Reilly, Commissioner in the Sundarbans to Secretary to the Board of Revenue. , 18 March 1856, from E.D. Kilburn to Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Kilburn mentions that Mr Moore who was the Manager of grants. 43, 48, 49, 129 and 130 was of the opinion that the place was healthy, there was possibility of obtaining fresh water and no difficulty was experienced with the coolies, who willingly engaged themselves for clearing the jungle. , 26 March 1856, Letter from A.R. Young, H. Yule, and Divie Robertson to Secretary to Government of Bengal. Lot 54 was considered eligible for various reasons: 1. The river in that part was favourable for ships of all sizes. 2. The locality was well connected with the interior of the country. Throughout the year, the produce of the eastern districts of Bengal passed the spot on their way to Calcutta for export, and similarly, a large amount of imported goods passed by the place on their way into the inland districts. Donahoy (an Englishman) who lived directly opposite assured that often on a single day as many as two hundred large boats laden with goods passed in and out of the Bidyadhari river, at the entrance of which the Government estate was situated. There was already excellent water communication

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11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

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between this locality and Calcutta, sufficient for very large boats to navigate safely. 3. The neighbourhood was also conducive to settlements. W.B.S.A., B.O.R., Lower Provinces, No. 18ct, 27 December 1856, Letter from Presidency Commissioner to Sundarban Commisioner. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical account of Bengal,( 24 Parganas and Sundarbans), Vol. 1, reprint edition, Delhi, 1875, pp. 91–8. Funds derived from municipal revenues would be spent for public utilities such, as the making of roads or tanks, the enlargement of the railways premises, the construction of wharves, quays, or jetties, and the building of offices. F.E. Pargiter, A Revenue History of the Sundarbans from 1765–1870, Bengal, 1934, pp. 108–09. The scheme of forming the Port Canning Company dates from a proposal made in November and December 1864 by Mr Ferdinand Schiller, one of the Municipal Commissioners. Hunter, Vol. I., op.cit., p. 95. ibid., p. 96. ibid. ibid., p. 97. ibid. L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteer, Twenty Four Parganas, Calcutta, 1914, pp. 223–5, Papers relating to the formation of Port Canning on the Matla River, op.cit., p. 52, Report of the Committee of the Matla Association established in February, 1859 with the object of promoting the progress of the Mutlah as an auxiliary port, Calcutta, 1861, p. 3. G.W. Tyson, The Bengal Chambers of Commerce, and Industry, 1853– 1953, Calcutta, 1953, pp. 21–2. W.B.S.A., General Department, Marine Branch, Annual Report of the Marine Department, 1867–68. Mukul Mukherjee, Railways and Their Impact on Bengal’s Economy, 1870–1920 in The Indian and Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XVII, No. 2, April-June, 1980, p. 193. Nilmani Mukherjee, op.cit., pp. 36–7. Visit to Canning on 1 January 1989, 6 June 1990, 25 August 1997, 16 September 2003. Prasit Kumar Raychowdhury, Adi Gangar Teere, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 158–9. Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Anup Matilal, The Philosopher’s Stone, Gosaba, 24 Parganas (South), 2003, p. 11.

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26. Kalipada Bhattacharya, Mahapran Sir Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton, Gosaba, South 24 Parganas, 1955, p. 2. 27. ibid., p. 5. 28. D.M. Hamilton, Lecture given, ‘The Bolpur-Gosaba Co-Operative Training Institute’. This we get in the papers relating to the HamiltonGosaba Estate in the possession of Dr G. Burman at Gosaba. Henceforth referred to as P.H.G.E. 29. Prasit Kumar Roy Chowdhury, op.cit., pp. 154,158. 9. Address by Sir Daniel Hamilton to the Second Presidency Divisional Co-operative Conference held at Jiaganj, District, Murshidabad, on the 26 and 27 January 1929. Compiled in the book New India and How to Get There, Calcutta, 1931, pp. 36–47 D.M. Hamilton, Lecture given, ‘The BolpurGosaba Co-Operative Training Institute’. He was also influenced by Asokan edicts, many of which he kept referring to in various situations. 30. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 17. 31. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., 15 December 1930, ‘The Co-operative State’, Address given by Sir Daniel Hamilton to the students of the Scottish Church College. 32. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 18, S.B. Majumdar, ‘Estate Farming in India, Gosaba’, in Indian Farming, Vol. III, No. II, November, 1942, pp. 573–4. 33. , op.cit., p. 19. 34. ibid., p. 20. 35. S.B. Majumdar, ‘Estate Farming in India’, op.cit., p. 573. 36. ibid. pp. 574–7. 37. A.P. Blair, ‘Practical Co-operation’ Sir Daniel Hamilton’s Farm in the Sundarbans’, in Modern Review, April 1937, p. 395. 38. S.B. Majumder, ‘Estate Farming in India’, op.cit., p. 574, A.P. Blair, ‘Practical Co-operation’, op.cit., pp. 395–6. 39. , ‘Estate Farming in India’, op.cit., p. 574. 40. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., ‘Clive Street Gossip’, reprinted from Indian Finance, Friday, 18th February 1938, pp. 1–2. 41. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 37. 42. ibid., p. 44. 43. S.B. Majumder, op.cit., p. 547. 44. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 46. 45. S.B. Majumdar, ‘Estate Farming in India’, op.cit., pp. 574–5. 46. ibid., p. 574. 47. ibid., p. 575.

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48. ibid., p. 575. 49. ibid., pp. 575–6. The largest yield recorded was 17 maund 38 seer of Gosaba 23 Patnai per bigha. 50. ibid., p. 576. 51. ibid., p. 576. 52. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 48. 53. ibid., p. 51. 54. ibid., p. 57. 55. Gopinath Burman, ‘Mahan Sir Daniel Hamilton, O. Manash Kanya, Gosaba’, in Ramanath Maiti ed., Sundarban Samachar, 8th issue, Gosaba, 1 December 1987, pp. 1–4. 56. A.P. Blair, ‘Practical Co-operation’, op.cit., p. 397. 57. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., 4, 5 February 1939,Paper read by Hamilton,at the Cooperative Conference held in Gosaba, 20 February 1939, Lecture given by Hamilton, ‘The India Act of 1935 and The Co-operative Movement, held in Gosaba. 58. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., pp. 38–9. 59. S.B. Majumder, ‘Estate Farming in India’, op.cit., pp. 573–7. 60. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., ‘Clive Street Gossip’, reprinted from Indian Finance, 18 February 1938, pp. 1–2. 61. ibid., pp. 1–2. 62. , 20 November 1937, Appeal from S.N. Sen, First Class Magistrate, Alipore, District and Sessions Judge’s Court, 24 Parganas. 63. ibid. 64. ibid. 65. , 14 December 1933, Letter written by Hamilton to Father Mesaric of Basanti. 66. ibid. 67. , Reprint of extract from The Statesman, 18 November 1944, under the caption ‘Free India will Share Common Destiny’ by Sir Daniel Hamilton. 68. ibid. 69. , ‘Praise for Gosaba Scheme’, by Spectator, Reprint of extract from The Bengal Weekly, 7 March 1945. 70. , Interview with Dr G.N. Burman, Member of The Trustee Board of Gosaba Estate, Gosaba, 24 January 1993. 71. ibid. 72. ibid. 73. Daniel Hamilton, New India, op.cit., pp. vi-vii.

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74. ibid., p. xvii. 75. Gopinath Burman, ‘Mahan Sir Daniel Hamilton-O-Manas Kanya Gosaba’, op.cit., pp. 3–4. 76. Santiniketan, Rabindra Bhavana, 20 June 1930, Letter from Tagore to Hamilton. 77. , 1930, no date, Letter from Tagore to Hamilton. 78. , 19 February 1919, Letter from Tagore to Hamilton. 79. Hamilton, New India and How to get there, op.cit., pp. xii-xiii. 80. K.P. Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 67, Interview with Amiya Kanta Ray, brother of Priya Kanta Ray (Hamilton Estate Manager) 22 July 1992, Calcutta. 81. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., Panchayat Minute Book. Meetings held on 28 February 1942, 8 January 1946, 20 January 1945. 82. , Inspection Book, reports of 18 January 1920, 4 January 1946. 83. , Reports of 16 July 1948. 84. , Reports of 23 March 1931. 85. , Reports of 16 July 1948. 86. , Reports of 5 June 1948. 87. , Panchayat Minute Book, Meetings held on 18 December 1944; Inspection Book, report of 7 February 1945. 88. , Inspection Book, reports of 7 February 1921. 89. , Report of 14 May 1921. 90. , Report of 12 March 1936. 91. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., Panchayat Minute Book, Meeting held on 25 June 1945. 92. , Meeting held on 22 June 1941. 93. , Meeting held on 8 January 1942. 94. , Meeting held on 19 May 1947. 95. , Meeting held on 18 September 1940. 96. , Meeting held on on 15 November 1940. 97. , Meeting held on 6 August 1941. 98. , Meeting held on 10 May 1942. 99. , Meeting held on 22 April 1941. 100. , Inspection book, Report of 5 June 1948. 101. , 28 March 1934, Letter from Member’s of the Co-operative to Lady Hamilton. 102. ibid. 103. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., 14 January 1934, Letter from Member’s of the Estate to Daniel Hamilton.

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104. Prasit Raychowdhury, ‘Sundarbane Rabindranath’, in Ananda Bazar Patrika, 13 May 1979. 105. Tushar Kanjilal, ‘Sir Danial Hamilton Ki Ateet Diner Smriti’, in Sundarban Samachar, 8th issue, 1 December 1987, pp. 1–4. 106. Gosaba, P.H.G.E., Inspection Book, Reports of 5 June 1948; 16 July 1948. 107. , Report of 20 October 1949, 2 May 1949, 24 March 1951, 20 April 1951. 108. Gosaba, Interview with Dr Burman (a trustee member) on 23 March 1993.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tebhaga in Kakdwip

T

he story of the Sundarbans reveals a cycle of change in the region in response to the expansion of communication channels with Calcutta. Ideas from the outside world were borrowed to facilitate changes in the life pattern of the local people. This was expressed through the spread of the co-operative movement which led to the gradual formation of peasant organizations and which finally culminated in open peasant rebellion. But this transition was a complex process marked by contradictory social developments. However, the next phase of the political movement witnessed an amalgamation of social protests from below and ideologically motivated middle-class participation from above. This reveals the pattern of class formation in the Sundarbans society. The social class formation was the inevitable outcome of the colonial land policy which created an intermediary landholding class.1 This intermediary landholding class exercised their rights on land leading to the formation of the landless peasant community. The sub-infeudation of land gradually led to the formation of bhagchasis or sharecroppers.2 Peasants were exploited by land owners and money lenders; thus began the struggle between man and man which overshadowed the conflict between man and the jungle. The peasants of Kakdwip rose in revolt against their traditional oppressors in a bid to establish their rights.3

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Discontent had always been there in the minds of the peasants of this area who lived in isolated islands cut off from one another by turbulent rivers and creeks.4 The various land reclamation policies did not improve their condition whereas with the clearance of the jungle and the improvement of communication, the peasantry as a class soon became conscious of its rights. Gosaba and the co-operative movement made the people aware of better living conditions. Daniel Hamilton himself was not unaware of the developments in his own backyard. In a letter written by him to the Governor of Bengal, there is information that discontent was spreading among the peasants of this area.5 All the agitation in Hamilton’s estate was against the khas lands of the zamindar. Soumendra Nath Tagore6 who had just returned from his experiences under Fascism in Central Europe was heading a Leftist group in this region. He advocated a more militant and violent form of peasant agitation in Hasnabad, Bijpur and Sagar thanas. Between September 1938 and May 1939, this group was active among the peasants, urging them not to pay rent, to forcibly harvest paddy from khas lands and assaulting the agents of the landlords. In February1939, two guns were stolen from Hamilton’s estate and the naib was beaten up.7 Unrest was also building up in Haroa, Sandeshkhali and Canning against land being converted into khas property and the eviction of the actual tillers.8 It was this mounting unrest that ultimately saw Kakdwip becoming a part of the Tebhaga movement that had rocked large areas of undivided Bengal particularly the northern districts. 9 The organization of that movement and its leadership was in the hands of the Communist Party of India and its peasant wing, the Kisan Sabha was in the forefront. It had begun with the submission of petitions for the redressal of grievances. The Kakdwip Movement was a part of All Bengal Tebhaga Movement sponsored by Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha.10 The main objective of the movement was to establish the Tebhaga principle i.e. two-thirds share of the produce for the sharecropping cultivators instead of the customary half,11 i.e., to shift the profit margin in favour of the cultivator against the landholder. There were various

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factors influencing the development of sharecropping during 1930s. The colonial context moulded the form of agrarian development, affected the cultivation of crops for sale, and in Bengal influenced the extension of cultivation. The history of tenancy legislation and agrarian relations during this period of British rule reveals the erosion of sharecroppers’ rights, the use of share contracts to evade legal constraints and the increasing power of the landlords. Sharecropping was a significant form of tenancy before 1930s and was characterized by insecurity and oppression, with secondary structures of exploitation that maximized subordination, and maintained sharecroppers in a state of dependency on their landlords.12 During 1930s, various factors converged and there was a considerable increase in the number of sharecroppers as the impact of the world economic depression and the 1943 Bengal famine were felt in the countryside. At the same time, there was an increase in the number and types of people exploring sharecropping. While zamindars, bhadralok and large tenure holders had always had some land sharecropped to gain an income in kind, other categories of landlords were becoming increasingly interested in share contracts. Moneylenders and traders were diversifying into landlordism, and a class of better-off ryots began to turn to sharecropping, on purchased land, becoming the backbone of the emerging jotedar class in many areas. Cultivators trapped in traditional forms of production were also trapped in traditional forms of exploitation.13

Sharecropping in Kakdwip The Tebhaga Movement broke out in 1946 in Kakdwip. It was fifty miles to the south of Kolkata, in a part of the Sundarbans that was more backward than the other areas and almost inaccessible to administrative centres. As a part of the Sundarbans the Kakdwip area was excluded from the Permanent Settlement of 1793.The British rulers provided temporary settlement, a lease-holding system for the region.The important feature of this system was that big Lots of forest land were leased out to private individuals on a long-term basis.14 The lease-holders were known as lotdars and were held responsible for reclamation of their Lots step by step. This had to be completed

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at the expiry of some specific years failing which they would be liable to forego all rights and interests therein. It was not so easy to reclaim such big lots. Consequently, most lotdars had sublet some portions of their grants to other individuals who were called chakdars.15 Both the lotdars and chakdars were absentee landlords. They employed agents known as naibs, managers and other persons to look after the estate 16 and these people became the actual rulers. Lotdars, as a rule, incurred marginal expenses for the purposes of reclamation. They hired landless cultivators from Midnapore promising to give them tenancy rights over the land they would bring under cultivation but ultimately they were denied what had been promised to them. Sharecropping was practised on a wide scale by the jotedars, zamindars and other intermediaries over their khas lands and also by a section of the middleclass who had some land in the countryside. The debt-ridden and impoverished tenants, even those who had secured tenancy rights over small holdings were unable to cope with market forces and had to part with their land to practise sharecropping, often over the same piece of land on which they were previously tenants. The sharecroppers (also known as bargadars, adhiars) who hardly enjoyed any security of tenure were actually evicted at the mercy of the landlord.They had to pay a number of abwabs (taxes). One almost universal feature of the system as it prevailed in many parts of Bengal was the karja (loan) system under which the sharecropper was obliged to borrow seed and paddy from the landlord at exorbitant interest rates.17 Such borrowings were more out of compulsion than out of necessity because in most areas they were required to borrow a minimum amount of crops. Consequently, at the time of crop sharing (the paddy had to be taken to the yard of the landlord where the shares were divided) the sharecropper actually got much less than the customary half share of the produce. The extraordinary development of the sharecropping system in the area might be illustrated by Krishnakanta Sarkar’s survey in two villages namely Budhakhali and Haripur. Out of 70 and 31 families investigated in the two villages respectively, it was found that 89 per cent in the former and 64.5 per cent in the latter were sharecroppers. It was also found that 46.4 per cent and 54.5 per cent of families in

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the two villages respectively, were absolutely dependent on rented land. It was in such villages that the Tebhaga Movement was remarkably intensive.18 The land owners not only took away the best quality of the grains as their share, but also looted the sharecroppers as well as the tenants as much as they could by extorting and exacting various subscriptions, interests on advance, abwabs etc.19 Some of the exactions prevailing in the Kakdwip area before the Tebhaga Movement are as follows: dera-bari (enforced borrowing by the sharecroppers at the rate of 50 per cent interest in kind), khamar chwilani (charge for preparation of landlord’s yard), prachir ghera (charge for making walls around the yard), dwaroani (charge for service of landlord’s darwan or guard), nazrana (occasional presentation to the landlord), parbani (charge for village festival), selami (annual charge for rented land), etc. Being on subsistence, sharecroppers were often in need of loans for production. Seeds were frequently provided by the landlord and considered as an advance to the cultivators to be repaid at harvest time.20 If the loan could not be repaid, it was carried forward from year to year for the purpose of keeping hold of the debtor.21 It was difficult to extricate oneself from the clutches of the landlords and mahajans (money lenders).This meant the landlord could manipulate a large number of cheap labourers who were submissive rather than assertive.22 Not only were sharecroppers economically deprived in every possible way they were continually made to feel that they were inferior people.23 In social interactions between landlords and sharecroppers there were petty prohibitions. They were not allowed to enter or pass by the landlord’s house or cutchery (office) wearing shoes, carrying an umbrella or riding a horse. Once inside the compound, the sharecropper had to sit on the ground or on a seat lower than that of the landlord.24 The social and economic authority of the landlords was enforced through physical coercion. Tortures ranged from beating with shoes to murder. Cultivators suffered from physical, social as well as economic abuse at the hands of their landlords. The landlord had control over various aspects of the sharecroppers’ lives. The sexual intimidation of women illustrates the

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powerlessness of sharecroppers, and the landlords’ capacity to ignore any moral constraints on their own behaviour. A woman activist expressed the vulnerability of women in sharecropping households. ‘Like the mangos of the bargadar’s (sharecropper’s) trees, like the bananas of his garden, like the gourds of his thatched roof, like the eggplant from his garden, his daughters and daughters-in-law are the jotedar’s (landlord’s) property.’ After reaching a marriageable age, whether the bargadar’s daughter was to be married or not depended on the whims of the jotedar. If the jotedar expressed his wish, the daughter or the wife of the bargadar would have to be sent to the jotedar’s house.25 Sexual and economic exploitations were related, women’s labour was valued for certain agricultural tasks,26 especially conversion of paddy to foodstuffs. Women of poor peasant families were, therefore, vulnerable to both sexual harassment and economic exploitation: this was an articulation of the landlords ‘feudalistic’ power. Finally, the sharecropper rarely retained adequate produce for the survival of his family and was forced to accept the landlords’ control of his families’ labour. Dissatisfaction with share contracts was not a new phenomenon, the intervention of radical political activities provided a new means for expressing discontent.27 The field was ready, the communist agitators from outside merely sowed the seed. Rural society in the Sundarbans had its own socio-cultural complications. Among the peasants, there were disparities among the marginal Hindu tribals (such as, the Pods, who demanded to be known as the Poundriya Kshatriyas), Scheduled Castes (such as, the Mahisyas) and the untouchables (such as the Muchis or Chamars). All of them were loyal to the discipline of their respective communities, and each suspected the other of jeopardizing or hampering its own legitimized position. In spite of all the differences, the sharecroppers as a whole including the so-called middle peasants and the agricultural labourers who had some grievances against their landlords, were all against evictions, and in favour of some kind of tenurial rights.28 Although the poor peasants seemed to have reconciled themselves with their helpless position, for decades they had on occasions been involved in desperate individual acts of resistance. There was a

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sizeable number of criminal cases for murders and clashes over lands throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The Diamond Harbour subdivision (24 Parganas district) was indicative of this trend.29

Organization of the Struggle The first wind of change could be felt in the mid-1930s when the political parties started taking interest in the conditions of the Sundarbans peasants. The Congress tradition in Bengal being prolandlord in general, and its local organization being dependent on the lotdar-jotedar support in particular, it was left to the Leftists— mainly the Communists to take up the cause of the poor peasants of this region.30 The members of the Communist Party of India (CPI) joined the other Left groups and individuals in forming the All India Kisan Sabha in April 1936, and in setting up the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in March 1937. True to their ‘united front’ approach, the Communists initially functioned in the BPKS in collaboration with the members of the provincial Congress Socialist Party, and it was decided that the BPKS secretariat would be formed on the basis of a fifty-fifty representation of the Communists and the Congress Socialist Party.31 In course of time however, the organization was dominated overwhelmingly by the Communists and the Congress Socialists were reduced to a small minority.The Communist-led BPKS became active in the Sundarbans from September 1937 by taking up the cases of cultivators evicted by the Port Canning (zamindari) Company. The Company at this point was taking over bhag (sharecropping) lands on the ground of alleged non-payment of rent by cultivators, and turning these into khas. Many bargadars (sharecroppers) in Sandeshkhali, Canning and Haroa thanas were driven away not only from the lands they tilled, but also from the home they lived in. On 27 October 1937, the BPKS brought 1,000 victimized peasants from the affected areas to Calcutta for stating their case before the government. In November 1937, the BPKS planned a satyagraha campaign against evictions in certain villages of Sandeshkhali and in Kalikatala in Canning.32 In the face of a stiff official attitude, the peasant agitation

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in Sandeshkhali and Canning could not make much headway. But such was not the case in Haroa where the evicted peasants of Uchildah and Minakhan rallied against landlords when some of the land taken away from them was auctioned. In April 1938, the BPKS again brought the hapless peasants from the Sundarbans to Calcutta for briefing the members of the Bengal Legislative Assembly on their problems and miseries.33 However intense in terms of passion, the BPKS-led agitation in the Sundarbans was generally restrained till the beginning of the Second World War and till then there was no direct confrontation either with the landlords and their men or with the government officials and the police. But a group of Leftists who had broken away from the BPKS in March 1938 under the leadership of S.N. Tagore advocated a more violent form of peasant agitation. They had beaten the naib of Sir Daniel Hamilton’s estate.34 Disdainful of the ‘compromising’ approach of the Congress Socialists, and critical of the pseudo-revolutionism of the ‘Congress Communists’35 Tagore and his adherents challenged—in a certain way—the position of the BPKS in the Sundarbans. The BPKS was, in fact forced to assume a posture of militancy in the region, revitalize its propaganda machinery and concentrate on the battles already waged. Coincidentally, this was the time when the CPI itself was beginning to think on vastly aggressive terms The outbreak of the Second World War, according to the CPI, had offered India an opportunity ‘to make revolutionary use’ of the war situation for achieving her own freedom and for completing ‘the national democratic revolution’.36 This new line of the CPI was reflected in its foreseeing on the agrarian front a severe war-time crisis—‘more devastating than of the time of 1932–4’, anticipating the British reverses in the war—which would embolden the peasantry to take ‘revolutionary actions’—and warning its own followers to be ready for ‘the storm brewing up’ in the agricultural sector.37 Party members were asked to make extensive use of Kisan Manchas, plan no-tax and no-rent campaigns wherever possible and take ‘militant actions’ against landlords and the police for sweeping away British imperialism, landlordism, rack-renting, etc.38 The rapid

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growth of the political consciousness of the bargadars and the extent of success of the upper-caste, and middle-class Communist agitators from outside suprised the local government officials. So far they were under the impression that the bargadars had ‘few champions’, as even agitators (the Communist outsiders) probably got their own lands cultivated elsewhere in this (barga or sharecropping) system.39 The District authorities banned meetings of the Communist Kisan Sabha activists in Uchildah and the neighbouring village. Despite this, the resistance in Uchildah grew into ‘riotous’ proportions in August 1939, resulting in the death of a guard of the Port Canning (Zamindari) Company.40 In course of time, the clashes with the landlords’ men turned into conflict with the police. The most violent of such conflicts occurred in October 1940 when the armed police party, which went to arrest an outsider Communist Kisan leader, was surrounded by an agitated peasant mob of 300. In the violent engagement and the police firing that followed, several persons on both sides were seriously injured, and the peasants succeeded in freeing their leader, as well as in capturing police guns and revolvers.41 The struggle of the Uchildah peasants, however, was hurriedly abandoned before it could attain some stature. The abandonment was caused as much by a drastic change in the Communist policy as by the mounting pressure of police repression. When the Kakdwip peasants had gone below the subsistence level, a heavy cyclone accompanied by a devastating flood broke out on 17 October 1942 which affected more than one lakh people, razed all their modest dwellings,42 destroyed cattle and the standing aman crops. This, along with the great Bengal famine, brought additional suffering to the Kakdwip peasantry, already in a state of ruin.43 At Chandanpiri, Loilgunge, Budakhali, Burul, Hasnabad, Sandeshkhali and other parts of the Parganas the jotedars and lotdars prepared false sale deeds and hand notes thus depriving the peasants of their last belongings. Desperate as they were, the peasants were ready to offer their women to the pandering lust of their oppressors.44 It was the pent up grievances of the oppressed peasant that led to the Tebhaga Movement.

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The Communist relief workers continued to function in the Sundarbans right upto 1944 and succeeded in gaining the confidence of the suffering masses. The political outcome of their relief work was an extension of activity in new localities, conspicuously in the villages of Kakdwip. Towards the end of 1943, the People’s Relief Committee members started mobilizing peasants in Kakdwip, inspired the local recruits in holding a Kisan Conference in Budakhali in 1944 and succeeded in forming local sabhas (committee) of the BPKS.45 By 1946 the Kisan Sabha organization under the Communist leadership appeared to have taken roots in a sizeable number of villages in Kakdwip. Another factor, namely an exodus at this juncture of landless peasants from parts of Medinipur district to Kakdwip, also helped the Communists. Battered continuously in the struggle for existence, the evicted Medinipur peasants (mostly from Ghatal, Contai and Tamluk), generally of Mahisya origin, used to come to the Sundarbans in search of another lease of life. They were reasonably politically conscious and also had the experience of the tumultous Quit India Movement of 1942. The exodus, in fact, began when government repression in 1942 forced the peasants to flee from their agitation. It was accelerated by the cyclone of October 1942, and it reached its peak during the famine of 1943. Instead of going to the urban centres to beg for food, a large number of them considered it more honourable to come to the Sundarbans. There were so many migrants in certain villages of Kakdwip, that they actually formed 60 to 70 per cent of the population.46 In the postwar years these articulate, expectant and toughened multitude introduced to the rural society of Kakdwip a spirit of adventure—a foretaste of resistance. This was the situation when, along with others, Satyanarayan Chatterjee and Jyotish Roy came to Kakdwip for relief work. They recruited Jatin Maiti of Budakhali who had a political background as a terrorist worker and sought his help in forming peasant organization in the area under the banner of Kisan Samiti of the Communist Party. With the help of Kangsari Halder, Manik Hajra, Abdur Rajjak Khan and Nityananda Chowdhury, who came as relief

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workers of the People’s Relief Committee, Jatin Maiti began to organize the peasants of Budakhali. The resentment caused by rack-renting was further accentuated by Bata Krishna Shau’s (a chakdar as well as usurer of Budakhali) calculated violation of the customary principle of dera-bari (50 per cent interest of advance). The viciousness of his attempt appears from his insistence that the peasants were required to pay in advance in cash a rate of 50 per cent interest charged on the market price of paddy borrowed. Besides, those who begged for advance received ill treatment. Unwittingly it helped the peasants to organize themselves.47 The District Committee of Kisan Samiti of the Communist Party then decided to hold a peasant’s conference in 1944 at Budakhali and vigorous propaganda was carried on to ensure its success.The conference was addressed by Nityananda Chowdhury, Kangsari Halder, Manik Hazra, Jyotish Roy and others.This led to the formation of Kisan Samiti at Budakhali the same year. The formation of a peasant organization at Haripur can be attributed to Gajen Mali’s personal cause. Deprived of his land of 150 bighas and its crops because of Dwarik Samanta’s (landlord) conspiracy, Gajen who had an urban background, set out for Diamond Harbour Court. Midway, he was persuaded by Jatin Maiti of Budakhali to give up the idea of seeking legal redress and urged to engage himself to the task of organizing the peasants. Consequent to that, a meeting was held to protest against the various atrocities including dishonouring of their women at Tankpukur ground of Haripur. This led to the formation of the Kisan Samiti in this village of which Gajen became the President, Balaram the Secretary and eleven others including Kshirode Bera, Atul Santra, Ananta Kuiti, Girit Mandal ordinary members. Sharply reacting to the growing unrest and protest of the peasants, Dwarik Samanta took the help of the police to nip the peasant organization in the bud. To serve the interest of the landlord the police arrested three sharecroppers involved in the protest movement on charge of dacoity which, however, could not be established in the court and they were acquitted. This paved the ground for greater peasant unity.48

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Sharecroppers’ Struggle Since the peasant organization was now reasonably well established in a few villages, the Bengal Provisional Kisan Sabha gave its ‘Tebhaga Call’ in September, 1946. Since tebhaga was for the interest of sharecropping cultivators, the peasants of Budakhali of whom about 89 per cent were sharecroppers first responded to the call. The ‘Tebhaga Chai’ slogan became so popular that the movement spread in all parts of the area. In Kakdwip, it became remarkably intensified in Munsif’s lot, Fatikpur, Bamannagar, Bisalakhmipur, Dwariknagar, Berar lot, Sibrampur, Radhanagar, Durganagar, Chandanpiri, Layalganj, Haripur, Rajnagar, Debnibas and from Lakshmipur to Fraserganj. Everywhere the sharecropping cultivators were being organized almost spontaneously under the leadership of Kisan Samiti.49 Inspired by the Kakdwip movement, the peasants of Mathurapur and Sagar Island started the Tebhaga Movement spontaneously. Alongwith the tebhaga, the other slogans raised were Zamindari Khatam Karo (abolish zamindari), Nij Khamare Dhan Tolo50 (store paddy in your own yards), Samasta Julum Bandho Karo (stop all oppression), Bhag Jamir Rasid Chaii (give receipt of the record of rights on returned land), etc. It was the fight against zulum (oppression) more than the demand for the tebhaga that dominated the initial phase of the movement in Kakdwip. The peasants refused to perform begar (work without money) of any sort, their defiance of the landlords’ unbridled authority gave an emancipatory context to the movement. This liberating nature of the agitation and the general awakening, particularly the discontinuation of begar and the exemplary acts of retaliation, such as, forcing the landlord’s men to apologise publicly for specific acts of oppression or beating an oppressive jotedar with shoes,51 inspired a large number of agricultural labourers in Kakdwip to join the uproar. The movement had started in other parts of Bengal as well. Though the demand for two-third share of crops concerned only the sharecroppers, the landless agricultural labourers also made common cause with them even though they had nothing to gain. But that did not matter, as the movement was seen as a protest

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against the oppression of the landlords, an oppression that affected the peasantry, irrespective of whether they had any right to the land’s yield or not. In a number of cases, the bargadars carried their entire produce to their own khamars and offered a portion of the produce to the landlords, which, of course, they refused to accept.52 Everywhere in Kakdwip, Kisan Samitis emerged, each with a working committee of around seven members. No decision was taken without the consent of the villagers and the message of the movement was spread through songs composed on the subject. Tebhaga songs were sung early in the morning through the village paths and meetings were held regularly to make the sharecroppers aware of their oppressive conditions.53 A revolutionary mood had set in. At first the Kisan Samitis were dependent on the Communist Party for funds, but later they sought to become self-reliant, collecting funds locally in the form of a couple of seers of paddy per bigha and an annual subscription of one anna. Though this was not paid properly quite often.54 Decision making was an important factor in this movement. The Communist Party leaders took decisions which were expressed through the Kisan Samiti. But it was not always true that what the CPI leaders decided was followed by the peasants of Kakdwip. For instance, the Communist Party decided that the movement had to undergo a change when the peasants of Kakdwip changed their attitude from that which the Party, in its policy sought to adopt. This might be illustrated by the fact that due to severe repression in 1947 the Communist Party had decided that that the sharecroppers of the Tebhaga Movement stock paddy at the jotedar’s yard. But the Kakdwip sharecroppers movement had reached such a height that the peasants of this area were reluctant to follow the Party’s decision.55 Consequently, the Party had to modify its policy and ask the peasants to act as the situation warranted. There were two distinct groups with regard to the nature of leadership of this movement, the top leaders who came as members of the Communist Party to uphold the cause of the peasants without personal interest and those local leaders who personally suffered because of the socio-economic system. At the initial stage of organization the leaders of the first group were less effective and had made little direct contribution. It was the local leadership that

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was most effective in the formative stage. Another fact regarding leadership was that it was the poorer sections of the peasantry which constituted the leading cadres of the movement.The relations between the two sections of leadership were, however, always cordial.56 The sharecroppers in hundreds assembled in the harvesting field of those landowners who were unwilling to concede to their demands. The peasants armed themselves with traditional weapons, namely, lathi, vali, arrows etc. while women depended on jhanta (brooms) bonti (sharp cutters) sand and chilli powder. In the harvesting session of 1946–47, the peasants seized the paddy and stacked them either in their own khamar or the panchayat khamar. The unity, militancy and organizational strength forced the landlords to concede to the peasants’ demands. In those districts where the tebhaga elaka57 had been achieved, the sharecroppers continued to struggle against landlords and the authorities. In the 24 Parganas, sharecroppers took their two-thirds share of the crops. In Diamond Harbour, smaller landlords conceded to the tebhaga demand although others did not. Officials attempted to reconciliate the parties but they failed to reach a compromise. Incidents continued as sharecroppers took their share from the khamar. At Bemajur (or Demuja) in Sandeshkhali, peasants were detained in a landlord’s cutchery for implementing tebhaga. The police were summoned to make arrests and when a crowd attempted to rescue these people, it led tofiring in which seven peasants were killed and others wounded. Subsequently, more armed forces were called in and mass arrests were made.58 The government had conceded the tebhaga demand and the Bengal Bargadars Temporary Bill was notified in Calcutta Gazette on 22 January 1947.59 But this was only on paper, as police soon came to Kakdwip in February–March 1947 and they were housed at landlords’ kutcheries. The landlords’ agents and chakdars also bore the expenses for the police since they got immense help from them. Apart from police help, they gathered lathials (goons). In the harvesting session of 1947–48, the landlords’ agents immediately took the help of the police who promulgated Section 144 Cr.P.C. in many harvesting fields thus preventing the sharecroppers from harvesting. More cases, both civil and criminal, were instituted

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against the militant cadres and leaders. In the latter part of the year 1947, the Congress came to power, and many leaders and cadres including Jatin Maiti were arrested on grounds of security. But the peasants could not be subdued. Defying the prohibitory order they assembled in the field with their traditional weapons for harvesting. Some were deputed to watch on the police and they blew into conch shells to alert the peasants when police were approaching. But as a result of a combined attack by the landlords, lathials and the armed police, the peasants could not protect their crops. The Government of West Bengal in January 1948 declared the whole area under the jurisdiction of Kakdwip and Sagar Police Station as ‘disturbed.’ Repression was let loose, crops of the sharecroppers were destroyed and the movement ended. A remarkable feature of the movement was the large-scale participation of women. Their courage and sacrifice are worth mentioning. It was found that out of seventy families of Budakhali, women of twenty-five families provided leadership and formed their nari bahini or women’s brigade.60 This awakening of rural women at Kakdwip would give a new dimension to future struggles in the state.61

The Aftermath Apparently, Tebhaga failed. But did it really? The immediate demand went unrealized but what perhaps was more important was the eager response of a people in the dark and undeveloped Sundarbans to the call for wresting what was their due. It had undeniably contributed towards the agrarian land-reform laws of the subsequent years. Above all, what is more significant is that within a few years, the peasantry of Kakdwip underwent a revolutionary change in their thinking and outlook in that they were able to shake off their servile and submissive mentality.62 Although the 1946–47 sharecroppers’ movement was limited in its spread and intensity and never assumed the massive proportions that current Tebhaga mythology would have us believe, it had the most powerful lines of continuity to radical agrarian campaigns in post-independent West Bengal.

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Notes and References 1. Arkaprabha Sengupta, ‘Sundarbaner Jalkar Ekti Samasya’, Mahasweta Devi ed. Bartika, July-September 1989, pp. 43–6. 2. W.W. Hunter, Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, Districts of 24 Parganas and Sundarbans, Reprint Edition, Delhi, 1973, p. 338. 3. Amit Gupta, ‘Forest-Fire in the Sundarbans, The Communist and the Kakdwip Rising 1946–50’, Occasional Papers on History and Society, Nehru Memorial Museum, New Delhi, November, 1985, pp. 12–24. 4. Satyen Sen, Vishnu Chattopadhyay, Mehenoti Manush, Dacca, 1969, pp. 41–2. 5. W.B.S.A., Home (Political) Department, Confidential, File No. 3R/ 29, B. Progs. No. 981–989, March, 1939, Report on lawlessness amongst ryots at Gosaba. 6. Soumendra Nath Tagore (1901–74) was born into the famous Tagore family of Calcutta. He was a remarkable and pioneering figure in the history of the ardent left in late colonial Bengal. Marxist theorist and activist, he was also a gifted polymath. His initial political commitments— coinciding with a deepening ideological interest in communism—lay with the peasants’ and workers’ party of Bengal. Whisked off to Europe by his worried father in 1927, he became actively involved in the international communist movement in no time, and spent terms in British and German prisons—a predicament he would often find himself in upon his return to India, as well. Soumendra Nath Tagore organized his followers into a group in 1935—known as the Ganabani Group (named after its mouthpiece, Ganabani). In March 1938 the group adopted the name, the Communist League of India, and later in the late-1940s it became a part of the Revolutionary Communist Party of India. 7. , Confidential, File No. 333/39, 30 June 1939, Note of Intelligence Branch (Police) on Bengal Provincial Kissan Sabha, New Delhi, National Archives of India, (henceforth N.A.I.), Home Political Department, 18.2.39, Fortnightly Report, Bengal second half of February 1939. 8. Maitreya Ghatak, ‘Kakdwip 1946–50’, in Mahasweta Devi, ed. Bartika, Kakdwip Tebhaga Andolan Sankhya, 1986, p. 19. The history of Tebhaga Movement is a long story of peasent struggle in this part of Sundarbans (Kakdwip).The details are described by Adrienne Cooper, Sugata Bose, Satyajit Dasgupta, Amit Gupta,

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9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22.

The Sundarbans Maitreya Ghatak, Sunil Sen, Atis Dasgupta, Krishnakanta Sarkar, Asim Mukhopadhyay and others. Here only a simplified account of the struggle will be related in order to understand the scenario of Sundarban after the reclamation. Tebhaga here is discussed to show how the changes in land policy ultimately cleared the wasteland and forests and gave rise to discontent amongst the actual tillers of soil. The colonization of the virgin soil culminated into a conflict amongst the people in this region. Tebhaga also took a serious form in various parts of North Bengal. Krishnakanta Sarkar, ‘Kakdwip Tebhaga Movement’, in A.R. Desai ed. Peasant Struggles in India, First Edition Bombay 1979, Paperback Edition, Delhi 1981, p. 469. ibid., p. 469, Adrienne Cooper, Sharecropping and Sharecroppers Struggles in Bengal, 1930–50, Calcutta, 1988, p. 2. Adrienne Cooper, op.cit., p. 3., Bhowani Sen, Evolution of Agrarian Relations in India, New Delhi, 1962, p. 204. Amit Gupta, op.cit., pp. 12–14. F.D. Ascoli, A Revenue History of the Sundarbans, from 1870 to 1920, Calcutta, 1921, pp. 14–25. Amit Gupta, op.cit., p. 12. Maitreya Ghatak, Kakdwip, 1946–50, op.cit., pp. 8–14, Partha Chatterjee, Bengal 1920–1947 The Land Question,Vol. I, Calcutta, 1984, p. 204. , ‘Peasant Mobilization in Bengal’, Ecoscience, Cressida Transactions, Vol. III, No. 1, September, 1983, p. 106. Krishnakanta Sarkar, op.cit., pp. 471–2. The survey was carried out by the author himself. Amit Gupta, op.cit., pp. 8–9, Adrienne Cooper op.cit., pp. 89–97, Purnendu Bose, Tebhagar Smriti, Madhya Pradesh, 1989, p. 6, Krishnakanta Sarkar, op.cit., pp. 472–3. Bengal Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee Report, Vol. II, Calcutta, 1930, reply to Questionnaire by Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, Sub-divisional Officer, Lalbagh, Murshidabad, See also replies from L.S. Bingelman, District Officer, 24 Parganas; T.C. Roy, District Officer, Nadia, J.M. Chatterjee, Sr. Deputy Collector, Behrampur, S.K. Dutt, District Agricultural Officer, Bankura, Sunil Sen Agrarian Struggle in Bengal, 1946–47, Calcutta, 1972, pp. 14–15, A Rasul, Krishak Sabhar Itihas, Calcutta, 1969, p. 88, Jannayuddha, 8.12.43, 15.12.43. ibid. A.C. Lahiri, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations of the District of 24 Parganas, 1924–33, Calcutta, 1936, pp. 20–1.

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23. Adrienne Cooper, op.cit., p. 100 24. ibid. p. 100. 25. Rani Dasgupta, ‘Tebhagar Loraiye Krishak Mahilader Abadan’, Tebhaga Sangram, Rajat Jayanti Smarak Grantha, Calcutta, 1973, p. 107. 26. Swadhinata, 6.7.46. 27. Shekhar Dutta, Ananyasadharan Tebhaga Sangram, in Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin, ed. Tebhaga Sangarm, (40 years celebration) Dhaka, 1988, pp. 10–15. 28. Adrienne Cooper, op.cit., pp. 104–05, Amit Gupta, op.cit., p. 15. 29. New Delhi, Ajoy Bhavana, Central Archives, Communist Party of India, Banglar Shishu Telengana—Lalganj, 24 Parganas District Committee, 7 November 1949, p. 27, See also, W.B.S.A., R.D.,L.R. Branch, File No. 11-R-23, Progs. No. 1–3, December, 1936, Report on the Land Revenue Administration of Bengal, 1935–36. 30. New Delhi, Ajoy Bhavana, Central Archives Communist Party of India, Dutt and Bradley, ‘The Anti-Imperialist People’s Front’, Imprecor, 29 February 1936, and ‘To All-Imperialist Fighters: Gathering Storm’ (pamphlet by the C.P.I.), December 1936. 31. W.B.S.A., Home (Political) Department, Confidential, File No. 333/ 39, 3 July 1939, Note of Special Branch Police on Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha. 32. Amit Gupta, op.cit., p. 18. 33. On this occasion a meeting was held on 7 April 1938 on the steps of the Town Hall, Calcutta, where Samsul Huda and Smt. Naliniprobha Ghosh, spoke eloquently to the peasants, W.B.S.A., Home (Political) Department, Confidential, File No. 333/39, 3 July 1939, Note of Special Branch (Police), on Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha. 34. W.B.S.A. Home (Political) Department, Confidential, File No. 333/ 39, 30 June 1939, Note on Intelligence Branch (Police) on Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha, Also see New Delhi, N.A.I., Home Political Department, 18/2/39, Fortnightly Report, Bengal Second Half of February 1939. 35. This expression was used by S.N. Tagore’s Communist League of India in its political line adopted at the second Party Congress session, Red Front, No. 2, March 1940. File No 1940/50B, available in P.C. Joshi Archives, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. 36. New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, P.C. Joshi Archives, File No. 1940/48, Proletarian Path (cyclostyled), Central Committee, Communist Party of India, 1940. 37. New Delhi, Ajoy Bhavana, Central Archives, Communist, Party of

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38.

39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

The Sundarbans India, ‘The Impending Crisis and Our Tasks’, Polit Bureau Circular No. 59, 25 January 1940. Jawaharlal Nehru University, P.C. Joshi Archives, File No. 1940/48, Proletarian Path, (cyclostyled), Central Committee, Communist Party of India, New Delhi, 1940. New Delhi, N.A.I., Home Political Department, File No. 148/41— Poll(I), A Brief Summary of Political Events During the Year 1939. , 18/8/39, Fortnightly Report Bengal, 2nd half of August, 1939. , File No. 49/1/43 Poll(I), Brief Summary of Political Events in Bengal, N.A.I., Home Political Department, 18/10/40, Fortnightly Report Bengal, 2nd half of October 1940. Kunal Chattopadhyay, Tebhaga Andaloner Itihas, Calcutta, 1987, p. 67. Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings, Vol. LXVIII, No. 1, 1944, In the area there was loss of 1390 human lives, Cattle—23,743 and damage of houses 25,201. For an account of collection of funds of the Peoples Relief Committee, which worked in the field, see Amrita Bazar Patrika, 18.11.1942, Atis Dasgupta, Groundswell In Bengal In The 1940s, Calcutta, 1995, pp. 31–4. Ashim Mukhopadhyay, Peasants of the Parganas in A.R. Desai, ed. Peasant Struggles in India, op.cit., p. 656. Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings, Vol. LXVIII, No. 1, 1944, p. 475. ibid., p. 476. Krishnakanta Sarkar, op.cit., p. 475. ibid., p. 476. People Age—A Weekly Organ of Communist Party of India, Bombay, 28, 29 December 1946. Sunil Sen, Agrarian Struggle in Bengal 1946–47, Calcutta, 1972, pp. 36–7. Beating with shoes was the most demeaning way of inflicting humiliation—a method very generously practised by the landed magnates on defaulting share-croppers, while retaliating, the sharecroppers merely followed the landlords example, New Delhi, Ajoy Bhavana, Central Archives, Communist Party of India, Banglar Shishu Telengana—Lalganj, 24 Parganas District Committee, 7 November 1949, p. 29. W.B.S.A., Land and Land Revenue Department, Land Revenue Branch, File No. 6M-38/47 B proceedings December, 48, 9 March 1947, Letter from S.D.O., Diamond Harbour 24 Parganas, to Secretary Board of Revenue and Deputy Secretary to Government.

Tebhaga in Kakdwip 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

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Krishnakanta Sarkar, op.cit., p. 477. ibid., p. 477. Amit Gupta, op.cit., pp. 33–4. Maitreya Ghatak, ‘Peasant Mobilisation in Bengal’, op.cit., pp. 111–18. The tebhaga elaka were established in areas where the movement had prior organization, or where the initial stages were very successful. Here, traditional authority structures were reversed as landlords fled and the police were forced to respond to the peasants pressure. Successful resistance against repression was the key to the establishment of tebhaga elaka. 58. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7.3.47, 10.3.47, 4.4.47, 11.4.47, Hindustan Standard, 9.3.47, 19.3.47, The Statesman 9.3.47,W.B.S.A. Department of Land and Land Revenue, Land Revenue Branch, File No. 6M-38/ 47, B Proceedings December 48, 13 March 1947, Letter from S.D.O. Alipore, to Additional Sercetary Board of Revenue and Ex-officio Deputy Secretary to the Government of Bengal. 59. The main provisions of the Bargadars Bill were as follows: where the jotedar supplied plough-cattle, plough and other agricultural implements and manure, the bargadar would get only half share of the produce; but if the jotedar did not supply these inputs the bargadars would be entitled to two-thirds share. Seeds would be shared according to who supplied it.The jotedars could evict bargadars on specific grounds: if he wanted ‘to cultivate the land himself or with the aid of his family’ if ‘there has been any misuse of the land or if ‘he (the bargadar) has failed to deliver to the owner such share of the produce as he is bound, subject to the provisions of this Act’. Calcutta Gazette Extraordinary 22 January 1947. More important than the actual provisions in the Bill was the fact that it was interpreted by the Communist agitators as a victory of the sharecroppers on the Tebhaga issue. Hindustan Standard 23.1.47, Sunil Sen, op.cit., pp. 47–8. 60. In the later phase of Tebhaga, the rural poor woman stormed heaven to defend the movement and its gains. One of the examples: A big contingent of policeman had just arrested some male peasant cadres and wanted to leave by truck. Suddenly, women of the village sounded the warning system. The air vibrated with the noise and echoes of conchshells, horns, gongs and other instruments. At this, hundred women—Hindus, Muslims and tribals alike came out from their huts. With their brooms and knives they ran towards the truck and tried to free the arrested men. An unequal fight ensued, in which the policemen could ultimately outwit the women, only after they had

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fired their rifles. But at no moment did the women who were all from poor families lose courage. ‘When the firing took place the women became more daring!’ Mass encirclements of police personnel, in response to alarm signals given by women, were a regular feature of Tebhaga in its militant phase. This is cited by Peter Custers, in Women in the Tebhaga Uprising, Calcutta, 1987, pp. 111–12. This example was based on the tales told by inhabitants of a village in the 24 Parganas, the quotation is from a Muslim woman who herself participated in this fight. 61. Peter Custers, op.cit., pp. 133–4. 62. Krishnakanta Sarkar, op.cit., pp. 482–3.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Sundarbans in Modern Bengali Fiction

T

he Bengali prose literature of the twentieth century gave a new meaning to the idea of the Sundarbans in Bengali consciousness. In contrast to the earlier punthi literature, which had reflected elements of popular local beliefs, the new stories were expressions of an emerging middle class.The new prose literature was in the nature of a direct social narrative of the life of the region. Here stories had a definite structure, form and social message. Most of the stories depicted the life of the settlers in the Sundarbans while continuing to draw on the old and intimate relationship between man and nature. Nature even shaped the life cycle of the people and their religious practices, human bondages and finally it explained the social dependence on the jungle for livelihood. Yet at the end there was a sad tone in these stories lamenting the steady disappearance of the jungle, that sustained human life in the region. Settlers in the Sundarbans throughout the period had to brave salinity, frequent floods and occasional cyclones to make cultivation possible there.1 The annual harvest, notwithstanding their untiring efforts, was insufficient to feed all the mouths round the year.2 Evidently, they had to depend on forest products for subsistence to make up for the deficit. Collecting honey, wax, wood, golpatta, etc. became part of their routine duties. Thus the forest became an inseparable part of their lives.3

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After the land reclamation had started, noted the literature, during the British rule, improvement of transport facilities took place and new settlers came and settled in this region.4 This brought about a definite change in the social composition there. Among them were agents of zamindars, forest officers who patrolled the forests and the rivers and bheri managers.5 Another group of people came in search of a living, having been edged out by the competitive atmosphere of commercially more developed areas. These were fugitives from towns and cities who had run away to escape from the regulated strictures of moral conduct prevalent in the more organized societies.6 With increasing urban intrusion there evolved an interestingly new social structure that was quite different from the one that previously existed in this region.7 Written in Bengali prose, these stories depict the changing mindset of the settlers as a whole, who were now aggressively reclaiming wastelands and venturing into the woods, for the sheer fun of hunting in the wilderness.8 Other than the settlers from north, the Magh who formed a part of the population still remained in this area.9 Bibhuti Bandyopadhyay in his Sundarbane Sat Bachhar and Narayan Gangopadhyay’s Upanibesh gives a description of the life of Magh pirates in this area. The changing social order brought about a shift in the attitudes of the settlers considered as a single community and a conflict of mentalities grew between the earlier and latter ones, between wastelands (bada) and habitation (abade).10 The prose literature captured this mood quite effectively in contrast to similar depictions in the punthis. While the original settlers had an unrestricted access to the jungle, now, they were afraid of being detected by forest officers on patrol (pitel babus).11 This rapid change has been well depicted in the stories. In the punthis, religion had been the dominant element, so much so that the tigers were looked upon with fearful respect as sons of Banabibi, the deity of the forest. As a consequence, the settlers had never tried to kill tigers unless tigers attacked them. Similar attitudes applied to snakes, which were likewise related to Goddess Manasha. In the story Arjan Sardar by Shib Shankar Mitra, it is seen how Fatima, Arjan’s wife, is always against her husband going out on a hunt.12 At the same time Shib Shankar Mitra in his Royal Bengaler Atmakatha

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gives a clear depiction of the life of a tiger in this region. This could not be thought of earlier on. Two aspects are noteworthy: that it was an autobiography of a tiger as well as the waning importance of tigers as Banabibi’s sons.13 The prose literature, differently enough, depicts the tigers as game to the newly settled urban middle class, thus showing how religion had at least partially waned in dominance. However, its powers could not be totally disregarded as some old customs were still practised and a few beliefs still prevailed.14 The new settlers also came under their influence. A very interesting study was that of the baulés or fakirs. They were archetypal chasers of tigers15 who lived in austerity like a separate socio-religious class. Baulés were not able to marry for a few years as a consequence of the penance they had pledged to undergo. According to custom, a baulé, an ancient chieftain, had to look after a particular chak; he also could not turn his back on anyone who called for help.16 The middle class, in spite of being well-equipped with firearms, could not gather enough courage to invade the jungle without a baulé evidently more out of fear originating from superstition rather than anything else. Apart from acting as tiger-chasers, they also acted as local healers. The widespread dependence on baulés was thus a remarkable feature of the Sundarbans.17 Fakirs who gave medicine formed a dominant class in this area.Though people took other modern forms of medication for their ailments, they also went to fakirs for treatment. The middle class could not totally deny the power of the fakirs and baulés because they were, in fact, quite afraid of them.18 The most important departure from the prevailing mentality of the settlers was perhaps their sense of bravado and the expectation of reward in connection with hunting. Firearms became the dominant mode of communication between jungle and man. The earlier fear of the unknown was replaced by a desire to conquer. Guns thus revolutionized the relationship between man and jungle.19 The stories often written from the middle class prism romanticized and mystified the new spirit of fighting.20 Fear was replaced by a spirit of adventure. This new phenomenon had evidently not been reflected in the earlier form of punthi literature. New contradictions, however, emerged as the jungle receded before the wave of settlement. These contradictions originated from

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the constraints of the changing material situation as indeed from the new sensibilities that characterized the middle class. In Arjan Sardar, for instance, there is an episode that involved the shooting of a pregnant deer, an order that Arjan was most reluctant to carry out. There was in his reluctance some trace of the older sentiment that tabooed the killing of forest animals. And yet his fear and reluctance could not stand up against the orders of the patrol officer who had it in his power to throw Arjan out of his job if he disobeyed instructions.21 The middle class, whose direct participation in the venture was negligible, romanticized the tales of the Sundarbans, the hunting spirit of the local people, perhaps, to fill up the gap of lack of participation in the real adventure. The receding jungle made the middle class more romantic about it. Earlier stories like Byghra (Madanmohan Tarkalankar) and Damaru Charit (Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay) were fantasies that portrayed a picture of the region that was far removed from reality. The region being unknown made it easier for the writers to play upon the imagination of their readers. However, later writings were very close to the life prevalent in the Sundarbans. Stories of Mahesh and Arjan actually portray how life was full of struggle for survival in this region. Furthermore the new genre in keeping with the emerging spirit of rationality and authenticity attempted a more realistic and accurate depiction of the region and its society. The narratives dealt with in this chapter are: 1. Damaru Charit by Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay, 2. ‘Mahesh Sardar’, in Bane Jangale by Jogendranath Sarkar, 3. Sundarbane Sat Bachhar by Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay, 4. Sundarbane Arjan Sardar by Shib Shankar Mitra, 5. Ban Kete Basat by Manoj Basu and 6. ‘Bhu’ in Badar Galpa by Shankar Basu.22

Damaru Charit Damaru Charit is one of the earliest fictional works that describes the kind of fantasies created in the middle class mind about the Sundarbans. It is an amusing account of the life of the protagonist

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told in the characteristic style of fantasies mixed with a strong undertone of social satire, typical of the author.23 Damaru introduces himself as someone about whom an epic piece could be written, if the great poets of the past could but meet him. As the most authentic evidence in support of this claim, he unfolds his life story. He is the son of a lower middle class family that depended for subsistence on the meagre salary his father earned as a clerk at the zamindar’s office. He was married early while his parents were still alive. He himself worked as an assistant to a cloth merchant for a salary of Rs 5 a month, along with food and shelter. When he was twenty-five, his first wife died without leaving behind any children. Ten years later, the house next to him was rented by someone who was of the same caste as Damaru’s.This man’s name was Prahlad Sen, who sublet a groundfloor room adjacent to Damaru’s to an old couple. Prahlad had a ten or eleven-year-old daughter, Malati whom Damaru wanted to marry. There was a natural reluctance on the part of the girl’s family since Damaru was a widower, poor and also several years older than Malati. But Damaru was determined and he finally managed to get his own way through a sudden windfall that made him rich. This windfall really was by way of a theft on Damaru’s part of one hundred gold coins from his adjacent tenants. In time, however, this theft was discovered. Damaru lost his job at the cloth merchant’s, he was stigmatized and his father-in-law refused to recognize him. Damaru did not lose heart. He left the city, still rich from his theft— for no one could make him pay back the stolen amount—determined to establish himself in a way that would make his father-in-law obliged to send his daughter back to him. This was when Damaru arrived at the Sundarbans. He bought a piece of land there for a nominal sum after working in the area for a few months under another landlord. The account of his buying the arable plot of land in the Sundarbans starts with an exaggerated story about mosquitoes. Apparently, these mosquitoes were as big as sparrows, with their stings as thick as leeches, and they could suck the blood hard enough to kill not just human beings, but also the Royal Bengal Tigers. Damaru claimed that he had to take the

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help of five Santhals, along with whom he proceeded under a huge mosquito net, while the mosquitoes attacked them and were killed by the Santhals with their arrows. It is suggested that, Damaru could only settle down as a landlord on his newly bought plot of land after ridding it of its dangerous mosquitoes in this manner. The tale went on to say that the mosquitoes thus killed were cooked and eaten by the Santhals. The plot that Damaru had bought was not suitable for immediate cultivation, therefore several arrangements were required to be made to make it arable and habitable. Damaru discovered that he did not have enough money to make the land arable, prevent the salt water from flooding the field, digging sweet water ponds and clearing the adjacent jungle. But fortune once again smiled on him in the form of another windfall while he had gone to a certain Mr Sarkel—a previous acquaintance—to get a loan. His version was that, two socalled sages with a huge idol of goddess Kali had been residing under Mr Sarkel’s patronage. But these sages were really thieves and their idol was actually a powerful magnet in the shape of the goddess Kali. The throne on which they placed this idol was made of a substance that would deactivate the magnet. A few days later, they removed the idol from its perch shortly before mounting their horses. And as they made off, so did much of the things made of iron, including Mr Sarkel’s safe with all the jewellery and money the family owned. Damaru had a bunch of iron keys tied around his waist that he too was dragged along. After fleeing a considerable distance, the thieves put the idol back on the throne thereby deactivating the magnetic field around it. Once freed from the magnet’s pull, Damaru hid himself. Satisfied with their loot, the thieves abandoned the safe and left. Damaru, then came out of hiding and rummaged through the iron safe to find Rs 2000 there. It has however been suggested that the real story behind Damaru’s windfall was that he had an arrangement with a gang of thieves, for whom he opened the door to Mr Sarkel’s house and was rewarded Rs 2000 in return for his services. Anyway, Damaru did ultimately get his zamindari in the Sundarbans, grew wealthy, and as he had expected, Malati, his second wife, was sent back to him. The narrative ends with another absurd

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account, this time of Damaru’s failure to appropriate more wealth. He claimed that he was once bothered by a gigantic crocodile in his Sundarbans plantation, which used to swallow human beings and other animals whole.When it swallowed a heavily ornamented tourist, Damaru decided to kill the crocodile to get to the gold. Before he could execute his plan, the crocodile managed to swallow a Santhal woman. When Damaru did succeed in his plan to kill the crocodile, he was unable to get the gold, for, the Santhal lady, swallowed whole, was still alive had put on all the ornaments, which she refused to give up. Damaru Charit expresses the sense of mystery the readers had with regard to the Sundarbans. Sundarbans was so remote that it became a personification of the unknown.

Mahesh Sardar Stories of the famous hunters of the Sundarbans remain incomplete without the stories of Mahesh Sardar written by Jogindranath Sarkar. One of the stories goes as follows: Mahesh was on his way back home from the zamindar’s cutchery (court). It was already dark and he carried only a heavy stick suitable for defending himself against any possible animal attacks. Since he was getting late, he took a short cut through the jungle to his house. He was attacked by a tiger very close to his home. Showing great fortitude, Mahesh shoved his stick straight into the tiger’s mouth and down its throat with all his might as it pounced on him from a nearby creek. One end of the stick firmly wedged inside the tiger’s throat while the other held in place with his legs, Mahesh had the tiger immobilized and in pain. Hearing the tiger’s cry, Mahesh’s younger brother rushed to his rescue and together they killed the tiger. In another account, a tiger was found to be frequently attacking a village. When a pregnant woman was carried away one day, the villagers lost patience and went out in the jungle in a team under Mahesh Sardar’s leadership to intercept it and then kill it. Near the spot where they discovered the remains of the woman’s body, this tiger suddenly pounced on one of the men from the back. Though this man was strong and fought off the tiger valiantly, he received

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severe injuries. Mahesh, decided not to shoot lest it killed the man, so he picked up an axe inflicting deadly blows on the tiger’s back. The tiger lunged at his attacker, but Mahesh dodged him and did not stop till he had hacked the animal to death. These tales not only glorify the courage and physical strength of one man, they also give us a lively record of the dangers that the people of this region encountered almost on a daily basis. There is a sense of bravado in connection with the glory of hunting as well as the prospect of receiving rewards. Fear was replaced by a spirit of adventure which was absent in the punthi literature.

Sundarbane Sat Bachhar Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay, in his usual sensitive style, in Sundarbane Sat Bachhar romanticized the enchanting Sundarbans where human and animal lives entwined in a struggle for survival. The novel gives one of the best descriptions of the jungle. It is written in first person, in the version of a teenaged boy, Nilu, who stayed for seven years in the thick of the Sundarbans. Nilu while on a visit to the Sagar Mela with his grandfather in their luxurious boat was abducted by Magh dacoits, who used to loot the belongings of affluent passengers and sell boys and girls to the slave trade. Nilu could have been sold too had it not been for Moung Nu’s (the dacoit leader’s son, rechristened later as Monu by Nilu) liking for him which made the dacoit and his kind-hearted wife decide to keep him with them as their son’s playmate. Monu and Nilu became close companions. While Nilu narrated stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata and later initiated Monu into reading and writing, he, in turn, started to pick up tricks of archery, handling spears and rudimentaries of warfare. Together with Nibaran, the boatman’s son, they formed a team that would often set out for adventures both during daytime and by night. There are several episodes vividly describing their wandering in the wilderness, during which Nilu came in close contact with nature’s beauty and fierceness. He saw the brackish waters of the high tide splashing against the banks and melting into golden sunshine. Cane thickets and razor sharp shoots of wild trees (like Sundari), the riot

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of colours of the endless varieties of wild flowers and the glittering fireflies enchanted him. Hunting at Shakher Thek and swimming down to one of the biggest waterways in the Khulna district and beyond became his favourite pastimes. He even encountered pythons, rhinos, poisonous snakes, crocodiles, sharks and above all, tigers, on several occasions. The three friends, with courage, intelligence and a fair bit of luck managed to remain largely unscathed. On one occasion, Nibaran took Monu and Nilu to a place called Banabibir Thek where villagers—largely honey gathers and woodcutters by profession, gathered to perform their annual ritual of worshipping the deity of the forest, Banabibi. Nilu, literate and relatively more sophisticated as he was, expressed his lack of faith in folk deities. However, Kalu Patra, the leader of the worshippers, explained in simple terms that it was absolutely imperative for villagers to worship Banabibi for their security. The puja went on without a priest and was followed by the sacrificing of goats, which were later eaten during lunch. It was here that Nilu met a kind woman who, while expressing her distaste for the offensive and plunderous acts of the Maghs, ignited in him a desire to go back to his own people. Sometime later, Nilu was taken to a jungle across the Pashar to a hut, the pirates’ place of worship. It was here that he intelligently dealt with the police patrol and saved Monu’s father from being identified as a Magh dacoit, though he was eventually arrested. Monu’s father too, pleased with Nilu, confessed that he would have released Nilu that day itself but was hesitant to do so for fear of hurting Monu’s feelings. The realization had come to him that piracy as a profession was becoming more and more risky and he decided to give it up as soon as Monu became a bit educated and found some honorable means of livelihood. Nilu was actually free from that day. Nilu could not take a decision. His affection for Monu was truly deep and life in the jungles was thoroughly enjoyable in contrast to his earlier secluded, yet secure life with his own family. His sense of belonging had certainly changed. He came to love the wilderness of the jungle and the strange and simple people with whom he now lived. However, Nilu’s indecision about whether to leave this place or not was resolved accidentally. Once the three friends, Nilu, Manu

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and Nibaran went to Mager Thek, the confluence of the river and the sea. Nilu was overwhelmed by the beauty of the spot. One day he set out alone in a small boat and got lost. After consecutive nights without food and drinking water he perhaps became unconscious and was eventually intercepted by Badruddin, a fisherman from Chittagong. A world of lush green jungles, blue-white seas, grey sky and colourful wild flowers unfolded before him. For several days he enjoyed the fisherman’s hospitality and their fishing missions. On one such island Kachhimkhali he met Kalibar Ray originally from the Barisal district who lived in a ramshackle hut and fed off tortoise meat and oysters. He was however a wise and gifted teacher who taught Nilu the basics of geography, oceanography and other wonders of nature. He had a collection of twenty-six beautiful pearls which could fetch a very high market price and earn him an easygoing life of the rich. But he did not care. Nilu became greatly fond of this old man. The fishermen ultimately finished their spell of fishing and came back to pick up Nilu to reach him to his hometown. Finally when Nilu left for home, the old man presented him with a large pearl as a parting gift. After seven long years he was united with his grandfather; his mother had died by then. He sold the pearl, started a business of his own and became wealthy. However his experiences with the Maghs and with Kalibar Ray never faded from his memory. The life of Magh pirates and their families have been revealed in great detail in this story and the description of the jungle is haunting and unique. The adventures of Nilu and his friends in the jungle and their encounters with tigers, crocodiles and snakes are fascinating.What is notable is that the age-old practice of worshipping Banabibi was still very much prevalent in this area.

Sundarbane Arjan Sardar More than Mahesh Sardar it was Sundarbaner Arjan Sardar by Shib Shankar Mitra that reflected the newly emerging preoccupation with a realistic account of the Sundarbans and the notion of adventure and sport in the form of hunting. The work itself is a biographical account of a hunter of the exploits of Arjan Sardar, a farmer’s son,

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and a resident of Kalikapur village in the Sundarbans—a real life figure whom the author knew intimately. Arjan lost his father to a tiger when he was but a toddler an event that left a strong impression upon the child. Even as he turned into an adolescent, he was determined to seek vengeance and take on the tiger. His affinity with the forest was equally strong. He knew the jungle well, his livelihood taking him to the forest in search of honey and meat. His close association with Kalim, a well-known baulé gave him access to the rules and regulations of tiger-hunting, thus equipping him with all the skills that he needed to embark upon a major hunt. Arjan belonged to a milieu that was slowly realizing the benefits of ammunition and artillery. The residents of the Sundarbans were learning the use of locally made guns. Arjan managed to get hold of guns himself. His first hunt proved to be a terrifying experience. Accompanying his friend Madar, Kalim’s eldest son, on a deer hunt, Arjan killed a tiger cub almost by chance but failed to prevent the death of his friend by an angry tigress.This was a chastening experience that convinced Arjan of the dangers of killing a tiger cub. Arjan’s acquaintance with the forest grew deeper with the passage of time. Meanwhile, his mother afraid of losing her son to the dreaded tiger, tried to restrain her adventurous son by getting him married to Fatima, Kalim’s daughter. Her hopes were belied because Arjan’s fascination with the jungle only increased. His first major hunt occurred a few months after he married when he accompanied Kalim and a forest officer on a tiger hunt. The target was a particularly dangerous beast that had killed a woodcutter very recently. The hunt turned out to be dramatic with Kalim injuring the tiger, immobilizing it in the process and making it a soft target for Arjan’s well-aimed bullet. Arjan and Kalim got a paltry sum of Rs 10 each for slaying the tiger, while the forest officer walked away with a princely sum of Rs 200, for having participated in the hunt by sitting on one of the tallest trees. Arjan’s fame as a reckless hunter spread and he was the person people sought whenever anyone was in need of protection. Though his adventures brought him fame, Arjan knew that monetary rewards would always elude him because the privileged forest officers would invariably walk away with a sizeable portion of the prize money. But

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even Arjan for all his valour had to deal with fundamental and primeval fears. One particular experience that left him particularly shaken was the reappearance of a tiger he had presumably killed the previous night. Arjan was convinced that the tiger he had shot was Banabibi’s pet and did not want to take it on again. At the behest of his companions, Arjan aimed at the tiger but his shot misfired and one of his companions fell prey to the tiger. The novel also documents the tensions of the rural society in the Sundarbans through Arjan’s personal experiences. His growing reputation as a hunter did not protect him from the travails of a humdrum existence. He lost the plot of land that belonged to him for sharecropping because of his indebtedness and was forced to migrate to a neighbouring village. And yet nothing, neither poverty nor his wife’s remonstrance, deterred him from taking on the tiger in its dreaded haunts. The account ends with Arjan’s single-handed triumph against a tiger. This episode was a turning point, as Arjan’s wife accepted his enduring obsession with the forest. But Arjan himself was troubled by a question that an acquaintance put before him as to why he, such a brave and fearless hunter, was so timorous in his social and domestic context.24 The answer lay in the reality of the world that he inhabited. He was alone in his struggle against poverty and material deprivation and could not do anything to ameliorate his miseries and was powerless against the cobweb of corruption, power and politics. But in the jungle, he was free like the tiger and could rely on himself to battle with his combatant. It was his individual freedom that empowered him in the forest, the lack of it that enslaved him in the homestead.

Ban Kete Basat Ban Kete Basat by Manoj Basu is also a revealing account of the disappearing forest cover in the Sundarbans. It is made up of two parallel stories of fortune-seekers from northern Bengal, who settled in the Sundarbans bringing with them all the complexities of urban life and dislocating genuine forest lovers from the region. Neither group, however could claim to be original communities of the region.

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Both were immigrants but their pursuit and vision quite different. One was motivated by the pursuit of wealth, the other searched for a simple way of life in communion with nature. The narrative begins with a young man named Gagan who with his wife and widowed sister took up residence in a village in Bengal. Gagan’s life was a simple one, as he earned just enough to keep the wolf from the door and the moneylenders at bay. He was however urged incessantly by his wife Bini and her brother Nagensashi to seek his luck in Calcutta. He did so under duress, made a bit of money, came back to the village only to be exhorted again to try and make more money in the city. This time, the trip did not yield the same dividends. Using the good graces of a one-time acquaintance, Gagan was forced to travel south to meet a doctor who promised him employment. The doctor, not the most inspiring of persons, was a quack whose practice flourished along with that of indigenous practitioners and fakirs. Gagan was retained as a general help and even promised the position of a compounder on condition that he married the doctor’s eldest daughter. The plan misfired when Gagan tried to flee, even setting up an independent practice but in vain. In the course of his adventures, Gagan mets Jagannath and Balai, two wanderers and fugitives from the law and who represented in their philosophy and existence the alternate way of simple living in close contact with nature. Jagannath helped Gagan set up a small business involving the sale of fish, a venture that brought Gagan in direct contact with the indigenous population of the Sundarbans. These men were poachers and Gagan turned their business into a roaring success, a turnaround that in itself encapsulated the great change that had overtaken the Sundarbans in the previous decades. Due to extensive reclamation and settlement and the influx of greedy urban dwellers, the environment of the Sundarbans also got polluted. The sudden boom in the lives of fishermen evaporated and the once simple forest turned into a jungle of scheming businessmen. The story is one of exploitation as poor fishermen were initially lured with the promise of inducements but subsequently cheated and exposed to the complexities of legal and contractual agreements that they could not comprehend. The scheming of lawyers and

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bureaucrats loomed large to shatter Gagan’s dream. The narrative ends with Jagannath and his friends setting out further south. The story mirrors the changes that had fundamentally transformed the social fabric of the Sundarbans. Not only had the region suffered denudation and deforestation, it had also become a happy hunting ground for greedy men from the city who recklessly exploited the environment and its people. In fact, ultimately as social stratification increased and exploitation intensified, tensions exploded in the form of the Tebhaga (1946).

Bhu Bhu, a story by Shankar Basu, deals exclusively with the rising social discontent of the peasantry in the Sundarbans. The story begins with an appeal for the registration of land ownership and compensation charges by Zainab. Her husband had given her a small plot of land after their marriage. The plot in question was part of the Sundarbans jungle that was subsequently cleared and made arable by Kachi Rahaman, Fazler’s grandfather. Kachi Rehaman was an easy-going person but even his patience ran out when the local zamindar took away his land and robbed him of his adolescent daughter. He killed the zamindar and escaped the law by taking refuge in the Sundarbans. Meanwhile Zainab and Fazler worked in the land but lost it to Kamana Pal, a local moneylender. It was at this point that their personal misery converged with the collective anger of the dispossessed peasantry in the Sundarbans and the Tebhaga broke out. Fazler joined ranks with the rebels only to become victims of police firing. The second part of the story deals with Abu Hassim Rahaman, the only son of Fazler who survived childhood penury and deprivation. He lodged a case against Hamid Laskar, to whom Kamana Pal had sold the plot of land that he had usurped. Injunctions and stay orders followed in quick succession but none in favour of Abu. Abu walked away pained by the realization that even Tebhaga had not changed his lot and that his father‘s death had done little to materially improve his world.

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Transition from punthi to Prose The contrast between the world of punthis and that of prose is thus obvious. These were genres that mirrored two very different perceptions and images of the region. The punthis were reflections of a rural intimate, communitarian life with mystic and myth being its primary signifiers. The prose literature, on the other hand, was the product of a differentiated hierarchical society rife with tension and exploitation.25 Although both representational forms focussed on struggle as a leitmotif, the conception of the contest was fundamentally different both in terms of the contestants as well as in terms of their implications. No longer was it a battle of the gods to whom men paid their obeisance and sought protection against the dreaded tiger and even mythical monsters, it was a bloody contest between man and man for more space in a rapidly shrinking jungle. The transition from punthi to prose was in more ways than one a transition from an inaccessible jungle to an intensively cleared and cultivated area with its attendant social changes in the form of stratification, exploitation, greed and commercialisation, the inevitable harbingers of modern development. The changing landscape of the Sundarbans altered very perceptibly over time the mindset of the residents themselves, their encounters with real life danger in the form of litigation and eviction, breach of embankment and poverty became invested with a new meaning and corporeality that displaced the myth of the monster crocodile or the malevolent tiger out to wreak vengeance on behalf of its patron saint Dakshin Ray or forest deity Banabibi.

Notes and References 1. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I (Districts of the 24 Parganas and Sundarbans), First edition, London, 1875, Reprint edition, Delhi, 1973, pp. 331–5. 2. Manindranath Jana, Sundarbaner Samaj O Sanskriti, Calcutta, 1984, pp. 1–5. 3. Arabinda Biswas, ‘Paribesh O Manush’, in Dhrubojyoti Chattopadhyay, edited, Beekshan, Calcutta, 1977, pp. 64–9.

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4. Purnendu Ghosh, Tebhagar Smriti, Madhya Pradesh, 1987, pp. 6–7, Sunil Kumar Basu, ‘Socio Cultural Profile’, Amal Kumar Das, et al., edited, A Focus of Sundarban, Calcutta, 1981, pp. 58–9, Tapan Bhattacharya, Rahasyamayee Sundarban, Vol. I, Calcutta, 1988, p. 3. 5. Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Bede Baule’, in Sundarban Samagra, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 16–17, Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Sundarbane Arjan Sardar’, in Sundarban Samagra, Calcutta 1988, pp. 282–3. 6. Mahindra Nath Jana, op.cit., p. 9. 7. ibid., pp. 5–16. 8. Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Bede Baule’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., pp. 16–17, Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Sundarbane Arjan Sardar’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., pp. 238–43. 9. W.B.S.A., R.D., L.R. Branch, File No. 11-R-45 of 1931, Progs No. 1– 4, March, 1932,‘Report on the Land Revenue Administration of the Presidency of Bengal for the year 1931–2, Letter from Secretary to the Board of Revenue, to the Secretary, Government of Bengal, Revenue Department, W.W. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., pp. 319–20. 10. Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Sundarban’, in Sundarban Samagra, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 325–72. 11. , ‘Bede Baule’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., p. 17. 12. , ‘Sundarbane Arjan Sardar’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., p. 265. 13. , ‘Royal Bengaler Atmakatha’, in Sundarban Samagra, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 390–3. 14. W.W. Hunter, Vol. I, op.cit., p. 312, Dulal Chaudhuri, ‘Folk religion’, in Amal K. Das et al., A Focus on Sundarbans, op.cit., pp. 74–8. 15. , Vol. I, op.cit., p. 312. 16. Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Banabibi’, in Sundarban Samagra, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 148–50. 17. ibid. 18. Manoj Basu, Ban Kete Basat, Calcutta, 1961, pp. 57–8, Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Banabibi’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., pp. 136, 163–4. 19. Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Sundarbane Arjan Sardar’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., p. 279; ‘Bede Baule’, op.cit., pp. 16–17. 20. ibid. 21. , ‘Sunderbane Arjan Sardar’, Sundarban Samagra op.cit., p. 288. 22. The narratives are taken from fairly recent publications. These stories clearly reveal the situation of Sundarbans of how it was and what

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happened gradually. I have kept the story ‘Bhu’ by Shankar Basu in the end. This story gives a picture of peasant discontent and it brings to our knowledge the struggle between men. The book ends with this final note. 23. Ashit K. Bandopadhyay, Bangla Sahityer Sampurna Itibritya, Calcutta, 1991, p. 446. 24. Shib Shankar Mitra, ‘Sundarbane Arjan Sardar’, in Sundarban Samagra, op.cit., p. 321. 25. Sankarananda Mukherji, ‘Peasant Uprising’, in Amal Kumar Das et al., ed., A Focus on Sundarban, op.cit., pp. 90–1.

The Mangrove and the Man A Conclusion

D

uring the course of my study, it became clear how the settlement pattern changed in the Sundarbans over the years. The Sundarbans stretch from the Hooghly in the west to the Meghna on the east; and comprise the southern portions of the present districts of the 24 Parganas in India, Khulna and Bakarganj in Bangladesh. The settlements in the Sundarbans go back to antiquity. Signs of lost civilizations that once flourished in this inhospitable terrain are still visible. The nineteenth century British authorities tenaciously rejected these notions, but Bengali authors clung to them. The geographical and ecological evidence would indicate that most of the area was covered by dense and impenetrable forest but patches of cultivation sprang up from time to time. The struggle between man and nature was continuous in the region. The sources of danger formed the underlying theme of the Sundarban punthi literature. One of the central motifs of the punthis under consideration is man’s perpetual struggle with the wild animals, especially the tiger. The world of folk deities offers important insights into the character of past human settlements in the Sundarbans. It tells us that in all probability the land was sparsely populated. Beveridge is perhaps nearer the truth than those who argue in favour of lost civilizations of a higher order. Prosperous cities, as Satish Chandra Mitra and Kalidas Dutta would have us believe, imply social relations and

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religious beliefs of a higher order. But in the folk tales of the Sundarbans, the prevalence of tiger gods and goddesses point to a more primordial existence. Settlements such as Chandraketugarh were nothing more than trade outposts and were fragile enough to disappear over time. New colonization in the Sundarbans starts with the coming of the British to this area. Land reclamation began under the stewardship of Claude Russell and was carried out by Tilman Henckell.Tilman Henckell’s contribution in this area was significant. As supervisor of the Sundarbans he played a major role in devising land settlements, and articulated a position of paternalist benevolence for his own administration. Henckell’s efforts were followed by his successors, within the colonial context. With the different land reclamation policies adopted by various Collector Generals in this area, there was gradual but major transformation in this marshy land. The sequel to land reclamation was settlement stratification and resultant oppression of the peasantry. This in turn provided the context for the Tebhaga Movement. Other than land reclamation, another important issue which came up in the late nineteenth century was the conservation of the forests. The landscape of the Sundarbans today is a product of two opposite forces: conversion of wetland forests to paddyland versus the preservation of the forest in the reserves. Both Bangladesh and India now favour the use of the Sundarbans as forest land rather than its transformation to agricultural land. The British had other developmental plans also.The fear of the decline in the navigation capability of the Hooghly made them think of an alternative. They tried to form a port in the Sundarbans. The entire process of building a new port reveals a story of the expansion of the settlement in the jungle areas of the Sundarbans. The project of a second port was abandoned but the deforestation bore fruit in the long run. Communication improved. Railway tracks were laid. Gone were the days of wood cutters, bee keepers and honey-gatherers. Alongwith the recedence of jungle, was dispelled the mythical atmosphere linked to the wilderness and the fear of the unknown. With the advent of firearms the forests’ magical powers seemed to vanish. However, the entire exercise of the formation of Port Canning

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succeeded in luring a much larger influx of people of various castes and creeds into this area resulting in changing the socio-ecological system in a way never perceivable before. Moreover, Calcutta was connected with Canning by a permanent rail road, and the latter became a buzzing town. Members of the middle class came to this place and social relations also changed. Control over land was a serious question. Daniel Hamilton came to this area with the intention of building a cooperative during the first half of the twentieth century. Hamilton visualized India as a country with inner potentials. He stressed on the cooperative movement for overall social development. He even thought of political self-determination for Indian people through a slow evolutionary process of moderate politics. Hamilton’s purpose was defeated and the co-operative movement failed.Thus the Gosaba co-operative society, which was founded to bring new hopes with its new ideas for the people living in the forests, slumped to a quiet burial. Inspite of all this, roads were laid and the jungle reclaimed. This also marked the ushering in of an era of social consciousness for the masses against the earlier situation where the suffering of the common man remained only mute testimonials of the authority of the landlords. The discontent of the peasantry led to the Tebhaga Movement which begun in 1946 and continued till 1950. The rapacity of the landlords and mahajans combined with the poverty of the peasants helped in the uprising. The jotedars and lotdars of Kakdwip Chandanpiri, Lyallganj, Budakhali, Hasnabad and Sandeshkhali prepared fake sale deeds and handnotes and uprooted the peasants from their hearth and homes—not to speak of cases of dishonouring their women. This was the backdrop against which the real movement of the peasantry started. The movement had reached great heights but later it was suppressed. The government had conceded the tebhaga demand and the Bengal Bargadars’ Bill was notified in the Calcutta Gazette on 22 January 1947. This brings out clearly how the battle between man and nature was transformed into the battle between man and man. The Sundarbans acquired a new meaning in the prose literature which developed in the twentieth century. These stories were expressions of an emerging middle class viewpoint. As the urban middle class

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started becoming more and more dominant, their mentalities and the characteristically contrasting easy-going attitudes of the original settlers evolved into new a pattern that was quite different from the one that existed in this region. Written in Bengali prose, these stories depict the changing mentality of the settlers as a whole, who were now aggressively reclaiming wastelands and venturing into the woods with firearms. The jungle receded to the background and the original settlers were exploited. The story of course does not end there. The Sundarbans area in West Bengal is now mainly a reservoir for the supply of foodstuffs and even cheap domestic female labour to Calcutta’s metropolitan area. It has not developed in commensurate elements along with the region to its north. It remains a subject of policy and study rather than an active agent of change. To that extent, Kakdwip had not been a remarkable success any more than Gosaba. But a detailed knowledge of why this was so, is necessary if we are to use our local history as a guide to knowing our cultural experience in particular regions.

Glossary

abad abadi abwab adhiar aman amil amin amla bania barga bargadar bari bazar bauley benami bepari bhadralok

reclaiming fallow land. newly reclaimed. traditional, arbitrary, exaction above the formal rent. sharecropper (term in use in North Bengal). winter rice. a revenue collector for the government or zamindar or farmer; also known as amildar. measurer, surveyor or revenue officer in pargana who distributed the revenue demand in detail on the ryots. zamindari officials. trader. sharecropping. sharecropper. paddy loan (in west and central Bengal). urban mart. woodcutter in the jungle: also local Muslim religions vagrant: also mad man. nameless: fictitious. merchant: grain trader. gentleman, high caste Hindu with land property or education or both: generally, used as self-ascription for those who did not have to hold the plough.

Glossary bhag bhagchasi bhuswami bigha bundh Chak Chakdar char chaukidar cutcherry dadan dakhila dar daroga diwan diwani dhaan dhenki fakir ganthi ganthidar gola gomasta haola haoladar hat ijaradar jalkar jama jamabandi jami jotedar

185

share. sharecropper. landlord. measure of land which varied from region to region, (approximately one third of an acre). embankment. block of land. tenure holder in newly reclaimed tracts in the Sundarbans of coastal Bengal. alluvial formation, sandbanks. village pollice. same as kachhari. advance. rent-receipt. prefix denoting subordinate. police inspector. the officer in charge of the revenue department. revenue department. paddy. threshing implement. Muslim religions vagrant. a type of tenure (mainly found in Khulna) presumbly corruption of ‘grantee’. holder of ganthi tenure. granary. landlord’s employee. a type of sub-tenure (mainly found in Bakarganj). holder of haola tenure. village market usually held once or twice a week. lease-holder. Fishery right or rent. the total amount of rent or revenue payable by a cultivator or a zamindar. revenue-roll. land. intermediate holder of cultivable land; in north Bengal, often a substantial landholder.

186

Glossary

kachhari khamar khas

kholan krishak lathi lotdar mahajan malangi maund mauza mela mofussil mouley naib nazim nim osat panchayat pargana parwana patni patnidar patta patit patitabad pir

a landlord’s office: an office where any public business is transacted. lands in immediate possession of landlords: threshing yard. estates managed directly by the government or lands from which the officers of the government collected the revenue without the aid of any intermediate agency like that of the zamindar. store house. peasant. wooden stick. lease holder of government owned ‘lots’ in the Sundarbans. creditor; literally, great man. salt worker. unit of weight, (approximately 1 maund = 40 seers). village (revenue unit). fair. district countryside. gatherer of honey (mou). landlords employee, zamindar’s deputy, manager of an estate. provincial governor. prefix denoting subordinate, half. prefix meaning subordinate. village consensus. a revenue collecting unit comprising more than one mouza a warrant or order from a person in authority to a dependent or subordinate. a type of tenure (mainly found in west and cental Bengal. tenure-holder, usually intermediary between zamindars and ryot in West Bengal. document given by landlord to tenant stating the rights and liabilities of tenancy (i.e. deed of lease). not cultivated, waste, fallow land. reclaiming fallow land. Muslim preceptor.

Glossary ryot sabha salami samiti taluk talukdar tebhaga tejarati thana vakil zamindar

187

a peasant: a cultivator. organization, meeting. traditional fee to landlord or purchase of land or on obtaining tenancy. association. a type of tenure; usually the rent collecting right below the level of zamindar (in East Bengal). landlord or tenure-holder; usually collector of rent from ryots. division in three. money lending. police station. one vested with authority to act for another. Agent sent on a special commission. landlord, revenue payer to the government under the Permanent Settlement of 1793.

Selected Bibliography

Unpublished Records 1. West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta. Proceedings of Calcutta Committee of Revenue, 1773–80. Proceedings of Board of Revenue, at Fort William, 1786–1822. , Lower Provinces, 1822–29. , Sadar, 1829–50. , Lower Provinces, 1851–58. Proceedings of Revenue Department, Land Revenue Branch, 1858–1940. Proceedings of Land and Land Revenue Department, Land Revenue Branch, 1947. The Presidency Commissioner Sundarban Records, 1829–58. Proceedings of General Department, Marine Branch, 1859–85. Proceedings of Scarcity and Relief Branch, 1874. Proceedings of Home Department, Political Branch, 1937–41. 2. Hamilton Estate Papers, Gosaba (in the possession of Dr Gopi Nath Barman, Gosaba, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal). Inspection Note Book, 1919–48. Panchayat Minutes, 1940–47. Proceedings of the District and Sessions Jundge’s Court, 24 Parganas, 1937. 3. Rabindranath Tagore Papers, Rabindra Bhavana, Santiniketan,West Bengal. Letters written by Tagore to Daniel Hamilton 19 February 1919, 20 June 1930, Letter written by Hamilton to Tagore, 15.9.32.

Selected Bibliography

189

4. Central Archives, Communist Party of India, Ajoy Bhavana, New Delhi. The Impending Crisis and Our Tasks, Communist Party of India, Polit Bureau Circular No. 59, 25 January 1940. Banglar Shishu Telengana, Lalganj (in Bengali) 24 Parganas, District Committee, Communist Party of India, 7 November 1949. 5. P.C. Joshi Archives, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Red Fort, No. 2, March, 1940, File No. 1940/50B. Proletarian Path (Cyclostyled), Central Committee, Communist Party of India, 1940, File No./1940/48. 6. National Archives of India, New Delhi. Proceedings of Home Political Department Fortnightly Report, 1939, 1940. 2nd half of February, 1939. 2nd half of August, 1939. 2nd half of October, 1940.

Official Publications Settlement Reports Fawcus, L.R., Final Report on the Survey Settlement Operations in the District of Khulna, 1920–26 (Calcutta, 1927). Hill, A.L., Final Report on the Survey Settlement Operations in the District of Burdwan, 1927–39, Vol. I (Calcutta, 1941). Jack, J.C., Final Report on the Survey Settlement Operations in the District of Bakarganj, 1900 to 1908 (Calcutta, 1915). Lahiri, Anil Chandra, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of 24 Parganas, 1924–33 (Calcutta, 1936). Momen, M.A. Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of Jessore, 1920–24 (Calcutta, 1925).

District Gazetteers O’Malley, L.S.S., ed., Bengal District Gazetteer, Bakarganj (Calcutta, 1918). O’Malley, L.S.S., Bengal District Gazetteer, Khulna (Calcutta, 1908). O’Malley, L.S.S., Bengal District Gazetteer, 24 Parganas (Calcutta, 1914). The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 26 volumes (Oxford, 1908), See Sundarban.

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Selected Bibliography

Census O’Donnell, C.J., Census of India, 1891 Vols. III & IV: The Lower Provinces of Bengal and their Feudatories (Calcutta, 1893). Gait, E.A., Census of India, 1901, Vols. VI & VIA. The Lower Provinces of Bengal and the Feudatories (Calcutta, 1902). Mitra, A., Census 1951,West Bengal, An Account of Land Management in West Bengal, 1870–1950, Alipore (Calcutta, 1953).

Other Reports Bengal, Forest Department, Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration in the Presidency of Bengal for the year 1937–38, Alipore (Calcutta, 1939). Bengal Presidency, Forest Department, Annual Progress Report of Forest Administration in the Lower Provinces of Bengal, 1890–91 (Calcutta, 1891). Correspondence relating to the Settlement of Saugor Island for 1869 (Official papers) (Bengal, 1869). Curtis, S.J., Working Plan for the Forests of the Sundarban Division (Calcutta, 1933). Gastrell, J.E., Geographical and Statistical Report of the Districts Jessore, Fureedpore and Backergunge (Calcutta, 1868). Hunter, W.W. Report on the Movement of the People and Land Reclamation Schemes, 1885, Collections of Reports, National Archives (New Delhi). Ishaque, H.S.M., Agricultural Statistics by Plot to Plot Enumeration in Bengal 1944–45, Alipore (Calcutta, 1946). Papers related to the Formation of Port Canning on the Mutlah River from 27th March 1853 to 11th March 1865 (Calcutta, 1865). Report of the Committee of the Mutlah Association established in February, 1859 with the object of Promoting the progress of the Mutlah as an Auxiliary Port (Calcutta, 1861). Report of the Land Revenue Commission, Bengal, Vol. VI (Calcutta, 1940). Report on the Sale of Wasteland and the Redemption of the Land Revenue 1858–63 (Bengal, 1863). Smyth, Ralph, Statistical and Geographical Report of the 24-Pargunnahs District (Calcutta, 1857). Trafford, F., Working Plan for the Forests of the Sundarban Division (Calcutta, 1911). Westland, J., A Report on the District of Jessore its Aniquities its History and its Commerce (Calcutta, 1871).

Selected Bibliography

191

Contemporary or Near-Contemporary Published Works Ascoli, F.D., A Revenue History of the Sundarbans, From 1870 to 1920 (Calcutta, 1921). Baden-Powell, B.H., The Land System of British India, 3 Volumes (Oxford, 1982). Bagchi, Kanangopal, The Ganges Delta (Calcutta, 1944). Beveridge, H., The District of Bakarganj, Its History and Statistics (London, 1876). Buckland, C.E., Bengal under the Lieutenent Governors, 2 Volumes (Calcutta, 1902). Chatterjee, S.P., Bengal in Maps (Calcutta, 1949). Davidson C.J.C., Diary of Travel and Adventure in Upper India, 2 Volumes (London, 1843). Datta, K.K., Studies in the History of the Bengal Subah, 1740–1770, Vol. I (Calcutta, 1936). Dutt, Romesh, The Economic History of India, 2 Volumes (Second edition, London, 1906, First Indian Edition, Delhi, 1960). Firminger, W.K., Historical Introduction to the Bengal Portion of the Fifth Report (Calcutta, 1917, Reprint Edition, 1962). Grant, J., An Enquiry into the Nature of Zamindary Tenures and the Landed Property of Bengal (London, 1791). Hunter, W.W., A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol. I, (Districts of 24 Parganas and Sundarbans), (First edition, London, 1875, Reprint edition, Delhi, 1973). Hamilton Walter, A Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of Hindoostan and the Adjacent Countries (First edition 1920, Reprint edition, Delhi, 1971). Jack, J.C., The Economic Life of a Bengal District (London, 1916, Reprint edition, Delhi, 1975). Majumder, S.C., Rivers of the Bengal Delta (Calcutta, 1942). Mitra, Sarat Ch., Indian Folk-Beliefs About The Tiger, Part I & II (Bombay, 1908). , On Some Curious Cults of Southern and Western Bengal (Calcutta, 1918). , On an Accumulation Droll from Eastern Bengal and On a Musulmani Legend About the Sylvan Saint Banabibi and Tiger Deity Dakshina Raya (Calcutta, 1923). Mukherjee, R.K., The Changing Face of Bengal (Calcutta, 1938). Pargiter F.E., A Revenue History of the Sundarbans, 1760–1870 (Calcutta, 1934).

192

Selected Bibliography

Pearson, R.S., ‘Note on Sunder Timber’, Forest Bulletin, No. 29 (Calcutta, 1915). Sen, Ramshunkar, Report on the Agricultural Statistics of Jhenida, Magura, Baghirhat and Sundarbans, in the district of Jessore, 1872–73 (Calcutta, 1874). Strickland, C., Deltaic Formation, with special reference to the Hydrographic Processes of the Ganges and Brahmaputra (Calcutta, 1940). Troup, R.S., The Silviculture of Indian Tress, I (Oxford, 1921). Wilson, H.H., A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms etc. of British India (London, 1855, reprint edition, Delhi, 1968). Yule, Henry and Burnell, A.C., Hobson-Jobson, a Glossary of Colloquial AngloIndian Words and Phrases etc. (First edition, London, 1886, New edition by William Crooke London, 1903, revised eidtion, 1968).

Secondary and General Works Ali, Imran, The Punjab under Imperialism, 1885–1947 (Delhi, 1989). Bagchi, A.K., Private Investment in India (London, 1972). Bandyopadhyay, Alapan, & Matilal, Anup, ed., The Philosopher’s Stone (Gosaba, 24-Parganas, 2003). Bandopadhyay, Sekhar, Caste, Politics and the Raj: Bengal, 1872–1937 (Calcutta, 1990). , ‘Caste, Class and Politics in Colonial Bengal: A Case Study of the Namasudra Movement of 1872–1937’, in Caste and Class in India, edited by K.L. Sharma, Jaipur and New Delhi, 1994. , ‘Popular Religion and Social Mobility in Colonial Bengal: The Matua Sect and the Namasudras’, in Mind, Body and Society: Life and Mentality in Colonial Bengal, edited by Rajat K. Ray (Calcutta, 1995). Banerjee, P., Calcutta and Its Hinterland, 1833–1900 (Calcutta, 1975). Barui, Balai, The Salt Industry of Bengal, 1757–1800 (Calcutta, 1985). Basu, Sunil Kumar, ‘Socio-Cultural Profile’, in Amal Kumar Das et al. ed., A Focus on Sundarban (Calcutta, 1981). Bayley, C.A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, North Indian Society, In the Age of British Expansion (Cambridge, 1983). Bhattacharya, Ashutosh, Folklore of Bengal (Delhi, 1978). Bhattacharya, N.D., ‘Changing Course of the Padma and Human Settlements’, National Geographic Journal of India, No. 1 and 2 (MarchJune, 1978). Bhattacharya, S., The East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1704–40 (London, 1954).

Selected Bibliography

193

Bhattacharya, S., ‘Soils of the Sundarbans’, in Kanangopal Bagchi, Sunil Kumar Munsi and Rabindranath Bhattacharya, eds., The BhagirathiHooghly Basin, (proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Symposium) (Calcutta, 1992). Bhaumik, Sankar Kumar, Tenancy Relations and Agrarian Development, A Study of West Bengal (Delhi, 1993). Blair, A.P., ‘Practical Co-operation in Sir Daniel Hamilton’s Farm in the Sundarbans’, in Modern Review (April, 1937). Blochman, H., Contributions to the Geography and History of Bengal (Muhammedan Period) (Calcutta, 1968). Bose, Sugato, Agrarian Bengal, Economy Social Structure and Politics, 1919– 1947 (Cambridge, 1986). Boyce, James, K., Agrarian Impasse in Bengal (New York, 1987). Calkins, P.B., ‘The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700–1740’, in The Journal of South Asian Studies (1970). Chakraborty, Bhaskar, ‘Entrenchment of Colonialism’, in Satyesh Chakraborty ed., Port of Calcutta, 125 years 1870–1995 (Calcutta, 1995). Chatterjee, Partha, Bengal 1920–1947 The Land Question, Vol. I (Calcutta, 1984). Chattopadhyay, Gautam, ed., Bengal: Early Nineteenth Century (selected documents) (Calcutta, 1978). Chaudhuri, B., ‘Agrarian Economy and Agrarian Relations in Bengal 1859– 1885’, in N.K. Sinha, ed., The History of Bengal 1757–1905 (Calcutta, 1967). , ‘Peasant History of Late Pre-colonial and Colonial India’, in D.P. Chattopadhyay ed., History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization (New Delhi, 2008). Chaudhuri, Dilipkanti, ‘The Settlers of the Sundarbans—A Historical Demographic Profile’, in Ecoscience, Cressida Transactions, Vol. III, No. 2 (Summer, 1983). Chaudhuri Dulal, ‘Folk Religion’, in Amal Kumar Das et al. ed., A Focus on Sundarbans (Calcutta, 1981). Cooper, Adrienne, Sharecropping and Share Croppers’ Struggles in Bengal 1930– 1950 (Calcutta, 1988). Custers, Peter, Women in the Tebhaga Uprising (Calcutta, 1987). Das, Amal Kumar, et al. eds., A Focus on Sundarban (Calcutta, 1981). , Raha, Manis Kumar, The Oraons of Sundarban (Calcutta, 1963). Dasgupta, Atish, Groundswell In Bengal In the 1940s (Calcutta, 1995). Dasgupta, Satyajit, ‘The Tebhaga Movement in Bengal 1946–47’, Occassional Paper No. 89, Centre For Studies in Social Sciences (Calcutta, 1989).

194

Selected Bibliography

De, Rathindranath, The Sundarbans (Calcutta, 1990). Desai, A.R., ed., Peasant Struggles in India (First edition, Bombay, 1979, Paperback edition, New Delhi, 1981). Eaton, Richard M., The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (New Delhi, 1994). Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish (London, 1975). Frykenberg, Robert Eric, ed., Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (First edition, Madison, 1969, Enlarged Indian edition, New Delhi, 1979). Ghatak, Maitreya, ‘Peasant Mobilisation in Bengal’, Ecoscience, Cressida Transaction), Vol. III, No. I, Summer (1983). Ghosh, Arun, West Bengal Landscapes (Calcutta, 1989). Ghosh, Jamini Mohan, Magh Raiders in Bengal (Calcutta, 1960). Guha, Ranjit, A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of the Permanent Settlement (First edition, 1963, Reprint edition, New Delhi, 1982). Gupta, Amit, ‘Forest-Fire in the Sundarbans, The Communist and the Kakdwip Rising 1946–50’, Occasional Paper on History and Society, Nehru Memorial Museum, New Delhi (November, 1985). Habeeb Kidwai, Atiya, ‘Conceptual and Methodological Issues; Ports Port Cities and Port—Hinterlands’ in Indu Banga, ed., Ports and Their Hinterlands in India (1700–1950) (New Delhi, 1992). Habib, Irfan, Essays in Indian History, Towards a Marxist Perception (New Delhi, 1995). Indu, Banga, ed., Ports and Their Hinterlands in India (1700–1950) (New Deihi, 1992) Islam, M. Mufakhural, Bengal Agriculture, 1920–1946: A Quantitative Study (Cambridge, 1978, Indian edition, Delhi, 1978). Islam, Sirajul, Bengal Land Tenure (Calcutta, 1988). Joshi, P.C., Land Reforms in India, Trends and Perspectives (Delhi, 1975). Kumar, Dharma, ed., The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol 2: 1757– 1970 (First edition, Cambridge, 1982, Reprint edition, Delhi, 1984). Majumder, S.B., ‘Estate Farming in India, Gosaba’, in Indian Farming, Vol III, No. II (November, 1942). Mandal, A.K., Ghosh, R.K., Sundarban, A Socio Bio-Ecological Study (Calcutta, 1989). Marshall, P.J., ‘Bengal: The British Bridgehead Eastern India 1740–1828’, The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1987). Mookerji, Radhakamal, Indian Land-System, Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern (With Special Reference to Bengal) (Calcutta, 1958).

Selected Bibliography

195

Morris, Morris D., ‘Economic Change and Agriculture in Nineteenth Century India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. III (June, 1966). Mukherjee, Arun, ‘Crime and Criminals in Nineteenth Century Bengal 1861–1904’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XXI, No. 2 (April-June, 1984). Mukherjee, Mukul, ‘Railways and their Impact on Bengal’s Economy, 1870– 1920’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XVII, No. 2 (April-June, 1980). Mukherjee, Nilmani, The Port of Calcutta, A Short History (Calcutta, 1968). Mukherji, K., The Problems of Land Transfer: A Study of The Problems of Land Alienation in Bengal (Santiniketan, 1957). Mukherjee, Sankarananda, ‘Historical and Geographical Background’, in Amal Kumar Das et al. eds., A Focus on Sundarban, Calcutta, 1981. Mukhopadhyay, Ashim, ‘Peasants of the Parganas’, in A.R. Desai, ed., Peasant Struggles in India (First edition, Bombay 1979, Paperback edition, New Delhi, 1981). Nakazato, Nariaki, Agrarian System in Eastern Bengal, C1870–1910 (Calcutta, 1994). Nandy, Somendra Chandra, Life and Times of Cantoo Baboo (Krishna Kanta Nandy) the Banian of Warren Hastings, 2 Vols. (Calcutta, 1978–81). Naskar, Kumudranjan, Guha Bakshi, Dwijendra Narayan, Mangrove Swamps of the Sundarbans, an Ecological Perspective (Calcutta, 1987). Palit, Chittabrata, Tensions in Bengal Rural Society (Calcutta, 1975). Pasmantier, Deborah, Man-eating tigers wreak havoc on India’s island of widows, Daily Times—Leading News Resource of Pakistan, 22 December 2004. Ray, Rajat K., ed., Entrepreneurship and Industry in India, 1800–1942 (New Delhi, 1992). Ray, Ratnalekha, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society 1760–1850 (New Delhi, 1980). Raychaudhuri, Tapan, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir (Calcutta, 1953). , ‘Permanent Settlement in Operation, Bakarganj District, East Bengal’, Frykenberg R. E. ed., Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (First edition Madison, 1969, Enlarged Indian edition, New Delhi, 1979). Richard, John F, Flint, Elizabeth P., ‘Long Term Transformations in the Sundarbans Wetlands Forest of Bengal’, in Agriculture and HumanValues, Vol. VII, No. 2 (Spring, 1990). Rothermund, Dietmar, ‘A Survey of Rural Migration and Land Reclamation in India, 1885’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (April, 1977).

196

Selected Bibliography

Roy, Aniruddha, ‘Case Study of a Revolt in Medieval Bengal: Raja Pratapaditya Guha Roy of Jessore’, in Barun De, et al., ed., Essays in Honour of Professor S.C. Sarkar (New Delhi, 1976). Sarkar, Krishna Kanta, ‘Kakdwip Tebhaga Movement’, A.R. Desai, ed., Peasant Struggle in India. (First edition Bombay, 1979, Paperback edition, New Delhi, 1981). Sen, Ashok, ‘A Pre-British Economic Formation in India Tipu Sultan’s Mysore’, Barun De, ed., Perspectives in Social Sciences, Vol. I (Calcutta, 1977). Sen, Bhowani, Evolution of Agrarian Relations in India, Including a Study of the Nature and Consequences of Post Independence Agrarian Legislation (New Delhi, 1962). Sen, Sunil, Agrarian Struggle in Bengal, 1946–47 (Delhi, 1972). , Peasant Movements in India Mid-Nineteenth and Twentieth Century (Calcutta, 1982). Sengupta, Rabindra Kumar, ‘Importance of the Sundarban Region in West Bengal’s Economy’, in Kanan Gopal Bagchi, Sunil Kumar Munsi and Rabindranath Bhattacharya, eds., The Bhagirathi Hooghly Basin (Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Symposium) (Calcutta, 1972). Sinha Narendra Krishna, The Economic History of Bengal, Vol. I, From Plassey to the Permanent Settlement, 3rd edition (Calcutta, 1965); Vol. 2, From Plassey to the Permanent Settlement (Calcutta, 1968) Vol. 3, From Plassey to the Permanent Settlement 1793–1848 (Calcutta, 1970). , ed., History of Bengal 1757–1905 (Calcutta, 1970). Van Schandel,William, Three Deltas,Accumulation and Poverty in Rural Burma, Bengal and South India (New Delhi, 1991).

Works in Bengali Bandyopadhyay, Ashutosh, ‘Suchona-O-Mukti Sangram’, Tarapada Pal, ed., Chabbis Pargana (Calcutta, 1972). Bandopadhyay, Asit Kumar, Bangla Sahityer Sampurna Itibritta (First Edition, Calcutta, 1966, eleventh edition, 1991). Bandopadhyay, Bibhuti Bhusan, Roy, Bhuban Mohan, Sundarbane Sat Bachhar (First edition, Calcutta, 1955, 4th edition, Calcutta, 1983). Basu, Shankar, Badar Galpa (Calcutta, 1976–77). Bhattacharya, Ashutosh, ed., Manasa Mangal (Calcutta, 1954). Bhattacharya, K.P., Mahapran Sir Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton (Gosaba, South 24 Parganas, 1955). Bhattacharya, Satyanarayan, ed., Raimangal (Bardhaman, 1956). Bhattacharya, Tapan, Rahasyamoyee Sundarban, 2 Vols. (Calcutta, 1988–89).

Selected Bibliography

197

Biswas, Arabinda, ‘Paribesh-O-Manush’, In Dhrubojyoti Chattopadhyay, ed., Beekshan (Calcutta, 1977). Burman, Gopinath, ‘Mahan Sir Daniel Hamilton O Manash Kanya, Gosaba’, in Ramanath Maiti ed., Sundarban Samachar, 8th issue (Gosaba, Ist December, 1987). Chakraborty, Kalyan, Manush-O-Bagh (Calcutta, 1988). Chakraborty, Kavikalpa, ‘Dakhin Chabbis Pargana Jelar Parichay’, in Palash Halder, ed., Byatikram (Sonarpur South 24 Parganas, 1989). Chakraborty, Parimal, Gramonnayane Manishira (Calcutta, 1986). Chattopadhyay, Sagar, Dakshin Chabbis Pargana Jelar Purakirti, 2005. Chattopadhyay, Kunal, Tebhaga Andoloner Itihas (Calcutta, 1987). Chowdhury, Kamal, Dakshin Chabbis Parganer Itibritta (Calcutta, 1987). Dasgupta, Rani, ‘Tebhagar Loraiye Krishak Mahilader Abadan’, Tebhaga Sangram Rajat Jayanti Smarak Grantha (Calcutta, 1973). Dutta, Kalidas, Dakshin Chabbis Parganer Ateet, 2 Vols. (Baruipur, South 24 Parganas, 1989). Dutta, Shekhar, ‘Ananya Sadharan Tebhaga Sangram’, Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin, ed., Tebhaga Sangram (Dacca, 1988). Gangopadhyay, Narayan, Upanibesh (Reprint Edition, Calcutta, 1971). Ghatak, Maitreya, ‘Kakdwip 1946–50’, Mahasweta Devi, ed., Bartika (1986). Ghosh, Purnendu, Tebhagar Smriti (Madhya Pradesh, 1989). Ghosh, Tarapada, ed., Paschimbanga (district, 24 Parganas, South) (Calcutta, 1999) Gupta, Prakash, ‘Sundarbaner, Adibasider Sahagyer Name Prahashan’, Sundarban Jagaran (September-October, 1989). Gupta, Shyamali, ‘Aranyer Thaba’ in Eksathe (cultural monthly for women, Paschim Banga Ganatantrick Mahila Samiti) ed., Shyamali Gupta (Kolkata, 1 August 2007). Jana, Manindranath, Sundarbaner Samaj-O-Sanskriti (Calcutta, 1984). Jalil, A.F.M., Sundarbaner Itihas (2nd edition, Dacca, 1986). Kanjilal, Tushar, Sundarbane Bhanga Garar Khela, Sagarmoy Ghosh ed., Desh (18 May, 1996). Khater, Munshi Muhammed, Banabibi Jahuranama (reprint edition, Calcutta, 1987). Maiti, Tarapada, ‘Itihas-O-Sanskriti’, Tarapada Pal, ed., Chabbis Pargana (Calcutta, 1992). Mandal, Panchanan, ed., Sahitya Prakasika Dwadash Mangal, Vol. V (Santiniketan, 1966). Mitra, Shib Shankar, Sundarban Samgra (Calcutta, 1988). Mitra, Satish Chandra, Jassahar Khulnar Itihas, 2 Vols. (Calcutta, 1914).

198

Selected Bibliography

Rahim, Abdur, Ghazi Kalu Champavati Kanyar punthi (reprint edition, Calcutta, 1987). Rasul, A., Krishak Sabhar Itihas (Calcutta, 1969). Ray, Niharranjan, Bangalir Itihas, Adiparba (Calcutta, 1939). Ray, Samir, Banabibi-O-Narayanir Pala (24 Parganas, 1990). Roychowdhury, Prasit, Adi Gangar Teere (Calcutta, 1988). Sarkar, Jogendranath, Bane Jangale (First edition Calcutta, 1929, Reprint edition, 1989). Sen, Satyen, Vishnu Chattopadhyay, Mehenoti Manush (Dacca, 1969). Sengupta, Arkaprabha, ‘Sundarbaner Jalkar Ekti Samikhya’, Mahasweta Devi, ed., Bartika (July-September, 1989). Sengupta, Nitish, ‘Sunderbaner, Bhumibyabasthar Aitihashik Bhumika’, Ramesh Majumder, N.K. Sinha, ed., Itihas (1960). Sur, Sujit, ‘Sundarban Lokasanskriti’, Lok Loukik, Vol. I, No. IV (1980). Tarkalankar, Madanmohan, Byghra, in Shishu Shiksha Part 111, eight edition, Calcutta, 1965.

Journals and Periodicals Beekshan (Bengali). Bartika (Bengali). Byatikram (Bengali). Calcutta Historical Journal. Calcutta Review. Desh (Bengali) Ekshathe (Bengali) Indian Economic and Social History Review. Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. Journal of Peasant Studies. Lokloukik (Bengali). Modern Asian Studies. Sundarban Jagaran (Bengali).

Newspapers Ananda Bazar Patrika. Daily Times (Pakistan) Hindustan Standard. Peoples Age. Swadhinata. The Statesman.

Index

24 Parganas 3, 4, 5, 12, 14, 20, 21, 39, 55, 56, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 95, 100, 102, 112, 127, 148, 155, 180 Abdur Rahim 32 Abad 59, 92, 98–9, 164 Abul Fazl 17 Abwabs 145 Agitator 118 Ain-I-Akbari 17 Allen Defell 114 Alluvial 12, 74, 93 Aman 47, 76, 150 Andamans 129, 134 Arjan 164, 166, 172–4 Arakan 17–18, 23 Aurungs 68 Bada 42, 47, 164 Bagdi 31–2 Bakarganj 3–5, 56, 63, 78, 81, 83, 88, 90–3, 95–7, 99, 102 Banabibi Jahuranama 46, 51 Banabibir thek 171

Banaspati Ma 48 Bansgari 60 Bargadar 103, 145, 182 Baripada 128 Baule 165, 173 Bata Krishna Shau 152 Benami 99 Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha 143, 148, 153 Bhagchasi 142 Bhati 11, 46, 48 Bhatidesa 48 Bhatisvara 47–9 Bidhobar Gram 9 Bidyadhari 115, 136 Brahmannagar 41 Brahmaputra 10, 12 Bunas 74 Buran 65 Calcutta Gazette 89, 155, 161, 182 Canning 1, 3–4, 17, 103, 112– 13, 115, 117–20, 143, 148–50, 181–2 Central Bank 132–3

200

Index

Central Model Farm 123 Chamber of Commerce 112–13, 117 Champavati 48, 50 Chandals 32 Chand Saudagar 16 Chandabhandas 19–20 Chandanpiri 150, 153 Chandraketugarh 182 Chaukies 62 CJ Stevenson Moore 93 Claude Russell 55–6, 101, 181 D Scott 77 Dakshin Ray 32–41, 43–6, 48–52, 177 Deforestation 55, 176, 181 Dhonai 43–4, 47, 49 Diamond Harbour 103, 113, 118, 148, 152, 155, 160 Dukhe 43–7, 51 Dwarik Samanta 152 Ecosystem 15 ED Kilburn 114 Embankment 14–15, 24, 74, 76, 78, 80–1, 85, 90, 91, 99, 102 English East India Company 3, 17, 55, 69, 76, 112 Father Mesaric 126–7 FD Ascoli 2, 4 Ferdinand Schiller 82 Floating Golah 114 Francois Bernier 10 Fraserganj 91–3 Gajen Mali 152 Ganesa 34–5 Ganga Sagar 37, 83 Gazi 40–1, 45, 49

Gengwa 87 Ghazi Madar 49 Ghazi Mian 49 Gomasta 59, 66, 102 Goran 87 Gosaba 3–4, 6, 12, 112, 118–29, 131, 133–5 H Beveridge 2, 17–21, 180 Haoladar 98–99 Haroa 75, 143, 148–9 Hasnabad 75, 143, 150, 182 Henckell’s Taluks 76 Hingalganj 59, 67, 101, 134 Hira Sardar 63 Hooghly 112–13, 118 Jamini Rice Mill 124 Jatin Maiti 151–2, 156 JE Gastrell 17–18, 20 Jessore 14, 12–19 Jotedar 100, 144–5, 147–8, 150, 153–4, 182 Judasujan 40 Kabadak 17, 59 Kachhari 102 Kachua 59, 101 Kakdwip 4, 75, 135, 142–6, 150–1, 153–6, 182–3 Kali Shankar 63 Kalidas Datta 50 Kalu Ray 34, 45 Kangsari Halder 151–2 Kapil muni 83 Keora 38, 87 Khanja Ali 18–19 Khulna 3, 12, 39 Kiropa 35 Kisan Samiti 151–4

Index Kumir brata 9 Lieutenant Ward 114 Locaine 121 Lord Canning 112 Lord Cornwallis 65 Lotdar 93, 144–5, 148, 150 Lots 23, 58, 77, 80, 86, 90, 97, 100, 144–5, 148, 150, 153 MacKinnon & MacKenzie Company 119–121 Madhukar 36 Mager thek 172 Magh 17, 23, 31, 67, 78, 83, 92–3, 164, 171–2 Magh Buddhist 31 Mahabharata 16, 83, 170 Mahesh Sardar 166, 169, 172 Mahindar 65, 68 Malangi 64–5 Manasha 33, 164 Mangal Kabya 33 Mangrove 1–2, 7, 9, 16, 89, 95, 103, 112 Matla 12, 82, 113–18 Mayurbhanj Estate 128 Meghna 10, 12, 14, 180 Mirshikaris 32 Miss White 123 Muhammad Hussain 63 Mukut Rai 41 Municipal Commissioner 116 Municipality 115–16 Munda 32, 51, 74 Murli 62–3 Naibs 100, 102 Namasudra 100 Nandu Datta 63

201

Narayani 43, 108 New Orleans cotton 82 Nim Haoladar 98 Oraon 2, 32, 74 Pala 21 Panchali 33 Panchayat 122, 124–5, 130–3, 155 Pargiter 2, 4, 68 Parwanas 60 Pathans 32 Patitabad 56, 76, 92, 99 Peoples Relief Committee 151 Permanent Settlement 76–7 Pitel Babu 164 Patnai 123 Pod 31, 100 Port Canning Land Company 117 Portuguese Pirates 17 Pratapaditya 19, 23 Primary School 121, 122 Protected Forest 88, 89 Punjab 92 Punthi 31, 32, 40, 46, 50, 51, 163, 165, 170, 177, 180 Pushpa Datta 35–7 Pusuri 35 Rabindranath Tagore 129 Raimangal Salt Agency 60 Reclamation 14, 17, 23, 56, 58, 59, 74, 76–9, 81, 83–93, 97–103, 115, 117, 119, 134, 143–5, 148, 164, 175, 181 Reserved Forest 88, 89 Reverend Hodge 127 Richard Temple 88 Rocke 61, 66 Royal Bengal Tiger 9, 15, 31, 120

202

Index

Sandeshkhali 143, 148–50, 182 Sandwip 18–20 Santhals 75, 169 Satish Mitra 17, 20, 21, 50 Sayyids 32 Schiller 82 Scottish Church College 121 Sena 21 Settlement 14, 16, 17, 31, 40, 56, 68, 69, 74, 76–8, 80, 83, 90–93, 96, 100, 101, 121, 126, 144, 165, 175, 180, 181 Shah Jangli 43, 45, 48 Shiva 34 Sikandar Shah 40, 45, 49 Sir John Anderson 122 Sonabaria 64, 65 Soumendra Nath Tagore 143, 149 Sundarban Records 4, 5 Sundari (Heritiera fomes) 11, 35, 86– 8, 170 Sudhangshu Bhusan Majumdar 121

Surendranath Sen 63 Schoene Kilburn 114 Scotland 119, 127 Talukdar 98 Tebhaga 101, 135, 142–4, 146, 150, 153–6, 176, 181, 182 Thanadars 62 Tilman Henckell 55–7, 59–69, 101, 119, 181 Todar Mal 17 Trower 84, 108 Westland 18, 20, 56, 58, 66, 68 Wetlands 93, 181 William Schlich 88 WH Morrison 14, 76 WW Hunter 14, 21, 31, 32, 85, 87, 97 Zamindar 39, 56–64, 67, 68 Zulum 153