People living on the margins are often the ones belonging to marginalized groups. Sundarban, for its inhabitants, is a landscape that is oblivious of the India-Bangladesh divide and has faced several collapses and evolutions due to severe natural disasters. It is the most vulnerable to epochal disasters and has a three million population belonging to marginal communities of Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs and religious minorities.
Therefore, it is difficult to say who originally belonged to Sundarbans.
However, historical accounts of the inception of the Sundarban landscape show the Dalits, mainly comprised of the sub-caste Pods or Poundras, were present from AD 1204-1575 (Townsend 1987 cited in Jalais, 2010 p.3-6).
The archival records of Risley, a gazetteer-writer of the nineteenth century and O’Malley’s report based on census classification asserted that the majority of Poundra were the first inhabitants of the Sundarbans area, especially in the districts of Khulna (Bangladesh) and the 24-Parganas (West Bengal, India).
The Pod/Poundra, Namasudras and the Adivasis are considered the ‘original settlers’ of the Sundarban landscape in India and Bangladesh (O’Malley, 1908:65; Jalais 2010). However, the locals identify themselves more through their sub-caste of Poundra or Namasudra.
For them, ‘Dalit’ is a new unheard term. They prefer calling themselves the Tapasheels Jati (Scheduled). Whereas for the elite Kolkata or bhodrolok populace, the Sundarban dwellers will always be known as chotolok (low born in class and caste).
Our Deities Are Marginal Too
Two major goddesses woven into the customary practice of Sundarbans dwellers through Punthi literature and Mangal Kavya are Bonobibi (The forest Gurdian) and Manasa (snake goddess). Apart from them, Itu Puja (goddess of harvest), Gangadebi (goddess of fish/shark), Machaal Thakur (God of the eagle) and Maa Sitala (Goddess of pox) rituals are worshipped mainly by the Dalits or marginal Bengali households of Sundarbans.
These religious narratives personify the hierarchized struggles of ‘marginalized’ deities such as Manasa or Sitala, trying to achieve social mobility amongst the more eminent Hindu gods and goddesses similar to chotoloks (lower caste/class) aspiring to meld in the bhodrolok (elite community of Bengal).
Moreover, the rituals of the aforementioned deities denounce the Brahminical hegemony of puja piousness, where a ‘brahman’ is not required to conduct the ceremonies but are performed in a simple prayer system by the men and women of lower caste families or given offerings in thaan (a deconstructed version of a temple).
We Are Not Illiterate! We Just Don’t Have Opportunities
Indian Sundarban region in West Bengal is spread across 19 block divisions belonging to two districts of South and North 24 Parganas. If we pull out the census data from the two blocks with the most forest fringe villages: Gosaba and Hingalgunj, they have a literacy rate of 78.98% and 76.85% and a gender ratio of 959 and 963 females for 1000 males.
However, 67% of schools in Sundarbans from South 24 Parganas do not have electricity connections, and for North 24 Parganas, this is 56%. Moreover, almost 90% of schools were without any computers in 2011 (DISE & SEMIS Reports, 2012 and Das & Das, 2017).
Due to extreme poverty, students from Sundarbans enrolled in junior classes (class 8 onwards) are compelled to leave schooling and engage in forest-dependent livelihood. Since childhood, these children are trained to row and catch fish, crabs and prawns, knowing that is their ‘only’ future prospect.
The Self-Resilient Women Of Sundarbans
The gender nexus of the workforce in Sundarbans per se has changed drastically over the past couple of decades. Though marginality has hit hard on both men and women workers due to ongoing climate disasters, it has been relatively high among women.
This increase or spike in the marginality rate among female workers indicates an unfair and disproportionate burden on them, who are also responsible for maintaining household chores and offering physical-mental-emotional and economic support in disaster crises. Yet, with much hardship, women get involved in self-reliant activities through active engagement in Self Help Groups.
The SHG aims at providing alternative means of livelihood to Sundarban women over the precious livelihood of crab and prawn catching which often leads to casualties by tiger, crocodile and shark attacks.
Many have been appointed in planting mangrove saplings around the banks of Sundarbans islands to protect the islands from cyclones and flood catastrophes; the state government took the initiative. While some have started working in NGO run projects such as paper plate manufacturing, painting and stitching bedsheets, katha (warm sheet), balaposh (blanket) and madur (mat).
The Dream Of An Urban Inclusive Future
Each day one or the other family plans on migrating to urban or suburban spaces of Kolkata or nearby town. As cyclones like Bulbul, Amphan, and Yaas ravaged in the consecutive year of 2019, 2020, 2021, they took with them their home. Many lost money and rice grains that could’ve fed the family or household for the following year.
Each year they fight back and build back their house, and another cyclone hits. However, the question is, where are they migrating? Sundarbans locals say that they can never be a part of the Urban dwellings of Kolkata.
“We are always seen as chotoloks or kajerlok [house-help]. We can hardly rent a house,
let alone forget to buy one in the hub of Kolkata. We can never be on par with their socio-
cultural status if also we have money. But yes, we do get settled in the margins of
Kolkata, the suburbs of Sonarpur, Ghatakpukur and Baruipur.”
As Sundarban dwellers dream of an inclusive future, their dreams are always negotiated while moving in urban spaces; they are hardly given access. So they remain in the margins again.
All photos are provided by the author.