Chennai: One morning last year, Sumitra (42) and Vupen Mridha (48) prayed to their guardian deity, the goddess Bonbibi, and started from their home in Gosaba village, Bali Island, in the South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal to the core Sunderbans Tiger Reserve Area to catch fish.
They had just begun work when a tiger leapt from the waters and dragged Vupen from the boat. A few hours later at noon, a group of fishermen rescued Sumitra, who was lying unconscious in the floating boat. She decided to never return to the forest and started cultivating fish in a pond to sustain herself and her children. On May 20, cyclone Amphan blew away the life she had managed to rebuild over the past year and slammed her to ground zero.
Sumitra Mridha from Bali Island, South 24 Parganas saw her husband getting killed by a tiger in early 2019, when they went to catch fish in the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve Area. Cyclone Amphan regressed her to ground Photo: By arrangement
A UN world heritage site, the Sunderbans is the world’s largest delta, formed by the rivers Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna and spread over India and Bangladesh. It is inhabited by 4.5 million people and has the largest mangrove ecosystem in the world, home to the Royal Bengal Tiger, with its creeks and rivers filled with crocodiles and snakes.
There are around 3,000 tiger widows in the islands of the Sunderbans, women whose husbands have been killed by tigers while they were fishing, catching crabs or collecting honey for their livelihood. Always challenged by natural disasters and human-animal conflicts, the people of these villages don’t have permits from the forest department to go to the core area, which makes their work illegal. The bagh-bidhobas or tiger widows, therefore, cannot claim compensation and so they rarely inform the authorities about tiger-linked deaths. In many cases, the bodies of those attacked by tigers cannot be traced and they are treated as missing persons. Almost every villager in these islands has a tragic story to narrate.
Representative image of a Bengal tiger. Photo by Anup Hela/Wikimedia Commons.
“Though it is illegal to enter the core area of the tiger reserve, the villagers of the Sunderbans have not been provided alternative opportunities to survive and since the fish and crab yields in the buffer zone are not substantial, they are left with no option but to risk their lives every day,” said Pradip Chatterjee, secretary, National Fishworkers’ Forum, Kolkata. “Their only two options are starving to death or risking the tigers.”
While the West Bengal government has tried to involve the villagers of the Sunderbans in income generation activities, these are neither large scale nor sustainable, said Subhasis Mondal, secretary, Sandeshkhali Maa Saroda Women and Rural Welfare Society in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district. “There are around 4,000 self-help groups in the island, covering 40,000 women. But this number reflects only quantity, not quality,” Mondal said. “Most of the training courses for women are sporadic and short-term and thus not economically viable.”
Reduce, Rebuild, Reduce, Repeat
Eight years ago, Souravi Roy (50), who lives on the banks of Bidyadhari river in North 24 Parganas district, went with her husband to the core forest area to collect honey and witnessed him being mauled by a tiger. Six months later, her teenage son who continued to collect honey from the forest was also killed by a tiger. Almost immediately after that, Souravi lost her daughter to a crocodile attack. Since then, she had been farming and spinning khadi, trying to rebuild her life. Before Amphan struck, Souravi and her neighbours were evacuated by the local authorities to wait out the cyclone in storm shelters. When the cyclone passed, she returned to the debris of what was once her home.
Souravi Roy, residing in the bank of Bidyadhari river of North 24 Parganas had been leading a lonely life after losing her husband, son and daughter to tiger attacks in 2011. Cyclone Amphon reduced her house to a rubble. Photo: By arrangement
Prasenjit Mandal, chairman of the Sunderban Foundation, said that the pressure to survive is tremendous for any family in the Sunderbans. But it is several notches higher for tiger widows who also battle post-traumatic stress. These women are the sole breadwinners of their families, usually taking care of 3-4 children and sometimes also elderly members of the family. They have already lost nearly everything once. Now, thanks to Amphan, they have to start from scratch once more.
When the villagers returned from the cyclone shelters, they were received by dead fish and farm animals, broken mud embankments, shattered roofs, damaged crops and fertile lands that had become barren with saltwater. With an impact worse than its predecessor, cyclone Aila, which ravaged West Bengal in 2009, Amphan has taken the Sunderbans back by ten years, said Sohini Datta, founder of The Dreamer’s Foundation, a group of volunteers in the Sunderbans.
Also Read: ‘Our Sundarban Is Unrecognisable’: Life After Cyclone Amphan Wrecked the Island
Socio-economic inequalities are always inflamed when there are disasters, making women and children even more vulnerable than usual. N.C. Jana, president of the Tiger Widows Welfare Society, said that rehabilitation efforts should focus on the worst affected among the people, including the tiger widows. These women had not only had to start their lives all over again, but they had struggled with starvation during the lockdown and now they have nothing. Sajida Gaji (55), from Bijaynagar village in Bali Islands lost her husband to a tiger attack eight years ago. During the lockdown, she couldn’t go out to work and survived only on occasional food packs provided by NGOs.
Children in the wreckage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Bali Islands, Sunderbans, West Bengal on May 20. Photo: By arrangement
Nature’s punching bag
In the early phase of lockdown, a group of seven men from Bijoynagar went to fetch honey. One of them was dragged away by a tiger. His wife had always been homebound with her daughters, aged fifteen and eight. Now her future is bleak. In mid-April, a young couple lost their lives to a crocodile attack. Their teenage son continues to go to the forest. He has to take care of his younger sister. This is the vicious cycle of food and tiger that continues in the Sunderbans, according to Jana.
“Their community has always been at the receiving end of the wrath of nature. Many of them have been wearing the same set of wet clothes for over a week since the cyclone. There is no drinking water. Their sanitation needs are dire. Some of them don’t have milk or food for their children. Their only comfort was the roof over their heads, but now there are no roofs. They have been saved from the cyclone, but they are devastated now,” said Subhasis Mondal.
The threat posed by the novel coronavirus is irrelevant to the residents of these villages. Social distancing is a far-fetched concept when people are on the brink of life and death. It is a herculean task for volunteers to reach people in remote locations with road connections and communication lines cut, said Sudhir Shaw from Action Aid.
Since 2018, Prasenjit Mandal has been training 500 tiger widows to keep bees, spin khadi and make leather pouches, money bags and belts in Bali Islands. “There was always the hope of getting back to work after the lockdown is lifted. But the destruction by the cyclone has ensured that around 90% per cent of the villagers have no source of income now. Farms and even self-help groups will take time to revive. It will take years to reconstruct lives. A large scale migration to cities is imminent,” he said.
Jana, who has been working with tiger widows for many years, said while the widows of Vrindavan are socially neglected, at least they are fed. “But the tiger widows face starvation. Crabbing and fishing in the Sunderbans are one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. Many of the tiger widows have children in the age group of 9-14, who are unable to continue their education after their father’s death and end up doing the same perilous jobs as their parents,” said Jana. “It is ironic how the government aggressively markets the Sunderbans as a tourism spot, but the locals struggle with primary facilities. Amphan has exposed their acute condition.”
The trail of destruction by Cyclone Amphan at Bali Islands, Sunderbans. Photo: By arrangement
Rebuild homes, reconstruct policies
Swapan Kumar Mondal from the NGO Digambarpur Angikar said that West Bengal needs tarpaulin sheets, clothes, bedsheets, sanitation products, matches, candles, biscuits, dry rations, groceries, toiletries, utensils and emergency medications. Houses must be rebuilt from scratch. “Due to the lockdown, NGOs are cash-strapped. In this unprecedented crisis, we need money and resources to reach out in time,” said Datta.
Activists from the region said the system should be rebooted keeping in mind the rights of the forest-dwellers. “In the last 20 months, we have had four cyclones. We can look at a renewed habitat reconstruction policy by focusing on cyclone resilient homes. The Sunderbans has ironically been excluded from the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which recognises the rights of forest-dwellers and dependents to live or pursue a livelihood in forests. Unless they are given the rights they deserve, their situation cannot improve in the long term,” said Chatterjee.