AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE SUNDARBANS OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA Annu Jalais

255 Pages·2014·40.7 MB·English

PEOPLE AND TIGERS:
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE
SUNDARBANS OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA
Annu Jalais
London School of Economics and Political Science
University of London
PhD
2004
UMI Number: U194687
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Annu Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Abstract
Abstract
This thesis examines how Sundarhans islanders living in the southern
reclaimed islands of the Bengal delta both think about and ‘interact with’ the man-
eating tigers of the region. The thesis classifies three broad occupational groups -
forest workers, prawn collectors, and landowners - and discusses how they use
different understandings of the tiger to draw distinctions between each other. It
argues that the islanders’ interactions with tigers articulate both social practices and
understandings of the social, and that attitudes to the forest/land opposition divide
people into the distinct groups of bhadralok and gramer lok. These interactions are
discussed in connection with people’s relation to their environment. The environment
is understood both as a set of narratives - about humans and tigers sharing a
cantankerous nature because of a harsh geography and of a common history of
displacement - and as a practical experience - of working in the forest as crab, fish
or honey collectors, especially by opposition to landowning cultivators. The thesis
also looks at environmentalists’ perceptions of the Sundarhans as ‘tiger-land’ and the
repercussions of such an image on state policies for the region’s people. This is
undertaken through a discussion of how the portrayal of the Sundarhans as a wildlife
area means that the Sundarhans inhabitants’ demand for a more equal allocation of
resources between them and tigers is not seen as legitimate by outsiders. Thus this
thesis, by engaging with the Sundarhans islanders’ narratives and daily experiences
of living ‘alongside tigers’, addresses the Sundarhans islanders’ social relations as
well as ideas of the social not just in relation to themselves and each other, but also
in relation to their position as a ‘collective’ and their place in the realm of the politics
of global conservation.
Annu Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Acknowledgments
Acknowledgements
It is impossible to name all those who contributed to this thesis. My deepest gratitude
is to the people of the island of Sa^elia, especially those living ‘on the river’s edge’
who welcomed me into their lives and homes. Foremost amongst them are Lilabati
and Haren Mondai, their sons, nieces and nephews - particularly Tukai - and their
respective families who provided a warm shelter and a much needed sense of
inclusion. I am also deeply grateful to Lokkhi and Binod Bera and their daughters
who opened their home and heart to me. To them and to Bimal Adhikari, Parikshit
Bar, Ranjit Ghosh, Sasadhar Giri, Sudhansu Mondai, Probhas Mondai, Murari
Mondai, Putul Mondai, Sudha & Sasanka Mridha, and Chedor Nityananda, who
introduced me to the various aspects of politics, literature or theatrical plays of the
area I shall forever remain gratefiil.
I could have never undertaken this work without the blessings, guidance and
protection of Tushar Kanjilal. ‘Mastermoshai’ - as he is affectionately known -
greatly facilitated fieldwork by generously including me in the veritable ‘movement’
for social change and greater justice he has initiated in the Sundarhans through the
NGO the Tagore Society for Rural Development. There I was fortunate to meet
Ganesh Misra who always took good care of me in Rangabelia, Isita Ray who invited
me to her Kolkata flat where our evocations of the Sundarhans always ended making
me want to return to the Sundarhans, to Dr. Amitava Chowdhury who many a times
made the Sundarhans bearable by providing good literature and an enclave of
‘Kolkataness’ in Rangabelia, and finally to Protima Misra, Lilabati Mondai,
Satyabati Mondai, Sumati Mondai, Jhama Panda, Bijoli Sarkar and Dr. Gita Sen for
conveying to me their deep sympathy and energetic struggle with and for the women
of the Sundarhans.
I owe an immeasurable amount of gratitude to P. K. Sarkar who has supported me in
countless ways throughout the duration of this research. This research would have
been much poorer without his deep insightful comments and corrections as well as
those by Fr. Beckers who always made time to tell me about his Sundarhans
experiences. I am also very thankful to Amitav Ghosh whose visits to and questions
about the Sundarhans taught me how to do better fieldwork and gain a deeper insight
into what he called, the ‘gateway cults’ of the Sundarhans. His sound advice and our
stimulating exchanges about the region have been of immense support. I shall always
remain indebted to Manju Guha-Majumder and Professor Anindya Datta for their
great generosity and encouragement. I also owe gratitude to Fr. Roberge for inviting
me to discuss the Sundarhans with his students; to William R. da Silva for sharing
his knowledge on folk studies on the tigers of the Malabar coast; and to Nazes Affoz
for clarifying many doubts and correcting countless mistakes with infinite patience.
My deep appreciation for lively conversations on the Sundarhans also goes out to
Pradip Bhattacharya, Rathindranath De, Dr. Basuri Guha, Dr. Ratna Gupta, Bonani
and Sudhir Kakkar, Shobhana Madhavan, Sanjay Mitra, Biswanath Mukheqee,
Susanta Mukhopadhyay, Pranabes Sanyal, and Ajoy Tarafdar.
I gratefully acknowledge the support from the London School of Economics, and its
generous bestowal of two studentships and research travel grants. I am also very
thankful to Madame Bemès-Lassere, Pascale and Bertrand Figarol, Jenny and
Raphael Gay, Savitri Jalais, les Amis de l’Arche for financially supporting me. The
writing-up stages of the thesis were helped by financial assistance from the Royal
Annu Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Acknowledgments
Anthropological Institute’s Radcliff-Brown Trust Fund and the LSE Malinowski
Award. This thesis would have been impossible to complete without the economic
support of these kind friends and trusting institutions.
I have been extremely fortunate to work under the supervision of Professors Chris
Fuller and Jonathan Parry. Their suggestions throughout the research have provided
the much needed focus and background for many of my arguments. I am profoundly
indebted to Henrietta Moore for her wisdom and encouragements. I have also greatly
benefited from comments and suggestions made by Professors Maurice Bloch and
Dipankar Gupta; faculty members of the department of Anthropology of the LSE;
and Dr. Shabnum Tejani and Dr. Daud Ali of the School of Oriental and Arican
Studies History Department for having invited me to give a paper based on a version
of my chapter which deals with the connection between tiger-charmers and Sufi
saints. I also particularly thank the panel organisers of *Aw(e)ful and fearful
knowledge’ [ASA, Manchester, July 2003] Alberto Corsin-Jimenez and ‘Forgetting
Bengal’ [AAA, Chicago, November 2003] Tahmima Anam for inviting me and with
whom, along with my co-panellists, it was such a pleasure presenting papers. I am
also greatly indebted to Drs. Gautam Basu & James Carrier; and Professors Partha
Chatteijee & Ralph Nicholas for having been such insightful and encouraging
discussants.
During my time doing fieldwork I was affiliated to the Anthropological Survey of
India, Kolkata, where I benefited greatly from discussions with Dr. Ranjit K.
Bhattacharya, Dr. Jayanta Sarkar, Dr. Tushar Kanti Niyogi and their colleagues. This
study owes a great deal to Dr. Gopinath Barman whose passionate narratives
introduced me to the fascinating side of Gosaba’s history. I also thank Dr. Ajit
Kumar Baneijee of the Arabari experiment fame for sharing his commitment to the
Joint Forest Management scheme which was the first to involve the local population
in a redistribution of forest resources. I also remain grateful to Dr. Bikas
Raychaudhuri for his excellent advice to follow his fieldwork experience in the
Sundarhans which was to ‘bite the earth like a tortoise and stay clinging to it for dear
life’.
The energy which sustained me during the lonely field months was generously
provided by Damayanti Lahiri aka Dodo and her magical limitless materialisation of
both tickets for cultural shows and amazing dishes which kept me tuned in and fed
while on my ‘breaks’ in Kolkata. I also remain grateful to her and to Bithi Bera,
Nivedita, Kunal Kaku, Shyam Barua and his cousin Sanjay, Stefan Ecks, Laurent
Fournier, Shyam Goswami, Amah Lahiri, Biswajit Mitra, Stefan Moulin, Iraban
Mukheijee, Amal Pandit, my parents, my siblings Savitri and Prem, and Isita Ray,
for having taken the trouble to visit me during fieldwork and for having been such
good sports. To Bhavana Krishnamoorthy, Jai Motwane, Stephen Vella and little
Vasanthi for providing some much needed moments of fun and recreation in London.
To Roseanna Pollen and Isabella Lepri for very helpful comments, references and
footnotes; to Savitri Jalais, Mandira Kalra and Viji Rajagopalan for their attentive
reading of my thesis and insightful questions; to Shyaam M.S. for his help with
genealogy; to Beverley Brown for her excellent proof reading, generosity and
patience; to Margaret Bothwell for her kind assistance; to all of you and to Mao
Mollona and Kate Wood a big thank you. Needless to say, surviving errors and
eccentricities remain my own.
Àmiu Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Acknowledgments
I cannot thank enough my dear friend Amitesh Mukheijee who provided much
needed support both in the field and during writing-up in London. Few
anthropologists are blessed with a colleague with whom exchanging field notes and
ideas is such a pleasure. These exchanges were made all the more enjoyable through
Anindita Mukheijee’s warm and restorative invitations, constant encouragement, and
wonderful sense of humour.
To Kriti Kapila for giving me numerous opportunities to hone my skills in
argumentation and critical thinking, and for her timely and generous succour every
time I needed it; to didi, and more, Moushumi Bhowmik who kept me going with her
songs and her faith in me; and to Murali Shanmugavelan, for bringing back passion
and enthusiasm in debates on political and social issues and giving me very critical
feedback on my thesis and for always managing to boost my sagging morale, I shall
always remain forever indebted.
This work is a tribute to my childhood friend Toofan, named after a typhoon, and to
the countless others who lost their lives or loved ones to tigers, crocodiles, snakes
and cyclones; to them and to those who during my fieldwork in the Sundarhans
infused life and love; and to the persons who sensitized me to it all:
My father, for introducing me to the Sundarhans through his extraordinary stories
and his passion to put right some of the social injustices of the world, and for always
believing in me.
My mother, for her loving presence and wonderful letters and for exclaiming in
dismay, when coming across my first ever attempt at story-writing, ‘but darling, why
didn’t you write about the tiger?’
...it took a long time to write again; now more than twenty years later, I would like
this renewed attempt, finally also about the tiger, to be a mark of love and respect to
both my mother and father.
Amiu Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS Pagg
Abstract 02
Acknowledgements 03
List of Figures 08
Note On Transliteration 09
I. ‘IN THE SUNDARBANS, WE AND THE TIGERS CONNIVE
12
TOGETHER’
I. 1. The Sundarhans: between land and water, a forest and a region 13
I. 2. Description of the village and the people 20
I. 2. a. Gaijontola 21
I. 2. b. The Gaijontola islanders 22
I. 2. c. The bhadralok versus the gramer lok 24
I. 3. Introducing the three main socio-economic groups 25
I. 3. a. The forest workers and poachers 27
I. 3. b. The prawn collectors 28
I. 3. c. The landowners 29
I. 3. d. Concluding remarks on the groups’ interactions with land and
forest
I. 4. Approaching the Sundarhans through the forest fishers’
understandings of tigers 31
I. 5. Entering the field (and the forest) 35
I. 6. Thesis structure 43
II. JUGGLING WITH TERRITORIES AND IDENTITIES :THE 46
VILLAGE AND THE FOREST
II. 1. Land and its particular history in the Sundarhans 49
II. 2. The peculiar history of the Hamilton islands 52
n. 3. The multiple meanings of jati and dharma and their import in the
55
social interactions of the inhabitants of Gaijontola
n. 3.a. Jati 60
n. 3. b. Dharma 65
n. 4. The politics of homestead location 70
n. 5. Conclusion 75
Annu Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Table of Contents
III. IS SALT WATER THICKER THAN BLOOD? NEGOTIATING 76
THE SOLIDARITIES OF ‘ELECTED’ RELATIONSHIPS
III. 1. Introducing the realm of the forest 77
111. 2. Bonbibi - the adoptive mother of tigers and forest fishers 82
III. 3. The tiger-charmer: being egalitarian and controlling violence 86
ni. 4. Practical relations between forest fishers, prawn collectors,
landowners
ni. 5. The forest and its ‘levelling’ effect 97
III. 6. The ‘comings and goings’ of relatives 100
m. 7. Can salt water be thicker than blood? 104
III. 8. Conclusion 110
IV. SHARING HISTORY WITH TIGERS: NAVIGATING THE m
CONTIGENCIES OF A HARSH PAST
rv. 1. A shared history of fleeing 112
IV. 2. Charm-slinging competitions with tigers 114
IV. 3. Of fakirs and tigers 118
rv. 4. Are today’s tiger-charmers the spiritual descendants of the ^22
Sufi pirs?
rv. 5. Contrasting Bonbibi with the state 125
rv. 6. Sundarhans tigers: ‘natural’ man-eaters? 133
rv. 7. An interview with the tiger 135
IV. 8. Conclusion 139
V. ROUGHING IT OUT WITH KALI: BRAVING CROCODILES, 142
RELATIVES AND THE BHADRALOK
V. 1. A Hindu-Muslim marriage and its aftermath 143
V. 2. Women and prawn seed collection in Gaijontola: practicalities ^49
and dilemmas
V. 3. Roughing it out with Kali 154
V. 4. The ‘Blue Revolution’ in the poverty-stricken land of the ‘living ^53
dollars’
V. 5. Kali - the ‘progressive’ yet disruptive one 161
V. 6. Replacing Bonbibi with Kali 165
V. 7. Conclusion 168
Ainni Jalais People and tigers in the Sundarhans Table of Contents
VI. OF BHADRALOK TIGERS AND TIGER-FOOD VILLAGERS 170
VI. 1. We ‘are’ tigers 171
VI. 2. State-making in the Sundarhans 176
VI. 3. Growing environmental degradation in the Sundarhans 181
VI. 4. The importance of taking part in ‘party politics’ 183
VI. 5. The brutal evacuation of East Bengali refugees from ^85
Marichjhapi
VI. 6. Marichjhapi: a double betrayal 190
VI. 7. Conclusion: is the tiger the bhadraloks’ animal silencing the ^94
voices of the subaltern?
VII. CONCLUSION: BENEATH THE TIGER MASK, THE HUMAN
196
FACE OF THE SUNDARBANS
VII. 1. Are tigers, finally, good to think with? 197
VII. 2. Whose Sundarhans and whose tiger story? 200
Vn. 3. Tigers and Sundarhans islanders: sets of ‘conniving 204
collectives’?
Glossary of terms and acronyms 208
Bibliography 228