Fishes and Forest: Survival and Resilience in the Lower Bengal Delta

This paper focuses on the mangrove forests, commonly called the Sunderbans, in the lower Bengal
delta, in the age of the British empire. Based on archival research and oral history interviews, it
traces the long history of environmental transformations on this mangrove coast. It brings to the

fore the changing lifeworlds of itinerant forest users like fishers, boaters, woodcutters, honey-
collectors, who were most intimately connected with this environment. Land reclamation, rice

cultivation, salt manufacture and forest conservation transformed this dynamic land and
waterscape. The colonial state’s proprietorial claims on Sunderbans’forest and waters gave a short
shrift to the presence of forest-dependent communities. They depended on the jungle for their
sustenance. Colonial officials emphasized that Sunderbans was uncivilized and uninhabited. I
study proprietorial categories and legal practices to understand the making of colonial power in
this swampy marshland. The ossification of state power strengthened the hold of native
powerholders over lower caste forest users. The colonial state did not recognize the prescriptive
rights of forest-dependent peoples. The forest was unequivocally declared state property in 1828.
The Crown held Sunderbans’ tidal waters on behalf of the public. This impinged on woodcutters’
and fishers’ right to go into the jungle to collect forest produce. This inexorable tension between
colonial interests and forest lifeways shaped rights making in the Sunderbans. This history sheds
light on the survival and resilience of forest-dependent peoples who negotiated and resisted
colonial power. Today Sunderbans is acutely vulnerable in the context of climate change. Rising
sea levels threaten this mangrove coast. The courage of forest-dependent peoples can show us the way amidst the despair and gloom of climate change discourses.