The Hindu Business Line : Sunderbans echoes with the chorus of jungle bachao

Fight for survival: A wild Royal Bengal Tiger hurriedly swims to get back into the forest after being cornered by the Forest Department from a village of Sunderbans in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, in this file photo.

Mohsin Hamid in his book The Reluctant Fundamentalist, mentions an evocative saying of Lahore: “The ruins proclaim the building was beautiful.” That could be appropriate for the ancient Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, lying in a hammock strung between mangroves stuck in alluvial soil and water.

At many places, one can see steel mesh and plastic nettings put up by the forest department to hold back the tigers from swimming to islands with human beings. It is bizarre and at some places the nettings have dropped into the waters and the tigers know better.

“Dukkho lage, kotho harin dekhtoom (Sad, one used to see a strong chital population in early 1990s),” remarked a villager in Bengali.

“This is Mallya’s Kingfisher country,” said Balasubramanian, as we were able to spot a few black-capped kingfisher, collared kingfisher, brown winged kingfisher and the small blue kingfisher. Floating by Hetal Bagan, one sighted a white-bellied sea eagle in flight while a brahminy kite, landed on the top of a dry tree and took off quickly; then, there were the two ospreys with one giving us a chance to click it. Yet, there are spots where the past flows into the future.

At Matla, five rivers meet – Gomti, Bidya, Khonakhali, Pirkhali and Dobanki — bearing the adjuncts of the sea in Bay of Bengal, a six-hour ride away. Possibly, Sadakkhali is a better point. The river runs a straight road. It is low tide and one can see mangroves on the silted banks standing on tall, twisted roots.

Mahadev Gayan cuts off the engine to savour the air. Our guide Niranajan Raptaan was moved to say in Bengali: “Sab ban ek bar, Sunderbans bar, bar (One visit to every forest, repeat visits to Sunderbans).” One could take in the pride of Raptaan for Sunderbans, as these are times of global development when forests are being mowed down to fill corporate balance sheets. It was at Dobanki camp that Raptaan and Anil Mistry along with Joydip Kundu, stalled an unlicensed boat carrying five young men with a radio, camera and a bottle of Officers’ Choice whisky. They were handed over to the forest department officials and fined for boating in Sunderbans.

Raptaan also got a second boat fined when one of its tourists threw a plastic bottle into the waters. It may be not be an exaggeration to say there is more plastic waste bobbing in the waters of Sunderbans than animals; at high tides, plastic waste gets caught in the branches of the mangroves and remain there fluttering like flags when the waters recede. Rarely did one note a patrol boat of the forest department.

Poaching in Sunderbans, unlike in other places, is a desperate job in a particularly hostile environment and is a poverty indicator with per capita income put at around Rs 6,000. The legs sink to the knees trying to walk the clay surface and it is hard to run on the land quilted with mangroves and a variety of sharp roots.

Perhaps, the forest department could think of taking the help of the poachers to help monitor the vast area. In the process, the poachers could think of leading normal lives like Anil Mistry, who started as a poacher to give it up in 1999. One day on a hunting trip, his friends killed a female chital leaving the fawn alone. The plight of the fawn changed Anil and today he is the representative of the Wildlife Protection Society of India in Sunderbans, apart from being the secretary of the Bali Nature & Wildlife Conservation Society. He is also a part of Help Tourism.

At Bali, Anil took us to a non-formal learning centre for poor kids who stood up on coloured small mats to offer namaste to us. The nursery school is being run by a Class 10 pass, shy, Tanima Mondal, who could not continue her studies for lack of funds. A young married woman hailed Anil and told him that she had sold everything at home to buy rice for her children. She wept and covered her eyes with the pallu of her red saree. In her mud house, one saw two children and a bucket of rice.

The farmers grow a single rice crop and there are plans to hold rainwater in ponds for a second crop including vegetables. Coming from a poor fishermen’s family, Niranjan Raptaan did not go to school; he has seen some of his relatives attacked by tigers and crocodiles though that has not made him bitter. He lives near James School, Satjelia Island, and is the best guide who knows every turn and run of the rivers and forests making up Sunderbans.

And then we met the pleasing, 53-year-old Sukumar Paira, headmaster of the Bijoynagar Adarsha Vidya Mandir, Bali island. Winner of the Sanctuary-ABN Amro Green Teacher Award for 2007, Paira has over the last 20 years put up the school mainly on voluntary donations.

He is dressed in a white dhoti with a black edge in the Bengali style, where the surplus dhoti length is thrust into the left pocket of a white jibba; possibly, the jibba holds up the dhoti.

Today, the school has been upgraded to Class 12 and imparts knowledge in Bengali to around 1,300 children. Fees are a nominal Rs 150 per year and the general attendance is good at around 90 per cent; some 10 per cent of the children stay back at home for a day or two in a week to help their parents at home; the State Government picks up the salary bill. Having done his English Honours from Contai, he settled at Bali at a time, “when the poverty was most severe.”

Sukumar Paira told this writer in Bengali: “Janina theek kochi ki na (I don’t know whether I am doing the right thing).” Paira, Raptaan, Anil and others agree on one thing: Today, there is more awareness in Sunderbans with the elders prepared to listen to the chorus of jungle bachao (save the jungle), intoned by their own children.

Sunderbans can be saved if the forest department takes their help and many others to craft a strategy to involve the community. B. Sridhar of Bengal Tiger Line believes corporates can help not only by writing cheques but also getting people in the area to work for them. This writer, however, is not sure as, going by evidence, corporates and merchant bankers have been of little help.

P. Devarajan

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