Sundarban bioreserve

Sundarban is the world's largest prograding delta at the mouth of three great rivers, the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna, which converge at the basin of the Bay of Bengal. It covers an area of 10,284 km², of which 41.5% is in India and 58.5% in Bangladesh (Fig. 1). The forest extends over 200 islands, separated by 15 major rivers and 400 interconnected network of tidal waterways that support the largest tidal mangrove forest in the world. The name Sundarban (Beautiful Forest) is derived from the mangrove tree Heritiera fomes, which has spectacular yellow-orange flowers, and is locally called Sundari.

Figure 1.

The combined Sundarban.

The Indian Sundarban (Fig. 2) lies between 21^°31’ to 22^°53'N and 88^°37 to 89^°09'E and comprises 19 community development blocks - 13 under South 24 Parganas and 6 under North 24 Parganas district (covering 190 Gram Panchayats [GPs] in 1,064 villages with a total area of 9,630 km²) of West Bengal state. The Sundarban bioreserve is one of the most important biodiversity (both aquatic and terrestrial) treasures of the world with approximately 84 different mangroves and mangrove-associated vegetation as well as over 1,500 species of fauna.²⁰ It is the largest tidal halophytic mangrove reserve in the world, and UNESCO declared Sundarban National Park a World Heritage site in 1987 (Bangladesh Sundarban in 1997). In 1989 it was further designated as a Biosphere Reserve under the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme. The Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, which covers 9,630 km² and includes 5,400 km² of nonforest area, covers the delta south to the Dampier-Hodges line and includes the SRF, Tiger Reserve, and human settlements.

Figure 2.

Indian Sundarban (not to scale).

Sundarban tiger reserve

Established in 1973, it covers an area of 2,584.89 km² (forest cover 1,680 km² and water cover 905 km²) and is located a little south of the Tropic of Cancer between 21^°32‘-22^°40’ N and 88^°05‘-88^°10’ E. It has three designated zones: core or wilderness zone: 1,330.12 km²; primitive zone (inside core): 124.40 km²; subsidiary wilderness zone: 241.07 km², and buffer zone (1,255 km²) (Fig. 3). The area supports the subcontinent's largest population of the critically endangered species of Royal Bengal Tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), which are well known for their reputation as man-eaters and are also well known for their long-distance swimming and extraordinary migrating behavior from island to island (even between India and Bangladesh), expert climbing, and ecoadaptive behaviors with dynamic intertidal habitat change (amphibious life).²¹ A recent camera trap count shows the number of tigers in the region at 103, ie, 20 tiger per every 20 km² of the STR.²² The north-west side of the STR is surrounded by many villages (0.22 million people are living in 66 mouzas within only 2 km of the Tiger Reserve buffer zone), thus making the reserve ever more vulnerable to ever increasing biotic interference in the form of livelihood forest explorations, illegal fishing, timber smuggling, and poaching.²³

Figure 3.

STR with study mouzas (1, 2).

The official record shows that on average 10-15 people are annually killed by tigers in the STR.²⁴ In Bangladesh Sundarban, there are generally thought to be anywhere between 335 and 500 tigers (2004 count and annual monitoring since 2007),²⁵ and on average, about 80 people are killed annually by tigers.²⁶ Straying of tigers into the close vicinity of fringe villages is also raising the potential for HTCs²⁷ and indeed is now becoming quite frequent in both the Sundarbans. In Indian Sundarban, the annual mean frequency of tiger straying is 15.8 during the period 2002-2009.²⁴ In Bangladesh, between July 2008 and 2010, tigers visited human habitats 123 times, of those, five died from retaliatory killing, while 51 people and 36 livestock were killed by the tigers.²⁸

Study block

Gosaba block (Fig. 4) is at the extreme eastern corner of the Sundarban region close to the international border with Bangladesh. It is the last inhabited island before reaching the deep Sundarban forest. It is located at 22^°16’ N 88^°80’ E and has an average elevation of 13 feet from the sea level. It has 14 GPs, democratically elected local self-government units, of which 8 GPs are facing the STR buffer zone (and partly the Core area). They are separated by the Gomdi, Gomor, Sajina, and Melmel rivers. The 2001 census showed that it has a population of 222,764 (male 113,827 and female 108,937). Gosaba is the most poor and underdeveloped block in Sundarban and has a significant proportion of its population living out an existence on forest resources.

Figure 4.

Gosaba Block with study mouzas – Satjelia and Lahiripur.

People and livelihoods

Sundarban is one of the poorest and highest population density regions of South Asia, with an estimated 8 million people (India and Bangladesh combined) dependent on its fragile ecosystem. The population of Sundarban is heterogeneous, with a high influx of immigration from other parts of India and Bangladesh. This unprecedented population growth in the region (from 1.16 million in 1951 to 3.76 million in 2001) has not only reduced the amount per capita of cultivable land but has also created both overcrowding and high rates of unemployment. In addition to the challenges facing the people of this region and the subdivision and fragmentation of landholding either through property division or climatic destruction (land erosion), the landed households have gradually turned marginal and were no longer able to be sustained through agriculture alone. In fact, the agricultural land area, measured in 2009, had shrunk from 2,149.615 km² in 2002 to 1,691 km², a loss of 246 km². As a consequence of this, fishing and other forest-based living have become the occupation for these islanders.

The people of Sundarban live in an ecologically vulnerable environment. The area is prone to cyclones, and often supercyclones will occur.²⁹ It is monsoonal and low-lying with many human settlements located alongside the waterways and coast-line. The man-made river embankment (3,500 km) serves both as a flood defense wall and also to protect the agricultural land and human settlements from diurnal tidal surges. The mean tidal amplitude of Sundarban region is between 5.22 mm and 3.14 mm/year, which is much higher than the national average of 1.06-1.75 mm/year.³⁰ The embankment built to hold these tides back often ruptures and pushes saline water on to the agricultural land. This causes serious damage to crops, property, and the lives of inhabitants, often leading to internal displacement, social vulnerabilities, and livelihood crisis.³¹

Hindus are the predominant religious group in the region, followed by Muslims, and 36.5% of the population belongs to a scheduled caste and tribe. Seventy-eight percent of the economy and 65% of workers are dependent on agriculture (mainly rain-fed mono-cropping). Of the workers, 50% are landless agricultural laborers and marginal farmers. This high percentage of landless agricultural laborers substantiates the level of poverty in the region. It has exerted a negative impact on the economy of the fringe population as well. More than half of the workers (52.3%) in agriculture and fishing are daily-wage laborers. Agriculture is hard and risky work with low cropping intensity because of the high salinity to be found in the soil, irrigation constraints (only 12% cultivable land is irrigated), frequent seasonal variations, and climatic incidents resulting in crop failure.^32,33 During the agricultural lean season, more people resort to forest-based livelihood activities (fishing and collection of prawn seeds and honey) and subsequently risking their lives to man-eating tigers, crocodiles, and sharks. Low prey-density and physical disability also encourages tigers to stray into the fringe villages (Fig. 5), which precipitates both livestock killing and HTC (2). During the years 2004-2006, the villages that evidenced tiger straying (more than once) is marked in Figure 2 (no. 3-7).

Figure 5.

Participatory mapping of ecostress in Dayapur-Lahiripur area, Gosaba.

Sundarban then is a severely underdeveloped region with a very poor quality of life for its inhabitants.³⁴ Forty percent of the population of South 24 Parganas district lives within the boundary of the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve. Population density has increased from 934 per km² in 2001 to 1,082 per km² in 2011. The population of Sundarban, especially those of the island blocks around forests (Gosaba, Basanti, Kultoli, Patharpratima, and Namkhana), are also, when considered against the Human Development Index, the most backward in terms of most of the components of the Index (0.55 in contrast to 0.62 of the district). The stark underdevelopment of Sundarban is also further reflected in the facts that 44% of the population is living below the poverty line (BPL) (3) and 87% of the people suffer food insecurity, 60% households have no access to safe drinking water, 70% of the families live in thatched mud houses, and 47.6% household have no land.³⁵ The level of literacy (77.1% state, >35% in Sundarban) and per capita income of the Sundarban resident is accordingly much below the state average. Rural Household Survey conducted in 2005 showed that in South 24 Parganas district more than 400,000 households are BPL and thus making the poverty ratio (% of household) to 34.11%, which is far above the state as well as national poverty ratio. In all the 13 blocks of Sundarban, the poverty ratio is above 30% and that for Gosaba is 38.03%.³⁶ The infrastructural facilities are extremely poor, there is no industry, the communication and transport networks are very poor, and electricity is almost nonexistent in this region (only 17% households have grid connectivity). Health care is poor and inadequate,³⁷ and nearly 33% of the population do not even have access to primary health care.

For all these reasons outlined above, the dependence therefore of the fringe population in Sundarban on ecoresources is high. Of the 4.1 million people live in Sundarban³⁸ (3.5 million in Bangladesh), 32% depend on the resources of Sundarban mangrove forest directly or indirectly. The main forest-based livelihood groups are described below.

Honey collectors

(from the beehives of Apis indica). This is a seasonal group activity. Usually a team of 8-10 members is lead by a Moulay (also called Moule or Mouli) into the forest. Moulays are those indigenous people known for their traditional wisdom and expertise. They are also especially skilled persons in identifying good beehives (by observing the flying directions of bees) in the dense forest, and they are skilled in beehive cutting and the honey collection technique. As with the Boulay, the Moulay is also believed to possess supernatural powers to prevent tiger attacks by their rituals and chants.⁴² Honey collection is highly dangerous as it takes place directly in the tiger habitat (Fig. 6). About 3% of the population is involved in this activity, and on an average, 200 quintals of honey and 1,000 kg of wax are collected annually.⁴³ Because of the high risk to life from tiger attacks, snake bites, and climatic hazards, recently many of the Moulays have been moving away from their traditional practice and are now moving on to other livelihood options.⁴⁴ Both Boulays and Moulays are magico-religious people in the same traditional manner of a forest Shaman or Fakir.⁴ They are seen as guardians during any forest trip and are highly respected in the community.

Figure 6.

A Moulay of Pakhiralaya village, who survived a tiger attack in the SRF, showing the mark of the attacks.

Bonobibi and the Tiger God

The people of Sundarban, both Hindus and Muslims together, have a strong faith in the folk cult of Bonobibi (the Queen of the forest), as the guardian deity of the forest together with the Tiger God under the name Dakkhin Ray (Lord of the South). The iconography of Bonobibi differs as to the faith of the followers: The Hindu idol is wearing shari, a crown, and garland, carrying a club and trishul, with a baby and riding a tiger (Fig. 7). Sundraban islanders perceive Bonobibi as the unified symbol of the forest and the people, and she stands beyond any caste, class, and religion.⁵¹ In each Sundarban village, there is a sacred Bonobibi shrine or Than, and at different entrance points to the SRF, there are idols of Bonobibi to be found. The Bonobibi Puja is a big social festival throughout Sundarban and is celebrated in December every year.

Figure 7.

Bonobibi idol at Gosaba village.

Before entering the forest for fishing, harvesting honey, or wood cutting, it is obligatory to offer puja and pray to the Deity asking to keep them protected from tigers. Invocation of the Tiger God is also a mandatory ritual for safe passage throughout the Sundarban forest territory. His idol shows him as a young man kneeling down on the tiger, his mount. While inside the forest people will never utter the word Tiger, but to show reverence, they will refer to them as Bara Miah (Big Uncle), Boro-Babu (Big Mister), or Boro-Thakur (Big Lord). It is believed that Boulays and Moulays possess their supernatural powers of protection because they have been blessed with the divine power of Bonobibi and Dakkhin Ray.

Study area

The study was carried out in three hamlets (Kathuriapara, Jalepare, and Bidhabapara) in Satjelia and in two hamlets (Bidhan colony, Jamespur) in the Lahiripur mouza of Gosaba block. Both the villages are situated on the Melmel riverbank opposite to the core area of SRF (Fig. 8).

Figure 8.

Study mouzas and hamlets.

Study design

Primarily an ethnographic method was followed in this study. Ethnography is an anthropological research method that aims to understand people within their social and cultural contexts.⁵³ It attempts to study the cultural system in terms of local context, processes, and meaning of events and experiences within the cultural system. It involves both emic and etic perspectives of a cultural phenomena.⁵⁴ Ethnography is a collection of qualitative research methods that focus on the close observation of social practices and by individual or group interactions help to develop an insight how and why a social process occurs and influence others.⁵⁵

A mix of both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this research, and the primary aim of the study was to explore comprehensively the nature and extent and impact of human–animal conflicts in the Sundarban village's proximity to the SRF. Two villages (Satjelia and Lahiripur) were selected, and in five hamlets, a door-to-door survey of 3,084 households was carried out, along with focus group discussions (FGDs), participatory mapping, and in-depth interviews (IDI) of index cases (65 widows); the data on human–animal conflicts have been reported earlier.⁵⁶ The secondary part consisted of an in-depth study of the particular stigma suffered by 49 widows (those who were willing to be interviewed), whose husbands had been killed by tigers (32 were from Satjelia and 17 from Lahiripur) and had been identified in the previous survey, which was primarily a quantitative study done by using a Stigma questionnaire. Clinical examinations of the mental health problems suffered by 54 widows (those who were willing to be examined) were also carried out. Concurrently, in the third part, an ethnographic study was conducted on these 54 widows. This was to complement the information already received in parts one and two, but also to highlight the related stigma and local psychosocial issues in relation to the tiger killings. The number of widows studied varies in different steps as some of them declined to be interviewed or examined. This study was conducted in the period 2005-2007. The study protocol was approved by the Ethical Committee of State Health System Development Project, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal. This research complied with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

In-depth interviews

An ethnographic case study approach was adopted for these interviews. The research team stayed within the community and attempted to blend in with the target population. In this way, it was possible to gain local sociocultural insights from the community through both participation and observation and to note the key informant's guidance and to explore local tacit knowledge. The interviews were detailed and lengthy and were conducted over several sessions in 2-3 days. The purpose of the interview and any confidentiality matters were explained to all the widows. All the widows to be interviewed gave written consent (by thumb impression) for the interviews to be recorded and transcribed at a later point. Several long sessions (2-3 hours) of IDI with the widows at their cottages, or in the community was done, in which the focus was on the details of the tiger attack incident and its aftermath including the grief and bereavement process, any resulting stigma and social discrimination issues, and the state of their current health and livelihood assets. They were all encouraged to give a spontaneous and detailed account of their stigma-related life events and all were very cordial and open-minded. They documented the community's discrimination and their experiences frankly and in a heart-touching way. The assessment of their current economic status was done by using a three-point scale: (1) monthly income below Rs. 300 (US$ 6); (2) between Rs. 301-500 (US$ 7-10), and (3) Rs. 501-1,000 and above (US$ 11-20+). Six IDI were also recorded by willing Boulays and Moulays (three each) and another two IDI from the Sarpa-Baidyas.

Focus group discussion

Two FGDs with tiger-widows (groups of 10) were held, and two more were held with villagers (mixed groups of 10 people: wood cutter, TPS collector, honey and crab collector, apiary keeper, Boulay, Sarpa-Baidya, fisherman, primary School teacher. and Panchayat member). One each in Satjelia and Lahiripur was conducted to frame the Stigma questionnaire and to gain practical insight into the problem of HTC in the area, as well as the community attitudes toward tiger attacks, and also included some participatory mapping. The selection of the FGD participants was done on the basis of suggestions from the key informant and also their willingness and agreement to signing (or thumb impression on) the consent form. The FGDs were tape-recorded and then later transcribed.

Stigma measurement

There is no reference to stigma assessment related to animal attacks in any of the literature. The conceptual framework for devising the Stigma Scale in this study, therefore, was taken from the model of HIV Stigma, Scale of Berger et al.⁵⁷ and used the related dimensions from the recent stigma literature,^58–5960 the detailed findings of which were reported elsewhere (under publication). After repeated discussions about the issues related to each item in the four FGDs, these were then framed according to the local situational and cultural context. The final scale, in the vernacular thus was made up of 28 items distributed in six clusters. Responses were elicited in a four-point Likert scale from Disagree (0) to Strongly Agree (3). The stigma score ranged from 0 to 84 with higher scores indicating greater stigma. In order to be able to draw a comparison, two groups of widows were taken as follows: 32 normal widows, whose husbands has died either normally or from physical diseases and were identified from Satjelia, Lahiripur, Dayapur, Sadhupur, and Gosaba Panchayat area (Fig. 2), 21 of them consented to be interviewed on stigma-related issues. Twenty-four widows whose husbands had died from snake bites in the same villages were identified, and 18 of them consented to be interviewed. An effort was made to keep a similar age range of the comparison groups with that of the index group.

Participatory mapping

It is an important tool in qualitative research and is a useful method of communication. Theme-based maps help to depict local knowledge and information concerning a local problem. It helps to explore community perception and their experience of their environment and also enhances stakeholder involvement in the research process.⁶¹ In this study, 20 participatory maps were drawn on different issues; for example, the known spots of tiger entry on the river bank and different ecological stresses (Fig. 5), the straying tiger attack (Fig. 12), the location of the Sarpa-Baidya/Ojha, and the widow hamlets in the village (Figs. 5, 11). All these map narratives provided a rich and useful vein of information about the community's perception of HTC set in the context of their local ecocultural landscape of Sundarban, which helped to develop an emic insight about the ecopsychiatric relation between the people and their environment.

Mental health assessment

A mental health assessment of the widows was an integral part of this research protocol, and a detailed mental state examination was carried out for each consenting widow and, based on their psychological distress and specific mental symptoms, a psychiatric diagnosis as per Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) guideline⁶² was given where applicable. This was performed jointly by a professor and consultant psychiatrist (ANC) together with a senior psychiatry postgraduate trainee (AB).

Ethical approval

The study protocol was approved by the Ethical Committee of Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal, and Gosaba Block Panchayat Samity (1).

Ecodemography of tiger attacks and tiger-widows

Current occupation

Among 57 widows (Table 1), 17 (30%) are engaged in some forest-based livelihood activities, 26 (45.5%) are engaged in various labor-based jobs, 11 (19.3%) are not working (being looked after by their sons and daughters or other relatives), and 3 (5.2%) have to earn their living by begging.

Table 1

Current occupation of the tiger-widows (n = 57).

Stigma assessment

Results from a one-way analysis of variance indicated significant differences in stigma scores between different widow groups (Table 2). Tukey's post hoc comparisons indicated that tiger-widows had significantly higher scores compared to both normal and snake-bite widows on all stigma clusters and total score. Stigma did not differ significantly between normal widows and snake-bite widows, except for the spiritual dimension score where snake-bite widows had significantly higher scores.

Table 2

Difference in stigma scores among widow groups.

Current mental health

The mental health condition of the 54 widows showed that 24 (44.4%) were suffering from a designated mental illnesses, of which most were major depressive disorders (MDD) including recurrent MDD (14.8%), dysthymic disorder (11.1%), and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (5.5%). In all, 11 (45.8%) widows who had been diagnosed with a mental illness agreed to receive treatment. Funding for appropriate initial treatment was consequently given from the research fund. Table 3 shows the diagnostic distribution along with some relevant psychosocial findings and life events.

Table 3

Mental health problems of the tiger-widows (n = 54).

Psychological impact

Losing one's spouse is, without question, among the most tragic of life events. The psychological impact in terms of bereavement and grief, coping with what has happened, and the extreme feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and guilt are often gradually normalized by family and social support. Grief, it is well known, has important emotional, psychological, and physical dimensions,⁶⁵ whereas mourning is the varied and diverse social expression of grief, which can include overt expressions, loud crying, angry outbursts, repetitive uttering about the deceased, etc., all of which expressions can be immensely beneficial to the one experiencing grief. Bereavement is the objective situation of someone who has experienced deprivation through the loss of a valued person.⁶⁶ The nature and extent of grieving, mourning, and the process of bereavement which will normally follow the local cultural norms, as well as the beliefs and values and expectations of the society, are all denied to the tiger-widows in Sundarban. These processes are blocked and the widows are inhibited from displaying any normal expressions. Following are some consequences leading from a death by tiger attack that have negatively impacted the grief–mourning–bereavement cycle of some of the tiger-widows who were interviewed:

Mental health

Women in Sundarban have a very poor quality of life with multiple psychosocial stressors and hardships.⁷⁰ They are poorly educated and have very limited access to resources and services. Early marriage through the dowry system (the age of female marriage is as low as 14 years with the first child then born at 16 years) is still common, and the overall male domination in society is often characterized by the husband's frequent harmful use of alcohol^71,72 and domestic violence.⁷³ This results in the local women dealing with unusually high levels of stress, and this is reflected in the high number of deliberate self-harmers we see among the young wives.^74,75 It is also reported that women in Sundarban are suffering from a disproportionate number of mental illnesses, notably depression, when compared to the national averages.^76,77

The present study highlighted a high proportion of mental illness among the tiger-widows with a variety of adverse life events. In all, 44% of the tiger-widows in this study (n = 54) were suffering from designated mental illnesses like major depressive disorder, dysthymia, recurrent MDD, PTSD, and generalized anxiety disorder. It seems from the history of their lives, these conditions are closely related with their husbands’ deaths, along with the consequent psychosocial and economic stress of widowhood. The enduring social stigma surrounding tiger killing haunts them over a long period of time and has impacted negatively and widely on their well-being, it affects child rearing, the marriage negotiations of daughters, and the physical security of themselves and their children. Analysis of attack-related events has shown some cultural vulnerability issues to be present as well, for example, in the case of one widow whose husband had been a Boulay and in another the victim's elder brother was a Boulay, who was also present in the team. Another widow's husband had been a Moulay. Being Boulay or Moulay and to be killed by the tiger is believed to be not only a great misfortune but also casts a strong sense of religious sinfulness as they are usually held to be the spiritual protector from such attacks. One of the widows later discovered that her husband had died not because of tiger attack but he had received severe head injuries from a fellow fisherman's bamboo strike during the fight with the tiger. She has had to suppress the truth of this homicide for obvious social reasons and as a result has suffered from chronic dysthymic mood. Another of the widows, with dysthymia, has attempted suicide by hanging. One of the widows also reported confronting the tiger as it attacked her husband and she has suffered since from complicated grief with chronic and disabling PTSD syndrome. PTSD symptoms of events like these will generally involve flashbacks of the mutilated body of their husband, fearful memories of the day of the event or the attack scene, and even subsequent avoidance of forest- or river-based activities.⁷⁸ Widows who were infertile throughout their marriage or women who subsequently gave birth to a posthumous child (which happened in the case of two of the widows) experienced chronic dysthymia and enduring social stigma as a result. Infertility is culturally considered to be a curse and childless women are severely ostracized in the community. They are locally called banja (a discourteous slang term) and are considered as inauspicious and are consequently not invited to weddings or community gatherings. They are also forbidden to touch or cuddle young kids of others.

Physical health

Physical health is, as we know well, strongly associated with proper nutrition and health care. Unfortunately the access to either was severely limited for our tiger-widows because of the extreme economic hardship and poverty. Those who had children to raise, often offered the major portion of the food to their children, keeping themselves either starved or semistarved. While formal physical health checks were not included as a part of this study, it was quite apparent that many widows were suffering from poor nutrition, gastrointestinal problems, and osteoarthritis (mostly back and knee joints), and a few also presented with hypertension, cataracts, skin diseases, and neurological (hearing, visual, or sensory) disabilities. During the survey period, one of the widows died from a combination of medical and neurological pathology. Sadly, acute poverty, chronic under-nutrition, and social neglect are the usual contributory factors to disability and death among the widows of India. One study shows, unsurprisingly, that mortality rates in India are 85% higher for widows when compared to married women.⁷⁹

Physical abuse

There was also ample evidence of physical abuse to the tiger-widows. Several of them were physically beaten by their in-laws, particularly by the mother-in-law (17%-31.5%) and some by neighbors (6%-11.1%) over some domestic disputes. Four widows had been beaten by their own son and daughter-in-law and one at a place of employment. Two widows were driven out from their home as well. One widow said: “If my husband were alive, no one in this area would have dared to raise their hand to me. My husband would have killed them, if they did. But now I have no one to protect me”. Loss of a husband means loss of social protection too. Another widow lamented: “After his death, one person from other village came and demanded some money, which he said my husband borrowed from him. I had no knowledge of such debt. When I declined to pay, as I had no money, he ranted abuse and even attacked me. I shouted for help but no one came to rescue me. He then took away one of my goats by force. I was so helpless. My husband would never have let this happen to me”.

Sexual abuse

Sexual abuse is a very private and confidential issue in the Sundarban community. People avoid discussion of the subject, but it seems that the tiger-widows, more especially the younger ones, do suffer such humiliation and insult silently. One widow disclosed that she had received a proposal from a comparatively wealthier married fisherman of the village. He had wanted to keep her as his mistress and promised to pay her some maintenance money. This proposition seemed to her as too humiliating as well as socially forbidden, so she refused. Another widow, of comparatively a younger age, was regularly sexually harassed by her brother-in-law, probably at the instigation of her mother in-law. She had not informed anyone of it because of fear and the potential social humiliation. For the younger widows, it would seem that sexual abuse and molestation is not infrequent. There are also some reports³⁶ that younger women are becoming the victims of trafficking and have been recorded as lost.

Economic impact

The tiger-widows are, quite literally, a marginal population. Among the 53 widows, over half (56.3%) were living BPL. In actuality, this means that they are living in dire poverty. This is, of course, one of the reasons that in 67.2% families, the husbands were illegal forest workers as they had no money to pay for the registration fees. In all our cases, the husband was the main earner for the family, so after their death, these women were thrown into unimaginable poverty. Some of the widows have young children, and this sudden financial crisis prompted sending the children out to work to try and ensure the family's survival. For 86% of our widows in this study, their in-laws denied any financial responsibility for the widow or their children. Only 12 (22.7%) of the widows get some financial help from their own parents. Among those families of men killed while legally being in the forest, only a few received any compensation money. Others were cheated out of their insurance money by some middleman (broker). The tiger-widows, as has been said, are generally illiterate and unskilled, and so only physical labor and manual work would be open to these women as earning opportunities. Unfortunately, in this remote island there are no job opportunities existing. In all, 29.8% of the widows are engaged in some form of forest-based living and others earned a meager amount by TPS collection, cow-dung cake preparation and selling, cattle or pig grazing, or a day-labor job (paying Rs. 16-20/day). A few were fortunate to have been employed as maid-servants in some well-off families (paying Rs. 20-30/month), especially fortunate when tiger-widows are generally widely regarded as heavily stigmatized, evil and cursed. Thus, there are not many people even willing to employ them. It is not a surprise, therefore, that 5.2% of the widows earn their livelihood by begging. To put these women's earnings into perspective; the rate of cattle grazing is Rs. 2 per head of cattle, one widow has 10 cattle to graze and she earns Rs. 20/month (1 US$ = Rs. 50 approx.). Only a minority (10.8%) had some agricultural land, and they somehow survived by engaging in hard agricultural work.

Stigma and discrimination

Stigma measurement showed that the tiger-widows are more stigmatized than both normal and snake-bite widows. Tiger-widows showed significantly higher stigma scores on all the clusters (fear, negative feelings, disclosure, discrimination, community attitudes, and spiritual dimension) as well as total scores (65.9 ± 9.8) than from both normal (35.8 ± 8.0) and snake-bite widows (40.1 ± 7.1) and this difference was highly significant (P < 0.001). It is interesting to note that in cases of tiger-widows (in contrast to other widows including normal widows), a social belief and superstition relating to tiger attack/killing is operative as a strong determinant of stigma. The construction of stigma followed a two-fold interdependent process using the backdrop of local cultural context. The first component is the deep belief and religio-spiritual faith in the cult of Bonobibi and the Tiger God and the second is its extension as a behavioral reflection in the form of the labeling, blaming, and consequent discrimination of tiger-widows by family and the community at large.

Spiritual dimension of tiger attack

The concept of the forest is a key element in the worldview of the Sundarban islanders. They believe that badabon (the Mangrove forest) is a sacred entity – a gift from God, the abode of the Goddess Bonobibi and the reservoir of their food and woods which are so vital for their survival. All community life in these remote disconnected, poverty-stricken islands, including rituals, customs, and psychological make-up, livelihood resources, and the forest, are interblended into a matrix of ecology, culture, and spirituality. These interactions have generated a socially accepted context of myth and supernaturalism that directs their existential worldview and value system.⁸⁰ This has helped to develop an environmental culture where they acknowledge their destiny with a mix of grace and threat centering around the dense and mysterious forest and rivers in which they live. This is a long-standing tradition that has been passed from generation to generation. Symbolically, the forest stands as ecomother; as one woodcutter said in one of the FGD's: “We live on forest, we should always pay reverence to Ma (Bonobibi) and the Borothakur (Tiger) in any forest activities; they will definitely keep us safe. There are many instances when people were saved by her grace from an imminent tiger attack … tiger simply observed (the woodcutter) like a tame animal and went away silently. So we always offer prayer and puja to Bonobibi and Dakkhin Ray not only before entering forest but also pray daily during our forest activities. If THEY (high reverence) are pleased then we are safe”. Another Boulay commented: “forest is our second mother, who provides us our food, fish, and fire-woods–forest is sacred and respectable and always cares for us, …it is by the grace of Ma Bonobibi we are living on her products, if she is pleased, there will be no danger in the forest as tigers’ are her pets, but if she is angry she will destroy us”. This claimed psychic interconnectedness with the forest has developed over the centuries of human habitation in the region (1770-1773 saw the first efforts to reclaim forest land in Sundarban, where people put up their settlements by clearing the deep and dangerous forest),⁸¹ and in time, has evolved into a forest religion where Bonobibi, as protector, stands as the personification of the forest who offers security to them.⁸² This belief is deeply ingrained in their social and cultural life.⁸³ The cult of Bonobibi and the Tiger God Dakkhin Ray⁸⁴ offer a strong psychological defense and dependence to overcome the daily struggle with life in the difficult terrain of Sundarban. This ethos and psychic conviction is well illustrated in the most common prayer of the forest goers: “Otho otho Ma Bonbibi, tomar namey baralam pa/Amar ei lokjoner opor je debe gha, tarey tui dhore dhore kha”. [Arise, O Mother Bonobibi, I step forward in your name/Whoever tries to harm my people, hunt him down and eat his flesh].⁸⁵ It is appropriate to mention here that Islam and Cheunpagdee⁸⁶ depicted a similar pattern of cultural beliefs and psychic dependence on Bonobibi to mitigate the fear and risk related to tiger attacks from their ethnographic study in Bangladesh Sundarban fishing communities.

So any such tiger attacks tend to be perceived as threats to their religious devotion and faith because the attack is regarded as a sign that the Goddess is displeased, even enraged with the victim and denies protection from the tigers. Such attacks are then considered to be a Divine Curse cast upon them. This faith further generates two stigma layers: First, the widows (or the survived victim) suffer a sense of guilt and sinfulness which impacts on their posttrauma psychology immensely (internalized stigma). Second, the community, as a result of the commonly held faith, brands tiger-widows as cursed family (enacted stigma) and thus avoids and isolates them (social distance) as a result of the fear of the magical/supernatural contamination of a divine curse to others. This avoidance acts as a safety rule for the general population's own spiritual security. Fear of contagion (by look, touch, food, or air) has played a crucial role in creating stigma for physical and mental diseases, but here the alleged mode of contamination from a baghe-khaowa (killed by tiger) or baghe-dhora (caught by tiger) family is by supernatural means. This negative cultural interpretation with its superstitious overtone acts as a magnifier for the compounded stigma burden when added to their already precarious status as widows (Fig. 9). As an extension of this belief, and as a result of the illiteracy and superstition, many natural and normal forest or community incidents or events act as a cultural reinforcer to this belief of divine disgrace (Fig. 10), which in turn, of course, cumulatively adds to the strength of cultural stigma about being killed by a tiger.

Figure 9.

Superimposition of stigma of widowhood and stigma of tiger-killing.

Figure 10.

Interactions of cultural reinforcers of stigma related to tiger victims.

Figure 11.

Participatory mapping: widow-hamlet (Bidhoba Palli) in Arampur village, Gosaba block.

Figure 12.

Participatory mapping – HTC by a straying tiger.

People in this region are used to interpreting any misfortune or negative incidents (eg, collapse of a mud house, an inundation of flood water, crop failure, nonavailability of sufficient fish or good fuel wood in a forest trip, facing a thunderstorm during a forest trip, or the sudden death of livestock, etc.) in terms of a spiritual or religious explanation, namely, the forest deity is displeased with the incumbent. Any good or fortunate incidents (eg, escape from danger either inside the forest or from natural calamities or good honey or fish harvesting or birth of a baby boy, etc.) are also interpreted in the same way, but is seen as due to the grace of Mother Bonobibi, and the people reciprocate by offering special oblation, puja or prayer, to thank the deity. It is interesting to note that the strength of local cultural belief was so deep and binding that despite the death of their husbands by tiger-attack, and their own suffering as a result of this, none of the widows expressed or made any negative remarks or derogatory statement about the tigers. On the contrary, they felt guilty about some sort of probable transgression (religious or spiritual) which had evoked the displeasure and resentment of Goddess Bonobibi and precipitated the accident. The same is true about the villagers, as evidenced in the FGDs and general discussion during transect walking, although some of them had grudges and felt anger against the forest guards, officers, local brokers, and insurance agencies or boat-licensing authority and used derogatory remarks when commenting on these; but they, like the tiger-widows, never made a negative comment or remark, or used any slang if referring to tigers. Likewise, it has also been noted that many honey collectors refuse to wear the rubber mask on the back of their heads (supplied free of cost by the forest department and a trick to fool the tigers and deter the attack from behind) during their forest activity because they considered it a breach of trust with their protector, the Goddess Bonobibi. These are the unique cultural examples as defined by Kleinman and Hall-Clifford,⁸⁷ where they say, very rightly, that stigma is a social, cultural, and moral process: generating within the sociocultural environment, it may affect individuals or groups morally and is maintained in the “lived worlds of the stigmatized”.

Remarriage

Remarriage for widowed women is virtually impossible in rural India, because of the various social and religious restrictions imposed on them.⁹³ The social custom and practice for widows in Sundarban does not differ from that of the broader Indian cultural context; widowhood is seen as inauspicious, and such women continue to face severe social hostility and brutality in the name of ‘cultural and religious norms’.⁹⁴ Remarriage is not encouraged, and the belief that tiger-widows are cursed in being responsible for their husband's death places some insurmountable obstacles in the way of these women to do so. In this study, only 8 of the widows (12.3%) had remarried. Most of the tiger-widows are in their early to late 30s, and most of them have young children. The existence of a tiger-widow's dependent children, when added to the social stigma of tiger-killings, also further limits the widow's opportunities for remarriage. In such a situation, if the widow's parents take up the responsibility for the children, then there is a stronger possibility of the widow to be able to remarry, as had already happened with two of the widows involved in this study. There are however, also some widows who are so psychologically attached to their deceased husbands that they cannot consider replacing this image with another man in their life. One widow said of her husband: “I was married when I was 9 to him, who was 28 years then. He was really a muscular man, good looking, one and half-yard wide chest, tall with curly and dense hairs. He was strong and courageous, went to the forest alone, even in the midnight. He cared for me. I never saw such a stout young male ever. I never thought of marrying anyone. I accepted my misfortune – what Bonobibi punished me – (crying) I accept this punishment.” This is a clear example of sanctification of the deceased⁹⁵ where the widow has idealized her former husband to the point where it will make difficult for her to find a new partner, one who would compare positively with the idealized image of the deceased.

Sundarban is not a free-mixing society where the widows have a choice in whether to engage in a new relationship. If they are young, and have no children, some will try to move toward one of the nearby towns where they can start their lives again as a maid servant or as a labourer on a construction site. However, this move is not easy, and the widow will need patronage from those in her family to assist with this. Nor is a move away always a positive experience, as widows are made to feel that working in towns equates with being a bad woman who has lost her character. One widow, who worked in a hotel in nearby Canning town said: “though my heart is tied with this small cottage in this village but I feel dejected to come here because people are not good, they gossip about my character. In my bad days there were none to help me, but now they are criticizing me with a bad name as I am working in the town”.

Children

The tiger-widows experience tremendous economic hardships, under which they have to raise their children. Children will have to discontinue their schooling in the pursuit of working to support the family (for example, in cattle grazing or TPS collection or agricultural labor). Children of tiger-widows are also ridiculed or bullied by their peers; as one widow said with tears in her eyes, “my son was in primary class when his father was killed in a fishing trip. He was bullied in school by other classmates and they jointly ridiculed him by saying-‘your father was a bad man and a sinner’. He was so upset and sad that he ultimately refused to go to school”. In most cases too, both the in-laws and extended families will deny any financial help to the widow. So it becomes inevitable that the children of tiger victims are forced to drop out of school and to engage in child labor. They too, also eventually come to rely on forest exploration for their livelihood, just as their fathers did. It would be appropriate to mention here how a young son of a tiger-widow responded to us concerning the ongoing social discrimination: “We don't care who keeps on good terms with us or not. Accidents can happen to anybody, any time. We are going to the forest next week for honey collection. A search for honey is a search for tiger! Nobody knows when it will attack. One can see the live tiger footmark in the mud. It is risky but what is there to do? Who will give me a job? The forest is the only source of our living. We cannot sit idle at home to starve. If Ma (Bonobibi) wishes to keep us alive, we will, otherwise not”. Brave words, however the fate of girl children is more perilous. Many widows will negotiate their daughter's early marriage (as early as the age of 10 or 12 years) not only to ease the financial burden but also to safeguard their security. Many of the tiger-widows expressed their great concern regarding the social insecurity, potential abuse, and exploitation of their young daughters.⁸⁸ It has also been reported that Sundarban girls are especially vulnerable to being caught up in being trafficked to other states of India.⁹⁶ To combat these and similar childhood tragedies, some proactive NGOs in Bangladesh have started up schools for the children of tiger victims.⁹⁷ However, the psychological effects of traumatic grief, and the profound and long-term effects on the young and adolescent children of the tiger victims, in terms of stress, feelings of insecurity, sensitivity to peer reactions, frightening and traumatic experience, etc., all remain a very neglected research area and are in need of being properly addressed with adequate support and guidance.

Lastly, there are two further important issues of serious concern that have emerged from this study, and they are the gender issue and the ecopsychiatric risk perspective of HTC.

Gendered aspect of HTC

Ogra⁹⁸ has raised a serious concern about gender issues in relation to HWC and provided a handful of observations arising from her research in Uttarakhand Forest, India. Reviewing the social science research on the impact of HWC, she has delineated two important impacts, namely the visible cost (direct economic losses) and the hidden cost – ie, uncompensated and largely psychological or social in nature. She too has cited the evident research gap and the need to examine the gendered aspect of conflict, or gender issues in relation to wildlife-related problems. Research has shown that vulnerabilities to environmental hazards are strongly influenced by local cultural and socioeconomic factors including both gender and class.⁹⁹ From the feminist political ecology perspective, gender issues impose a differential control over resources, while power hierarchies and social structures like class divisions, ethnicity and man–woman relationships are seen in the context of local culture.⁹⁸ Gender–environment relationships tend to highlight specifically the differential effects of HWC borne by men and women. From her study on Human–Elephant conflict in Uttaranchal, Ogra has reported that women bear an extraordinary hidden cost as a result of these conflicts which range from an increased workload, decreased food resources, diminished physical and psychological well-being, humiliation and molestation or arrest by forest guards, and discontinuation of their children's education. All these issues can be seen to be linked with the local sociocultural and political perspectives of gender discrimination. Naughton-Treves and Treves¹⁰⁰ have also, in their African HWC studies, observed the same gendered sufferings and termed this as compounding vulnerability, with its deepest impact on the poorest households, and especially on widows and the disabled. Historically, men have been represented as the prime stakeholder in any HWC-related impact and management policy,¹⁰¹ but recent research has shown that there exists a ‘potential for gender differences in wildlife-related attitudes, perceptions and behavior’ and thus women should now be counted as an equally important stakeholder in HWC-related events and decisions.¹⁰² In terms of environmental justice and political ecology, Reed and Christie¹⁰³ have identified this gender inequality as a gender gap, given the understanding of environmental policy and practice. Studies of forest resource management in South Asia including India and Nepal have also highlighted the gender differences in social networks in environmental collective actions¹⁰⁴ and also stressed the usual rule of gender exclusion (of women) in participatory community institutions.¹⁰⁵ It is also interesting to note that not only tiger-widows are exploited and deprived of social justice as a part of gendered impact but also the TPS collectors, who are mainly girls and women, are also exploited and economically deprived by their male folk (usually their husbands, who take the money earned by their wives and spend it on paying for alcohol) and the tricky local and corporate business networks.^49,106 The direct cost of HTC is the death of the principal earning member of the family, and the passing of the responsibility on to the survivor, ie, his wife, and it is she who will bear the gendered impact of this HTC; which has been shown here to include serious and lasting psychological trauma, social discrimination, blame, the cultural stigma attached to tiger attacks, shortage of food, an increased work load, and resultant deteriorating physical and mental health.

The gendered impact of HTC does not, however, apply so well when the one left behind is the husband; it is worthwhile mentioning that we met, in our catchment villages, 7 widowers whose wives were killed by a tiger during river/forest-based livelihood activity, mainly TPS and crab collection (not reported in this paper). Two of the widowers had since died naturally, three had remarried, and two were living and working as day laborers. None of the men were subjected to any cultural stigma nor do they suffer any social disgrace and subsequent isolation; indeed, in marked contrast to the experience of widows, widowers have easy access to all social and cultural life on the island. It was also noted in the FGDs, men (husbands) whose wives have been killed by tigers are not considered as unholy or cursed, nor are they identified as a ‘wife-eater’. Similarly, these men were not subjected to any prohibitive social code of conduct, nor indeed any type of social and cultural restrictions, including the possibility of remarriage and finding employment. Widowers are not ostracized and isolated, but instead are living with their family members peacefully in the community. The differential burden and multidimensional gendered vulnerability of tiger-widows after HTC as described here opens up the possibilities of new local research opportunities in the area of social justice, as well as the need for action, namely development of social support system with environmental security.¹⁰⁷

Ecopsychiatry – human ecology and HTC

Sundarban offers a unique ecopsychiatric scenario (relationship between humans and their natural environment) where the ecological specificity of the region affects human lives with resultant mortality and morbidity. The focus of this study is one of the central issues experienced by the people in the locale, that of forest exploration and HTC. Other important issues affecting the region (which have fallen outside the scope of this paper) are the environmental impacts of climate change including the rise in sea level¹⁰⁸ and resulting effect on agricultural output (decreased cropping intensity, crop failures, increase in soil salinity), and the overuse of pesticides and the consequent pesticide-related mortality and morbidity,¹⁰⁹ as also severe weather events, coastal erosion, and the subsequent impact on fisheries,¹¹⁰ all of which have affected not only the ecological landscape of Sundarban but also the life of its inhabitants. More and more farmers are known to be turning to a forest-based living to earn their livelihoods,¹¹¹ and the subsequent shrinking of the tiger's habitat and prey base is leading to more tigers straying into the paths and habitats of people, and consequently increased incidents of HTC.¹¹² From an ecopsychiatric viewpoint, there are two important issues here, namely, the reduction of human mortality and morbidity and a suitable tiger conservation program that will help to mitigate these conflicts. The proximal risk factor is the continued and dangerous human encroachment into tiger territories in order to earn a living, both legally and illegally. These livelihood activities are motivated primarily by the extreme poverty of the people (and the very real absence of any alternative earning option) – the distal risk factor, following the tragic deaths taking place inside the forest, the affected family is then driven into deep poverty and suffers sociocultural ostracism. Inskipet et al.¹¹³ has very rightly commented that “Interactions between the problems experienced by villagers, including HTC, result in a complex ‘risk web’ which detrimentally affects lives and livelihoods and ultimately perpetuates poverty levels in the Sundarbans communities”. There are several papers^{36,86,114–115116} that have detailed the grinding poverty experienced in Sundarban (India and Bangladesh both) and Al-Mahmood¹¹⁷ has very touchingly commented on life in the delta as “Racked by poverty, stalked by tigers, the people of the Sunderbans struggle to survive”. Another study¹¹⁸ found that poverty is the most dominant factor that leads to all types of forest resource extraction for subsistence in Sundarban forest and is the factor most accelerating incidents of HTCs and human death. The important demographic dynamic shown to be behind poverty in this region is population pressure and the resultant anthropogenic impact, which not only increases the chance of HTC but is also causing serious fragmentation of the mangrove ecolandscape in the tiger's habitat. We know that approximately 5,000 people are known to frequent the swamps and waterways in this region every day. In Bangladesh Sundarban,¹¹⁹ the numbers reach an estimated 300,000 people, working variously as wood-cutters, fishermen, and honey gatherers and Golpatta leaves and grass collectors. Nor are these numbers static, indeed human pressure on the Sundarban forest can be seen to be rising over the years.¹²⁰ A recent report¹²¹ shows that in the south-western fringe of Sundarban (Ramganga and Raidighi range), there are 22 villages with a population of 103,768 (average 557 persons/km²). Here there is an extreme paucity of any livelihood opportunities, reflected by the over 60% unemployment rate, a very low level of irrigation and cropping. The combination of all these socioecological factors is continually pushing more people toward the forest. This extraordinary human pressure on the forest is resulting in further damage to the mangrove ecology and tiger habitats; to cite one such example: “during the fishing trips, the villagers resorted to honey collection on 25% occasions and felling of pasur wood on 35% occasions. They also extract fuel, dhudul and goran woods on 20%, 15% and 5% cases respectively”. Islam¹¹¹ reported from Bangladesh Sundarban that a recent survey by a wildlife trust found that 80% of 400 people questioned had eaten deer meat at least once in their life, indicative of the fact that secret hunting in the mangroves is another potential cause in the reduction of the tigers’ access to their normal prey; and the present authors also evidenced secret sale of deer meat in Dayapur village. This constant human encroachment (including poachers) and destruction of the forest is the cause of a changing cultural landscape (human-modified environment) with a special impact on cultural geomorphology,¹²² all of which have increased the risk potential for tiger straying and increased HTC (Fig. 12). In 2009, 12 incidents of tiger straying were officially recorded in which tigers attacked villagers or their livestock and 4 people were killed in tiger attacks.¹²³ The human dimension of this population–poverty–livelihood axis (5) should also be addressed in any conservation plan that includes the mitigation of HTC in Sundarban.

Limitations

The present study sample was not a random selection; it was a purposive sample, based on the logistics and willingness to participate. The Stigma scale though was constructed by observing relevant issues from validated scales and incorporated local inputs from four FGDs; however, details of psychometric assessments such as validity and reliability analysis was not conducted. Future research would be needed to examine these issues further and to explore the clinical utility of this scale in a study of such a special population. One example, arising indeed from our own research is that although the snake is a dangerous animal and also having mythical and folk-culture backgrounds, it is not associated with, nor match, the cultural stigma level attached to tiger attack. More in-depth research data to track conflicts should also be elicited by interviewing those people who survive tiger attacks (there are several survivors, mostly male but female also, but who all sustained injury and resultant deformity or disability and psychological dysfunction) and that would help to further understand the unique grammar of the forest (including the mitigating potentials) against the context of HTCs.¹⁶⁰