Glimpses from a Munda village in Sunderbans

Text of the slide show on fieldwork in a Sunderban village At The First Reunion of Students of the Department of Anthropology 2nd Semester Students Department of Anthropology Vidyasagar University Date: 20 April 2014 Venue: Radhakrishnan Hall, Vidyasagar University GLIMPSES FROM A MUNDA VILLAGE AT SATJELIA, SUNDERBAN 1st Slide: Beckon Bungalow This year we conducted our ethnographic fieldwork in a remote island of Sunderbans in South 24-Paraganas district. This photo was taken in front of the heritage wooden house at Gosaba, The Beckon Bungalow where Rabindranath Tagore stayed on the invitation of Sir Daniel Hamilton who established the first co-operative in Sunderbans as early as 1903. 2nd Slide: Our Journey to the field On 15th February after taking a good lunch at Canning, we took the Magic-Van or Tata Magic and rode through an excellent road for about for 45 minutes and reached Godkhali. We were on the bank of the famous Bidyadhari river of Sunderbans. At present the state government is planning to build a bridge over to connect Gosaba with Godkhali. One magic van driver told us “the bridge will be good but it will take away the charm of travel in the river to Sunderbans!” 3rd Slide: On the river to Satjelia We had a wonderful journey in the afternoon by a motorboat through one of the important rivers in Sunderbans. We watched the tidal river and mangroves all through the journey which was interrupted by a temple and the Tiger reserve outpost of Sajnekhali. 4th Slide: Sunset and the rise of the moon Our journey through the river continued for more than 3 hours. Nature was generous to us. We enjoyed magnificent sunset and the mysterious rise of the moon. At one point, our motorboat driver lost his way. Some of us prayed to the river Goddess that let the motorboat driver get lost in the river. But that did not happen and with the instructions of our senior student Pankaj Da of the WWF over mobile, we were put on the right track and reached Tipligheri Ghat on the Datta River around 8 p.m in the night. 5th Slide: Dropping in the field camp Our fieldcamp was a newly built private lodge which was not yet complete but it had a nice backyard with trees and a pond. Our best friend of the lodge was a dog, whom we named Albert, who used to go to the field with us every day. And our landlady was like our mother who looked after us with care with her husband and a number of faithful assistants. We felt homely. 6th Slide: Sardarpara: A Munda village on the bank of the Datta River The Mundas of Sardarpara were settled in this area by the local Zamindars during the British period. The Mundas cleared the forest, built up the embankments and started cultivation of paddy in this hostile environment. Gradually, with change of political regimes the Mundas became owners of the agricultural land. But in the recent past this agricultural land again changed hands and we have found a number of ‘Namasudra’ caste families who have taken away agricultural land from the Mundas in exchange of lump sum money on a yearly contract basis. The settlement pattern of the village reveals a semi-lunar shape having agricultural fields in between and the river almost encircles the village. The satellite image of the village is also not very different from the map with which has drawn by hand by walking around the village for several days the village embankment road is not in a good condition, narrow, undulating and has no street light. At the entrance of the village we found pucca houses owned by relatively wealthy non-tribal persons. 7th (A) Slide: The villagers and their livelihood The livelihood of the Mundas at Sardarpara mainly depends on agriculture. The other important source of the livelihood is collection of crabs and honey from the forest. We have also found families from which the menfolk have migrated to distant places sometime crossing the boundary of the state to work as labourers. The houses of the village are mostly made of mud walls with roofs thatched with straw. In some houses we found beautiful mud walled structures for the storage of the paddy. 7th (B) Slide: The villagers and their livelihood Crab collection is another important source of livelihood for the villagers and the women also go for crab hunting in the forest. Often they travel into the protected area of the forest. If anyone is killed by tiger in the protected area, they do not get any compensation from the forest department. After collection they sell the crabs to the village level middlemen. The price of the crabs vary accordingly to their sizes and it ranges between Rs. 450-600. These middlemen sell the crabs in the market at Canning at a higher price which in turn again travels to Kolkata and abroad with further higher prices. 8th Slide: Development inputs by WWF (solar lamps) The village Sardarpara has recently been selected by an International funding agency, WWF for the distribution of some developmental inputs particularly after ‘Aila’ disaster in 2009. The WWF provided food for the disaster affected families for about 3 months and helped the villagers to restore and dig ponds for fishing. They also helped the Munda villagers to reclaim their agricultural land which were mortgaged to local Hindu caste families. One of the most interesting development inputs was solar lamps. The WWF established a central solar power station at Sardarpara and a beneficiary group was formed. The members of the group paid a subscription money (Rs.100 for 1 lamp and Rs.110 for 2 lamps). The members also deposited a security money of Rs.450. The lamps are recharged at the central power stations according to the need of the user. We have found 52 users out of 99 Munda households. 9th Slide: Beliefs, Rituals, Goddesses and Entertainment Now we present a panorama of beliefs, rituals, goddesses and enterainment of the village. In almost every Munda house in Sardarpara we found a ‘Phanimanasa’ tree which the villagers worshipped as Manasa Devi, the snake goddess. The other important goddess is Bonbibi which they worshipped in the winter month (Poush in Bengali calendar). Bonbibi was believed to protect the villagers from tiger attacks. We have also seen the preparation of a marriage ceremony in one of the families of the village. An interesting belief and practice of the Mundas of the Sardarpara is the custom of the burial of the dead within the premises of the house. They believe that the sprit of the ancestors will protected them from all kinds of evil spirits. We also had the opportunity to observe a cock fight, a great source of entertainment for the men of the locality near our field camp on a Saturday at Saradarpara weekly market. 10th Slide: Visit to Forest ‘Your mind will answer most question if you learn to relax and wait for the answer’. The picturesque of the wholesome tough job of our fieldwork was totally out of our imagination. We all were waiting for a hangout to freshen our mind. All our tiredness went away and we all got boisterous again when we commenced our one day trip to the Forest. As the saying goes that ‘the journey to the destination is much more beautiful than the destiny’, it all proved right. The exotic greenery swaying beside the river, the way out to the Reserve forests was really awe-inspiring. We have seen some wildlife in the forest but not the King, the Royal Bengal Tiger. Terminating the trip we returned to our field camp and get prepared for our camp-fire. All of us were in high spirit. This trip proved to be a bonanza for us. We were so happy-go-lucky. All the bittersweet doleful experiences were shared in our campfire. In this campfire we all promised to our teacher Abhijit sir that we will make a slide show of our fieldtrip in Sunderbans and we have kept our promise. 11th Slide: Acknowledgements We are greatly indebted to the villagers of Sardarpara and the local people of Tipligheri without whom this slide show could not be made. We are grateful to our field guide Dr. Abhijit Guha who inspired us to take up this venture. We are also indebted to the members of the organizing committee of the first Reunion of students of the Department of Anthropology, who were kind enough to include the slide show in the programme. We owe our debts to Sri Pankaj Sarkar, Chiranjib Chakrabarty and Dr. Anurag Danda of the WWF for making all arrangements for our stay at Sunderbans and also for sponsoring our tour to the forest. Last but not the least, we express our sincerest thanks to Sri Ashim Das, research scholar of the Department of Anthropology, who took all the pains to prepare the digitalized version of this slide show.