Something crazy is happening in the Sundarbans, the sprawling expanse of dense mangrove forest that spans the Indian and Bangladeshi border.
The terrain is vast but sea water levels in the Bay of Bengal are rising, swallowing large plots of land in the process. Because of this, humans who’ve lived in the area for generations—and who’ve traditionally supported themselves by fishing, farming livestock, and gathering honey—now find themselves living at uncomfortably close quarters with Bengal tigers, crocodiles, and cut-throat Bangladeshi bandits who patrol the borderlands.
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As more and more inhabitable land vanishes below the waves—and with saltwater floods rendering soil useless for crop growing—all four of these parties find themselves competing for ground on which to live, sleep, and hunt. Meanwhile, the increasing salinity of rivers has created severe drinking water shortages.
Local photographer and journalist Rana Pandey has been documenting this situation, hanging out with the villagers who routinely risk their lives in the depths of the forests for a meagre paycheque, and proving in the process that this is actually a real thing that’s happening and not the plot of some stoner-baiting low-budget disaster movie.
I spoke to Rana about climate change, how to survive a tiger attack, a spirit who presides over the forest called ‘Bonobibi,’ and the ‘tiger widows’ who are cruelly shunned by society after their husbands are devoured by the local fauna.
VICE: Rana, this is quite an insane situation. You have these four forces—the villagers, the tigers, the bandits, and the crocodiles—all competing for space and resources on this shrinking patch of land. How many people have been killed by tigers?
Rana Pandey: There are around 130 incidents per year, but there are likely to be more as many aren’t reported to the authorities. Some of the people are attacked while they’re in parts of the forest they’re not legally allowed to enter, and the survivors don’t want to get in trouble with the police. Officially, 40 to 50 of those incidents result in people dying, but it could be as many as 100 deaths every year.
That’s astonishing.
What’s happened is the government barricaded certain parts of the forest but some people break through the barriers to get inside and fish or collect honey. Sometimes it works the other way: the tiger jumps over the barriers and starts hunting near to the local villages.
And how are these people trying to protect themselves from the tigers?
To be very honest, you can’t do much.
Okay.
It’s a very muddy area, so you can’t even run. You can only shout, yell, try to scare off the tiger. But that’s it really. And generally the tiger doesn’t attack people from the front; it hides and then jumps on their backs.
That seems quite cowardly.
Yeah, for a while people tried to combat this by wearing tiger masks on the back of their heads to try to confuse the animals. But the tigers got used to this trick quite quickly and the masks no longer work as a deterrent. But what can these people do? They need to go into the forests to fish.
It sounds like people are quite easy prey for the tigers.
Yes, even though the tigers that resort to attacking humans tend to be ones that aren’t in their physical prime, it’s still easier to catch humans and their cattle than it is to chase down a deer in the forest.
How much do the honey collectors earn from their potentially fatal forays into the forest?
It used to be they’d get $3 dollars per kilo, but it’s recently gone up to $3.50 a kilo.
Okay, so not a life-changing amount. I wanted to ask about Asish Das, the guy in your photos with the mauled head. I was wondering how he survived?
So these fishermen go deep into the forest in groups, for a week or even ten days at a time, and they come back with a lot of fish. Asish was sleeping and when he woke up the tiger was on him. The tiger was about to drag him by his neck into the forest but because of Asish’s friends making noise the tiger wasn’t able to eat him. However, he was still badly hurt. He fainted and when he woke up, half his skull was missing.
The wounds are pretty intense. To what extent has he been able to recover?
He can’t go out in the sun very often and he suffers from migraines a lot.
What about the ‘tiger widows’? It seems incredibly unfair that they’re shunned by the community. If it’s not bad enough that their husbands have been killed and eaten…
I know. This has been happening for a very long time—in rural India, people are very superstitious. The people in the villages have their suspicions that they are devils.
What do the tiger widows do when they’re living in the village with the other tiger widows?
Some of them tend to small farming plots. But not much else. Some are lucky enough to have children to visit and bring them money but Indian society doesn’t allow them to visit very often, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Obviously the children aren’t allowed to live in the tiger widow village.
What do the tiger widows do for fun?
Talk amongst themselves. Nothing much. It’s a very, very boring and sad life.
Who is this ‘Bonobibi’ character?
Bonobibi is the spirit of the forest. Before people go into the jungle, they pray to Bonobibi to protect them. ‘Bono’ means jungle and ‘bibi’ means wife—so you could say Bonobibi is ‘the lady of the jungle.’
But then Bonobibi gets blamed for the fishermen and honey collectors getting eaten by tigers?
If Bonobibi is angry, anything can happen to you. That sort of belief system is there.
So are the villagers not angry at the climate crisis, and fossil fuel polluters, for this situation which is indirectly killing maybe up to 100 of them every year?
I don’t think they are angry, they are more frustrated. They’re not very aware of climate change or the things that are happening due to it. So when people die, they just blame it on God and Bonobibi.
It sounds like quite a chaotic situation, and we haven’t even mentioned the ‘dacoits’ yet.
Basically, the Indian government has restricted the forest, and allowed the fishermen to operate only in certain areas. But these places tend to be near the Bangladeshi borders—and that’s where the dacoits are, as I was told by Prasenjit Mandal, the chairman of the Sundarban Foundation. They are like bandits, and if they find the fishermen, they often kidnap or torture them. The threat of the dacoits is what drives the fishermen deeper into the barricaded parts of the forest, where the fish yield is very high.
But that also happens to be where the tigers are lurking.
Yes.
Do the tigers ever catch the dacoits?
I don’t think so, because the dacoits stay near the Bangladeshi borders.
Has anyone come up with a way to improve this situation?
Um, I don’t think so. I don’t think the government is doing anything—but what can be done? The government is trying to educate the locals not to go into the forest, but their livelihood depends on doing that, so they’re not listening to any government advice.
Can you envisage a situation where humans and tigers are living together peacefully, side-by-side in the Sundarbans?
Highly unlikely. Either the people need to move out or the tigers need to go. You can’t cohabit in poverty. You have to survive, and they are both dependent on the forest for survival.
Okay, thanks a lot Rana.
Follow Rana Pandey on Instagram @pandeyrana
