Building a Robust Embankment System for Community Resilience in yhe Indian Sundarbans

November - December 2021

Dr. Jayanta Debnath is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Mrinalini Datta Mahavidyapith, Birati, Kolkata.

Embankments have greater efficacy for community resilience and flood management, especially in coastal regions like the Sundarbans. Though a concrete river embankment is a long-persist demand of the people living here, it was never constructed due to mere party politics, negligence of policymakers at both the local and State level, and difficulties in land acquisition. As a result, they suffer year after year from the ill consequences of disasters. In this circumstance, this article examines the impact of embankments on the livelihoods of the islanders. Many issues around land acquisition are explicitly discussed in the article. It also attempts to understand how the politics of embankments influences their way of living.

Dr. Jayanta Debnath

Sundarbans, the largest delta in the world, consists of 10,200 sq km of mangrove forest, spread over India (4200 sq km of reserved forest) and Bangladesh (6000 sq km approx of reserved forest). It is also the largest mangrove forest in the world. inhabited region in India, along the north and north-western fringe of the mangrove forest, is also known as the Sundarbans region in India. Hence, the total area of the Sundarbans region in India is 9600 sq km, which constitutes the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SAD, 2021). The region is surrounded by plenty of rivers, creeks and the Bay of Bengal. The Sundarbans, a wonderland, is blessed with diverse fauna and flora. However, nowadays, it has come to our attention for recurring disasters. Four mega-disasters have hit the Sundarbans region in the last thirteen years, and small and moderate natural catastrophes are perhaps weekly phenomena across these islands. Cyclonic storms, tidal surges, floods are very common for the islanders.

Though natural catastrophes have been frequent in the Sundarbans region, yet governmental apathy is seen in effective disaster management for many decades. However, the cyclone-induced flood Aila that struck in May 2009 gave policymakers some lessons to be prepared for disaster risk reduction (DRR). Then, in November 2019, another lethal cyclonic storm Bulbul hit the region. Fani, a cyclonic storm, had also moderately affected the Sundarbans the same year. As the islanders were still to recover from the adverse effects of these natural catastrophes fully, Amphan hit the Sundarbans in May 2020. The latest loss and damage caused by a natural catastrophe is a severe cyclonic storm Yaas that hit the coastal districts of Odisha and West Bengal. Thus, in the last few years, the frequencies and magnitudes of natural catastrophes in the Sundarbans region are increasing fast.

The cyclonic storm Bulbul had devastated the Sundarbans, while Aila, Amphan and Yaas not only ravaged but submerged the entire region. In between these events, many incidents of embankment breaching occurred, causing enormous damage to the lives and livelihoods of the hapless islanders. When Aila struck the Sunderbans, the State Government had approached the Water Resources Section of the Civil Engineering Department of IIT, Kharagpur, for suggestions to resolve the problem permanently. It was recommended to replace all earthen river bunds with breach-resistant, concrete-reinforced earthen embankments (Choudhury, 2020).

With rising sea levels, coastal areas face the threat of more severe and frequent floods, erratic rainfall and cyclones (Centre for Science and Environment, 2012). The entire delta of the Sundarbans will continue to remain at the forefront of climate and disaster risks. Regional consequences of tropical cyclones, surge flooding and coastal erosion may continue to rise under the influence of global climate change (Shaw and DasGupta, 2015). In this circumstance, building robust embankments across the islands and constructing sea walls would certainly reduce large-scale life threats and economic loss.

Building Robust Embankments for Safer Livelihoods

The Sundarbans is recognised as one of the backward regions of the globe, and its backwardness has been increasing for frequent natural catastrophes. Although cyclones and floods are annual phenomena in this coastal region, cyclone-induced flood brings about casualties and destruction that are more widespread. Most of the islanders who now live in the Sundarbans came as refugees from Bangladesh or landless people from neighbouring districts of the State in search of livelihood. The Scheduled Caste and Tribes are the dominant communities among them. Before the British came to Bengal, the Sundarbans was a deep and extended forest zone. For revenue generation, they had encouraged agricultural activities in the region by clearing forests. It encouraged landless people to inhabit and engage in agricultural activities. This was how people there were able to possess land.

A majority of the islanders are engaged in agriculture, especially paddy cultivation, betel cultivation, fishing, catching crabs, honey collection, and other agricultural allied activities for their livelihood. To earn a pittance of Rs 100 a day, islanders travel for miles and sometimes enter into protected forest zones that are prohibited by environmental laws. Therefore, tiger attacks are almost a daily phenomenon leading to increasing widows in villages across the region. They know that every time they go out into the water for some earnings, the distance between life and death is not too far away. Despite such awareness, islanders, especially fishermen, are forced to do this daredevil job for their family members. Their livelihoods revolve around a popular maxim, ‘crocodiles in water and tigers ashore’, hinting at a two-way crisis for them. The recurring natural catastrophes and strict restrictions under the environmental laws have put their livelihoods in a quandary. Given this uncomfortable situation, thousands of islanders have migrated to different States and Union Territories in search of jobs.

People in the Sundarbans live in a perpetual state of vulnerability as breaches occur in earthen embankments that protect the inhabited islands. The development of the people is considered a low priority in here. A wonderland that is essentially unsuitable for humans, the Sundarbans had been deployed historically by governmental rationality during the colonial and post-colonial era (Mukhopadhyay, 2009). It presents us with a grand vision of conservation whose centre stage is occupied by wildlife; particularly the Bengal tiger, and people are the obvious obstacles to this process of conservation (Mukhopadhyay, 2011). However, for most islanders, even after seven decades of independence, a wide pucca road, safe drinking water, safe bridges, electricity, and telecommunication are still distant dreams, though the situation has improved to a certain extent in the last few years.

When saline water ingresses into agricultural land after the embankment collapse, islanders face difficulties ploughing their lands for a few consecutive years. It is observed that more or less, up to three to four years, no crop grows in this land. Such situations have arisen after Aila and Amphan. This year, after Yaas, islanders faced a similar experience as there was a breach in the embankments at several places across the coastal districts. Why does embankment breaching occur every year in the region? Why does the government not solve the embankment problem in the Sundarbans by making a permanent or strong embankment system? It is assumed that perhaps there is a nexus among local politicians, contractors, and bureaucrats resulting in artifice in mud pelting works, brick abduction, and using sub-standard materials for construction. Not solving the embankment problem is an intended business of the corrupt politicians and officials.

However, the embankment building process in the Sundarbans was an attempt at revenue generation by the colonial power. In the 1790s, Tillman Henkel, a magistrate appointed by the newly-arrived British, was assigned the task of developing an administrative block in the Sundarbans. He was supervising the processes of clearing mangrove forests and transporting soil to ‘create’ land. The vision of Henkel and the British administration was to make these mostly uninhabited lands a centre for paddy cultivation. For this, he continued to reclaim land in the Sundarbans, a process that carried on into the 1870s. To make agriculture profitable in the delta subjected to frequent saline water ingression, the British administration built embankments that prevented the saline water from inundating the agricultural land. It was Sir Daniel Hamilton, a Scottish businessman, who had put forward the idea of constructing embankments to block the tidal waters. This was how the embankment system was built up in the Sundarbans. A major part was erected between 1873 and 1939.

Although scholars have heavily criticised the structural measures of building embankments on the banks of the rivers, it is an absolute necessity for a safer livelihood for the islanders in the Sundarbans. Some feel embankments bring more troubles than solutions. It may be for some regions, but the physical characteristics of the Sundarbans and people’s vulnerability are very different from any other coastal belt on earth. However, the Sundarbans was made habitable initially by building earthen embankments to block the ingress of saline water. These earthen embankments run for about 3,500 km in this region. In Aila, earthen embankments across the islands were extensively damaged and had collapsed in several places. Cyclonic storms Amphan and Yaas further made these embankments immensely vulnerable to frequent breaching, therefore, putting islanders’ lives at tremendous risk.

Land Acquisition and Compensation

The management of the embankment is vital for the protection of agrarian land and human habitation. It has been seen across islands in the Sundarbans that over generations, people have lost lands to the sea and rivers. Sea erosion and river erosion have been a worry for the community. There are some islands in the Indian Sundarbans like Ghoramara that are assumed to disappear in future due to continuous soil erosion and the non-existence of a strong embankment system. If someone goes back to the colonial period, it will be seen that the Bengal Embankment Act, 1882, governed embankment management. This Act was last amended in 1967, and there is considerable scope to update and improve both the management arrangements and legislation that currently oversees the Indian Sundarbans Delta (ISD) embankment system (WWF, 2011). Initially, preventing saline water around islands was entrusted to local zamindars. After India’s independence, when the Zamindari System was abolished, the task of maintaining the erstwhile zamindary embankments devolved upon the State Government. It then transferred this responsibility to the Irrigation and Waterways Department (I&WD) in 1960. Nowadays, the local government deals with minor repairing of embankments while large repairing works and new construction works are carried out by I&WD. The I&WD maintains around 10,400 km of flood protective embankments throughout the State, including sea walls and coastal embankments (Annual Report, 2018-19).

After every deadly cyclone and high tidal wave, embankments become moribund and therefore, breaching is a recurring incident across the Indian Sundarbans region. For example, according to the Irrigation Department, within 24 hours after super cyclone Amphan hit last year, 71 breaches were reported from North and South 24 Parganas districts. This year too, after Yaas, 135 breaches occur in the coastal belt of the State. This is a serious matter of concern that needs to be looked at by the administrative level. Embankment rebuilding is of crucial importance in post-Aila Sundarbans, and there is no denying the fact that land acquisition is necessary to facilitate embankment rebuilding. But islanders’ past experiences of land acquisition have made them suspicious about the Government’s intentions. The Government’s compensation package did not include the landless agricultural labourers (Mukhopadhyay, 2009). This process of rebuilding involves the acquisition of land which contributes to further displacement of the islanders, and rarely, if ever, are people compensated against their lost land (Mukhopadhyay, 2011).

The colonial laws vest full power in the State bureaucracy and the Irrigation & Waterways Department (I&WD). Under the law, embankments are government property. The Department is the ultimate arbiter of where, when and how embankments are built and maintained. These decisions are life-and-death issues for the people who live in the Sundarbans (Ohdedar, 2020). The acquisition of land in an agricultural economy is difficult for any government in India, especially in the North and North Eastern States, given the nature of party politics and bargaining factors. However, land acquisition has been an underlying issue of conflict between the Government and landowners in contemporary West Bengal politics, especially since 2007, when the erstwhile Left Front government attempted to acquire some agricultural lands for the industry. The opposition political party tried to exploit the event and politicised it to a certain level that ultimately brought a political change in the State. Though the situation of the Sundarbans is not like Nandigram or Singur, people here may be willing to give their lands to the government if adequate compensation is given or it is as per present market value. However, such conflict is seen more in the Sundarbans when the Irrigation Department attempts to acquire land for building a ring embankment when the main embankment collapses.

‘Politics of Embankments’ Weakens Community Resilience

One has to understand the politics of ex-ante and ex-post disaster management activities of the Government to comprehend the concept ‘politics of embankments’ in the Indian Sundarbans. The political rewards from ex-ante and ex-post disaster management policies are very different. First, the electoral impact of expenditures in ex-post disaster management is higher than the electoral benefit of investing in ex-ante disaster preparation. Investments in ex-ante preparation reduce the risk and magnitude of damage from disasters. But the results are relatively more uncertain and less tangible than expenditures in ex-post relief (Depoorter, 2006). For this reason, policymakers perhaps, are not keen on an effective solution to river embankments across islands in the Sundarbans. For building a reputation and an image, they extend their hands in relief material distribution only and exploit the political opportunity.

The islanders started to demand permanent and concrete river embankments by making an appropriate plan at the governmental level and providing adequate compensation to the land loser since 1985, but the government never heard their cry. However, it is already said that after a massive cyclone-induced flood (Aila) in 2009, the State Government has shown some readiness to build embankments as the entire Sundarbans was devastated and submerged. To redress people’s growing anger who lost everything to Aila, the State Government promised and announced building a 3500 km long permanent embankment in the Sundarbans; 778 km at the first stage, and in the next five years, the entire Sundarbans would be protected from recurring floods. It is surprising to know that in a government notification for land acquisition, mention was made that land will be acquired following the 1894 Act, a 126-year-old Act. Such a move has certainly no link with today’s material world. However, the erstwhile Left Front government could not do much of the sanctioned project claiming that land acquisition is a major barrier before the Government as the then main opposition – the Trinamool Congress – mobilised islanders against the move of the government.

However, using the disaster as an opportunity, TMC successfully penetrated red strongholds and won South 24 Parganas Zila Parishad after Aila. When the State Assembly election was held in 2011, the CPI (M)-led Left Front government was replaced by the Trinamool Congress. The new Government, returned the Aila fund (Rs 5032 Crores) that was meant for building embankments, to the Central Ministry as it was not being utilised. A decade after Aila hit the region, Bulbul, Amphan and Yaas struck within just one and a half year, increasing the islander’s marginality to a great extent. Year after year, parliamentary, assembly, and even panchayat elections come and go, but the promises made by the politicians are forgotten immediately after each election. It has been a bitter experience for the islanders in Wonderland. Even after a few weeks of Amphan, a Master Plan for the Sundarbans was proposed in an all-party meeting held at State Secretariat. It was said the State Government would approach the central policy think tank, NITI Aayog, to get its nod, but surprisingly, this said plan did not reflect in the manifesto of the incumbent party. It is important to note here that the 17th Assembly Election was held in West Bengal a few months back. Thus, the much-needed demand of the marginal islanders in the Indian Sundarbans remained unheeded in the manifesto.

The government authority is empowered to acquire the required land if there is a public purpose. It is also reflected in The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, [RFCTLARRA] 2013. Sub-section (1) of Section 2 under Chapter I of the Act says, “The provisions of this Act relating to land acquisition, compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement, shall apply when the appropriate government acquires land for its use, hold and control, including for public sector undertakings and for public purpose, and shall include a project for water harvesting and water conservation structures, sanitation; project for residential purposes to the poor or landless or to persons residing in areas affected by natural calamities, or to persons displaced or affected because of the implementation of any scheme undertaken by the Government, any local authority or a corporation owned or controlled by the State (RFCTLARRA 2013, 2021).

In this Act, some terms are defined for more clarification. Here, an “affected family” is signified as a family whose land or other immovable property has been acquired. On the other, “displaced family” means any family, who on account of the acquisition of land has to be relocated and resettled from the affected area to the resettlement area. A “resettlement area” means an area where the affected families, who have been displaced as a result of land acquisition are resettled by the appropriate Government. There is also a provision of additional compensation in case of multiple displacements. It reads, “The Collector shall, as far as possible, not displace any family which has already been displaced by the appropriate government for acquisition under the provisions of this Act, and if so displaced, shall pay an additional compensation equivalent to that of the compensation determined under this Act for the second or successive displacements (Section 39).

On the other hand, Disaster Management Act 2005 in Clause 61 under Chapter XI confirms, “While providing compensation and relief to the victims of disaster, there shall be no discrimination on the ground of sex, caste, community, descent or religion (The Disaster Management Act 2005, 2019). So these provisions under the above said Acts make it very clear that fair compensation is to be given to the land losers due to disaster or the Government’s efforts towards land acquisition for building embankments. It is essential to mention here that land acquisition in Sundarbans for embankments had started in 2012. Unfortunately, in 2014, just within two years, the Government’s declared scheme was obstructed. Furthermore, there has been no explanation from the government agency why this scheme was terminated just after completing 10% building of embankments at the initial stage. Land acquisition to rebuild embankments can be justified only when it is accompanied by a definite policy of relocation with compensation (Mukhopadhyay, 2011).

Civil Society Response and Political Will

A committee Nadi bandh o Jibon-Jibika Raksha Committee (Sundarbans River Embankments & Life-Livelihood Protection Committee) [SRELPC] was formed recently by the islanders. An online convention was held on 4th October 2020 to demand permanent concrete river embankments and just compensation for land acquisition. Throughout the discussion, the consensus was that the islanders are ready to fight for justice. They even intended for a movement to achieve their demand. Moreover, it is important to mention here that people from different blocs of the Sundarbans are demanding permanent river embankments and ensure land acquisition with just compensation for the last three decades, but there was no response from the Government until the 2009 disaster. In addition, from 2009 onwards, the political actors script an avoidable history of politics of embankments.

However, a few months later, on 4th February 2021, a River Embankment Parade was performed under the guidance of SRELPC in the coastal areas in support of concrete river embankments. The committee demanded that river embankments be constructed across the islands only during the dry season. On 5th June 2021, a massive protest movement spread across the islands in the Indian Sundarbans to demand river embankments. Their slogan was, “we don’t want relief, but want permanent concrete river embankments”. The islanders have experienced three mega-disasters in the last three consecutive years – Bulbul (2019), Amphan (2020) and Yaas (2021). Nobody knows how many disasters are waiting for them as they live in one of the world’s most hazard-prone regions. In such circumstances, what can save them? Only a strong embankment system. Building robust embankments would make the community more resilient and help the administration in dealing with frequent natural catastrophes that might decrease annual government expenditure on flood relief and reconstruction works.

For this, civil society response is crucial. It is apparent that only SUCI (C), a marginal political party in the Indian Sundarbans region, is concerned about people’s sufferings like relief, river embankment, compensation, tiger attacks, and widow allowance. It raises these burning issues quite often, and sometimes, to meet their demands, assembled for protest movements in front of block offices with a few people. More importantly, it is not an issue of SUCI (C), Trinamool Congress, CPI (M) or BJP, but involves the greater interest of the islanders and the Sundarbans. Therefore, irrespective of political colours, people need to be united to consolidate their just demands and spread protest movements across the islands.

Conclusion

Living with natural catastrophes is an enormous challenge anywhere in the world, especially for people in an economically backward and hazard-prone region like the Sundarbans. To reduce disaster risk in the region, a robust embankment is the most conducive solution. Although people often talk about permanent embankments for the Sundarbans, there is no permanent thing in the universe; therefore, I consciously have preferred using the words ‘strong’ or ‘robust embankments’ throughout the paper. If a strong embankment system is ensured across the islands, the poor islanders would be protected from recurring floods. However, it is seen that government efforts of land acquisition sometimes fail due to opposition politics. Therefore, it must be avoided for the sake of a secure livelihood for islanders. To come out of the land acquisition problem, both ruling and opposition political parties have significant roles at the local level because the lives of the islanders revolve around destruction and construction. They need to unite for the public good and play an important role in forming a positive and constructive public opinion across the Indian Sundarbans favouring a strong embankment. In addition, government agencies need to execute a rational policy of compensation. It must consider the current market value where the land is located while compensating land losers whose land is taken for building embankments. Besides, adequate compensation to those who are to be resettled in a different place is required as the full market value of the land cannot be justified as the government also has financial constraints. Islanders must also not be reluctant to give their lands for public purpose, especially in the Indian Sundarbans as they would not survive without a strong embankment. Last but not least, a balanced-rational approach from both sides is the need of the hour so that the long persisting embankments problem in the Indian Sundarbans is resolved thereby, ensuring safer livelihoods and making communities resilient to deal with frequent saline water ingress and floods.

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