Abstract
Policies and governance of sustainability and adaptation in the Indian Sundarbans are deeply entrenched in the discursive conflicts between various narratives emanating from global, national and local actors, respectively. The local residents perceive everyday disasters and erosion as their biggest threats followed by salinisation of soil. While forced outmigration is often the only autonomous adaptation option, scouts of human trafficking and child labour exploit the vulnerability of the disaster-fatigued. The state claims embankments to be the only instrument of protection and governance, which also designate their authority over the region. Multiple agencies with their respective mandates of control over the region and the resulting power struggles create deep divisions in the sustainability and adaptation governance. For example, approaches based on co-benefits and benefit sharing, have failed to cater to the local needs. Experts – comprising ecologists and geomorphologists – construct the region differently. The former focuses on the values of the ecosystem without being able to devise a system of sharing the benefits with the local people. The latter describes the region as an unstable, immature and active delta unfit for human habitation. Economists calculate values of the ecosystem services and products offered by the Sundarbans but fail to deliberate upon or devise a mechanism of sharing these benefits. Conservationists feel that the fragile balance of life-forms and biodiversity in the Sundarbans are critically endangered, which might eventually jeopardise human existence itself. The discourse of both the expert and the policy actors shifts the burden and onus of adaptation to the self-organising capacities of the local residents. While rehabilitation, livelihood security, built and human capital remain absent, the locals are not only expected to cope with hazards autonomously but also relinquish their living spaces to avoid future disasters. These multiple perceived realities make sustainability and climate governance in the Sundarbans a staggering intellectual and policy challenge.
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Notes
- 1.
Title of a documentary by the BBC on the tigers of the Sundarbans
- 2.
Eurostat. Biodiversity statistics: accessed at http://goo.gl/mK0dYv
- 3.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/452, accessed on December 2, 2015
- 4.
‘সুন্দরবনে ঘর বাঁচাতে বিধি বদল চায় রাজ্য’ (‘State wants to change the Sundarbans’ status’) http://goo.gl/uoKV1A, Anandabazar Patrika , July 26, 2015.
- 5.
The Bengal Embankment Act 1855.
- 6.
http://goo.gl/fMsrhS, Country overview and assessment, The Netherlands , European Commission
- 7.
International Labour Organisation (ILO), ‘MGNREGA : A Review of Decent Work and Green Jobs in Kaimur District in Bihar’, ILO, 2010
- 8.
Report to the People, 2nd Feb 2006 – 2nd Feb 2010, Mahatma Gand hi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005
- 9.
NREGA of other years are available also; however, since the census that reveals the status of the marginal labour was conducted in 2011, this year is most appropriate for minimising data error.
- 10.
Government of West Bengal, Memo no 365, dated 17.2.2014, accessed at:
http://www.nregajalpaiguri.com/mgnrega/wages/Wage_Rate_wef__1_4_2014.pdf
- 11.
Someone who is not a party to a case and offers information that bears on the case, but who has not been solicited by any of the parties to assist a court
- 12.
CRS puts Sundarbans in jeopardy , The Times of India, August 3, 2015,
- 13.
সুন্দরবনে ঘর বাঁচাতে বিধি বদল চায় রাজ্য, Anandabazar Patrika, July 26, 2015, http://goo.gl/kxlJOl
- 14.
সুন্দরবনের হোটেল বিতর্কে প্রশ্নের মুখে দূষণ নিয়ন্ত্রণ পর্ষদDecember 18, 2015, http://goo.gl/hsK1s0 Anandabazar Patrika
- 15.
NGT rejects state’s plea, orders demolition of Gadkhali structure, The Times of India, Sept 10, 2015 http://goo.gl/u0TRO1
- 16.
NGT orders ban on all construction in the Sundarbans, The Times of India, August 6, 2015, http://goo.gl/a5A08g
- 17.
Report underestimates tiger count in Sundarbans, The Hindu, January 23, 2015, accessed at: http://goo.gl/5WwEy6
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Ghosh, A. (2018). Discursive Dissonance in Socioecological Theatre. In: Sustainability Conflicts in Coastal India. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63892-8_5
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