Urvashi Sarkar

Reporter

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

P. Sainath

Series Editors

large_Edited-photo_blob1.626390262.jpg

medium_Edited-photo_blob1.626390262.jpg

small_Edited-photo_blob1.626390262.jpg

thumbnail_Edited-photo_blob1.626390262.jpg

Edited-photo_blob1.626390262.jpg

This story is part of the PARI
<a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/chronicling-climate-change-everyday-lives-extraordinary-stories/">
series on climate change
</a>
that won the Ramnath Goenka Award for 2019 in the Environment Reporting category.
Kajal
Lata Biswas is still haunted by memories of the cyclone. Though it’s been 10
years since Aila hit the Sundarbans, she still clearly recalls May 25, 2009.

It was
just before noon. “The [Kalindi] river water rushed into the village and
flooded all the houses,” says Kajal Lata. She was at a relative’s house in
Kumirmari village that day, around seven kilometres from her own village, Gobindakati.
“Some 40-50 of us took shelter in a boat where we stayed the whole day and
night. We watched trees, boats, cattle and paddy being swept away. At night, we
could not see a thing. Even the matchsticks were soaked. We could see only when
lightning flashed across the sky.”



















Sitting
outside her house and cleaning fish for lunch, 48-year-old Kajal Lata, a
farmer, continues, “That night can never be forgotten. There wasn’t a drop of drinking
water. Somehow, I collected a few raindrops in a plastic bag, which I used to
wet the lips of my two daughters and niece, who were very thirsty.” Her voice shakes with
the memory.

The next
morning, they used a boat to to reach their village. Then waded through flood
water to reach home. “Tanushree, my elder daughter, then 17, almost drowned
where the water was very high. Luckily, she grabbed her aunt’s saree pallu
which had come loose,” Kajal Lata says, her eyes relaying the fear she felt.

In May
2019, her fear returned with cyclone Fani, its arrival coinciding
with the wedding of her younger daughter, 25-year-old Anushree.

The
wedding was fixed for May 6. Loudspeaker announcements about Fani by the panchayat and on radio by the government had started a few
days earlier. “Imagine our plight and fear,” Kajal Lata says. “We were
terrified that winds and rain would destroy all the preparations. There was
some rain in the days before the wedding. But thankfully, the cyclone did not
affect our village,” she adds, clearly relieved.

On May 2, the India Meteorological Department had issued a
warning about Fani hitting Andhra Pradesh, Odisha (which turned out to be the
worst affected) and West Bengal. Talking about Fani, Prafulla Mondal, an
80-year-old farmer and former teacher in Rajat Jubilee village, raises his
voice a few notches: “Fani missed the Sundarbans very narrowly. The winds
whistled by us. If it had hit our village, we would have been destroyed, along
with our houses and land…” 

As
both Mondal and Kajal Lata know only too well, cyclones are common in the
Sundarbans. The
Disaster
Management and Civil Defence Department of the West Bengal government categorises
both South and 24 North Parganas districts as ‘very high damage risk zones’ due
to cyclones.

Mondal’s village is in Gosaba block of South 24 Parganas
district, and Kajal Lata’s village is in North
24 Parganas district’s Hingalganj block. Both are among the 19 blocks which
comprise the Indian Sundarbans in West Bengal – 6 blocks in North 24 Parganas
and 13 in South 24 Parganas. 

Spread across India and Bangladesh, the Sundarbans is a vast delta with perhaps the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world – covering around
10,200 square kilometres. “The Sundarbans
region is one of the richest ecosystems in the world…” says a 2014 report by
the World Bank titled Building Resilience for the Sustainable Development of
the Sundarbans. “The entire mangrove forest region is known for its
exceptional biodiversity, including numerous threatened species such as the
Royal Bengal tiger, estuarine crocodile, Indian python, and several species of
river dolphin. It is home to more than 10 per cent of mammal and 25 percent of
bird species found in India.” 

The Indian Sundarbans – roughly 4,200 square kilometres – is also
home to nearly 4.5 million people, many of whom live on the edge, struggling
with meagre livelihoods, a harsh terrain and weather extremes.

Though
the region has not seen a major cyclone after Aila, it remains severely vulnerable. A 2006
report by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, done for the West
Bengal government’s Department of Disaster Management, notes that the
state experienced 71 cyclonic storms from the years 1891 to 2004.  In that period, South 24 Pargana district’s
Gosaba was the most affected block, with six severe cyclones and 19 cyclones.

Prafulla can thus recall cyclones even before Aila. “I cannot
forget the 1998 cyclone [described as West Bengal’s ‘most intense storm’ since
Independence, stronger even than Aila, which was a ‘severe cyclonic storm&#39;] with its
strong and violent winds. Before that too, I can remember the cyclone of 1988,”
he says. 

But even given this stormy past, cyclonic depressions (a
tropical weather disturbance at sea, in the range of 31- 60 kilometres an hour,
below the range of a cyclonic storm of 62-82 kilometres) have increased 2.5
times in the last 10 years in the lower Gangetic delta (where the Sundarbans
are located), notes Dr. Abhijit Mitra, a Kolkata-based oceanographer, in a 2019
book titled Mangrove
Forests in India. Exploring  Ecosystem
Services. “This means that cyclones occur more frequently,” he says.


Various other studies show that the incidence of cyclones has
increased in the Bay of Bengal, alongside the Sundarbans. One study published
in 2015 in the Diversity
journal puts the increase at 26 per cent between 1881 and 2001. And using
available
data from 1877 to 2005 on cyclones in the Bay of Bengal during May, October and
November, a 2007 study shows that the frequency of severe cyclonic storms here has registered significant increasing trends in past 129
years during these intense cyclonic months  

In part, this is attributed to the increase in sea surface temperature
(notes, among others, a paper in the Journal of Earth Science &amp; Climate Change).
These temperatures <a href="https://d2391rlyg4hwoh.cloudfront.net/downloads/indian_sundarbans_delta__a_vision.pdf"> </a>rose in
the Indian Sundarbans at 0.5 degrees Celsius
per decade from 1980 through 2007 – higher than the globally observed warming
rate of 0.06° C
per decade.         

There have been several catastrophic fallouts. “While the Sundarbans last
experienced a major cyclone in 2009,” says Prof. Sugata Hazra of the School of
Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, “the region has suffered
because of repeated inundation and embankment failure owing to subsequent
cyclones in the northern Bay of Bengal.”

Embankments, the World Bank report notes, “play
a key role in the Sundarbans as systems of defense against cyclonic storms and
sea level rise. The people and the productivity of their holdings are under
increased threat from deltaic subsidence, sea level rise, and increased cyclone
intensity as climate change and the decay of a 19th century 3,500-kilometer
system of embankments take their toll…”

A
2011 World Wildlife Fund paper says that the relative mean sea level for
2002-2009 measured at the Sagar island observatory, Sundarbans, rose at the rate of
12 mm per year or at the rate of 8 mm per year for 25 years. 

The
warming and related sea level rise is also adverse affecting mangroves. These forests help protect coastal areas from cyclones and erosion, act as breeding
ground for fish and other species, and are also the habitat of the Bengal
Tiger. A 2010 paper by Jadavpur University’s School of Oceanographic Studies,
titled Temporal
Change Detection (2001-2008) Study of Sundarban notes that the rise in sea level and cyclones
seriously affect the health of Sundarban’s mangrove forests by reducing the
forest cover. 

Arjun Mondal a fisherman from Rajat Jubilee village, was
acutely aware of the importance of mangroves to the Sundarbans. He worked with
an NGO, the Sundarbans Rural Development Society. “Everyone has heard of
climate change, but how is it affecting us? We need to know more about this,”
he told me in May 2019. 

On
June 29, 2019, Arjun was carried away by a tiger while hunting for crabs in the
Pirkhali forest. While humans have for long been attacked by tigers in the Sundarbans,
the increasing reports of attacks are at least partially due to the erosion of
forest land caused by rising sea levels, bringing tigers in closer contact with
inhabited villages.

With
the battering of the region by cyclones, water salinity levels have
also risen, especially in the central Sundarbans, where Gosaba is located. “…the ecosystem is being
adversely impacted by significant increases in salinity due, in part, to sea
level rise as well as reductions in freshwater flows to the delta,” notes the
World Bank report.

A research paper co-authored by
Dr. Mitra describes the Sundarbans as ‘hypersaline’. “Water
salinity has increased due to rising sea levels in the central part of
Sundarbans. This is clearly linked to climate change,” says Dr Mitra.  

Other
researchers have noted that the siltation of the Bidyadhari river, which
prevents fresh water flows from the Himalayas to the central and
eastern Sundarbans. Researchers have attributed the siltation in part to land reclamation,
cultivation, dumping of sewage sludge and fisheries waste. The
building of the Farakka Barrage in 1975 (on the Ganga, in West Bengal’s Murshidabad
district) also contributed to the increasing
salinity of the central Sundarbans. 

The Mondal family in
Rajat Jubilee knows the effects of the high salinity – they had no rice to
sell for three years after Aila. Their annual income of Rs. 10, 000- 12,000
from selling rice was wiped out. “With rice cultivation gone, entire villages
emptied out as men left to hunt for work, to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and
Maharashtra, where they joined factories or construction sites as labourers,”
Prafulla recalls. 

Across the state, Aila affected
more than 2 lakh hectares of cropped area and over 6 million people, and it
killed 137  and destroyed over 1 million
houses .  “There was nobody in my village who did not
suffer losses,” Prafulla says. “My house and crops were destroyed. I lost 14
goats and could not cultivate paddy for three years. Everything had to be
rebuilt from scratch. Those were hard years. I took up carpentry and odd jobs
to make a living.” 

After Aila intensified
salinity, Kajal Lata’s family too had to sell six bighas of their 23 bighas
(7.6 acres) of land. “Not a blade of grass grew for two years because
the soil was so salty. Not even rice could grow. Slowly, vegetables like
mustard, cabbage, cauliflower and gourds are growing again, enough for our
consumption, but not enough to sell,” she says.  “We also had a pond which produced
different fish like shol, magur, rui and we could
earn Rs. 25,000-30,000 a year by selling these. But after Aila, the water
became entirely salty, so there is barely any fish.”

The
soil degradation – including high salinity and high alkalinity – caused by Aila
resulted in poor paddy growth across much of North and South 24 Pargana, notes
a 2016 paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences. A study in the journal  shows that to grow paddy again, phosphate and
potash-based fertiliser had to be used above the recommended levels.  

“After Aila, fertiliser use has increased. Only then we are
able to get the required yield,” says Prabir Mondal, Prafulla’s 48-year-old son.
“It isn’t healthy to eat, but we still need to eat it. I remember the rice we
ate as children. You could eat it as it is. Now, even when eaten with
vegetables, something feels amiss.”

His father owns 13 bighas (4.29 acres) of land which produces 8-9
bastas of
rice per bigha
– one basta
equals 60 kilos. “The cost of planting, cutting and lifting the rice plus
fertiliser costs means that we earn very little over what we have spent,” says
Prabir. 

Paddy production across the Sundarbans, a 2018 research
article observes, fell by half after Aila – from 64-80 quintal to 32-40
quintals per 1.6 hectares. Though paddy production has now stabilised to
pre-Aila levels, says Prabir, his family and others in his village remain
completely dependent on rainfall from June to September.

And that rainfall has become unreliable. “The accelerated sea level rise,” says Prof. Hazra, “and the delayed arrival and deficiency of monsoon, are impacts of climate change
in the long run.” 

High
rainfall exceeding 100 millimetres a day is occurring more often in the last
two decades over the northern Bay of Bengal (where the Sundarbans is located),
says ongoing research at the School of Oceanographic Studies, Kolkata. At the
same time, in the sowing season, Prof. Hazra says, the monsoon has often fallen
short, as it did this year – till September 4, around 307 millimetres short in South 24 Parganas and
nearly 157 mm less in North 24 Parganas. 

It’s
not just this year – a shortfall 













or excess rain has been recurring in the
Sundarbans for some years. The normal June to September monsoon rain in South
24 Parganas is 1552.6 mm. The monsoon data for 2012-2017 the district indicates
that rainfall was deficient in four out of six years, with major lows in 2017 (1173.3
mm) and  2012 (1130.4 mm).

In the North 24 Parganas, the opposite has happened: excess rainfall. The normal June to September rainfall here is 1172.8 mm. The monsoon data for 2012-2017  shows that rainfall was excess in four out of these six years with the highest in 2015 – 1428 mm. “The real trouble is the untimely rain,” says Kajal Lata. “In February this year, there was plenty of rain, almost like monsoon. Even the elders said they could not recall a time when it rained so much in February.” Her family depends on paddy for an income, sown in June-July and harvested in November-December. “The paddy growth depends entirely on rainfall. If there is no rain, the rice will not grow.” Since the last four or five years, she says, it’s been raining in her village in November-December, in addition to the monsoon months. While some showers during these months usually occur here, their intensity can harm the paddy harvest. “Either there is no rain when required or it rains excessively out of season. This is destroying the harvest. Every year we think this time there won’t be excessive [unseasonal] rain. But it rains so much and the crop is completely destroyed. That is why we have the saying, ‘Aashay morey chaasa&#39; [&#39;Hope kills the farmer&#39;].”

In Rajat Jubilee village, Prabir Mondal is also worried.
“Through June and July, there was no rainfall [in my village]. Some paddy
leaves dried up. Thankfully, rain has arrived [in August]. But will it be
enough? What if it rains too much and the crop drowns?” 

As a healthcare practitioner (he has a BA
degree in alternative medicine), Prabir says his patients also increasingly
complain of the heat. “Many now suffer from heat stroke. It
can hit at any time and can be fatal,” he explains.

Land temperatures in the Sundarbans are
also increasing, besides the rising sea surface temperatures. From 180 days in a year when the temperature was
32 degrees Celsius or higher here in 1960, the number of such days increased to
188 in 2017, show data on an interactive portal
of the New York Times on climate and
global warming. This could become 213 to 258 days by the end of
the century.  



















Buffeted repeatedly by the growing heat, cyclones, erratic
rain, salinity, vanishing
mangroves and more, the residents of the Sundarbans live in a near-constant
state of uncertainty. Prafulla Mondal, witness of several storms and cyclones,
wonders: “Who knows what will come next?&quot;

PARI’s nationwide
reporting project on climate change is part of a UNDP-supported initiative to
capture that phenomenon through the voices and lived experience of ordinary
people.

Want to
republish this article?  Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a
cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Sundarbans: ‘Not a blade of grass grew…’

सुंदरबन: ‘कांदी के एक तिनका घलो नई जामिस...’

సుందర్‌బన్స్: 'ఒక్క గడ్డి పోచయినా మొలవలేదు...'

ਸੁੰਦਰਬਨ: 'ਘਾਹ ਦੀ ਤਿੜ ਤੱਕ ਨਹੀਂ ਉੱਗੀ...'

പുല്‍ക്കൊടി പോലും കിളിര്‍ക്കാത്ത അവസ്ഥയില്‍ സുന്ദര്‍വനങ്ങള്‍

સુંદરવન: “ઘાસનું એક તણખલું પણ ઉગ્યું નહીં...”

ಸುಂದರ್ಬನ್: ‘ಹುಲ್ಲಿನ ಒಂದು ಎಸಳೂ ಸಹ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬೆಳೆಯಲಿಲ್ಲ...’

সুন্দৰবনঃ ‘এডালো ঘাঁহ-বন গজা নাছিল…’

சுந்தரவனம்: 'ஒரு புல் பூண்டு கூட முளைக்கவில்லை...'

ସୁନ୍ଦରବନ: ‘କେରାଏ ଘାସ ମଧ୍ୟ ଉଠୁନି’

सुंदरबनः ‘गवताचं साधं पातंही उगवलं नाही...’

সুন্দরবন: ‘একটা ঘাস-পাতাও গজায়নি...’

سُندربن: ’گھاس کا ایک پتہ بھی نہیں اُگا...‘

तूफ़ानों से घिरा सुंदरबन: यहां कब क्या हो जाए, कोई नहीं जानता

Gosaba

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

IN TELUGU - Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Sundarbans: ‘Not a blade of grass grew…’

People in the Sundarbans of West Bengal, for long living on the edge, are now facing climate change – recurring cyclones, erratic rain, growing salinity, rising heat, depleting mangroves and more

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit