Urvashi Sarkar

large_1_6vCPl2I.jpg

medium_1_6vCPl2I.jpg

small_1_6vCPl2I.jpg

thumbnail_1_6vCPl2I.jpg

1_6vCPl2I.jpg

Shikha Mondal  lost
her husband Asit in November 2015. “He went with two other men to the Garal river in the Baganbari
forest to catch crabs. The other two  returned and told me that a tiger carried my
husband away,” she says. Asit Mondal was
32 when he died, the family’s sole earning member, and the father of two
school-going sons.

Determined to claim compensation, Shikha, a resident of Jahar Colony village in  West
Bengal’s Gosaba block, paid a lawyer Rs. 10,000 to help her. “There were many
documents to gather – no objection certificates (NOCs) from the police and  Forest Department, insurance card, a letter
from the village pradhan, and a death certificate.”

The lawyer managed to get the insurance company to pay Rs.
1 lakh in compensation. But Shikha was denied an NOC from the Forest Department
because her husband died in the core area. The insurance company has not yet
returned her documents. 

Shikha now catches crabs and prawns, does odd jobs and
agricultural labour, and somehow manages to send her sons to school. Unable to
afford an independent household, she and her children live at an uncle’s house.


Thousands of women in the Sunderbans have similarly lost
their husbands to tiger attacks. This delta region, spread over around 4,200
square kilometres in eastern India and home to the world’s largest mangrove
forests, is synonymous with tigers.

The tigers in the forests of Hingalganj, Gosaba, Kultali, Pathar Pratima and Basanti blocks are a threat to the villagers who depend on the forests for their daily needs and livelihoods. These blocks are close to the Sundarbans National Park (and tiger reserve), which includes a core area of around 1,700 square kilometres and a buffer area of around 900 square kilometres, where some livelihood activities are allowed. Usually, it is the men in the villages here who venture into the forests to catch fish and crabs, or to gather honey and wood. In a face-off with a tiger, most often the man dies.

The exact number of women widowed in this manner in the Sundarbans is unknown, but locals, non-governmental organisations and others estimate the number is at least <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712980/">3,000</a> over three decades – or around a 100 a year.

“Since 2011, nearly 250 women have lost their husbands to tiger attacks in Gosaba’s Lahiripur gram panchayat area [consisting of 22 villages],” says Arjun Mondal, who manages the Sundarbans Rural Development Society, an NGO that works for the welfare of the ‘tiger widows’. “Not a single one has received compensation,” he adds.

The women are entitled to total compensation of roughly Rs. 4-5 lakhs from the West Bengal government’s Forest Department, Fisheries Department and the state’s Group Personal Accident Insurance Scheme. However, there are many conditions; Arjun lists a few: “The husband should not have died in the core area, he should have had a boat licence certificate (BLC) and a permit from the Forest Department. Additionally, the wife is required to submit several documents to the different departments to get the compensation.”

Invariably, people from the villages do wander into the core area. Arjun, a fisherman himself, says, “We don’t realise where the buffer zone ends and the core area begins. The government issues very few BLCs, and not everyone can afford one. Getting permits also depends on the will of the Forest Department.”

Therefore, the odds are stacked against the wives of men who do not have BLCs or permits. The situation worsens when the men die in the core areas, which the villagers here are not allowed to enter at all, with or without permits.

As it did for Namita Biswas, 40, from Patharpara village in Gosaba block. Her husband Manoranjan, a fisherman, was attacked by a tiger in the core area in February 2015. He survived and was admitted to a hospital, but died a few days after he was discharged. “The infection from his head injury had not healed,&quot; Namita explains. &quot;My husband had a BLC, but the police refused to take my statement. We gave all our documents and medical bills to the Forest Department for reimbursement. The money is yet to come. There are so many widows like me. The government should at least give us a monthly pension.”

While Shikha and Namita still await compensation, Purmila
Burman, 55, of Patharpara,
has no such hope. In March 2016, her fisherman husband Shubhendu was killed by
a tiger in the core area. “A middleman promised to help me when Shubhendu died.
I gathered all my documents and gave them to him, believing he would help,” Purmila
says. The agent has since disappeared with her documents, and she has received no
compensation. 


















The Sundarbans are full of stories like these. In some
families, consecutive generations of families have lost their men to tiger
attacks. Most of the villages where this has happened have bidhoba paras or ‘widow localities’. In most households, the
women’s lives are marked by distress and penury. It is difficult for them to
re-marry since remarriage is frowned upon.

In July 2016, this writer filed three separate Right to
Information (RTI) petitions enquiring about compensation for tiger widows with
the West Bengal government’s Fisheries Department, Forest Department and
Department of Sundarban Affairs.  

Only the Fisheries Department responded: in the last six
years, only five women – a tiny portion of the estimated 100 women whose
husbands are killed by tigers every year – have filed for compensation with the
department. Of them, only three received Rs. 1 lakh each. The other two were
denied compensation since the postmortem reports for their husbands were not
available. 

But contrary to the Fisheries Department data, most of the women I
talked to said that they had applied for compensation – so it is likely that their
claims are not being accepted due to incomplete documents or other conditions
they fail to meet. 

“The entire process is daunting, with many documents to
submit and a lot of running around. The woman may even be misled or might be
unaware of the process,” says Pradip Chatterjee of the Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum. (The Fishworkers Forum of South Bengal, which is
trying to help ‘tiger widows’ claim compensation and find work). “Meanwhile, fresh
killings by tigers are reported every year, adding to the numbers of widowed
women,” he says.

And some women, Chatterjee adds, fearful of the
questioning by the Forest Department, ‘suppress’ the death of their husband,
especially if he has been killed in the core area – they don’t even register it
with the authorities, and nor do they claim compensation. 

But Ranbibala Mondal of Patharpara village did try to
claim the compensation. Her husband was attacked by a tiger many years ago. “After
all these years, the government has given me nothing,” she says. “Can you do
something?”

Widowed by tigers, abandoned by the state

વાઘે વિધવા બનાવ્યા, સરકારે નસીબના ભરોસે છોડી દીધા

புலிகளால் விதவைகளாகி, அரசால் கைவிடப்பட்டவர்கள்

ବାଘଙ୍କ ଦ୍ୱାରା ବିଧବା, ରାଜ୍ୟ ସରକାରଙ୍କ ଦ୍ୱାରା ଅବହେଳିତା

बाघों द्वारा आतंकित और सरकार द्वारा उपेक्षित

شیر نے بیوہ کر دیا، ریاست نے چھوڑ دیا

कुंकू पुसलं वाघानं, वाऱ्यावर सोडलं सरकारनं

বাঘের হাতে বিধবা, দেশের কাছে ব্রাত্য

বাঘে বিধবা কৰা, ৰাজ্য চৰকাৰে নিৰ্বাসন দিয়া মহিলাগৰাকী

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>

Widowed by tigers, abandoned by the state

Every year, estimates indicate, around 100 men are killed by tigers in the Sundarbans. A bureaucratic maze then disallows their widows from getting compensation, forcing them to live in distress and penury

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