Kolkata
The name of the village Bidhoba Para has been thus christened because the area is vastly inhabited by the widows of tiger victims, most of whom are tribals.
They are called Vyagrhabidhoba or Tiger widows because their husbands were killed by tigers. Nestled amid a warren of salty backwaters (rivers) at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal infested by crocodiles and sharks in the water and the dreaded Royal Bengal Tigers — on the swampy riverine islands —-Bidhoba Para owes its name to hundreds of Tiger widows, about one-third of whom are tribal women.
The area that falls under Jaynagar constituency goes to poll on June 1.
“In Sunderbans, the women whose husbands are ‘taken’ (they won’t say killed) by the tigers are considered inauspicious people who are bearing the curse of Bono Bibi (the Goddess of the Jungles) and fit to be punished by Dakshin Roy (tigers are locally called thus) the King of the Jungles who is subservient and takes orders from none but Bono Bibi,” Jharna Sardar tells The Indian Tribal.
Her husband was “taken” by the Dakshin Roy more than 15 monsoons back but despite legal stipulations she has not been paid her rightful compensation by the Netas who return year after year begging for votes.
“Dakshin Roy (read Tigers) are no politicians so they won’t suck you dry bit by bit. They will simply tear you off in one go, so by that count they are better than those who sit there at Canning or Kolkata,” says Anima Sardar, a Tiger widow. Save his hand and genitals, her husband was devoured in full by a tiger.
She said she would not vote in protest as “they gave me only Rs 1 lakh initially not a penny more though local panchayat told me before the 2019 and 2021 elections that money has been released from Kolkata, which, however, has not yet reached here.”
She is visibly angry.
“The matter is not that grim as the NGOs are taking care of the situation,” says Manturam Pakhira, a Minister, shifting all the responsibilities on the social groups and quickly leaving the spot confident that Pratima Mondal, the TMC sitting MP would win anyway as the BJP and the Left have failed to perform. Pratima Mondal won the Jaynagar seat — in which Gosaba block falls — in 2019 by more than 3 lakh votes.
“In our district, even habitual drunkards who kick the bucket by consuming Chullu or Banglu (spurious country liquor) are worth Rs 2 lakh because they are vote fixers and the Government grants them spot compensation but we the God forsaken people are worth not even a penny,” alleges Bani Sardar, another widow.
The “inauspicious” widows are prevented from traditional occupations like catching shrimps or crabs. “No boatman will take us into the creeks as they fear they too would be consumed by the tigers,” says Jharna. The upshot: Many of these women are either forced to migrate to Kolkata and spend their lives on the sidewalks or take to prostitution.
“Though some of them work as domestic helps in towns like Jaynagar or Canning or even Kolkata, the income is quite exploitative because their employers take advantage of their condition to pay them meagre salaries,” says Kabita Haldar, a researcher.
When asked to speak about their plight, former State minister and a revered CPI(M) veteran Kanti Ganguli recalled how “Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee promptly announced ex-gratia for the people who died drinking spurious liquor but would not spare a word on the tribal women of the tiger infested areas”.
But that governmental insensitivity is unlikely to hurt the TMC, say local politicians. On whether the plight of the tribal widows would have any impact on the ruling Trinamool Congress, a block level BJP leader avers, “You have a constituency of about 18 lakh votes whereas tribal widows of Sunderbans constitute a very small percentage of it so it is hardly possible that their voting will impact any party but morally speaking we are very much on their side.”
Most tiger kill stories follow the same pattern, with minor variations. In some cases, the fellow fishermen or honey-farmers fight back and manage to retrieve the victim alive. But in most of the cases they are dead and in many cases their bodies cannot be found. It is the widows of such people that find it harder to get compensation from the Government.
“First they will ask whether you had a fishing permit of which most of these poor people have none. Then they will ask you to get the body. Even if you manage to get some funds sanctioned after running from pillar to post at distant Canning or Baruipur district headquarters the local politicians demand a cut money and then you are left with nothing,” rues Amiya Pakhira (name changed), a local social worker informing that at one gram panchayat alone at Lahiripur there could be more than 150 tiger widows out of whom about 100 could be tribals.
But what prevents the opposition BJP and the Left from raising a movement to improve the condition of the tribal people particularly their women? “Who wants to be shot dead?” Pat comes the reply from Dipak Mondal, a BJP worker. He alleges that during the Amphan cyclone “all that was meant for the poor went to the pockets of the influential politicians”.
Ironically, though, while helplessness is writ large on the faces of these Tiger widows, yet they blame their “bhagya” (fate) and not the netas for their poor state of lives.
