Deepor Beel is designated as the only Ramsar site in Assam. However, colonial and post-colonial interventions in and around the wetland have tinkered with or interfered with this water body; in fact, communities around Deepor Beel have coexisted with nature and wildlife. They have learned to manage, welcome, and build a lifestyle around it, bending and rising again with it.
Community Fishing: Embodiment of rituals and practices
For more than 800 families living near the wetland, it serves as a reminder of tradition or folk culture wherein large-scale community fishing takes place on the first Sunday of January every year. Before the community goes fishing on Saturday before the fishing takes place, elderly women from the community offer prayers at the nearby Krishna mandir near the beel for a good catch and prosperity of the village’s livelihood. On the penultimate night, the community gathers around the wetland.
They offer prayers to the water deity per their folk culture or customs. Also, most of the time fishing takes place in the beel around the edges of the beel, however during Bohag and Magh Bihu fishing takes place in the deeper part of the beel, the fisher doesn’t overfish as they don’t have the facilities to store the additional catch, however, drying fish is also used as a method to preserve the catch as well.
This shows community connection with nature, through ritualistic performance and the embodiment of ancestral spirits, and worshipping of nature or clan deities, that are part of many communities. These rituals associated with fishing provide the community with psychological support, and social cohesion, and instil solidarity among the fishing folk and community to cope with challenges that emerged due to human intervention.
Fishing: Co-existence among community
A majority of households fish seven days a week; therefore, most of the families residing nearby sell the fish that they capture to fish sellers who then transport it to nearby marketplaces. While it is typically faster and more profitable to sell in bulk to the sellers, some sell a small part directly at local markets.
However, livelihood has been under great threat as the increased water levels in the Beel throughout the summer are one of the biggest obstacles, as fish are scattered more and are harder to locate when the water level rises, making fishing more challenging.
Additionally, it increases the risk of fishing in the Beel’s deeper areas and the catch is not as abundant on certain occasions. The community had to modify their fishing methods without impacting the ecosystem like certain categories of nets (jaal) that have greater longevity, use of country-made hand rowed boats etc. A resident added, “Earlier we would take pride in feeding our guests fresh fish from the wetland but that has become a distant past.”
The community starts to prepare for fishing at 5 am. Since the water is very shallow along the Beel’s edge during the winters, they row far from their regular fishing sites. Hence, casting the nets and waiting for the fish to be caught requires experience and patience. Usually, they catch smaller fish like (Putthi – shalyni & Stedman barb, Goroi Maas – spotted and green snakehead, Kuchia – Swamp Eel, Kowai – climbing perch etc.) in winter and bigger fishes (Rohu – Labeo rohita, Catla – Catla catla etc.) in summer.
Fish spread out further in the Beel, with high water levels in the summer, making it more difficult to catch them, therefore fishing slows down. The tools usually used during fishing are usually big nets and wooden boats that are hand-rowed. “They use thinner nets with smaller holes for smaller fish and stronger nets that can support the weight of larger fish. To keep the fish fresh while they fish, they usually use containers along with them”.
“Earlier, on average, I would catch around 2.5kg to 3kg of fish a day and earn around Rs 450 – 550. However, the catch, as well as income, has gradually reduced to little more than Rs 200 due gradual decline in fish like crap, small prawn (misa maas), kawoi (climbing perch) etc. due to issues like overfishing leading to a dearth of fish, pollution, shrinking of wetland, and state intervention this has impacted the income of the fisherfolk drastically making it hard to sustain a family of 5 as my income has reduced to Rs 200 or less per day,” said Dhurba Das (name changed).
The community practice of using hand-rowed wooden boats over motorboats since motorboats disturb the water and frighten away the fish, they prefer the wooden boats being not too loud shows their coexistence with nature and their understanding of more than human-kinship relationship.
Locals say they fish more efficiently in hand-rowed boats since they are quieter and slowly navigate areas closer to the fish’s hiding places. However, issues like encroachment, discharge of pollutants, and land use practices have significantly impacted not only the traditional livelihood practices like fishing has become economically non-viable due to anthropogenic and climate changes etc., but also impacted the cultural fabric.
Changing trend and rethinking livelihood in wetland ecosystem:
Fishing is an important source of social capital throughout the year for the community, however, the catch varies each season, a resident added, ‘their capacity to buy goods or staples for the family depends on the catch from the earlier day’ showing the significance of these wetland geographies among residents and how these geographies shape them and their choices as well. As they only started practising agriculture and other allied activities much later due to the shrinking of wetlands, fishing became unprofitable due to a shortage of rainfall over the years. This can be better understood from a statement from another resident “We usually use only 10-15% of the daily catch for our consumption, in some cases even lower and the rest are sold in the nearby market”.
Jayanta Boro (name changed) from Deepor Beel Pachpara Samabai Samiti explained that the fish catch has fallen in the past few years, causing high prices.
He also added that there had been a fall in fishing over the years, forcing communities to switch to other forms of livelihood from animal husbandry, daily wager, migration etc. “We as a community have come a long way from enough fish on our plate or to sell to becoming a daily wager to fend for ourselves and our family, a lot of youth from 18 – 25 years of age are forced to migrate within and outside Assam for livelihood,” he added.
Due to the gradual decline in these forms of traditional livelihood among the community, forced and new forms of livelihood patterns like daily wagers, animal husbandry, starting a small shop (Ghumti), migration etc. have emerged that sustain the society and become an integral component of the community erasing the traditional livelihood patterns.
These forms of secondary livelihood changes or shifts are not only limited to areas like Deepor Beel but also Sone Beel in Barak Valley, Maguri Beel in Tinsukia, and other parts of Assam and elsewhere as well, wherein similar livelihood patterns have also changed over the years. This was reiterated by Chandrakanta Das(name changed), who was once a fisherman but is now a poultry farmer. “I was forced to switch to poultry farming as fishing became controlled, and the catch was too low, making this no longer profitable.”
Also, climate change and anthropogenic activities have threatened the wetland, and fish productivity remains a distant memory due to overfishing, pollution, encroachment, and accumulation of silt making it difficult to catch fish.
He added that poultry farming is not profitable as the cost of buying chicks is higher compared to fishing also, this is strenuous and risky as often there are cases of bird flu, and a lot of birds die that putting uncertainty over my income and makes it difficult for me and my family to recover from the loss. He added further that lack of support from the state also makes it difficult for them to sustain these new forms of livelihoods.
Bikash Chetry is PhD Candidate at University of Cape Town, South Africa and Shakeela Ahmed is Graduate student at The Department of Social Work, The Assam Royal Global University.
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