Tripura: Ramsar site Rudrasagar Lake can be saved sans evictions

Agartala: Can the conservation of natural resources take place by removing the people who live around them? This is a question that has plagued several conservation efforts in India, and Tripura is no different. Rudrasagar Lake, the state’s lone Ramsar site, has been a hotspot for conservation activities but as is becoming evident, any attempt at conserving the site by evicting locals will not only be difficult, it will push thousands already living on the margins into penury. 

The government understands their plight, and now, the hope is that the courts do so as well. 

Seven decades of ‘settlement’

To understand the issue behind settlements around the Rudrasagar Lake, we need to go back to the period after India’s independence. In 1951, the government settled thousands of Hindu Bengalis from scheduled caste communities around the lake. But the government did not give them individual land rights.

Under the guidance of the elders, the people constituted a cooperative society, thereby handing over the ownership title of the sprawling lake to the Rudrasagar Fishermen Cooperative Society. The cooperative society regulated the use of the land for crops and pisciculture.

Things remained the same until 2007, when the lake shot into the national limelight after it was declared a Ramsar Site. Accordingly, the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change recognised this site as a ‘wetland of national importance’. However, for the farmers living around the heritage site, the change in status of the Rudrasagar Lake did not impact their lives immediately.

But things changed in 2017, and how. 

The shock before the pandemic

54-year-old Nepal Das is a second-generation farmer. He grows Boro paddy during the dry season, while fishing remains his primary source of income during monsoons. 

This form of combined income is not exclusive to Nepal Das. Nearly two thousand families living around Rudrasagar Lake depend on a combination of farming and fishing for sustenance. 

The High Court of Tripura took up a suo moto litigation in connection with the disputed wetland in 2017 under the instructions of the Supreme Court of India. The basis of the direction was a Public Interest Litigation filed by a lawyer seeking the preservation of these sites of international importance from encroachment and human activities that violate the law. The Supreme Court directed the High Courts of respective states to look into the issues about the Ramasar site.

“We don’t even know when this lake was declared as a Ramsar site. In 2019, the High Court of Tripura served a notice to the cooperative society, directing them to stop cultivation in the wetland because it went against the rules and regulations. We were stunned because, for six-seven decades, we have been associated with agriculture. If we are barred from agriculture, how will we even survive? For one season, we could not cultivate our land: the devastating effect of that year still haunts us. The intervention of the then Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb helped us resume cultivation the following year,” Das told EastMojo.

Das recalls the period. “All of us were left high and dry that year. Many of us are still bearing the burden of debt on our shoulders taken at that point of time to make sure that our families at least got two square meals,” Das recalled. The lack of income combined with the onset of the pandemic meant things got dire for several families. 

Apart from the agricultural activities, two brickfields were also established in proximity to the wetland, which also violated the rules. Based on the Court’s September 2019 verdict, both brick kilns were shut down and the state government was directed to make necessary arrangements for stopping crop production in the wetland area.

While the brick kiln owners could not sustain their arguments before the Court, the farmers have been fighting the case for their livelihood.

How high should the water be?

Court-appointed amicus curiae for the case and senior lawyer Indrajit Chakraborty said, “The Court in its verdict underscored that to restore the wetland, water level needs to be kept at 11-meter river level (RL). The Court has also maintained that any effort to drain out the water of the wetland can affect the ecology of the wetland, which is undesirable.”

The farmers, on the other hand, pleaded with the Court and the state government to relax this water level ceiling for the dry season. Secretary of the Rudrasagar Fishermen Cooperative Society said that they had no problem if the water level rises even beyond 11 meters RL in the rainy season (May to November) because, during that particular period of the year, the fishermen community is engaged in fishing and rising water level helps in the nourishment of the fish.

“According to the maps we have ever since the cooperative society was formed, around 600 acres of land remains submerged in the water round the year. In the rest of the 1471.71 acres of land, we do agriculture for a particular period and during monsoons, fishermen are given selected tracts of the wetland on lease. Our cooperative society earns around Rs 50 lakh annually from the lease and this money is used for helping the poor families, education of talented students, salary for our employees and other social and philanthropic works,” Das told EastMojo. 

If water levels are kept at the 11-meter level, he said, all of the 2,000-acre lowlands will be underwater for the whole year. Not only that, more than 700 kanis (one kani equals 17280 sq. feet) of private property will also sink underwater. “The whole economic ecosystem of the area will get destroyed,” Das claimed.

According to Das, every year, they harvest about 8,400 metric tons of paddy from this vast region. The farmers can make enough to sustain families for the whole year even after selling crops. Fishing supplements their income for the next phase of the year.

Government is our only hope

When asked what transpired in the recent meeting with Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha, Das said, “We have apprised the government and sought Chief Minister’s cooperation on the issue. We said that if the water level is kept at 9.5 metres between December to April, the farmers will be able to do their agricultural work and tourists who are coming to visit Neermahal can also enjoy boating at the front. For the rainy season, we have no objection (regarding the water level). The Chief Minister has also nodded to our proposal. We hope things will go in our favour in the next hearing of the Court.”

Newly-elected MLA from the Nalchar assembly constituency, Kishore Barman, also comes from the same area. A resident of Kemtali, Barman’s father Amarchan Barman is among the 2,000 members of the cooperative society.

“The economy of Rudrasagar is not confined to the 2,000 members of the cooperative society alone. People from the adjacent areas are also earning from the lake and agricultural activities. The government is considering fixing the water level ceiling to either 9.5 meters or 9.8 meters keeping in mind the interests of the farmers,” he added.

Amicus curiae Indrajit Chakraborty said, “The farmers residing in the areas have violated the Tripura Land Reforms and Land Revenue Act 1960. The cooperative society has been awarded the ownership title for the lake for carrying out pisciculture. But they have converted it into crop land which is a clear case of diversion. Land diversion is a crime under the TLLR Act 1960.” 

He said he will raise all these issues before the Division Bench headed by the Chief Justice of Tripura High Court in the next hearing.

The farmers, however, rejected Chakraborty’s arguments. They had formed regulations for the functioning of the cooperative society and every generation has followed them in letter and spirit, the farmers argue. 

The farmers also informed EastMojo that due to the composite use of the land, they receive higher yields in both parts of the year. “As the maximum land remains submerged in water for a longer time of the year, the harvest is higher in the dry season. And in monsoons, the fish feed on the residuals of the paddy cultivation. No additional fodder is used for fish farming in the rainy season. This natural way of farming is rare in today’s world,” explained Das. 

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