The Unquiet Sundarbans: The Making of an Ecological History

An environmental movement took place in the Sundarbans due to the effect of partition, where uprooted people from Bangladesh sought to live and coexist with its ecological setup. After the liberation movement of Bangladesh in 1971, innumerable refugees migrated forcefully from Bangladesh to Calcutta and from Calcutta to Dandakaranya. But they didn’t adjust to the unfavorable environment and different cultures. This paper explains that during this turmoil, the state’s government emphasized the preservation policy of the Sundarbans mangroves as well as the ‘land’ and ‘water’ of the state. On the contrary, vulnerable people of the Dandakaranya belt were required to settle down passionately in the same landscape to survive, which further added to the conflict between "government" and ‘people." Thus, the refugee problem has turned into an environmental issue that has drawn country-wide attention. This article presents an original structure for the potential benefits of bringing environmental conflicts and ecological history into a single cross-disciplinary narrative.