Around 300 families live along the southern edge of Kalabogi village in the Sundarbans – an alluvial setting by the rivers Shibsa and the Sutarkhali in Dacope upazila of Khulna.
Built on a vast plain, several fragile structures of thatched cottages – homes of the villagers, hang on raised bamboo-made platforms. They stand as feathers against gust.
Every year, the turbulent tides in the Shibsa erode Kalabogi's porous shoreline and the inhabitants, marginalised fisherfolks, are forced to shift their homes to safer places.
To add to their burdens, extreme natural events such as cyclones, regularly, devastate their homes and livelihoods.
The poor fishermen are forced to relocate and rebuild their thatched homes with money loaned from local moneylenders.
50-year-old Gulzar Sana, a fisherman, told Bangladesh First every time his family is displaced by natural disasters, he needs to rent a tiny piece of land before rebuilding his cottage, paying the landlords a lump sum of money.
“Even if we scavenge the construction materials like bamboo and Golpata (Nipa palm) leaves, at least Tk15,000-20,000 is needed for reconstruction of a cottage. All the required money is arranged on loan,” he added.
Photo: Noor-A-Alam/BFirst
None of the inhabitants of Jhulanta Para in Kalabogi own lands.
For the tiny land they live on, they pay yearly rent to some wealthy landlords living in comparatively safer places like Khulna township.
Some of the landlords have become Mahajan or moneylenders from whom the poor fishermen get high-interest loans to continue their livelihoods.
Gulzar has one son and two daughters who have been studying in school and college in the Dacope area.
Besides meeting his family’s basic demands including food, he has to manage his children’s monthly educational expenses, at least Tk3,000 for each.
When asked how he manages the money, he replied, “Currently, I owe Tk90,000. Last year, the amount of my debt was Tk50,000. I repaid Tk20,000. Shouldering a liability of Tk30,000, I collected Tk60,000 as loans a couple of weeks ago as cyclone Remal had destroyed my house completely.”
40 years ago, Mazed Gazi migrated to Kalabogi from Paikgachha, an upazila in Khulna district, when his homesteads were destroyed by river erosion. At that time, there were only 30 families living in Kalabogi.
In his entire life in Kalabogi, Mazed, now 58, has witnessed numerous calamities.
He could remember some of the traumatic events including the 2009’s cyclone Aila that washed away three-fourths of the south tail of the Kalabogi locality, displacing his family and many of his neighbours.
Photo: Noor-A-Alam/BFirst
“We have to shift our place of residence twice or thrice a year because of either river erosion or cyclonic storms. Every disaster means a fresh economic burden on us. We hardly can recover. We cannot save a single taka for our future generation,” Mazed shared his frustration.
Because of the limited scope of alternative employment, residents of the Kalabogi Jhulanta Para have pursued fishing as a profession for generations.
60-year-old Shahidul Gazi’s two sons have followed their father’s suit. However, his elder son Abdul Gazi lives separately with his family.
Now, Shahidul and his wife Zayeda Begum are completely dependent on their younger son Alamgir Gazi’s income as Shahidul ceased to work a couple of years ago when he became paralyzed after surviving a brain stroke.
“Amid increasing prices of food and everything, managing family expenses is quite tough with my son’s [Alamgir] meagre income,” said Zayeda, adding her son cannot earn for at least -5-mont a year because of the government-imposed fishing ban in the Sundarbans.
When the Sundarbans remain open for fishing, Alamgir can earn Tk500-1,000 a day. However, a significant portion of the earnings is spent on repaying the loans.
“We have to borrow money round the year to survive,” Zayeda said.
Currently, the family owes Tk50,000, including last year’s the Tk30,000 they owed last year.
Nimai Kumar Roy, member of the Sutarkhali Union Parishad and representative of the Kalabogi Jhulanta Para, told Bangladesh First the people of the village are the most vulnerable due to regular natural disasters.
Photo: Noor-A-Alam/BFirst
“The community has no alternative income to recover from the disasters. The people have no way to escape from the debt traps either. Unless there is adequate and continuous government support, their uplifting is impossible,” Nimai said.
Professor Khan Mehedi Hasan, an economics teacher at Khulna University, said fishermen at Kalabogi Jhulanta Para require a flow of money to invest especially in fishing and rebuilding homes regularly for which they are bound to the local moneylenders.
“For their recovery from the debt traps, the government should identify the particular marginalised community and provide them with either grants or soft loans so that their livelihoods are sustained,” Professor Khan added.
