Jale Dangai: Exploring economic symbiosis and its consequent perils through a Bangla fiction

Abstract

The dynamics of the riverine landscape and the marginalized people have mostly centred on conflicts and
contingencies. The traditional fishermen in Bengal, mainly from the castes of Jele Kaibartyas, the Malos, the
Jhalos, the Bagdis, and others, have been heavily dependent on the riverine resources for their daily needs
and sustenance. Besides being a principal channel of transport, rivers and tidal landscapes have generated
economy by being the prime source of resources to the population residing along the tidal landscapes.
Reliability on the water bodies and riverine ecology has been the primary prism through which the economic
symbiosis between nature and the subalterns has developed. It has, however been ambiguous, whether the
dependency can be deemed profitable as the fishermen and boatmen have been living under extreme
indigent conditions. The reason/s for the lack of materialization of the economic symbiosis in the imagined
way can be located in the praxis of commercial activities that have been undertaken around the riverine and
tidal landscapes. So, a crisis has been generated in the lives of the traditional lower caste fishermen who have
been subtly manoeuvred to engage in the labour of catching fish from the rivers and seas and yet deprived
of the benefit of their work. Thus, various forms and aspects of commercialism around the tidal landscapes
of Bengal have generated difficulties for the traditional fishermen and boatmen.