On temperaments, communities and conflicts in the river fisheries of Bihar, amidst rigidly persistent caste and class discrimination

Dey, Subhasis

Kelkar, Nachiket

Aquatic Commons

72
SAMUDRA REPORT NO. 75
Tempered Down
On temperaments, communities and confl icts in the river fi sheries 
of Bihar, amidst rigidly persistent caste and class discrimination
Fishing communities in Bihar, mostly landless and 
marginalized, eke out a diffi cult existence...
Social and institutional interactions impinge significantly on how resource declines are 
experienced by fisherfolk, as local 
scarcity of resources can aggravate 
and transform historically entrenched 
conflicts over fishing rights, access 
and ownership. Owing to conflicts 
emerged from historical relations, 
or institutional changes, or state-
driven policies, a dichotomous 
‘fishing communities versus the rest 
of the world” framing of the problem 
is commonplace. 
The primary assumption in this 
outlook is that the heterogeneity of 
socio-cultural practices within these 
fishing communities could, or should, 
be glossed over to focus on broader 
inequalities and injustices meted by 
the state and other institutions. But 
often this leads only to a coarse-
resolution awareness of fishing 
conflicts and their potential outcomes 
for human livelihoods. 
Often there is a need to look deeper 
at the micro-scale, at what goes on 
not just between, but also within, 
conflict-ridden fishing communities. 
This becomes particularly necessary 
for a nuanced understanding of 
fisheries systems situated within 
highly stratified and unequal societies, 
and threatened ecological settings. 
The basin-level alteration of river-
flow regimes by dams, barrages, 
engineering developments and 
pollution has contributed significantly 
to impoverished fisheries in terms of 
both quantity and quality in India’s 
Gangetic basin. In the lower Gangetic 
floodplains of Bihar, rigidly persistent 
caste and class discrimination has 
formed the proverbial backdrop 
against which river fishery conflicts 
have been emerging, changing, and 
continuing. Importantly, fishing 
rights, access to fishing grounds, and 
ownership conflicts cannot still be 
separated from floodplain systems of 
land ownership (for example, freehold 
tenure, tenancy, etc.) and control of 
riparian productivity by powerful and 
influential landowning people, locally 
called the ‘bosses’. 
Fishing communities in Bihar, 
mostly landless and marginalized, 
eke out a difficult existence with no 
meaningful institutional structure 
to bind them together. The common 
district boundary of Bhagalpur in 
eastern Bihar, and a somewhat fluid 
political identity of being from the 
Nishad or Mallah castes are the only 
things that may be held as constant for 
these people. But otherwise nothing 
seems adequate to group them: the 
label of a homogeneous ‘fishing 
community’ risks undermining the 
complexity and diversity of fisherfolk 
that reside in the Barari, Kahalgaon, 
and Naugachhia towns of Bihar 
(See Map). 
Diversity of fi shing
Differences in geographic locations 
and ecological specificities of 
‘places’ they fish in also correlate 
with a diversity of fishing practices 
and seasonal movement patterns. 
Owing to these divergences, their 
interactions with different state and 
non-state institutions influence the 
variability of ways through which 
their local fishing grounds are 
This article is by Nachiket Kelkar 
(rainmaker.nsk@gmail.com) of Ashoka Trust 
for Research in Ecology and the Environment 
(ATREE), India and Subhasis Dey 
(subhasisvbrec98@gmail.com), Department 
of Botany, T.M. Bhagalpur University, 
Bhagalpur, India
INDIA
Analysis
JANUARY 2017
73
controlled. The settlements bear 
different ‘temperaments’, which also 
represent other fishing communities 
across the Gangetic floodplains, and 
which we attempt to sketch out, based 
on our long-term interactions, both 
formal and informal. 
Table 1 compares the fishing 
practices, access to fishing grounds, 
movements, group associations and 
experiences of conflicts faced through 
interactions with fishers from the 
three settlements. We also describe 
their responses to resource declines 
and intergroup interactions, to dwell 
on the heterogeneous meanings of 
‘fishing community’ for people, 
despite a common history.
The river fisheries of Bihar shifted 
from a private regime to an open-
access regime in 1991, following 
the Ganga Mukti Andolan, a social 
movement that sprung up in the 
1980s, demanding the overthrow 
of private control of rivers in Bihar 
called Panidari (water-lording). The 
fishers of Kagzi Tola in Kahalgaon 
were at the forefront of this movement 
and, in a sense, they represented the 
whole fishing community of Bhagalpur 
district. The Andolan did succeed as 
private control was overthrown in 
1991 by the state, but it failed on 
account of actually creating 
alternative systems of property rights 
or community management of river 
fisheries, landing up fishers in a 
‘free-for-all’ open-access situation. 
It also did not do enough to resolve 
issues of caste identity that underlay 
the floodplain-dwelling groups that 
participated in it. 
Kahalgaon fishers travel far and 
wide, and always have to fish, despite 
the primary drive and weakness 
for hunting and eating the flesh of 
soft-shelled river turtles. This drive 
takes them to the floodplains of the 
Gandak River in western Bihar and 
the Ghaghra in Uttar Pradesh, 
where turtles are still in relatively 
better numbers than in the Ganga. 
Some fishers have even travelled to 
the Yamuna and Chambal, and some 
even to Goa to help capture and 
kill sea turtles. These long travels 
are accompanied by double-faced 
actions: often these fishers pay rent 
Map: Map showing the Barari, Naugachhia and Kahalgaon towns with 
Mallah fi shing settlements in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar, India
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SAMUDRA REPORT NO. 75
Table 1. A comparison of the characteristics of three Mallah fi shing settlements in the 
Bhagalpur district indicates a gradient of differences in fi shing practices and preferences
Name of 
Settlement
Sub-caste Range of 
Infl uence
Grouping 
patterns
Fishing effort 
& practices
Propensity 
to exit from 
fi shery 
Role in 
resistance
Tolerance 
for other 
fi shers
KagziTola 
(Kahalgaon)
Banpar Ganga River 
and some 
tributaries 
in Bihar, 
Bengal and 
eastern UP
Mixed groups, 
corporate 
groups, bands
Main river, 
localized around 
Kahalgaon but 
widespread 
fishing across 
the region
Low, shift to 
labour and 
exit known 
only during 
extreme 
years
Led Low
Makkhatakiya 
(Naugachhia)
Nishad Kosi, Ganga 
rivers
Bands Inlets and side-
channels with 
vegetation, 
ponds and 
floodplain 
wetlands
Moderate to 
High, shift 
to pond 
fisheries and 
wage labour 
Supported Usually, 
they are 
the ‘other’ 
fishers, 
High
Barari 
(Bhagalpur)
Gorhi 
(Mahaldar)
Barari area Family groups Main river, 
highly localized
High, many 
have shifted 
to local 
alternative 
occupations
Passive High
to local bosses and criminal gangs 
to fish (whose practices they hate 
so much) to gain access to fish and 
hunt in their territories. However, 
the same Kagzi Tola fishers do 
not take kindly to other fisherfolk 
coming into, and fishing around, the 
rocky islands at Kahat, their 
fishing territory. 
The river is perhaps the deepest 
at this point anywhere on the Ganga, 
has complex habitats, a stable 
channel, eddies, and counter-currents 
where several fish species reside in 
good numbers. The strong guard of 
this productive fishery itself goes 
against their demand for ‘exclusive 
rights for fishing castes’. 
The Naugachhia fishers are the 
other extreme of Kahalgaon but 
because  Naugachhia is not located 
on the riverbank, fishing in small 
bands in the Ganga and Kosi rivers 
(in other fishers’ grounds) is what 
they practise. They go out to 
Bhagalpur or somewhere along the 
Kosi coast for several days, only to 
return home during festivities or 
illnesses. Used to being ‘floating 
outsiders’, friendliness is an essential 
survival strategy, and applies to 
everyone they meet:—other fishers, 
conservationists, and criminal gangs 
as well. 
The mood in the Barari fishing 
settlement near Bhagalpur city is one 
of general agreement, irrespective 
of discussions. There is no surplus 
anger or warmth, but rather there 
is a patient, measured behaviour 
maintained in interactions. Though 
these fishers too regularly fish in the 
river, they are relatively distracted 
and indifferent. Threat is a routine 
part of life, without question. They 
regularly see the local bosses, partake 
with their fish catch when threatened, 
and report these incidents as if these 
were norms and hence acceptable, 
“yeh to chalta hai (this keeps 
happening)”. 
The Ganga at Bhagalpur is a busy 
river: there is the long Vikramshila 
bridge over which vehicles keep 
moving noisily; there are waterway-
dredger vessels digging up the river 
every now and then; there is a highly 
polluted side-channel that takes the 
sewage and garbage from Bhagalpur 
city, and pilgrims, motorboats, 
crowded ghats and markets make up 
for the other elements. 
Three settlements that once shared 
a common history of oppression 
and poverty show divergent 
temperaments as they confront 
their gravely insecure livelihoods 
in a rapidly degrading river and 
dangerous fishery setting. With a 
A N A LY S I S
JANUARY 2017
75
continuing exodus, the number 
of fishers actively fishing today 
might be less than 30 per cent of 
the number 10-15 years ago. For 
those who remain, importantly, the 
socio-ecological setting and lived 
experience have, at least partly, 
shaped their variable attitudes. What 
is striking is that these differences 
severely limit their ability to reflect 
critically on the open-access cage they 
are stuck in. 
In this context, the uniform 
application of fisheries policies, 
schemes and community-wide 
extension programmes might achieve 
heterogeneous outcomes. A closer 
look at how temperaments are 
formed, maintained and expressed 
in response to conflicts appears 
essential in planning sustained 
dialogue with communities living 
on the edge of declining riverine 
fisherie.                                                         
www.dukeupress.edu/where-the-river-
ends/?viewby=title
Muehlmann, S. 2013. Where the 
River Ends: Contested Indigeneity 
in the Mexican Colorado delta. 
Duke University Press: USA, p. 220
www.cambridge.org/core/books/life-on-
the-ganga/B8459012B50 449DEB8807 
BB87F593241
Assa Doron, 2013. Life on the 
Ganga Boatmen and the Ritual 
Economy of Banaras. Cambridge 
University Press
For more
NACHIKET KELKAR
Fishing in River Ganges, India. Fishing communities in Bihar, mostly landless and marginalized, 
eke out a diffi cult existence with no meaningful institutional structure to bind them together
I N D I A


India: tempered down

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India: tempered down

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