Fishery conflicts in the Ganga River in Bhagalpur district of Bihar have had a long history of over 200 years. These two centuries have witnessed three broad phases: 1) systemic oppression of local traditional fishing communities at the hands of private feudal landlords (zamindars) who also claimed private rights over the Ganga River fisheries (1790s to 1990-91), 2) ecological degradation after the construction of the Farakka barrage and the National Thermal Power Corporation Plant in Kahalgaon (1975 to 1990), and 3) criminal (mafia) control of the fisheries after 1991, following a social movement by fishers to overthrow the previous private regime.  The stretch of river from Sultanganj to Pirpainti (80 km) was privately owned by two families in Bhagalpur, who claimed that these rights were granted to them since the Mughal period (Gadgil & Guha 1995, Sharma 2006). The Permanent Settlement of Bengal by the British administration in the 1790s (of which Bhagalpur was a part then), only reinforced this private control of fishing rights and access in the Ganga, in order to consolidate the revenue earnings from the highly productive fisheries to agricultural assets of powerful and dominant landlords (Reeves 1995, Sen 2015).     The principle of ‘riparian rights’ (as in English laws) was applied to the Ganga River and the banks and they came to be owned free-hold by the zamindars (known as Jalkar Zamindars or Panidars) (Hill 1990, Reeves 1995). The Panidari system in this part of Bihar was thus the riverine counterpart of Zamindari and was fortified by land tenancy acts of the British colonial administration in the 18th and 19th centuries. Zamindari establishments could sublet water areas for fishing to smaller entrepreneurs who would hire traditional fishers to work the fishery. The Panidari control continued to increase in its brutality and coercion over the years. Fishers had to pay at least 50% of their catch to the Panidar’s ‘men’ or often face harassment, physical assault, and threat. Although the Panidar would ensure that no criminals threatened fishers and stole their catch, their own control led to severe exploitation of fishers who worked their fisheries under this private regime.

Zamindari was abolished in independent India (in 1952), but the Panidari continued in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar till 1991 (Kelkar & Krishnaswamy 2014).  By the mid- to late 1980s, the condition of the river had also declined substantially, following the commissioning of the Farakka Barrage in 1975 (nearly 150 km downstream of Bhagalpur), and the Super Thermal Power Corporation (of NTPC) plant in Kahalgaon in 1992. Due to the Farakka barrage, the very productive fisheries of this region nearly collapsed, as Hilsa and major carps declined substantially (see Kelkar & Krishnaswamy 2014 for details). Declines in fisheries productivity continued after the construction of the Kanpur Barrage and the Tehri dam upstream on the Ganga (by 1999). The NTPC plant also used to discharge its effluent into the river in those days, and this became a major source of concern for the fishers of Kagzi Tola in Kahalgaon (one of the largest and most active fishing centers in Bhagalpur district).    This ecological degradation, compounded with extreme oppression at the hands of the Panidars forced fishers of Kagzi Tola to organize themselves as the Jal Shramik Sangh, and this led to the Ganga Mukti Andolan, a social movement led primarily by fishers, and which succeeded in convincing the Bihar state government to end the private fisheries regime in 1991, making the fishing ‘free-for-all’ (essentially open-access). While this victory had symbolic importance, its actual social and ecological impact was short-lived (Kelkar 2014a). Very soon, criminals and fishing mafia came to dominate the open-access fishery, in the absence of any form of institutional control by fishing communities. The mafia started operating highly destructive fishing gears such as mosquito-nets (Kapda Jaal or Musahri Jaal) and river-seines (Kachaal Jal) with mesh sizes from 1 to 4 mm, which would lead to mass mortality of fish eggs, spawn, and recruits – and caused heavy destruction of fish stocks, which even continues till date.  Fishers have constantly opposed this and even risked their life while trying to get these nets removed from the river, but the criminals often have political patronage.  Not only that, the fisheries department and the forest department charged with curbing these illegal and destructive gears, have done nothing to stop this problem (for reasons related to corruption, nexuses with the mafia, and exploitation of poor fishers) (Choudhary et al. 2015). It would be good to point out here that in 1991, the very year in which the river became ‘free for all’, the Bihar Department of Environment and Forests designated a 60 km stretch from Sultanganj to Kahalgaon as the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS) to protect the endangered Ganges river dolphin Platanista gangetica (see Kelkar et al. 2010 for details). While this designation had nothing to do directly with the new open-access regime, the fishers obviously thought of it as a government ploy to exert control and ban fishing from the sanctuary. Although fishing was never banned inside the sanctuary, fishing rights were never settled, and ground staff of the forest department used the opportunity to extract bribes from fishers.

  This added to the already existing conflict, and fishers had initial antagonism towards the VGDS (but which slowly reduced after a community-based conservation initiative undertaken by ecologists and conservationists working from the T.M. Bhagalpur University (started in 1999) (Kelkar & Krishaswamy 2014). Cooperatives in the state were restricted to ponds and floodplain wetlands, but were never formed to manage riverine fisheries, because it had to remain ‘open access’. Even existing cooperatives ran down into elite capture (Kelkar 2014b). This can be termed an institutional failure as a whole, and allowed criminals to now dominate the fishers in worse ways than the Panidars had ever done. Between 1987 and 2007, a rough estimate indicates that at least 80-100 fishers were murdered by fishing mafia criminals for refusing to part with their fish catch (demanded as extortion) (Sharma 2006, Kelkar 2014 a, Choudhary et al. 2015).    Add to this the countless events and encounters that resulted in violent assault, harassment, and robbing of fish catch or money (a rough estimate is that any one fisher is likely to be robbed or threatened, at least once every week). The current situation is one of utter destitution: the river is degraded and fish stocks have plummeted, criminals rule the roost and there is constant threat, and further upcoming river development (embankment and bridge construction, waterways development) pose additional threats to livelihood security and ecological sustainability (Kelkar 2014b). Many fishers have started leaving the fisheries and migrating to distant locations in search of construction and farm labour jobs, which further adds to their overall vulnerability and poverty. 

Note: For the case at hand, the impacts of these projects are indirect – the primary impact is that of fishing mafia and allied criminal gangs, but the ecological degradation brought by the following projects played a role in further aggravating the intensity of conflicts.

Farakka barrage 24.75 N, 087.833 E, 2240 m long, designed for navigation purposes with two locks to maintain the Calcutta port, with a handling capacity of 1100 cumecs. Commissioned in 1975. The Farakka barrage is known to have extreme negative impacts on fisheries both upstream and downstream of it, by blocking fish migration routes upstream, and reducing freshwater flows downstream to the Sunderbans and the Ganges’ flow into Bangladesh as well. Details of impacts have been provided in Adel (2001) & Banerjee (1999), among many others.

Kahalgaon Super Thermal Power Plant (of the National Thermal Power Corporation, India): Commissioned in 1992, 2340 MW installed capacity; approved investments: stage-I Rs.2038.97 crore, stage-II Phase-I Rs. 4002.28 crore; Stage-II Phase-II Rs. 1866.10 crores. Initial pollution impacts were high, but now a bulk of the fly ash and outflow is treated at source and not directly let into the river.

Other upstream barrages impacting the fishery: 1) Tehri dam, Bijnor, Narora, and Kanpur barrages (Ganga); 2) Tribeni barrage (Gandak), 3) Birpur barrage (Kosi)