- A recent study argues that historical conditions shape the relationship between elephants and tea tribes.
- Dhanshiri Wildlife Division in Assam is one of the worst affected by human-elephant conflict in the region.
- Despite the negative interactions, local residents revere elephants, often considering them as guardian angels.
Human-elephant conflict is a recurring issue in the northeastern state of Assam. Among the worst-affected regions in the state is the Dhanshiri Wildlife Division in Udalguri district, where, among those impacted in this human animal conflict situation, are the indigenous Adivasi/Tea Tribe people living in Udalguri. According to data presented by the Assam government in the state assembly, from 2010 to 2019, 62 elephants and 155 people died in human elephant conflict, specifically in the district’s Dhanshiri Wildlife Division.
To understand the nuanced situation better, researchers Sayan Banerjee, Dibakar Nayak and Anindya Saha conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Udalguri district among the Adivasi/Tree Tribe (A/TT) community to examine their interactions with wild elephants. Their paper Adivasi (Tea Tribe) worldviews of living close to wild Asian elephants in Assam, India published in the journal Conservation Biology, notes that “through socioecological ruptures, caused by displacement and deforestation, Adivasi (Tea Tribe) and elephant lives have intersected through space and time.”
Mitigation action so far has treated human elephant conflict as a technical problem, says the paper, noting that empathy for the elephant, expressed by the local tribal communities, highlights ways of living with elephants that are “affective and reach beyond technocentric interventions.”
The study was conducted in a landscape mosaic of tea estates of varying sizes, agricultural settlements, river channels and riverine areas, and forested tracts around the Khalingduar Reserve Forest of Udalguri district. Fieldwork was carried out in the villages and tea estates within 10 km of the reserve forest boundary. The agricultural settlements consisted of paddy fields, bamboo groves, small tea farms, and areca nut farms.
The fieldwork was carried out for 16 months (August 2021 to December 2022), said Banerjee, adding, “We conducted fieldwork in three villages, Sagunbari, Bamunjuli, and Nonaikhash Basti, and at two tea estates, Nonaipara and Bamunjuli, all situated within 0 to 7 km of the Khalingduar Reserve Forest. These villages and tea estates are representative of elephant visitations in the area,” he said.
Subsistence farming, tea estate work, and other nonfarm daily-wage-based work are the major livelihood options available to the Adivasi/Tea Tribe, Bodo, and Nepali communities, that comprise the three primary ethnic groups in the area. The A/TT are the largest group, despite the Bodo being classified as a scheduled tribe by the state and represent the most socio-politically dominant community across the district.
Cause of conflict
The paper identified rapid deforestation, forest and grassland degradation, primarily during the ethno-political Bodoland Movement (1990–2005) and the subsequently altered elephant behavioural patterns, as the cause of intense elephant-related damage in the region.
Co-author of the paper, Dibakar Nayak, who is a local resident of the area says, “Elephants have always been there in Udalguri. In the past, the jungle was even more dense. But conflict started happening only post 1990s.”
Banerjee mentioned that elephants regularly reside in and move through this human-dominated landscape for approximately nine months of the year (April to December), leading to extensive elephant–human interactions. “Such interactions typically occurred over an area of 500 sq km, encompassing approximately 80 villages and 10 tea estates and including the home range of about 150 elephants,” he said.
Read more: Oil palm expansion in Goalpara, Assam, gives rise to human-elephant conflict concerns
History shaping displacement
Banerjee says that British tea planters shaped the displacement of both elephants and A/TT people in Udalguri. He says, “After occupying Assam in 1826, the British forcibly dispossessed the Indigenous peasantry of their land to establish tea plantations. Requiring an intensive labour force, the British uprooted thousands of tribal and nontribal rural people from central and eastern India and brought them to the tea estates of Assam. The racial, colonial, capitalist venture of the tea plantation worked through the logic of subordinating people to produce cheap labor and dispossession of their bodies, histories, and homelands. Despite this colonial legacy, present-day tea plantation workers’ socioeconomic profiles have not improved significantly.”
He added, “At our field site in Udalguri, where tea estates have been functioning since the late 19th century, the situation of the A/TT community is representative. Although some A/TT members have moved to villages, either buying land or encroaching on state-owned land, economic constraints have forced many to continue working as temporary plantation labourers.”
The paper says that elephants were a significant part of imperial operations in Assam as “forest produce” (their capture led to increased revenue); as “worker” infrastructure in the expansion of colonial, capitalist, timber-based industries; and as a threat to the regime through damage inflicted on tea plantations and agricultural crops, which reduced revenue. The widespread capture and killing of elephants in Assam, coupled with the expansion of tea industries, led to significant violence against elephants and their societies.
Cohabiting with elephants
The local people place the elephant on a pedestal by addressing it as baba (father/guardian), maharaj (king/benefactor), bhogobaan (god), or maalik (owner) instead of just haathi, the local language term for elephant.
Their beliefs and reverence for the animal help communities rationalise why elephants damaged their crops or houses.
However, their patience runs out when they don’t receive timely compensation promised to them for houses or crops damaged by elephants. Nayak said, “The process of getting compensation is irregular and cumbersome. Sometimes, it takes years for the people here to get compensation.”
Mustafa Ali Ahmed, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Dhanshiri Wildlife Division said that while there are delays in handing out compensation, the process is now being streamlined.
He said that the forest department has taken awareness measures that have yielded results. “We hold regular meetings with locals. NGOs like Aaranyak are also helping by installing solar fences to fend off elephants. This year, the number of human deaths from elephant attacks is seven, much lower than last year’s number of 17,” he said.
The elephants thus “towered over the indigenous communities in multiple forms,” says the paper, both as benevolent guardians and a dark, malevolent presence, but always as steadfast companions and fellow travelers through life.
Banner image: A herd of elephants exit Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary in Jorhat, Assam, and move through a neighbouring tea plantation. Image by Kumud Ghosh via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
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