Social Awareness

Editing

 

Mymensingh is geographically a deltaic plain criss-crossed by numerous rivers and rivulets. Therefore, the district ensures the huge fisheries potential. This extreme fisheries potential establishes a significant component to the agro-ecosystem of rural Bangladesh. The Brahmaputra-Jamuna River system is one of the three significant river systems of Bangladesh which flows over Mymensingh.

 

Once upon a time, the Old Brahmaputra River was the main source of Brahmaputra-Jamuna River system and enriched with different species of fishes. An extreme number of local residents earns livelihood through fishing in the river all over the year. In that riverine arena, a species of fish named major carp fry is collected from May to August. Many fishermen collect fishes as a seasonal activity during a particular season and the traditional fishing communities do fishing as the major and most of the time as the only occupation.

 

Available Fake Beliefs in Bhatipara Village, Mymensingh

 

The Barman caste, a lower class Hindu community, is one of the traditional fishermen of Bangladesh living in Mymensingh from ancient age. The traditional fishing communities live mostly in the arena surrounded by Old Brahmaputra River. They earn their livelihood by collecting Indian major carp fry from the river and its connected floodplains. The Barman caste fishermen are disadvantaged by social and educational needs and deprived of their sufficient financial resources. The caste system of Hindu communities subtracts and makes a barrier in their occupational diversity and employment opportunities and potentials as well as the superstitions create deprivation of education and their right to basic information. They believe that choosing alternative occupation will impure their caste system as well as religion.

 

The traditional fishing community uses too old equipments or machineries to maintain their living. Their traditional meshed nets are reported as the harmful equipments for the lives of different species of fishes found in rivers. They aren’t seemed to be intended to migrate to newly invented technologies.

A survey was experimented over the Bhatipara fishermen village of the Char Nilaksia union under the Kotwali Upazila in the district of Mymensingh, Bangladesh from July 2001 to December 2001. The village is situated on the eastern side of the Old Brahmaputra River which is six kilometers south-east from Mymensingh town. This site of the Old Brahmaputra River is renowned for its extreme availability of different species of fishes and the Indian major carp is prominent among them. Approximately, 25 households in that village are found who are engaged in fishing.

 

31 fishermen in total live in the village. Their major occupation is fishing in the adjacent river and its connected floodplains. They obtain their livelihood by catching fishes and selling them. But the insufficiency of fisheries resources cause numerous troubles and hardships. Some households in the neighboring villages are also engaged in fishing occupation, but it is only a seasonal occupation for them. That recent survey expressed the socio-economic circumstances of the traditional fishing community in Bhatipara village. In the mentioned village the fishermen catch fishes throughout the year and sell these to the middlemen who mostly do their business on the riverbanks or to the retailers and the manufacturers in the nearby fish markets directly. These data of the survey were collected through questioning and Participatory Rapid Appraisal methods such as Focus Group Discussion with the fishermen and the womenfolk in Bhatipara fishing village.

 

All of the 31 fishermen and 25 women who are from fishing households were chosen for the verbal interview. Catching of fishes, catching of Indian carp, varieties of employment, total income, amount of credit and gender discrimination in Bhatipara were surveyed using Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) method. Cross check interviews were also made with the quick respondents. The interviews were mostly conducted in the fishing areas and in the nearby fish markets.

 

Fishermen catch fishes living near the Old Brahmaputra River all over the year. They use too ancient methods such as seine nets, pull nets, lift nets and cast nets with various types of traps for catching fishes. They usually use ill mechanized boats to operate the meshed nets for catching. Their economic condition is degrading in recent years because of decreasing of breeding of Indian carp fry. Environmental hazards for instance, agricultural and industrial pollution, extreme river siltation and late rain in the riverine area are also responsible for their suffering. Moreover, other fishermen from the nearby villages are also taking part in fishing as their occasional or seasonal livelihood. They start to catch fish fry from monsoon season. Usually, the fishing households produce dried fish during the post-fishing season and sell these after finishing the fishing season. Fishermen catch fishes during daytime and sell these in the evening to the nearby market. There is a fisherman in each fishing group who is the owner of both the net and the boat. The owner fisherman hires his fellow fishermen ensuring to give an asymmetric share.

 

The fishing village named Bhatipara (D) is featured by extreme poverty according to the rate of livelihood among the fishermen. Approximately, 88% of the households are staying below the poverty line. The poor fishermen borrow money in most cases to provide their lowest needs during the hard times from the informal or fraud local markets. The usurers lend them money without checking the previously lent amount to create harder trap for the poor fishermen. The comparatively richer fishermen of the village also act as usurers in terms of lending money to the poorer fishermen.

 

The severe poverty in the Bhatipara village is caused by numerous superstitions and prejudices among the Barman caste. Religious and ethnic purity is the prominent factor of this ill situation. The Hindu community is religiously minor in Bangladesh and the Barman caste is found as a partial segment of the community. The caste system is a curse for the Bhatipara fishing community. The cursed caste system brings about illiteracy and deprivation of the basic knowledge. They cannot migrate to other occupation for their belief in the caste system. The Barman people are supposed only to be fishermen according to caste belief. Therefore, it marginalizes the occupational transformation and limits the alternatives of livelihood. Their illiteracy causes different forms of their suffering. The Bhatipara village suffers from overpopulation.

 

Impact on Females of the Harmful Beliefs:

 

The gender discrimination is in a severe form. The life expectancy of females are lower than the males like the usual scenario in the population pyramid of underdeveloped countries. The mortality rate during pregnancy and deprivation of nutrition and health care might be the main reasons for the scenario. The horrible rate of early marriage to the female sex in this village is occurred due to the social insecurity among the female children. Like all other underdeveloped countries female children are vulnerable to sexual abuse. The traditional poor and superstitious parents arranged early marriage for their daughters to save the social honour of their families. The traditional intra-caste matrimonial custom in the Sanatan community also occurs child marriage. The oppressive dowry system exists from old ages like other Sanatan communities in the Bhatipara fishing community.

 

In traditional Hindu societies, the discrimination to females about ownership of property is a severe oppression. Their community law of inheritance in Bangladesh completely subtracts the females from their basic assets such as homes and land. The nutrition inequality, the household inequality and the educational inequality towards female sex are too common to mention in the fishing community. The social and psychological factors of son preference over daughter causes these. That fishing community cannot choose another livelihood and the female members are the worse victim by the continuous cycle of prejudices.

 

The tribal community named the Garo lives in greater Mymensingh and in the hilly Garo region of Meghalaya in India. About ten years ago, a seven-year-old boy became the victim of superstition in Garo Hills of Meghalaya. He was made a human sacrifice to celebrate a religious festival named Dussehra. But in Mymensingh, the human sacrifices have long since ceased from Garo tribal community.