The Delta of Desire and Despair: Stories from the Port Brothels of India and Bangladesh

1. Port brothels remain located at the intersections of two national as a liminal space. What drew your interest to such spaces and why? 

I come from a family of Partition survivors who were pushed to undertake an exodus when the borders dividing India and Pakistan were declared in 1947. Being Hindus they came to India and settled here but since then those members who traversed the newly declared countries held onto a nostalgia. Everything since then was lived through comparison, of what was left behind and the new that arrived—to which one has to accommodate. So the in-betweenness of a liminal space is what I grew up with being a second generation Partition survivor. It was through Sundarbans that many of my now dead family members remembered that they entered the new country through, with many others, and this very story drew my attention to the transboundary delta and its inhabitants. The focus on the deltaic inhabitants, especially the females, pushed me to understand the climate, nature, and religion intersections that dictate their lives of tiger widows, amongst other women in the region, who are later pushed into the human-trafficking nexus. It is through following this trail that I came to work on port brothels in the delta that lies at the intersection of two nations. 

2. What are the problems that you have faced while understanding the geography of the space because of their "amphibian" character?  

To answer this question, I must come clean that I am hydrophobic. Hence, it was very uncertain that I would take up work on an amphibious landscape. But I did and I learnt about its many moods that’s unique and completely at disjuncture with the mainland. The geography itself has its own make up, from its glue-like clay soil that sticks to your feet and pulls you in, to the mangrove roots that poke. Not to mention the ever changing face of the water that surrounds the land. The shocks of ebb and tides on the coastal embankments. The myriad vegetation and varied animals it harbours alongside its effects of deltaic life and culture. To be precise, I was rendered a toddler, trying to learn to walk again on land that’s gooey with water and adhesive in nature. And like a mother I had the community members holding me while attempting to walk. Now it is understandable that I had to break myself down to be able to understand even a single minute bit of the lives on such amphibious landscapes where people are forced to live and continue occupation on both land and water. 

3. How did colonial land policies and the subsequent politics of land partition influence the destiny of these spaces? 

One of the most important issues affecting the land ownership of such spaces is understanding who the real owner is at the moment. Or even if there was an owner in the first place who transferred land to the next through will or lineage. If history be browsed through, the land in Sundarbans was termed a wasteland and was under the control of the State, in order to do land reforms that would render these spaces cultivable. Thereby, meaning to deforest these lands by motivating the locals or the migrants, to convert these forested spaces to arable lands. In so doing, the longue durée history of how such lands came to be owned or occupied by people in the contemporary times becomes difficult. These lands were divided into lots, in the undivided Sundarbans, by the British. The colonial history of some of these lots are well outlined from which contemporary histories can be traced or argued but majority of these lots are not accounted for in Revenue books, so mapping their histories becomes difficult. To be clear, the British were holding several developmental projects, such as port and town building in many of these lots and hence such specific lots have been more focused on whose histories are more easily accessible compared to the others where development aspirations were still not evident. Thus, these spaces are not just liminal owing to their existence near the border and the lifestyles, these spaces are also liminal because they continue to be in-between histories as is explained by their complex land histories. 

4. Since these spaces are located on the riverine borders, how does climate change in different forms alter their situation? 

These women are either losing their artery of occupation, the river  Matla in Sundarbans India. Here the river has dried up in parts affecting the plying of boats and hence the coming of customers. The sex workers in Mongla are affected by siltation and loss of the occupational embankment to the gnawing river Passur. Thereby, being rendered ‘amphibious,’ having to continue their trade on both land and water. Sundarbans is the first line of barrier to climatic disasters, such as cyclones from ravaging the mainland. The continuing deforestation of the region that started in the colonial times is affecting it through soil erosion, river oscillation, repeated flooding, and cyclic storms. And because these spaces are near the border and are also forested, it is easy for the government on both sides to usually overlook its issues. The problem arises and the State puts their attention to the region only when one of the storms in place of only ravaging the coastal regions, hurls into the mainland and affects the urbane. Such had happened during the super cyclone Amphan which did not only ravage the Sundarbans but also the city of Kolkata. Every climatic onslaught pushes the migration of people from these spaces either in-land or into neighbouring countries in search of a livelihood after losing their land. 

5. How do the markers of class, gender, ethnicity and religion shape the Identities and belonging of the sex-workers in these spaces? Do they imagine a community beyond the nation-states? 

Sex-workers as we know are trafficked victims, out of coercion and in some rare cases out of will. They land in the brothel spaces from different in-land regions or even neighbouring countries. In such a situation, though the question on nationality becomes important, that’s not the only factor driving their desire to build a community out of solidarity and sisterhood. Most women who land into this work are of lower class if Hindus, as they have not much access to a secured life. Gender as a question comes with the question of sexuality and such spaces have varied stories regarding both. Religion obviously becomes an issue of contest on both sides of the border in Sundarbans. However, many scholars interpret that Sundarbans is a syncretic region, whose currency is the culture of the space which is hardly reflected in community activities in contemporary times. It is more of a tourist trap to attract visitors to see a space unique for its syncretism, which perhaps was true ages ago, but has no real reflection in today’s time. In this backdrop, they live as a community beyond the nation-state defining their existence. Nonetheless, they are patriotic to the country they live in after their transfer. 

6. Being a partition historian, have you seen these spaces evolve since that time? If yes, what are the central markers of this evolution? If no, then what do you think could be the reason behind it? 

These spaces are such that have evolved not much by means of internal culture. They live the same life of ostracization. They live by the need to survive. They live as fallen women who are looked down upon. If something has changed which has thereby affected their quotidian lives, it is the developmental projects of port buildings that affected the environmental situation of their surroundings. Before Partition most of the customer base was made out of boatmen, after the port and during its building (during the colonial times in Sundarbans, India, or just after Partition in Sundarbans, Mongla, Bangladesh), it was the port buildsers, sailors, and seamen. But as soon as the river silted, the customer counts dwindled that affected their lives. This is one of the slow violence that before and after Partition explains. 

7. What would be suggestions for the future researchers who are planning to venture into such a fraught, uncharted territory through their research? 

I would say, be excited and be surprised. You will approach the field with a set of research questions and a hypothesis. Trust me, all of it will turn. By this I do not mean to not follow the basics of research, but I mean to be excited to change and evolve as a researcher. Be compassionate, create a rapport with the research community, have ethics clear, have your documents in place, learn from the community, discard the insider-outsider binary, break hierarchies and divulge information and never look at your research participants as data sets, they are human beings and they too like you deserve respect. And then, all the best!