Fisheries and Fishermen: A Socio-economic History of Fisheries and Fishermen of Colonial Bengal and Post-Colonial West Bengal

Proper management of the natural resources and the rights of the traditional communities to access the natural resources are no doubt important issues in the age of globalization and global warming. This book after critically examining the relationships between the fisheries and the fishermen of pre-colonial and Colonial Bengal have raised some critical points regarding the management, production relations and location of the fishermen in Post-Colonial West Bengal. Post-colonial relationship between the fisheries and the fishermen on the other hand is deeply rooted with the partition of Bengal in 1947. Partition of Bengal had been appeared as a serious challenge to West Bengal due to the huge migration of the (fish eaters) East Bengalese to this province of India. But the supply of fish was not sufficient as Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) had retained its possession over the prosperous fisheries of the region. All attempts of the post-colonial state to mitigate the fish crisis and the question of resettlement of the East Bengali Refugee and immigrant traditional fishermen have been critically examined in this work. This book will be highly useful to the fishery scientists, social scientists, historians, politicians, environmentalists, human right activists, and to the general readers of the Bengali culture.