The disappearance of rivers, canals and wetlands has left the Bagdi community in Jhenaidah -- a gazetted, protected ethnic minority -- struggling with severe financial hardship and half-starvation after losing their traditional occupation of fishing and hunting.
More than 150 people from 34 Bagdi families live in a settlement between Chanderpol and Madhabpur villages in Ganna union of Jhenaidah Sadar upazila. For over a century, they have lived in dilapidated huts along broken roads, untouched by the country’s broader socio-economic progress.
50-year-old widow Chapala Rani has supported her family alone since her husband’s death 23 years ago. She works as an agricultural labourer or joins other women to catch fish in nearby canals. Her son earns Tk 150-200 a day with local fishermen.
“Such a small income is no longer enough to support a family of five. Sometimes we spend entire days without food, and even during festivals we cannot afford new clothes,” she said.
90-year-old Jashoda Rani, who has outlived her husband and children, recalled a time when their whole life and livelihood depended on what we gathered from nature. But community elders say that forests, bushes and water bodies have disappeared, forcing them into low-paid jobs as farm labourers, rickshaw pullers, salon workers or construction helpers.
Photo: Star
Despite their protected status, residents say they receive no targeted benefits. “We get nothing extra as an ethnic minority. Every family here is trapped in debt,” said 65-year-old Jira Moni.
Seventy-eight-year-old community leader Nepal Biswas added, “There is no fallow land left in canals and wetlands. If we go there, we are not allowed in. We are neglected on religious grounds too.”
"Locals look down on us. We follow the Sanatan faith, yet we are sidelined during the rituals of other Sanatan devotees, and they never attend ours. We hold our own rituals with whatever meagre means our impoverished settlement can manage we don't even have a permanent place of worship," he added, appealing for the government's attention in their struggle to survive.
The community is also undergoing a demographic shift: apart from Nepal Biswas, 80; Nakul, and Adhir Biswas, 70; there is no man over 60 left in the settlement.
According to the Jhenaidah District Statistics Office, around 1,800 Bagdi people live across the district, alongside several hundred from other minority groups.
Jhenaidah Deputy Commissioner Md Noman Hossain told The Daily Star that the government is seriously considering housing and livelihood support for the Bagdi community. He added that the administration is playing a positive role in preserving the Bagdi community's professional, religious and cultural heritage, and is coordinating with relevant departments to eliminate discrimination, bring them into government assistance programmes, and ensure their rights and dignity.
