Hierarchies in Cohabitation Relations of Humans With Wild Animals in the Sundarbans

This paper investigates human–animal interactions in the Indian Sundarbans, examining patterns of cohabitation between humans and wild animals and how such relations are integrated into everyday life through cultural beliefs, ecological practices, and conservation regimes. Focusing on two animals, tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) and some snake species (Serpentes spp.), it explores why these interactions exist and how they are shaped by livelihood dependence, disaster, regulation, and cosmology across two forest-fringe field sites, Samsernagar and Kumirmari. Grounded in a qualitative, multimethodological approach informed by decolonial praxis, the research combines ethnography with community participation through participant observation, interviews, focus and general group discussions, storytelling, and household surveys, to develop a situated understanding of multispecies relationships. The findings show that cohabitation in the Sundarbans is not harmonious, nor is it merely reducible to conflict; rather, it is transient and negotiated across time and space. Tigers occupy the apex of the conservation hierarchy, moving historically from colonial intolerance to forced tolerance under post-independence legal protection, and toward conditional acceptance and traces of temporary coexistence. These shifts are mediated through regulation, livelihood dependence, tourism economies, and ecological disruptions following cyclones and salinity intrusion. In contrast, snakes emerge as voluntary cohabitants embedded in the everyday routines of both fringe and non-fringe villages. Although snakebite remains a public health concern, restraint toward snakes is sustained through customary healing practices, cosmological accountability anchored in the worship of Manasa, and their recognized ecological role within agrarian life. By tracing these differentiated relations, the paper shows that species hierarchy in the Sundarbans is layered and subjective. While the tiger dominates state-led conservation discourse and global visibility, snakes command everyday cosmological authority and moral regulation.