The Influence Of Natural Environment On Social Structure: A Study Between Two Major Dialectal Ethnic Groups Along The Matla River In The Indian Sundarbans

Culture of a group is intricately intermingled with the natural environment to which he belong. Such a relation with the natural environment forms a distinctive pattern of social interaction, social relation and even social structure.  This phenomenon is very much prominent in the Sundarbans, wherein living along the river side and engagement in fishing activity produce a distinctive form of cultural system. Such cultural system influences social relation as well as social structure of riverine environment.  On the contrary, cultural system of the people staying away from the river differs due to practice of agricultural economy. So social relation and social structure of such location would be different from riverine location.

In the Sundarbans, people occupy different social positions in terms of – religion, ethnicity, caste etc. For each type of position, there is separate distribution of population, shaping the social structure of the region. Such a diversification develops pluralistic and amalgamated culture of the region; however the amalgamation varies due to position of locales in respect to distance from rivers.  

The present enquiry has been designed along the left bank of Matla river. This paper aims to differentiate the nature of social interaction and social integration between two major dialectal ethnic groups in terms of the villages located very close to Matla river and away from Matla river. The enquiry also has been made an endeavour to assess the role of riverine environment for shaping the dialectal ethnicity structure of the region.