Driving past the briny and muddy water that settles in the khari (backwaters) after the high tide, as one reaches Mandri village of Mhasla tehsil in Raigad, a huge Hanuman temple adorned with hundreds of saffron festoons gives you a grand welcome. Besides the temple, you can find some small huts here—both kachcha and pucca—depending on their owners’ financial status. But what unites them is their desperation to restore the good old days of fishing. Standing in his courtyard near the temple, Sunil Palkhade who is in his late 40s, says, “Almost 70 per cent of the people in this area have given up fishing. They have mostly shifted to Mumbai and other places. Fishing is no more a profitable job for us.”

Mandri used to have a population of around a thousand people. But most youngsters have migrated to big cities and are working as daily wage workers. Maureshwar Patil, the current Sadar of the Koli community in the village, explains the crisis: “It is due to the ‘company’ that has opened its port and dumped boulders in the water leading to the narrowing of the khari. As the khari has been narrowed down, the water current has become stronger. Due to its speed, the fishes are carried away by the current, leaving nothing for us.”

Patil is referring to the nearby Dighi port that is now owned by the Adanis. According to its official website, “The all-weather port is built to serve oil, chemicals, container and bulk cargos. Its excellent road connectivity and direct berthing facilities, closed warehouses, liquid tank farms and open stockyards commodity goods facilitate faster handling, storage and evacuation of cargos.” The port not only has reshaped the khari. Its waste has also affected the quality of saline water that fishes need, allege the villagers.

While the strong current is carrying away the fishes, depriving the small-scale fishermen of what they consider their ‘due’, it is also affecting the organisms that grow in the sea mud in the backwaters. Pointing at the mud on the shore that is visible during low tide, Maqsood Naziri says, “As the men used to go fishing in the deep sea, the womenfolk of the village used to collect kalu (a fish similar to oysters) from the mud.” Kalu grows within a hard-shell and has several uses, says Naziri. “Firstly, there is the white part of the shell (calcium) that was used to make lime. Secondly, the fish itself is helpful for controlling cholesterol. It was an everyday food for so many people but now, due to the strong current, the sea mud is affected and so is the production of kalu.”

According to a popular legend in the area, the lime made out of the kalu’s shell was used in the 16th century Janjira fort founded by the Sultan of Ahmednagar. The fact that the fort has never been conquered by enemies is attributed to the strength of the lime.

Another major challenge the fishermen face is the illegal fishing using Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights. “The big trawlers from the nearby states of Gujarat, Karnataka and even from Maharashtra use high-power LED lights in the deep sea to attract the fishes. As the fishermen kill them there, the fishes can’t come to the backwaters and we are unable to catch anything,” says Ramesh Patil, a local fisherman whose son works in Mumbai as a construction worker.

In 2019, the Maharashtra government banned LED fishing through a resolution and imposed a huge penalty on trawlers to safeguard the traditional methods of fishing. The Shiv Sena MP (now of Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray [UBT] Sena) from Ratnagiri, Vinayak Raut, tabled a bill in the Parliament the same year titled ‘The complete prohibition of light fishing and protection and development of traditional fishing technique in Coastal Areas Bill, 2019’. In the bill, this fishing technique was termed ‘‘light fishing’’ and was defined as ‘‘fishing by using nets and other things by attracting fishes with the help of Light Emitting Diode (LED).”

Light fishing has not only impacted these small-scale fishermen, but also the businesses of those with small and medium trawlers. Around 150 km away from Raigad, at Srivardhan in Ratnagiri district, Dhanesh Waghe who is in his mid-30s, shares his story. Waghe left school when he was in class seven. “At that point of time, I saw kachcha money in this business. We had a small trawler then and we only had to travel around 50 km to catch the fishes. Now, even if we go to the deep sea—almost 90-100 km away from the shore—we don’t catch anything,” he laments. For the last two months his boat has been anchored at the shore as there is hardly any fish and to send the boat out means ‘‘unnecessary spending on diesel and ration, besides the labour charges.’’ Earlier, Waghe used to earn around Rs 50, 000 a month but his monthly income has fallen to Rs 15-20,000 now.

“The big trawlers come from Mumbai and nearby states and use LED lights and cameras to identify and catch the fishes. There is nothing left for us,” he says. Every year, the Maharashtra government imposes a ban on fishing in June-July as the fishes come to the shore during this period for breeding. “But in other months, we used to have fish. This year, our boats haven’t left the shore since March,” says Kushan Waghe, another fisherman who is contemplating leaving the business.

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The problems are not limited to the small and medium-scale fishermen. Those with the bigger trawlers are on the verge of losing their licences due to another government resolution—the decision to reduce the licences of boats with Purse Seine nets to 182. In 2016, the state government had issued guidelines for sustainable fishing and planned to reduce the permits for Purse Seine nets from 494 to 182. The net can be stretched from 1-3 km and it catches fishes in bulk. In January 2017, however, the government decided to ban the use of these nets in the territorial water—that is within 12 nautical miles from the sea shore. This has plunged many fishermen into misery.

Abdul Majid, who is in his 60s, has been in this business for 40 years. However, for the last five years, his licence has not been renewed. “I have all the documents but they are not renewing my licence. If I don’t have the licence, the coast guard can arrest me anytime. Who will protect me then?” he asks. Majid who is also the Sakha pramukh of UBT Sena in the village, adds, “While we are unable to use the Purse Seine net, the other trawlers coming from different states are taking away our fishes.”

The licence is necessary for fishermen to go to the deep sea. “Last year, they caught my boat and I was asked to give Rs 5 lakh,” says Majid. “They took away two Purse Seine nets as well,” says Riyadh*, a fisherman in his early twenties. One net approximately costs Rs 25 lakh, he adds. Though Riyadh and Majid are still trying to navigate their way, Mansoor Solkar has given up fishing and is now engaged in ‘supply work’. “I couldn’t continue as they refused to renew my licence,” he says.

The Licensing Officer of Fisheries at Shakre Nate, Partha Tawde, says that the government regulations are the reason for not renewing the licences. “We have to reduce it to 182 and thus we can’t renew the licences,” he says. On being asked about the big trawlers from different states, Tawde says, “We know about them but we have limited manpower. A few times, I even went with the coast guard and officials to catch them but they overpower us. They are usually 100-200 people and they hurl stones at us. The government is looking into the issue.”

The residents of Nate are not at all satisfied with the response. “They have the coast guard with them. How can they say such things? Who will protect our interests?” asks Majid.

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In Raigad, current MP Sunil Tatkare who is now with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP (after deserting the Sharad Pawar camp) rarely mentions the concerns of the fishermen in his campaigns. The candidate from the opposition camp Ananth Geete also has said very little on the issue.

A few feel that Tatkare has done some good work for the Koli community. At Mandri, Palkhade says, “He has given us a shade in front of the temple and made some CC (concrete) roads.” Is it sufficient to motivate them to vote for him? Palkhade remains silent but Naziri intervenes, “He did nothing but who says people want anything at all!”

In Ratnagiri too, the fate of the fishermen has failed to create significant ripples. But the two-time MP from UBT Sena, Raut, has a strong hold among the fishermen according to locals. “We know that he tried to fight against LED fishing,” says Abdul, a fisherman from Nate. In a recent interview with a national daily, Raut had said, “Fishing is another occupation of people from this region but the laws that govern fishing are unfair to fishermen and hence I have demanded that they should be changed.”

Raut is fighting against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongman and former chief minister of the state Narayan Rane. The locals say that Rane is very concerned about the fate of big-scale Indian fishermen who go to the deep sea and face foreign attacks but “hardly thinks of small and medium-scale fishermen”. On June 26, 2019, Rane had raised a question to the Ministry of External Affairs in the Rajya Sabha on “whether the government is aware that the Indian fishermen were attacked in some foreign countries while they went for deep-sea fishing.”

Known as a Shiv Sena bastion, the Konkan region has mostly backed the Thackeray family. The recent split in the party did not change the region’s stance, says Majid. “Earlier, we were with bows and arrows and now we are with mashaal (flaming torch),” he adds, referring to the changed symbol of UBT Sena.

Majid rushes to wrap up the conversation as he has to take the villagers to Uddhav Thackeray’s rally. “We want this government to go. The new government will definitely listen to us and will change the policies that are affecting our business,” he swears.

A few hours later, at Thackeray’s rally, the issues the fishermen face did not find any mention. “But Uddhav Thackeray was the one who considered loan waiver for fishermen as the CM,” says a local journalist. At the end of the rally, Majid is nowhere to be found. One of the villagers who is seated in a car heading back to Nate says, “Someday, someone will talk about us. We will also be an electoral issue.”

Thackeray’s convoy has already left the venue.

(Some names have been changed to protect privacy)

Abhik Bhattacharya in coastal Maharashtra

This appeared in the print as 'Toilers Of The Sea'