At the India Fisherwomen Assembly in Thiruvananthapuram, participants symbolically poured water from small pots into a large jar, pledging to unite for the protection and conservation of the sea, a vital source of livelihood
Published Nov 11, 2024 | 5:13 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 11, 2024 | 5:13 PM
Fisherwomen's Assembly in Thiruvananthapuram: A historic call for sea conservation and community unity
At the India Fisherwomen Assembly in Thiruvananthapuram on 5-6 November, 2024, the first such meeting in the country, participants from different parts of the country carried water in little pots and emptied these into a large jar on stage.
This was a sign that water flows and joins, and that people too could come together and unite. A vow was taken on the sea – to protect and conserve the waters that serve as a refuge and a source of livelihood.
People from other parts of the country joined this meeting too, and activists representing the Adivasi communities and other natural resource based communities joined in solidarity.
Sukalo Gond, from Sonebhadra in Uttar Pradesh, who has spent time in Mirzapur jail said, “Claim the jails, they are ours too. Do not fear spending time in jail. We have a slogan that we raise when asserting our rights to our forests – ‘Jangal apne aap ka, nahi kisi ke baap ka!’ (The jungle belongs to us, not to anyone’s father!’) That is a slogan you must modify and use, assert that the sea belongs to you, and you to it!”
Sukhalo Gond speaking
Soni Sori, who had arrived from Chhattisgarh, said communities like the fisherfolk and the traditional forest dwellers do not seek anything from government. They only want to be allowed to eke out a livelihood from resources they have conserved across generations.
Sori, an Anganwadi teacher, emerged as an activist only after she was jailed on charges of aiding Maoists and tortured in custody. At the fisherwomen assembly, she detailed how she was made to sit naked in prison, in full view of men; she mentioned the electric shocks she was subject to, and the stones inserted into her private parts.
That made it hard for her to urinate – she needed treatment, for which she would be shifted to other jails. She spent time in jails at Jagdalpur, Raipur, Tihar and Kolkata; she underwent surgery in Kolkata.
It was one thing to read about the torture unleashed on Soni Sori, and quite another to hear about it from her – yet, she was not a victim but a fighter.
Soni Sori speaks at the fisherwomen assembly
“I feel no shame,” she says, the shame was never hers to feel. Having endured torture and punishment for no fault, she has emerged even stronger, with nothing at all to lose.
“We must not depend on elected representatives, whether in Parliament or state assemblies. Our freedom is ours to protect, and we must demand what is justly ours,” she said. She detailed the struggles of the young Sunita Pottam, who is still in jail after being arrested in June 2024 in a police operation that was akin to kidnap. At only 17 years old, she had moved the Supreme Court against extra-judicial murder of six persons in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh; there are currently 12 cases foisted on her.
Soni Sori urged the fisherwomen to not depend on elected representatives in Parliament or state assemblies. “We are women, and we must fight at every stage of our lives; we need to clamour for what is rightfully ours as children, and we need to assert and fight our own battles, without depending on patriarchy to provide,” she said.
She spoke of the enormous loss of forests to the activities of the cronies who get protection from the state. Twelve years after her arrest, she was acquitted of all charges; even so, she has still not been reinstated as Anganwadi teacher, and her job is gone. “We are people of the forest, we get by without government jobs,” she said.
Baby Mercy, a leader among the fisherfolk, reminded the audience that 5 November has been declared by the international community of fisherfolk as the day to commemorate fisherwomen, thanks to this meeting in Thiruvananthapuram. She said that by convening as fisherwomen, history was being made.
She added that however much we progress, human beings will still need to tend to the needs of their stomachs. All the grand plans of developing over 300 new ports along the coasts, would only cause a large number of coastal communities to lose land and access to the sea, and divide up the whole coastal region, she said.
India has over 7,500 km of coastline, and there are inland fishing communities too, that depend on fish in lakes and other water bodies. In 2022, the government unveiled a ‘Blue Economy’ plan, a scheme for “optimal utilisation” of marine resources. While the government is optimistic about the possibility for maritime tourism and deep-sea mining, coastal communities and fisherfolk think otherwise. They anticipate that such “development” would be hugely disruptive, and make for changes that would be near impossible to reverse at a time of accelerated climate change.
Just a few feet from the site of the meeting at the newly inaugurated Thomas Kocherry Resource Centre at Valiyathura in Thiruvanathapuram, the distress was plain to see. Large boulders border the sea, in a bid to prevent the waves from washing into the land. The sandy beaches that one imagines the coast to be is no longer a reality, as the sea has begun to knock on the doors of homes.
In a desperate bid to prevent erosion, huge granite boulders have been placed to break the impact of the waves. These boulders that extend as far as the eye can see represent the excavation of massive tonnes of rock from stone quarries. It is unclear how much longer they will stand between the sea and the homes on the coast.
Valiyathura is among villages to the north of the Vizhinjam port being developed by the Adani Group that have seen considerable coastal erosion since port construction began in 2015.
(Edited by Ananya Rao)
