Opinion Protests at Vizhinjam Port raise deeper questions about the future of fisherfolk

The controversial deep-water multi-purpose port at Vizhinjam, a thickly populated fishing village 16 km away from Thiruvananthapuram, is touted as a “dream project and a gamechanger for the fortunes of Kerala”. It was announced as a fast-track project in 2009 though actual work began much later. The key advantage of the site is the availability of naturally deep draught and proximity to the East-West shipping channel. The Kerala government gave the contract for the construction and running of the port to Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Ltd., based on the concession agreement, for 40 years to begin with.

The government claims the project has a huge strategic significance and additionally, the potential to contribute to the growth of the state’s economy. The strategic significance of the project notwithstanding, a feasibility analysis carried out in 2015 reveals that the project is not economically viable on a standalone basis even after financial support from the government. The fisherfolk raised their concerns regarding the likely adverse impact of the project on their homesteads and livelihoods at the very beginning. So, what forced them to a protracted protest now? Here, changes to the shoreline as well as the centrality of the beach to their occupation and habitation assume significance.

Thiruvananthapuram district has a coast of 78 km, which serves as a habitat to 42 marine fishing villages housing a population of about 1,73,000 in 2021, with a density of over 4,000 people per village. This shoreline has been undergoing changes — from both erosion and accretion — at regular intervals.

During 1989-2006 (prior to the project), major accretion leading to an increase in beach width had been happening in some villages, whereas significant erosion of 60-120 m was observed in villages located immediately north of Vizhinjam harbour. Several studies confirm this broad beachline dynamics. The latest analysis of shoreline changes up to the year 2020 reaffirms the fact that villages north of Vizhinjam port have been witnessing increased erosion, whereas areas south of it have had accretion. An important requirement for the Vizhinjam port is the reclamation of about 66 ha of coastal waters and the construction of a 3.2-km-long breakwater. A study argues that this large intervention has the potential to cause major shoreline shifts and other morphological changes in the region.

Whether the sea erosion in villages north of Vizhinjam port is a result of construction activities is a matter of investigation. But the undeniable fact is the habitats of more than 330 families have already been destroyed during the past five years. Most of these families have been housed in warehouses and other temporary shelters since then.

The coast, as Harekrishna Debnath observes, is more than a mere dwelling place for the fisherfolk. It is as much a lived space as well as an occupational space used for landing, selling, salting, smoking, curing or drying of fish and tying up boats and fishing implements and doing maintenance work, among others. For them, the erosion of the shoreline is not merely the disappearance of the land but the loss of a natural space that nurtured their livelihood, habitation and culture. The state simply overlooks this dimension and labels mobilisation that highlights the issue as anti-development. If social mobilisation is anti-development, how can a government run by a political party whose bedrock is nothing but class mobilisation justify its innumerable mobilisations against several projects?

The mobilisation, though triggered by the increasing sea erosion and habitat and livelihood destruction post the harbour project, raises issues which are broader and substantive in scope. In the era of climate change-induced adverse consequences, it cautions the state against designing projects that could potentially undermine and destroy the habitations and livelihoods of fisherfolk, and by doing so deprive their right to a dignified life.

To dismiss the concerns of fisherfolk as empirically unfounded and brand them as anti-development is the easiest, obdurate thing to do. In contrast, ordering a robust, unbiased assessment to better understand the increasing intensity of sea erosion leading to the destruction of the lives of fisherfolk demands statesmanship and openness to course correction, if required. The state government needs to be sensitive to the concerns of a social group that continues to be on the margins of the much-touted Kerala model of development.

The writer is RBI Chair Professor at Council for Social Development, Hyderabad. Views are personal