Five groups engaged in organizing women in fishing from different parts of India recently got together to share their experiences. Recently, five groups working with women in marine and inland fisheries across a number of states in India came together for a round table discussion to share experiences of organising women in the fishing sector. The five were: SNEHA from Tamil Nadu; Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF) from West Bengal; Maharashtra Machimar Kruti Samiti (MMKS-Palghar) and Maharashtra Machimar Kruti Samiti (MMKS-Mumbai) from Maharashtra; and Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) from Kerala. The discussion was moderated by Nikita Gopal, Principal Scientist, Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, India. The round table highlighted the common issues of women in fisheries and also showed how effective the organised strength of women can be in terms of gaining rights and benefits. This article summarises the experiences shared during the discussion

Gopal, Nikita

Aquatic Commons

JUNE  2019 7
INDIAASIA
Organising women
Five groups engaged in organising women in fishing from different parts of India 
recently got together to share their experiences
Nikita Gopal (nikiajith@
gmail.com),  Principal 
Scientist, CIFT-ICAR, India 
moderated the round table 
discussion on Organizing 
Women  at  Kochi, India  
during the brainstorming  
meeting on  Mainstreaming 
Gender into Fisheries 
Policies and Legislation. 
The participants are Jesu 
Rethinam (jesur1955@
gmail.com), Jyoti Rajesh  
Meher (jyoti.meher26@
gmail.com), Ujwala 
Jaykisan Patil (ujwalajpatil@
gmail.com), Seeta Dasan 
(sewakerala@gmail.
com) and Jharna Acharya 
(jharnaacharyya@gmail.
com). The discussion was 
documented  by Manas 
Roshan (icsf@icsf.net) 
and transcribed by C. 
Manjula (manjula.c6@
gmail.com), Shilpa Nandy 
(shilpanandy@yahoo.co.in), 
A.J. Vijayan (vijayanaj@
hotmail.com) and 
Samyuktha (sam.pc.work@
gmail.com)
Recently, five groups working with women in marine and inland fisheries across a number of states in India came 
together for a round table discussion to share 
experiences of organising women in the fishing 
sector. The five were: SNEHA from Tamil Nadu; 
Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF) from 
West Bengal; Maharashtra Machimar Kruti 
Samiti (MMKS-Palghar) and Maharashtra 
Machimar Kruti Samiti (MMKS-Mumbai) 
from Maharashtra; and Self Employed 
Women’s Association (SEWA) from Kerala. 
The discussion was moderated by Nikita Gopal, 
Principal Scientist, Central Institute of Fisheries 
Technology, India. The round table highlighted 
the common issues of women in fisheries 
and also showed how effective the organised 
strength of women can be in terms of gaining 
rights and benefits. This article summarises the 
experiences shared during the discussion.
Responding to 
questions posed by 
Nikita Gopal, the 
moderator, Jesu 
Rethinam, Director 
of SNEHA, shared 
that her organization 
has been active with 
fishing communities, 
focusing on the 
women, since 1984. Structuring was done at the 
village level, with units, called sangam, federated 
up to the district level in the Karaikal district of 
Tamil Nadu. The first major achievement was in 
getting women to participate in meetings of the 
traditional fisher community organizations at 
the village level, called panchayats. Traditionally, 
only men have been allowed to sit in and be a 
part of panchayat meetings. The participation 
of women in sangam activities initially led to 
tension and even clashes between the panchayats 
and sangams. Today women find they have a 
collective voice in decision making in the village. 
The second issue for women members of 
SNEHA, according to Jesu Rethinam, came 
with the establishment of a harbour in Karaikal, 
which led to the shifting of traditional fish 
landing sites to the harbour. Women had to 
travel greater distances and also compete with 
other large buyers for fish. The organization 
of women helped them to at least enforce a 
first right on purchasing fish from traditional 
fishers at the harbour. They even went on a 
collective strike,  with around 400 fish vendors 
refusing to buy any fish till the first right to 
fish was granted to them. The fish vendors 
reduced their purchase and transport costs by 
pooling resources and buying together. The 
organizational strength also helped the women 
fishers in Kariakal to get compensation after the 
tsunami. Women have now taken up the issue 
of allowing local fish markets to be handed over 
on lease to cooperatives of women fish vendors. 
Despite years of activity in the region 
with women fishers, the challenge of women’s 
representation remains an issue for SNEHA. The 
Tamil Nadu Fisheries Welfare Board does not 
have any women representatives. The demand 
to include fishworkers in all government benefit 
schemes still remains to be addressed. Women 
were included in savings-cum-relief schemes of 
the state, but only to the extent that there was 
one representation per family in the fishing 
community. Issues of fish vendors and street 
vending have remained a large, unfinished task.
In response to the moderator’s questions, 
Jharna Acharya, an organiser with DMF, said 
that they had been working with fishers and 
fishworkers for the last 30 years. One of the 
demands while organising women was for 
identity cards and access to government benefits 
and schemes. The DMF has been successful in 
securing over 1000 women’s identity cards in 
the districts of South 24 Parganas, North 24 
Parganas and Purbo Medinipur in West Bengal. 
Another important issue, according toher, was 
organising communities for rights under the 
Forest Rights Act in the mangrove-rich region 
of the Sundarbans, to protect their traditional 
fishing rights. The community members were 
given organizational 
and legal support 
to face up to 
harassment from 
forest and coastal 
authorities. The 
women successfully 
protested against a 
ban on collecting 
firewood, and 
Nikita Gopal
Jesu Rethinam
Jharna Acharya
YemaYa  588
attempts to cancel traditional boat licenses. 
The intervention of the DMF also enabled 
‘tiger widows’, the widows of fishers attacked 
and killed by tigers in the Sunderbans, to get 
compensation, including a monthly government 
pension. 
The DMF has formed a union of fish vendors, 
among around 1000 women fish vendors in 
the region. The union has taken up issues of 
lease rights to marketplaces constructed by 
the government, provision of toilets and water 
facilities in fish markets, and proper location of 
the marketplaces. On the union’s intervention, 
the government authorities have provided 
women with ice boxes to preserve fish.
Working with inland fishers in the Howrah 
region, the DMF was able to get identity cards 
and credit cards under schemes earlier restricted 
to farmers working on land. It was able to 
campaign for restriction in the use of pesticides 
in farming, which was adversely affecting fish 
ponds and rivers in the region, and for the 
government agencies to provide fish fingerlings 
and feed for small aquaculture operations. The 
DMF is also working to get land titles to protect 
tenure for traditional inland fishers. 
The DMF has a membership base of 2000 
women fishers in its union. The union has been 
making demands for extending benefits of state 
schemes announced for women and the youth 
to fishing communities. However, when asked 
by government officials to give a list of potential 
beneficiaries to be considered, the union finds 
its membership base too small for it to make 
demands for all women in fishing communities 
in West Bengal. 
Jyoti Rajesh Meher and Ujwala Jaykishan 
Patil represented the MMKS from Palghar and 
Mumbai respectively, in Maharashtra. For the 
MMKS-Palghar, a major struggle is against the 
various development projects by big industry 
that threaten the livelihoods of traditional 
fishers. These include the continuing fight 
against the establishment of the proposed 
Wadhawan port by the Jindal Steel Works, 
as well as ocean surveys by the public sector 
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) 
in some of the most productive fishing belts. 
The state’s Minister for Fisheries had promised 
compensation to fishers for fishing days lost 
due to the ONGC 
surveys, but the 
calculation of 
compensation was 
a big challenge. 
Fishing along 
the coast was 
also impacted by 
pollution from the 
Tarapur Industrial 
Area, and the MMKS was struggling for a ban 
on effluent disposal into the sea.  
The MMKS as a trade union was also working 
with women, to set up women’s cooperatives, 
and take up various issues of their rights. 
Through continuous struggle, it had managed 
to get reservation of a few compartments in 
local trains for women to transport fish in the 
Palghar-Mumbai belt. Efforts for compensation 
helped women fish vendors affected by the 
destruction caused during the Phyan cyclone in 
2009, and those impacted by the oil spill from 
the collision of the two ships, MSC Chitra and 
Khalija 3, in 2010. 
The struggle for 
compensation has 
been carrying on 
for nine years, with 
a final resolution yet 
to be achieved. 
MMKS in 
Palghar and 
Mumbai also took 
up the issue of street 
fish markets being affected by Mumbai city 
development plans, in turn impacting women 
fish vendors. A survey undertaken with the help 
of ICSF helped the MMKS to identify 102 fish 
markets in the city and to provide a map of these 
fish markets to the municipal authorities, with 
a demand that the fish markets were retained 
in situ in the new city Master Plan. The lack of 
facilities to women fish vendors at the Sasoon 
and Colaba Dock landing sites was also taken up 
with the city administration. 
The union is working with the health of 
women in the fish trade. Most women are forced 
to retire from this work due to medical reasons 
by the age of 45 to 50 years. Many suffer from 
chronic problems because of the heavy work. The 
union has been demanding health compensation 
and pension for women in the sector. 
The union has a membership of around 
500 fish vendors in Palghar town alone. It has 
further members from the nearby villages 
of Palghar district, which is entirely coastalt. 
The union sees as its next challenge a proper 
enumeration of membership, including detailed 
demographical information. It seeks to conduct 
workshops and training sessions to build 
awareness among members with regard to issues 
faced in the sector, and their rights. Ujwala Patil 
shared that in Mumbai, the demand of the 
union includes ownership rights being granted 
to women vendors in the Bombay Municipal 
Corporation fish markets. The union also has 
been demanding reservation of land adjacent to 
the fishing villages for use by the communities. 
Women have been actively participating in the 
government exercise of demarcating the outer 
boundaries for fishing villages in Mumbai.
The round table 
highlighted the 
common issues of 
women in fisheries 
and also showed how 
effective the organised 
strength of womencan 
be in terms of gaining 
rights and benefits
Ujwala Jaykishan Patil
Jyoti Rajesh Meher
JUNE  2019 9
Seeta Dasan of SEWA in 
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India shared 
that for SEWA in Kerala, the biggest challenge 
was the the setting up of a commercial port 
at Vizhinjam. The fishing community was 
aware of the consequences of coastal erosion, 
resulting from even the initial construction 
activities of the project. Struggles included 
joining in demonstrations by the various 
fishing community organizations on the streets 
of Thiruvananthapuram city, campaigns 
addressing church 
organizations and 
political parties, 
and taking up the 
matter with the 
media. SEWA views 
the organization as 
a platform to build 
unity, and provide 
a forum to take up 
issues of women fishworkers in the state. 
Seeta Dasan


India: organising women

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India: organising women

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