Alienation and Disenfranchisement: Caste and Development Paradigms on the Kerala Coast

Even as Kerala moved ahead of every other Indian state in terms of human development, over the last sixty years, three social groups – the Dalits, Adivasis, and traditional fisherfolk – were left out of the development discourse and forced to fend for themselves on the margins of Kerala society. Kerala’s fisherfolk are affected by myriad problems, including landlessness, poor levels of educational attainment, rampant poverty, and lack of access to drinking water and sanitation. The lack of education and awareness about coastal development policy among the fisherfolk makes them gullible when the State decides to implement certain policies. The ignorance prevalent amongst the community has led them to place their trust in the dominant narrative around coastal development in Kerala, the consequences of which have been devastating for the fisherfolk.

Coastal Management Strategies in Kerala since the 1970s

Kerala has had a long history of implementing hard solutions like seawalls, groynes, and fishing harbours to protect the coast from erosion. Between 1970 and 2020, the total length of seawalls in Kerala witnessed an increase of 362.5 per cent, from 80 km to 370 km. Various bodies like the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, and the National Centre for Coastal Research have identified this increase in hard structures as the primary reason behind large-scale coastal erosion in the state. Kerala also has four major ports and 22 operational and three under-construction fishing harbours, which have played a pivotal role in altering the wave dynamics on the coast and aggravated erosion in multiple stretches. For comparison, the state has a fishing harbour every 28 km on average along its coastline, a figure dwarfed by fellow South Indian states like Karnataka (31 km), Tamil Nadu (77 km), and Andhra Pradesh (195 km).

While it is undeniable that fishing harbours provide an opportunity to streamline production and sales in the fishing industry, they are major constructions on the coast and require the construction of long breakwaters to facilitate the entry and exit of fishing vessels. The breakwaters, many of which are longer than one kilometre, are notorious for disrupting the sediment transportation in the sea. The disruption of sediment transport leads to the coastline on the downdrift side of the harbours facing massive erosion, while sediment accumulates on the updrift side, forming wide beaches. Beaches are naturally unstable geographies, and ensuring the free movement of ocean sediment is crucial to maintaining the coastal ecosystem. The presence of virgin beaches also safeguards a coastal region much better from extreme weather events like cyclones, storm surges, and tidal floods. However, there is massive support from the fisherfolk to construct hard solutions, having been led to believe that they are effective in the long run to safeguard their lives and assets.

Harbours and Coastal Erosion

Across Kerala, the regions most affected by human-induced coastal erosion also happen to house some of the poorest and most socially excluded fishing populations. Two of the most sensitive areas are located along the coastline of Thiruvananthapuram and in the Ponnani region of Malappuram. In Thiruvananthapuram, there are three major eroding stretches, the most prominent among which is the stretch from Beemapally to Shanghumukham, located immediately north of the Vizhinjam International Seaport. From having wide beaches, the entire coastline along this stretch has virtually disappeared over the last decade, and more than 200 households have been shifted to alternate accommodation by the government in the last five years. Shanghumukham, once a prominent tourist spot, has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. The second spot, located north of the Muthalapozhi harbour, stretches from Perumathura to Anchuthengu. The third eroding stretch in Thiruvananthapuram, Pozhiyoor, also happens to be Kerala’s worst-affected by coastal erosion. Bordering Kanyakumari District, this region has been ravaged by the construction of the Thengapattanam fishing harbour in Tamil Nadu and a long stretch of groyne fields from the harbour to Neerodi on the Kerala border.

At Ponnani, the construction of the fishing harbour, while bringing in greater revenues for the fisherfolk, came at the cost of significant coastal erosion in Ponnani municipality, as well as the adjacent Veliancode and Perumpadappu panchayats. This entire stretch of over 20 km is densely populated by the fisherfolk, many of whom have been displaced by the erosion in the last decade. Ponnani, Pozhiyoor, and Valiyathura are also the locations of apartment complexes that the Government of Kerala constructed for the fisherfolk to safeguard them from the impacts of coastal erosion.

Rehabilitation or Forced Displacement?

The apartment complexes at Ponnani, Pozhiyoor, and Valiyathura have been constructed under the Punargaeham scheme of the Government of Kerala. The scheme, initiated in 2019, sought to bring under its ambit 18,685 fishing households who live within fifty metres of the high tide line (HTL) across the state. The programme states that its primary objective is to safeguard the fisherfolk from climate change and extreme weather events by rehabilitating them further inland. Other objectives of the programme include eliminating landlessness among the fisherfolk and bringing them into the mainstream of Kerala society, and converting lands relinquished by the fisherfolk within fifty metres of the HTL into a bio-shield against natural hazards and climate change through afforestation.

It is dubious to put the blame of the fisherfolk’s displacement on climate change, especially given that coastal erosion in Kerala is primarily due to the coastal management strategies since the 1970s, implemented with equal zest by both Congress and Communist-led governments. Climate change only exacerbates the crisis created by the failed coastal management policy. The current rehabilitation programme can therefore be considered a measure to address the failure of an existing policy that puts the lives and livelihoods of the fisherfolk in jeopardy. Under the scheme, the beneficiary household must voluntarily relinquish all property on the coast to the government, receiving no compensation for their assets. The household is then either given a sum of ten lakh rupees to buy land and construct a house or to buy a house further inland, or, shift to a government-constructed flat away from the coastline. The first solution has pushed most beneficiaries into a debt trap, as the sum received from the government is insufficient to buy land and construct a house in Kerala, given high land prices and the cost of labour and materials for house construction. The government allocates Rs. 6,00,000 to buy land not less than 3 cents, and Rs. 4,00,000 to construct a house not less than 400 sq.ft. in size. The second solution, implemented at Ponnani, Pozhiyoor, and Valiyathura, puts the households into apartment complexes, over which the household has no ownership rights. Aside from stripping the community of their lands and assets, this exercise has caused severe anxiety amongst the community and dismantled the traditional networks many fisherfolk have had in their native villages, leaving families feeling isolated and vulnerable in an unfamiliar setting.

The ‘Development’ Game

While the Punargaeham project promises to convert the land relinquished by the fisherfolk into a statewide bio-shield against extreme weather events and climate change, no such action has taken place since 2019. On the contrary, across the coastline, land within fifty metres of the HTL has been earmarked for acquisition to build a Rs. 6500-crore coastal highway. There is a sense of insecurity brewing amongst Kerala’s fisherfolk that the government is employing underhanded tactics to forcibly displace them from their ancestral lands to facilitate its own development agenda. The government’s honesty is called into question by the fisherfolk, who feel that the Punargaeham scheme is little more than a façade used by the government to evict them from their ancestral lands with inadequate or zero compensation for the highway’s construction. There is also a feeling that the government is resorting to these moves because it involves a marginalised community like the fisherfolk, and not the general populace of Kerala, who would be up in arms against such an action by the State.

The Wrap

For a state that prides itself on its land reforms, it is rather shocking that Kerala actively pursues a policy of displacing and disenfranchising one of its most marginalised social groups in the name of climate change. The fierce political landscape in the state has led the Left and the Congress to portray themselves as the pioneers of development. In Kerala’s coastal belt, this political battle has transpired in the form of unsustainable constructions, a brainwashing of the fisherfolk into thinking these are beneficial in the long run, and a more troubling problem of forced displacement to make way for large-scale infrastructure projects. The negative spillover from these activities only pushes the already vulnerable fisherfolk further into the margins of Kerala society and deepens their mistrust in the State and its machinery. Left without land and a voice, they face an uncertain future in troubling times as the winds and waves unleash their full fury with each passing monsoon.