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Along Kerala’s coastline, from fish landing centres at Neendakara to Ponnani, an unease has begun to spread. The air in the harbours is heavy not with the smell of drying fish but with anxiety. A new government policy, promising to “modernise” India’s marine fisheries, has rekindled old fears among small-scale fishers who live by the sea’s mercy.
The Union government’s new deep-sea fishing rules have cleared the way for larger mechanised vessels, equipped with high-powered lights and advanced gear, to operate in Indian waters. Officials say this will boost exports, create jobs, and integrate the country into the global blue economy. But for Kerala’s fishing villages, the promise of progress sounds more like a warning bell.
“They say this is development,” said S Shibu, a fisherman from Vizhinjam. “But whose development is it? When the big boats come, they don’t leave anything for us.”
The new rules come with the language of opportunity — modern vessels, better data systems, and higher-value species like tuna to be harvested from the deep sea. Yet Kerala’s fishers recall a painful history that began when trawlers first appeared in the 1970s. The mechanised fleets tore through the seabed, scooped up juvenile fish, and sparked violent clashes along the coast.
It took years of struggle and strikes for the state to reserve coastal waters for traditional craft and to impose seasonal trawl bans. Those victories, however fragile, are now under threat. Fishers fear the re-entry of industrial-scale fleets under new names — “mother vessels” and “cooperative operations” — that could blur the line between deep-sea and coastal fishing.
“Once they start, we will have no space left,” said K V Joseph, a fisher leader in Kollam. “We fought for decades to protect our waters. Now it feels like we are losing it again.”
Kerala’s fishing economy has always been finely balanced between people and the sea. About a million people depend on marine fisheries, most of them operating small boats close to shore. Their livelihood depends not on technology but on timing — when the wind turns, when the fish school near the surface, when the tides bring the silver flash of sardines.
That balance is now threatened by technology and scale. The new generation of vessels uses powerful lights — ranging from 1 to 3 lakh watts — to attract fish at night. These fleets can stay at sea for days, haul in hundreds of tonnes, and transfer the catch mid-sea to mother vessels that never dock.
“When such boats operate near the coast, the sea goes silent,” said M Sharaf, an elderly fisherman from Beypore. “You go out the next morning, and there’s nothing left. It’s like someone vacuumed the sea.”
His worry is echoed across Kerala’s coastline. The artisanal fishers who depend on small pelagic species — sardines, anchovies, mackerel — are seeing declining catches and rising debts. The larger boats, with their capacity and capital, can outcompete them within weeks.
Kerala’s coastal waters are among the most biodiverse in India, supporting coral beds, seaweed forests, and spawning grounds for over 250 fish species. These nearshore ecosystems are nurseries for young fish before they migrate to deeper waters. When trawlers and large mechanised fleets operate too close to shore, they destroy this delicate chain.
The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute has repeatedly warned of overfishing and the declining stocks of key species along the southwest coast. The oil sardine, once Kerala’s lifeline, has shown erratic yields in the last decade. Climate change has already warmed nearshore waters and disrupted migration patterns. The entry of large vessels adds another layer of stress.
Ecologists describe it as a textbook example of the “tragedy of the commons”. When access is opened without restraint, the incentive to overfish becomes irresistible, and the resource collapses for everyone. The mechanised fleets, chasing profits, could strip the sea faster than it can replenish.
The conflict is not only ecological but also constitutional. The territorial waters—up to 12 nautical miles from shore—fall under the state government’s control. Beyond that lies the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), managed by the Centre. The new deep-sea policy covers the EEZ, but Kerala fears that enforcement will blur the boundaries, allowing large vessels to encroach into state waters.
The state government has officially opposed the move, arguing that it undermines local livelihoods and violates the spirit of Kerala’s own Marine Fishing Regulation Act. That act reserves nearshore waters for traditional fishers and bans destructive gear like pair trawling and light fishing.
State officials point out that the central rules were drafted without adequate consultation. “Policies made in Delhi cannot understand the rhythm of our sea,” said a senior fisheries officer in Thiruvananthapuram. “The coast is not an industrial zone. It is a living system.”
The new policy promises to prioritise fishermen’s cooperatives in vessel ownership. But Kerala’s unions suspect that this will open the door for corporate players under cooperative names. Deep-sea ventures demand heavy investment — engines, refrigeration, satellite tracking — far beyond what ordinary fishers can afford.
“There is no way small fishers can buy a fifty-tonne vessel,” said Georgekutty, a union organiser in Alappuzha. “These will go to companies, not communities.”
The pattern is familiar. In previous ventures, corporate owners registered vessels under cooperative licences to bypass local limits. Once in operation, these fleets targeted coastal resources, not the deep-sea species they were supposed to pursue.
Even existing laws are poorly implemented. Every monsoon, when the 52-day trawl ban is in force, fishers report violations by outsider boats using fake registrations. They often operate at night, beyond radar range. Enforcement boats are too few, and patrols too rare.
Traditional fishers, lacking political power, bear the brunt. Many of them belong to marginalised castes who have lived along the coast for generations. Their protests rarely make it beyond the beach. Yet they remain the eyes and ears of the sea, the first to notice when fish vanish, when waters warm, when sandbars shift.
As one young fisher in Thottappally put it, “We know the sea better than anyone. But no one asks us what it needs.”
A question of sustainability
The government argues that India’s vast marine zone remains underutilised and that deep-sea fishing can unlock new wealth. But fisheries scientists caution that quantity cannot replace balance. Expanding capacity without rebuilding stocks risks permanent collapse.
India’s fishing fleet already exceeds sustainable limits. Official estimates suggest that there are more than three lakh active vessels — nearly triple the level considered safe for long-term yield. Adding more mechanised boats could turn a problem of livelihood into a crisis of survival.
Kerala’s example is a warning to the rest of India. Once rich with sardines and anchovies, the state’s annual marine catch has fluctuated wildly in the last decade. When the fish disappear, the poorest are the first to fall.
In a small church courtyard in Vypin, a meeting of fishers ended with a collective prayer. The men and women, their faces tanned and lined by years at sea, spoke in simple but powerful words. “The sea gives us everything,” one woman said. “But if it is taken by machines, we will have nothing left to give our children.”
As Dominic, the old fisherman from Beypore, looked at the darkening water, he summed it up quietly. “We have lived with the sea all our lives. We know when it is angry. This time, it is not the waves we fear. It is what comes with them.”