In India, a movement of small-scale fishworkers is building to reclaim their rights to water. A recent boat campaign in West Bengal aimed to raise awareness about the rights of small-scale fishworkers to water, fish, and land. Traveling along a 500km stretch of coastal areas and the Hooghly River, organisations mobilised community power to foster connections and drive action.
Towards a movement for small-scale fishworkers’ right to water
In India, millions of workers, including fishers, fish farmers, fish processors, fish sellers, as well as artisanal net and boat makers or repairers, are directly involved in small-scale fisheries. Traditional small-scale fishing communities play a crucial role in fostering resilient food systems. They protect and conserve aquatic resources using traditional ecological knowledge and practices, while providing high-quality and affordable sources of animal protein to millions of people. However, small-scale fishing communities face the challenge of reclaiming their customary rights over waterbodies and adjacent land amid increasing concerns over the loss of access to their traditional resources.
Despite their essential contributions to maintaining social and natural ecosystems, including reducing bycatch, stewarding fishing bans and promoting community compliance, maintaining culture and customs, small-scale fishworkers lack legally recognised rights over water bodies and surrounding land, which they have used and protected for generations. Without legal protection, they face multiple social, political, and environmental threats. To bolster change, the National Federation of Small-Scale Fishworkers (NFSF), the largest organisation of small-scale fishworkers in India, is building a movement to advocate for the legal rights of small-scale fishing communities.
From its inception in 2016, NFSF has articulated and developed a national movement under the banner of ‘Small-Scale Fishworkers’ Right to Water’ with a focus on two primary demands – the right of small-scale fishworkers to access waterbodies and fish resources for sustainable fishing and fish farming; and the right to protect the water bodies and fish resources from unscrupulous activities which harm the aquatic ecosystem. They have also raised demands for other essential rights, such as the right to social security, gender equity, and climate justice. The movement aims to reassert the collective identity of small-scale fishworkers as the natural custodians of water bodies and fish resources, to strengthen resilience within their communities.
Legal recognition will afford the movement its rightful influence in decision-making regarding the utilisation of aquatic resources. For example, bottom trawling has been depleting marine resources for years, but the small-scale fishers have no power to enforce changes. The same is true regarding the fight against water pollution from chemical agriculture, industrial aquaculture and other industries. A wider recognition of small-scale fishers as natural custodians of waterbodies can help increase the likelihood that these communities are included in policy-making conversations. This would help strengthen local food systems exponentially and create long-term community resilience.
The boat campaign in West Bengal
In 2024, the national movement expanded with increased local support from state-level small-scale fishworkers’ organisations – the Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF) in West Bengal and the Swatanthra Matsyathozilai Federation (SMTF) in Kerala.
In West Bengal, the community leadership of DMF spearheaded the rights movement with a month-long boat campaign from November 26 to December 23, 2024. They travelled along a 500 km stretch upstream from the mouth of the Hooghly River in the Bay of Bengal up to the Farakka Barrage in the Gangetic plains, encountering fishing community hubs and villages in nine districts.
The campaign aimed to reach fishing community hubs along the coast and floodplains to raise awareness among fishworkers about their rights; to draw the attention of government authorities to the demands of small-scale fishworkers and highlight threats to their livelihoods; and to sensitise civil society and the public to the role of small-scale fisheries within the broader agroecological movement for food sovereignty and the protection of natural resources.
The movement aims to reassert the collective identity of small-scale fishworkers as the natural custodians of water and fish
Draped in banners and blue flags of local fishworkers’ organisations, the campaign boat traveled from village to village, inspiring great enthusiasm among the fishing communities. The communities warmly welcomed the campaign, responding with drumming and songs of resistance. Processions and rallies led by women fishworkers echoed slogans in unison – Jol Bachao, Maach Bachao, Matsyajibi Bachao (Save Water, Save Fish, Save Fisher People) and Jaal Jar Jol Tar (Those Who Wield the Net, Have the Right to Water Bodies).
During public gatherings, local fishing communities spoke out against the increasing occupation of coastlines for tourism, ports, harbours, and other commercial projects, which led to their displacement and reduced access to resources. They also condemned the declining fish stocks caused by destructive fishing practices, primarily bottom trawling by large-scale, mechanised vessels. At a notable gathering at Namkhana fishing harbour, small-scale fishers raised slogans such as Trawling Hatao, Matsyajibi Bachao (Abolish Trawling, Save Fishworkers), highlighting the presence of trawlers docked at the harbour. Women fishworkers shared how the depletion of natural resources added to women’s ongoing struggles.
“Hundreds of women fish processors and fish dryers are struggling to make ends meet because there are no fish in the sea,” said Tapasi Dolui, Vice-President of DMF
In the context of restricting access to resources, fishers from the Sundarbans shared the historical injustices caused by exclusionary forest conservation practices, which still marginalise fishing communities in the Sundarbans delta. Fishworkers also discussed issues related to industrial aquaculture and the growing hardships caused by climate variability. The DMF leadership connected the concerns raised by the fishing communities to the larger issue of a lack of rights. They urged communities to collectively fight social injustices through public deputations, sit-in protests, and demonstrations. Inspired by these events, a local fishing community joined the campaigners to present their demands to the West Bengal Department of Fisheries. The campaign also conducted press conferences along the way.
At a powerful press conference in Diamond Harbour, DMF General Secretary Milan Das delivered a passionate speech, linking the rights of small-scale fishworkers to the well-being of society as a whole:
“Small-scale fishworkers are the only non-consumptive stakeholders of the waterbodies. Without small-scale fishworkers there are no healthy water bodies, and without healthy water bodies there is no future in agriculture, no access to healthy drinking water, and no healthy fish on the plate.”
The fishing communities warmly welcomed the campaign boat, responding with drumming and songs of resistance.
Moving away from coastal communities, the campaign boat also travelled upstream along the Hooghly River and into inland waters. Setting sail from Kolkata, as the campaign proceeded to meet riverine fishing communities in their villages, campaigners quickly noticed that community participation was lower than that of their coastal counterparts. This suggested these communities were less aware and less organised.
However, in the Nadia district, the campaign achieved a notable milestone when the police inspector announced new, strict penalties for all destructive fishing. The statement was welcomed with applause by the fishing community, who readily volunteered to monitor rivers and wetlands and report such activity. While this was the outcome in just one district, it indicated to the campaign that change is possible. Overall, the campaign efforts along the riverine stretch left much for the local organisers to reflect on.
Learning and resiliency
Establishing the rights of small-scale fishworkers will require more than one campaign. Legally, the biggest challenge lies in drafting legislation that protects the rights of small-scale fishworkers and ensuring the government enacts it. It is therefore a significant development that, after the campaign and thanks to the previous years of NFSF movements’ efforts to increase visibility—including engaging communities in letter writing, protesting, and press conferences—both the central government of India and the state government of West Bengal acknowledged the need for legislation protecting the rights of traditional fishing communities. While this acknowledgment is not yet translated into policy or increased rights, it signals the growing strength of the people’s movement.
Politically, the campaign faced the challenge of linking the issues leading to the marginalisation of fishworkers with the denial of their rights over water, fish, and land. It reflected the need to train grassroots-level leadership and develop initiatives to address the issues faced by fishworkers, highlighting the connection between their issues and the absence of their rights. Unlike peasants’ movements for the right to land, fishworkers’ struggles for the right to water bodies are less visible and harder to organise around than land-based movements. Historically, small-scale fisheries have largely involved subsistence-based self-employed family enterprises, with open access to water and fish stock. This means of livelihood and of achieving food sovereignty has been trampled by modern development, only recently necessitating the water rights movement.
The boat campaign in West Bengal exhibited the indomitable spirit and resilience of a community fighting for survival
The worsening socio-economic conditions of the small-scale fishing communities, leading to large-scale migration from the sector, pose an astounding challenge to building the collective strength of the small-scale fishworkers, which is crucial for addressing their problems. However, insights drawn from the campaign have helped in developing a future course of action for the movement, with an emphasis on developing the organisational capacity of inland fishworkers and organising multiple issue-based campaigns locally to strengthen the larger movement in securing the rights of small-scale fishworkers.
Reflecting on the campaign’s challenges and successes, it is notable that the need for small-scale fishworkers to have water rights was recognized, marking a significant step forward. It suggests that with additional campaigns, targeting further stretches of the coastline and more deeply engaging inland communities, progress is achievable. A challenge the campaign faced was the constraint of time and money, so to build consistent momentum, inspiring deeper and more community engagement and financial resources would be required.
It was clear from the community responses along the campaign trail that fishworkers are ready to organise and get involved. Creating additional ways to communicate with community leaders to identify specific community needs and demands could go a long way in helping the campaign better understand how to support localised, self-organising efforts and strengthen the broader movement’s fabric. Building a diverse base of civil society and other natural resource-dependent communities in support of fishworkers was a challenge, but it is a clear need for future success. Looking ahead, finding ways to connect small farmers, forest workers, and Indigenous communities with small-scale fishers to join forces and strengthen community movements with a shared goal of protecting natural resources and local food systems will help build a more resilient community, India, and the world.
Despite the challenges, the boat campaign in West Bengal exhibited the indomitable spirit and resilience of a community fighting for survival. It sent a strong and clear message: small-scale fishworkers are natural custodians of waterbodies, and fishing communities should have the primary right to these waterbodies. This is critical to weaving resilient food systems.
Author: Amitrajit Chakraborty is an interdisciplinary researcher and activist. He leads the secretariat of the National Federation of Small-Scale Fishworkers (NFSF) in India. Contact: amitrajit.chakraborty@gmail.com
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This article is part of Issue 3-2025: Weaving Resilience and Resistance
