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Away from home

  • 14/01/2006

When the Tamil Nadu government started cracking the whip, trying to move fishing villages away from the coasts in accordance with the rules governing the coastal regulation zones (CRZ), they resisted. Many just stayed put. The government was, of course, on a very sticky wicket, because of the duplicitous circumstances in which it tried to move fishers out, while giving pleasure-seekers free run of beaches. The apprehensions of the government's double-dealing, in fact, had foundation: going back to a time that preceded the formation of CRZs. Over 20 years ago, Thalampettai village, eight kilometres from Tharangambadi in Nagapattinam district, moved out of their damaged houses. The government decided to construct pucca houses 500 metres away.

But they had to pay a heavy price for moving away from the sea. Once a prosperous community, they are struggling even now. The distance from the coast compromised the relationship the community once shared with the sea. Traditional practices such as mappu sighting, in which the fishermen track fish behaviour from the shore to determine when to go out to sea, went into decline. As a result, now the fishermen of Thalampettai only venture out to sea once a day, when once they would set sail as many as three times a day. A few years after Thalampettai shifted inland, private players muscled into the land the village had inhabited. Prawn farm-owners first capitalised. The people of Thalampettai protested, firstly, because the prawn farms blocked the community's access to the sea, and secondly it devalued the market price of prawns for local fishermen. Years of protests yielded only a small access road to the seafront.

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