Describe the life of fishing communities.
Answers
Fishing communities in India, are not homogenous, as they belong to different castes. These communities have their distinct social, cultural governance structures and traditional practices, depending on the coast, where they inhabit. Atleast 2-3 castes are exclusively involved in marine fishing in each maritime State, and are not related to the mainstream agrarian system.
The community institutions, (such as the caste panchayats, peddalu, padu system etc.,)mostly organized along caste, kinship or religious lines, play an important role in resolving conflicts, besides regulating and allocating resource use, ensuring equitable access to resources and providing some form of social insurance. Most communities have evolved their own management systems over time to regulate human interaction with the resource especially when large number of people bank on a limited resource to avoid conflicts. The evolution of traditional management system depended on the resource and the environment in which the resource existed and the interactions between people to extract these resources (Kurien, 1998).
Besides the traditional caste-based organization of fishing communities, they are also organized into various sectors such as the mechanized sector – boat owner associations, trade unions, cooperatives (both State-run and private), associations based on gear type, self help groups, federations etc
Some of the important fishing castes State-wise include:
Tamil Nadu: Pattinavars, Mukkuvars, and Paravas
Andhra Pradesh: Vadabalijas, Jalaris, Pattapu, and Palles
Orissa: Jalaris, Vadabalijas, Kaibartas, Khandayats, and Rajbhansis
West Bengal: Kaibartas
Gujarat: Kharvas, Kolis and Macchiyaras
Maharashtra: Kolis
Karnataka: Mogaveeras
Kerala: Mukkuvar, Anjootty, Dheevera, and Pooislan
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