THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Spread across 50 assembly constituencies in nine districts, the state’s coastal population plays a key role in deciding who would rule the state. Factors that swing their votes run common in 222 interconnected fishing villages and often revolve around the lives and livelihood of 11 lakh fishermen.
Hence, it is only natural that parties and fronts that set their campaign trail along the 590km coastal line include a special reference in their respective manifestos to connect with the community. LDF has this time repeated its assurance that it will protect the community’s rights to catch and sell fish. UDF has also promised the same.
Recent poll outcomes indicate the socio-economic changes the community, once an assured vote bank of Congress, has underwent over the years.
Having lost sway in the community, Congress would know the perils of not having their support better. This may be why Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took the symbolic plunge in the Arabian Sea and made it a point to draw the nets with fishermen in Kollam recently.
Deal breaker
While LDF retained its hold among the community from the 2016 assembly elections till the recent local body polls, the dynamics changed when the fishing deal with US firm EMCC to make and manage 400 trawlers in an already-crowded fishing territory surfaced.
The community saw it as a major departure from the LDF manifesto that promised regulation of trawlers and promoted fishing. Though Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan tried to douse the controversy by cancelling the deal, the embers smouldered. The coastal hartal against the deal days after it was cancelled was a success.
“This government did a lot for the community. Our children have better education and in some places, fishers get good price for the catch and funds to buy boats. But how dare it come to us with a trawler deal? We refuse to believe it was not aware of the deal,” said V D Majeendran, general secretary, Kerala Swathanthra Matsyathozhilali Federation (KSMTF).
He said the Church’s influence is slowly waning as fishermen have become more politically aware. The younger generation has started thinking beyond LDF and UDF and is actively involved in new political movements such as Twenty20 and V4Kochi, he said.
A J Vijayan, an activist and founding member of National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), a national body of independent fishermen unions, said despite its best intentions, the government could not ensure the protection of traditional fishermen and end exploitation by middlemen as envisaged in the Aquarium Reform Bill of the LDF government.
The EMCC deal also proved a dampener for Fisheries Minister J Mercykutty Amma who was making all the right moves by regulating the registration for mechanised boats, fixing minimum mesh size for nets to prevent juvenile fishing and developing schools in coastal areas. Vijayan said the fisherfolk would now be hoping for effective measures to address their worsening livelihood issues accentuated by the climate change.