This article is the first in a series reflecting on 10 years of Sagarmala Programme, ‘The Coastal Course’, co-curated by the Centre for Financial Accountability and Delhi Forum.The Government of India has launched the fifth National Marine Fisheries Census 2025, set to conclude in December 2025. The marine census, along with the port-led development programme of Sagarmala, are both key components of India’s ‘Blue Revolution’ push to exploit oceanic and coastal resources.As the census notification states, it is officially aimed at digitising the census process moving away from manual data collection, and collecting information by using mobile applications and drones at fishers infrastructures: harbours, jetties and fish landing centres. The census is spearheaded by Kochi-based Indian Council for Agricultural Research- Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. Since the first survey in 1948 and subsequent surveys under Five-Year Plans in 1957–58, 1961–62 and 1977 – termed fisheries resource surveys – focus has been on estimating marine fish production at fish landing centres, and total marine fishing villages and population in India.While census goals and programmes were intended to improve fisher welfare, they systematically complemented efforts to promote aquaculture (fish farming in a controlled environment as opposed to simply fishing in natural settings) and capital-intensive mechanisation instead. The 2025 report of the Department of Fisheries reveals a structural inversion: mechanised trawlers now contribute over 52% of marine landings, followed by seine nets (22%) and gillnets (11.5%). Concurrently, the small-scale artisanal fleet has collapsed from 88% in 1960 to just 1%, representing the active erosion of a traditional socio-ecological system. Today, inland aquaculture dominates national output, producing 13.91 MMT – over 75% of India’s total fish production – while marine capture stagnates at 4.49 MMT (AARDO & T M, 2023). Promotion of private actors and landowning communities has helped create a class to dominate fisheries.Census risks excluding traditional fishing communitiesThe marine fishing communities largely practice small-scale fishing. Due to the competition introduced in fish production by aquaculture and displacement by infrastructure projects such as port-led development, they have become migrant labourers working part-time in various industries as workers. They fish in the season when the fish are abundant, staying in their villages. In other seasons they travel to other states for fishing. Most such small-scale fishers lack support from the local government and recognition under any formal organisations.The annual fishing ban imposed by the government between April and June (ostensibly to ensure fish breeding) itself shows there is no continuity of fishing throughout the year. And there is no clear definition of fish workers and how they will be identified.The current Marine Fisheries Census 2025 collected data through trained instructors from fisheries infrastructures while prioritising registered farmer’s organisations and self-help groups, and by using digital headcounts and drone-mapped crafts at harbours and jetties from the total production. This process sidesteps the very communities it claims to represent. It is known that infrastructure centres are often managed by private actors and government departments, not by traditional fishers. The process is further distorted with the inclusion of registered organisations – often dominated by trawler owners, mechanised boat associations and big fish farmers, largely belonging to landowning castes and business families. This raises concerns that these approaches may systematically exclude traditional informal fishers and communities. As someone who is both an insider to the community and a researcher, I explore who a fisher is and how we see ourselves, caught between our lifeworld of marine fishers and a modern state.Who is a ‘fisher’?In popular perception, a fisher is someone who catches fish or operates a boat. In India, this is also mapped as a caste-based occupation – a closed social identity produced by the Brahmanical purity-pollution framework. Yet, varna and caste hierarchies were never uniformly applied to societies living outside Brahmanical influence. A similar dynamic exists in coastal regions. The fishers across the coastal states historically governed village affairs and resources, and developed the shared and common watery world through their knowledge, customs, conservation and consensual agreement of all village members, unlike the agrarian caste society, where various castes and communities were occupationally and spatially dominated by the varna-caste hierarchy.Sangam literature in the Tamil tradition identifies fishers as ‘Neithaal‘, one of five geographical and social landscapes (thinai) that define society by ecology, economy, deity and way of life – not solely by caste. The Neithal (Ocean and Coast) zone represented a distinct society with clear ecosystems, autonomy over marine and land resources, and communal self-governance.For us, a fisherman is someone who lives in a fishing village and is bound to the ecosystem that evolved from the sea, canals, salt marshes and mangroves – from the Rann of Kutch to the Sundarbans, from Daman to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Fishers have inhabited the coast, sea and river mouths for ages, serving all their needs from building houses and exploring new places to feeding their families. Our ancestors have survived cycles, hardships and harsh weather conditions and have made the coast a home for future generations.Fishers cannot be defined solely by active fishing; their identity is rooted in community, coastal ecology and inherited social relations. In India, no caste or community is identified merely by economic activity or by infrastructure. Yet the current census seeks to classify “active fishers” through digital tools and at fish landing centres – an approach that excludes traditional, place-based belonging. With over 90% of fishers living below the poverty line and low literacy rates, such methods risk further marginalisation. By ignoring customary governance and socio-ecological ties, the census may systematically erase fishers’ traditional rights and stakeholdership in coastal spaces. The census must redefine recognition beyond production, toward lived belonging.With the legacy of traditional institutions that were developed to manage and share natural resources among community members, to this day fishers oppose the privatisation of land in coastal areas. They consider the water as the mother of all and the land as the property of the village, to be protected from exploitation for individual greed.Excluded in policyFrom colonial times, the framing of the sea as a Crown property fundamentally altered the narrative around fisher sovereignty – a stance independent India has largely perpetuated. The law never centred on fishers’ identity or territorial rights. This gap still continues: Indian fishers still lack legally defined rights on coastal lands and water bodies, and demand that their villages and markets be recognised as heritage sites or Eco-Sensitive Zones under the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) 1991 notification.Since the introduction of mechanisation, trawling and shrimp production, fishers organised as village units and through organisations to oppose them. The 1991 CRZ and the 1986 Environmental Protection Act were formed as a result of movements led by fishing villages, later supported by organisations, which led to the formation of the National Fishworkers Forum.Fishers in India are among the most marginalised in terms of democratic representation within the parliamentary system and participation in bureaucratic institutions. Fishers have never been adequately represented, and the institutions lack an understanding of their society at its core. In such a case, entrusting registered organisations and government bodies with enumerating and defining fishers constitutes a complete ignorance. The reasons are well known: they continue to rely on the sea and coastal resources, and they remain closer to traditional bodies and customs than to modern organisations, including trade and labour unions.In the past 20 years, the government has taken many steps to invest in and utilise marine resources for infrastructure development. Since 2015, this focus has increased and has become a core centre for India’s coastal infrastructure development under ‘Sagarmala’, with around Rs 8 lakh crore expected investment in infrastructure. Since then, marine fishers have been facing the threat of displacement and dispossession while losing access to the sea. Now, with the 2025 census, there is yet another attempt to cement the erasure of their traditional identity and belongingness.Ramu Avala is a researcher, and works with fishers unions and organisations in India. He is pursuing PhD at Queen Mary University of London. Contact: r.avala@qmul.ac.uk.