Losing the commons
The mouth of the Ennore creek, about halfway between Pulicat and Chennai, offers a more intensive example of pressures also affecting Pulicat: mechanisation, industrialisation, pollution and the degradation of fishing spaces.
The creek was once a rich fishing ground. Fishers would worship the local deities Pokkali Amman and Vellai Amman before setting out in their boats. Periya Kuppam Kumar (65), has been fishing near the mouth of the creek for 50 years.
But for Kumar, it is not only the catch that has changed. The seasons themselves have become harder to read.
“Earlier, an early monsoon would arrive between June and July. We had proper seasons, and specific types of fish would arrive with each season. Even storms and high winds followed a predictable cycle. Now, all those seasonal shifts are gone. We can no longer predict when a storm will hit or what kind of fish we will catch on any given day. We too have started depending on weather forecasts that young fishermen tell us,” he says.
The uncertainty has disrupted the transmission of knowledge between generations.
“Whatever our father and grandfather taught us as traditional knowledge of the sea, I could not pass it down to the younger fishers. I go wrong in predictions as I do not understand weather like I did 30 years ago,” Kumar says.
He also blames mechanised fishing for the decline in his catch. “Due to these mechanised trawlers the sea is bare now. By the time we cast our nets, there’s nothing left. The effort that used to earn us Rs 1,000 now barely brings in Rs 500, if we are lucky.”
Balachandran, however, also points to industrial activity. He supports the annual 61-day fishing ban in Tamil Nadu, which is intended to give fish time to breed.
“Fish lay lakhs of eggs, and we depend on their reproduction for future catches. To give them space and time to breed, fishing is banned for 61 days across the state,” he says.
But he does not believe the ban alone explains the decline in fish availability. Asked what is driving the fall in fish numbers, he identifies three factors: “Too much fishing, industrial waste and climate change.”
He points particularly to industrial activity along the coast. “The hot water, the recycled water and coal ash are all getting mixed with the sea. This creates a threat to fish and marine life as a whole,” he says.
For communities around Ennore creek, the loss is also one of control over the spaces where they fish.
The creek was traditionally governed through a system known as Paadu, under which fishers collectively allocated and rotated access to 53 fishing grounds according to unwritten community rules. Researchers Nityanand Jayaraman and others wrote in 2024 that the system depended on a detailed understanding of the creek’s tides, seasons and changing fishing spaces — knowledge communicated through everyday interactions among fishers.
Paadu began to decline in the 1970s as industrialisation, environmental degradation and mechanised fishing expanded and traditional community institutions weakened. Fishers have consequently lost not only access to some fishing grounds, but also a centuries-old system of governing the creek through customary rules.
This is why Ennore matters to the story of Pulicat. In both places, the problem is not simply that fishing is becoming less profitable. The occupation is being separated from the landscape, knowledge and community institutions that once made it possible.
And when those systems weaken, the effects reach beyond fishing itself.
Periya Kuppam Kumar remembers that until about 30 years ago, when fishers returned late from the sea, their wives would wait for them with a plate of rice and a glass of water. The ritual was observed in almost every fisher household, he says. Few families continue it now.
The songs that accompanied fishing are disappearing too
When the songs disappear
“Yelelo Ailasa” was not simply a song for entertainment. Hariharan (70), a retired fisher, remembers it as a work song, sung while fishers pulled heavy nets from the sea or rowed together in rhythm.
“Yelelo Ailasa was a specific type of song that fishers used to sing while pulling the long heavy nets from the sea that require energy, or while rowing in sync,” he says. “There are songs on sailing and fishing, on work before sailing and on sacrifice of the fishers. Now with the domination of movie songs, our songs are lost.”
For Hariharan, the disappearance of the songs is part of a broader transformation of Ennore. His grandson now works with a trawler, while the coastline around the creek has become increasingly industrialised.
“There are so many industries in Ennore. It’s increasing and many of these industries are built near the sea. The sea sound is lost and birds rarely come here,” he said.