Tide and Territory: Vernacular Regionality in Maharashtra’s Koli Fishing Communities

For centuries, Mumbai’s Koli fishing communities have sustained a way of life shaped by the tides, their Koliwadas (कोळीवाडा, Marathi for hamlet of the Kolis) functioning as self-contained maritime regions with distinct cultural, linguistic, and economic rhythms. These settlements, which are now under pressure from coastal reclamation and urban expansion, illustrate both their deep historical continuity and their resilience in the face of disruption (Chouhan, Parthasarathy, & Pattanaik, 2016). We trace how the Kolis experience their region not as lines on a map, but as a living fabric interlacing caste, craft, and ecology, and ask what is lost when development erases the places where sea and society meet.

As dawn breaks, the Koliwada wakes with a rhythm far older than the metropolis that now encircles it. The air is thick with the briny tang of the sea and the distant clatter of fish crates dragged across jetty planks still wet from the tide. Women in bright sarees squat in neat rows, their hands dancing through mackerel and bombil fish as auction chants rise in cadence- fast, melodic, transactional.  These everyday scenes at the coast of Mumbai city are a tide-woven tapestry of caste, craft, and culinary lore, where land and water, faith and fish, memory and market, all conspire to define what the Kolis call home.

The Koliwadas of Mumbai and the neighbouring Konkan coast have been home to the Kolis since at least the 15th century. The Kolis were originally a tribal community from Gujarat. When an opportunity arose, they migrated southward to apply their skills in fishing and became one of the first recorded settlers of Mumbai (Das & Raseef, 2022). What started with a tribal caste practising an indigenous vocation along the Konkan Sea has sustained for centuries to become the cultural micro-region that the koliwadas represent today. Fishing defines the daily rhythms, calendars, festivals, and prosperity of the Kolis. Their culture and livelihood shape the socio-economic fabric of Mumbai, Raigad, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg districts of Maharashtra (Jio Institute Digital Library). Some studies, such as those of Ulman, Naik, & Talathi (2008) and Warhaft (2001), reinforce this observation, documenting how fishing structures Koli ritual life, seasonal calendars, and community prosperity.

Just beyond the boats and fish crates, culture and food come together in the same rhythm that sustains their work. Jalseva (जलसेवा, service to the sea) is both work and worship for the Kolis, a way of life where casting nets at dawn, offering coconuts to the waves, and reading the winds are part of the same sacred rhythm. At ter (तेर, festival) feasts, you’ll find surmai (सुरमई, kingfish) spiced with tangy kokum and a side of cooling solkadhi (सोलकढी), a sweet-sour kokum–coconut milk drink. Linguistic traditions make up everyday conversations, especially in the form of ukhane (उखाणे, rhyming couplets) shared by women that often carry stories of the sea, their families, and the fish that tie it all together. From the dhinchak (धिंचक, lively) auction cries at dawn to the bhajans that drift through the evening air, the Kolis’ way of life—language, ritual and food has fed both stomachs and spirits for generations.

The stretch of shoreline around each Koliwada is the lifeblood of the community. From the paavla (पावळा, high tide) that signals the morning haul to the neundar (नयंदर, low tide) when nets are mended, every shift of land and sea guides daily life for the Kolis. Mokdas (मोकळा, open spaces) by the jetty become shared drying grounds for sardines and fish paste, giving rise to a flourishing parallel livelihood. This propitious relationship with the darya (दर्या, sea) had historically enabled the Kolis to amass wealth and influence. This wealth was presented through an abundance of gold jewellery, most prominently by the Son Kolis (सोन, gold). The Son Kolis consider themselves a socially superior subgroup within the wider Koli community, tracing their name to their principal deity Khandoba, whose favourite offering is turmeric. They associate the golden hue of this auspicious powder with their title “Son” Koli, a marker of both religious devotion and elevated status (Harad & Joglekar, 2017).

Yet, for all its rich cultural and ecological embeddedness, the Koli region stands increasingly under threat, not from monsoon tides but from the relentless and insensitive urban expansion. Nowhere is this erosion more palpable than in the case of the Mumbai Coastal Road Project (MCRP), an ambitious infrastructure plan that promises smoother transport but threatens to sever the centuries-old ties between Kolis and the sea. At Worli Koliwada, fishers have raised objections not just to the project’s design, highlighting how the close spacing between the pillars of the coastal road’s elevated section directly obstructs the path of their fishing boats (Mid-Day, 2021). The current spacing, they argue, is far too narrow for their traditional wooden hodis (होडी, boat) to safely pass during high tide or in rough weather. Movik et. al. (2023) argue for a ‘right to the coast as commons’ in order to enable the ecological stewardship of coastal communities like the Kolis.

The marginalisation of Koli concerns has also been documented in independent human rights assessments. A baseline study by Human Rights at Sea (2019) notes that the violation of their right to livelihood in the face of rapid commercial development constitutes the greatest threat to the Koli community. Koli identity is being erased under the language of “urban upgrading,” and attempts are made to cast Koliwadas as informal or illegal settlements, to make way for coastal promenades and high-rises (Tandel, 2023). Hodis that once floated effortlessly into the sea now find themselves trapped behind reclamation bunds, requiring longer, costlier detours or being rendered entirely non-operational. Vicziany and Gavankar (2024) argue for embedding Koli traditional knowledge within Mumbai’s urban planning frameworks to build a more inclusive city. The Kolis have protested through letters, demonstrations, and formal submissions. Though in an age where policy often erases the ‘lived’ in favour of the ‘legible’, uncertainty clouds their future.

State-led regional development, blind to vernacular geographies, threatens to remap regions without their people. To understand the Koli experience is to stretch the definition of “region” beyond administrative logic. Their world is mapped not in tehsils and blocks but in tides, taboos, and tasting notes. Their Koliwadas, marked by hand-painted boat names and the daily clamour of fish being gutted and salted, form an ecological micro-region, sustained by skill and a resistance to mechanised commercialisation (Ulman, Naik, & Talathi, 2008). Here, tide and territory are not opposites; they are synonyms. To see them as such, administrators must step out of official policy dogmas.

                              : Ayush Srivastava                                    : 0009-0007-2879-8324