







































Ecology, Economy, and Society–the INSEE Journal 7(1): 165-169, January 2024 

BOOK REVIEW 

Tangled Web: Indigenous Rights and Spatial Politics 
in Mumbai 

Chitra V* 

Gayatri Nair. 2021. Set Adrift: Capitalist Transformation and Community Politics 
along Mumbai’s Shore. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.  

Set Adrift provides a detailed 
and comprehensive account of 
the interplay between caste, 
rights, and spatial politics in 
urban India. The book focuses 
on the political struggles of the 
Koli community, particularly 
those engaged in artisanal 
fishing, fish processing, and 
sales in Mumbai. It weaves a 
detailed account of their 
everyday struggles, from the 
pressures of changing fish 
markets and its impacts on 
Koli women and domestic 
economies to the charged 
politics of development 
projects and the changing 
demographics and practices 
that characterize the fishing 
industry. Tying these narratives 
together, the book addresses 
larger questions surrounding 

 
* Lecturer, Australian National University. cvenkataramani@gmail.com  

Copyright © V 2024. Released under Creative Commons Attribution © NonCommercial 4.0 

International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 

Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581–6152 (print); 2581–6101 (web).  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v7i1.1175  

 

mailto:cvenkataramani@gmail.com
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v7i1.1175


 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [166] 

 

dispossession and access to the commons, urban transformation, and 
changing narratives of rights and belonging. Nair binds these macro and 
micro perspectives together through her nuanced understanding of 
community organizations, fisher cooperatives, and the political institutions 
central to the fisheries industry at the national and state levels. The central 
issue that runs through this book is the tension between the Koli community 
and the migrant workers who seek employment in the industry. Nair 
illustrates how the shift to capital-intensive fishing practices, ecological 
degradation, and land pressure necessitates the Koli community to fall back 
on nativist politics, pitting one marginalized group against the other. 

Nair begins the book with a description of the Koli community and their role 
in Mumbai’s history. As recorded in the 1901 Census, the Kolis are counted 
among the earliest inhabitants of the archipelago that later became the 
colonial port city of Bombay, and later still, the metropole of Mumbai. The 
Kolis comprise several different sub-castes; those in Mumbai are officially 
classified as “backward classes”. The Koli communities in the city largely 
reside in informal settlements and have long managed to stave off the threat 
of displacement by invoking this historical claim upon the city (Chhabria 
2018). However, as Nair points out, this land pressure has only increased in 
recent years with the rapid development of suburbs and the lucrative real 
estate market. The effects of this capitalist accumulation, Nair writes, are also 
evident in the fisheries industry: the less-intense forms of fishing practised by 
artisanal fishers are fast becoming unviable. This stands in stark contrast to 
the general upward trend in the fisheries industry and the booming exports 
market, which are supported by investments from both the state and the 
private sector in intensive fishing practices such as trawler fishing and the use 
of purse-seine nets. The shifting landscape of the fisheries industry is further 
bolstered by the influx of cheap migrant labour, who engage in informal 
arrangements and predominantly perform taxing work for low wages. These 
shifts are key drivers in the Koli community’s struggle to claim authority over 
the coast and the fish markets, a claim that hinges on their identity as original 
inhabitants of the city. This claim, Nair writes, is supported by regional 
political parties such as the Shiva Sena, an important political party in 
Maharashtra, which champion the cause of Maharashtrians over migrants 
from other states. The net result is that Kolis and the political organizations 
they belong to fall back on nativist politics. Rather than seeing migrant 
workers as allies in the struggle against extractive economies, Kolis cultivate 
hostilities against those they perceive as “outsiders”. The book charts the 
emergence and circulation of this problem within the complex set of 
relationships that connect the changing city, the politics of community and 
belonging, and the changing economic and ecological conditions of the coast. 



[167] V 

 

The first half of the book explores the political economy of urban change 
and how it is shaped by historical, environmental, and spatial elements. Nair 
sets up one of the core concerns of the book as the need to understand the 
changing nature, uses of, and claims over the city’s commons—in this case, 
the sea. Nair displays how, in Mumbai, the state has long promoted schemes 
that discharge surplus capital through redevelopment programmes targeting 
informal settlements. For instance, the Bombay Improvement Trust, which 
was set up after the plague outbreak in the early 20th century, allowed the 
colonial government to capture land and redistribute infrastructure. 
Redevelopment programmes continue this legacy, putting the residents of 
informal settlements at constant risk of eviction. As many of the city’s Kolis 
live in informal settlements, they get caught in these cycles of accumulation 
and dispossession. 

An important policy that affects the Kolis is the Coastal Regulatory Zone 
(CRZ) policy, which, in recent years, has opened up coastal land for real estate 
development. As Nair notes, despite the CRZ’s goal to ensure ecological 
conservation, it largely fails in this regard as it does not consider the complex 
lineages of ownership and tenancies across the coast. Instead, it ends up 
introducing new pressures and further entrenching community divides. A 
consequence of the CRZ policy is the emergence of conflict between the 
Kolis and the migrants, which draws parallels in the fisheries industry. Nair 
highlights that the fisheries sector has undergone rapid expansion, driven by 
investments in extractive practices and technologies. Until recent times, 
fishing was largely a caste-based occupation, but the rapid rise of the export 
market has changed the makeup of the industry. These parallel tensions shed 
light on the Koli community’s political articulations and the linkages between 
organizations such as the National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), the 
Maharashtra Macchimar Kruti Samiti (MMKS), the Shiva Sena, and the 
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). The Shiva Sena has long been hostile 
towards working-class migrants. The Koli community adopts this hostility; 
and while they employ migrants as informal labour, they often block them 
from entering their organizations. Belonging, Nair notes, becomes the basis 
for demanding exclusive rights over fishing and fish markets. 

In the second chapter, Nair expands on the impact of policy and urban 
change on the coastal commons. Drawing on scholars such as Ajantha 
Subramanian (2009) and Kalpana Ram (1991), Nair displays how India’s 
fishery policies have systematically neglected building cooperatives in favour 
of high revenue streams such as shrimp exports and trawler fishing. This 
development attracted private capital to the sector, creating a large economic 
gap between trawlers and artisanal fishers. Trawler fishing offers certainty of 
yield, which makes it an attractive proposition for private investors, an 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [168] 

 

advantage the Kolis are unable to compete with. Nair argues that the demand 
for exclusive rights over coastal waters is an outcome of these policy 
directives. 

The book’s second half explores Nair’s fieldwork, household surveys, and 
interviews, building a detailed picture of the changing community and its 
political networks. Nair shows how organizations such as cooperatives 
regulate fishing activity and support the community, but they also end up 
gatekeeping by denying membership to non-Kolis. An important shift in the 
fisheries business is the decline of the “owner-worker” category, though this 
still forms an important aspect of the Koli man’s identity. Previously, most 
fishers owned and worked on their own boats. However, this has transitioned 
to a system wherein owners employ other individuals to work on their 
vessels, especially in cases where technologies like trawling and purse-seine 
netting are employed. Despite their adverse impacts on coastal ecologies and 
catch, there remains enduring support for these practices. 

In the fourth and fifth chapters, the book explores the consequences of these 
changes for Koli women, examining their inclusion in workers’ collectives as 
well as their own politics and political organizations. Within the Koli 
community, women are largely restricted to fish processing and selling. This 
sex-based division of labour, coupled with a lack of state aid and a dearth of 
opportunities for economic mobility, has had a negative impact on 
fisherwomen. Nair illustrates how this, in turn, precipitates xenophobia and 
hostility towards migrant workers who enter the fish market. Traditionally, 
fish markets provided Koli women with greater mobility and access to the 
city, fostering relationships with the market across generations. As the 
quantum of catch and its export increased over time, the scale of the fishing 
industry changed and opened up to global markets. It also significantly 
changed the way local fish markets functioned and the income generated 
from auctions and sales. Women who lacked the capital to trade in the 
wholesale market found themselves losing out to wholesale dealers who 
could move large quantities of catch. Fish processing has also become 
attractive to migrant women who toil under demanding conditions for low 
wages. Nair’s extensive surveys on education levels show that, despite these 
negative impacts, Koli women often find themselves unable to move out of 
the fishing industry due to their lack of education. As Nair demonstrates 
through her analysis of education levels over different cohorts, this is set to 
change. Younger women are increasingly pursuing higher education and 
staying in school, indicating a potential shift in the pattern. However, this 
change will take time, and the current lack of mobility is the primary reason 
why Koli women fight for community-based rights to the market. 



[169] V 

 

The book concludes with Nair’s observation that so long as access to coastal 
resources, development potential, and livelihoods are tied up with identity, it 
will continue to drive a wedge between communities. The task at hand then 
is to build solidarities between marginalized communities through a nuanced 
understanding of the complex webs that bind them together. 

Set Adrift will be a good addition to undergraduate and graduate syllabi on 
gender and the city, class struggles and urban labour, as well as urban 
transformation, policy, and theory. In classes on urbanism, it will be 
particularly useful to combine one of the theoretical chapters from the first 
half of the book with a more empirical chapter from the second half of the 
book. I also think this will be a good book for classes on research methods, 
particularly to demonstrate how to deploy surveys and combine survey data 
with interviews. 

Conflict of Interest Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by 
the author. 

 

 


