International Journal of Development in Social Sciences and Humanities

What if the traditional, longstanding rights communities have upheld for generations are stripped away? What happens when primary resources are opened to large corporations? How does a community respond when government policy threatens its livelihood? People or communities affected by such decisions don’t stay silent or passively accept these decisions. They react and question these decisions. Just as the state tries to shape society with its policies, affected groups push back, challenge, and try to redraw the picture of society in response. This article narrates the story of the fishing community’s activism against the backdrop of the 1991 lease policy of the Orissa government, which the fisherfolks said undermined their exclusive and ancestral rights and allowed big corporations entry into the lake for aquaculture farming. The fishing community launched the Chilika Bachao Andolan and filed three Public Interest Litigations in the Orissa High Court. They aimed to overturn the 1991 lease policy that allowed corporations into Chilika Lake, demanding a restoration of their traditional rights.