LAW & SOCIETY
Contested Imaginaries
Interpreting the Madras High Court’s
Eviction Order of Fish Vendors
Indhusmathi G, Catherine Elisa John
The Madras High Court’s
dominant imaginaries of the
contested space as a “public road”
and the fish vendors as
“encroachers” overlook the
complexities and alternative
imaginaries of the space as
Nochikuppam and the fishing
community as “original
inhabitants” who has the rightful
claim to indigeneity.
Indhusmathi G (214083003@iitb.ac.in) is a
research scholar in Sociology at the
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
Catherine Elisa John (catherine.john@
nottingham.ac.uk) is a research scholar at the
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.
10
O
n 10 April 2023, the Madras High
Court heard a suo motu public
interest litigation petition regard-
ing traffic congestion at the Marina Loop
Road in Chennai and issued an order for
the eviction of fish stalls located in the
area. The court found that the fish stalls
were causing traffic chaos during peak
hours and ordered the Greater Chennai
Corporation (GCC) to “immediately evict”1
the fish vendors from the contested space
with assistance from the police depart-
ment. The initiation of the eviction process
on 12 April 2023 was faced with huge
protests from the fishing community. In
the second hearing, on 18 April 2023, the
court warned against any protests that
might obstruct the traffic and ordered
the GCC to regulate these vendors till the
construction of the new fish market.
Nochikuppam village (currently known
as Marina Loop Road) here holds stra-
tegic importance due to its proximity
to the busy Santhome High Road that
accommodates several government offices
and thus a means for regular commutes
for judges, ministers, and other high-
ranking government officials. On sev-
eral occasions, the traffic is diverted to
Marina Loop Road causing congestion.
This strategic position places the fish-
ing community of Nochikuppam in a
precarious position, with the looming
possibility of eviction. Through the lens
of discourse analysis, this article criti-
cally examines the problematisation of
the fishing community, as presented in
the Madras High Court orders dated
11 April 20231 and 19 April 20232 and
excerpts of court proceedings as given in
news reports. Specifically, we investigate
the dominant and alternative social
imaginaries around the discourse of
“eviction.”
june 17, 2023
First, the high court’s dominant imagi-
nary of space, that is, Marina Loop Road,
in the court order as a “public road” and
the fish vendors as “encroachers” forms
the larger canvas within which the posi-
tioning occurs. This imaginary prioritises
the objective materiality of the contested
space and undermines its historical con-
texts and claims of indigeneity. Nochi-
kuppam village has undergone drastic
spatial transformations since the 1960s
as part of the urban development and the
city beautification process through initia-
tives such as “singara (beautiful) Chennai”
and others. A significant step in this trans-
formation is the construction of Marina
Loop Road in 2014 which stretches 2.5
kilometre (km) long and 15.5 metre (m)
wide and runs on the seaward side of
seven villages, including Nochikuppam.
This road was built to reduce the traffic
congestion at the Santhome Church stretch
running parallel to it. Nochikuppam, the
space of the fishing community, was thus
transformed into Marina Loop Road in
the dominant imaginaries.
Despite the court’s materialist imagi-
nary of “Marina Loop Road,” the name
“Nochikuppam” still remains with the
fishing community and evokes in them a
sense of nativity, belongingness, and
ancestral affiliation (indigeneity) to the
place (Fasal and Manalodiparambil 2023).
While most “public roads” are for facili-
tating vehicular movement, as the high
court order says “the very purpose of
existence of the road,”1 the Marina Loop
Road can be articulated as an extension
of the village (Nochikuppam) commons.3
It is also necessary to understand that the
original market land has been compro-
mised by the fishing community for the
welfare of the “public” in the urban
development process. However, in the
process of materialisation, the fishing com-
munity’s very existence and identity as
“fishers” is being eclipsed as “encroachers”
by the dominant imaginary.
Second, the context of “encroachers”
and “eviction” as stated in the high court
orders goes hand in hand with the state
government’s aesthetic vision of singara
Chennai, reflecting a transnationalised
elitist imaginary that excludes the fishing
vol lViII no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

community. In 1996, the state govern-
ment initiated the project singara Chen-
nai intending to transform Chennai into a
city akin to Singapore. Currently, under
the banner of the singara Chennai 2.0
scheme, numerous plans are underway
to enhance the city’s aesthetics. The high
court’s eviction rationale is consistent
with its inquiry into why GCC officials
and the police allowed encroachments to
persist given the city’s slogan to achieve
a “beautiful” Chennai (Pandian 2023).
The rhetorical formations used by the
court in its 11 April order1 and proceed-
ings to refer to the fish stalls and fish
vendors’ locality in entirety including
“unruly,”1 “nuisance,”1 “unhygienic,” “just
by spreading the polythene sheets,”
“dining areas is on the pavement” depict
the high court’s dominant imaginaries
of the fishing community (Sajeev 2023).
And, the use of terms like singara Chennai,
beautiful Chennai, and world-class city
(Pandian 2023) depicts what is accepted
by the court as truth or the reality to be
achieved through eviction. This image
of a beautiful Chennai is viewed as
incompatible with the presence of the
fishing community and the associated
“unsophisticated” livelihood activities. In
effect, this vision of beautiful Chennai
excludes the very essence of the city’s
character: the fishing community. And,
considering Foucault’s view on discursive
formation, we could see the discursive
binaries around beautification found in
the court orders that are used to normalise
the stereotyped image of an urban city
and rationalise the act of eviction.
Third, the high court asserts that the
fishing community cannot claim tradi-
tional rights over the “roads” without
statutory backing (Sajeev 2023) whereby
the court overlooks a significant legal
regulation, that is, the Coastal Regula-
tion Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011. The
notification regulates coastal land use
and imposes conditional restrictions on
development activities in the four CRZs,
thereby providing the initial level of
protection for coastal commons. Provi-
sions within the CRZ notification, specifi-
cally the clauses 3(i)(e), 6(d), 3(xi)(a)(b),
and 8IIIA(iii)(l) enable traditional fishing
communities to access and utilise their
common resources while also permitting
Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 17, 2023
LAW & SOCIETY
the construction of infrastructure related its oral observation commented that they
to fishing activities. The above assertion should not come back and say that it is an
by the court on traditional rights prompts area under the CRZ and therefore nothing
inquiries about “whose” rights and claims can be done about it and the road cannot
are prioritised and recognised and through be reconstructed (Jayaraman 2020).
“what” imaginaries. The above assertions by the court
The fishing community heavily depends reflect a dominant social imaginary that
on beach commons for essential liveli- views the fishing community and their
hood and social activities such as observ- activities as a hindrance to urban develop-
ing the sea, landing crafts, knitting nets, ment and beautification. The eclipsed
drying and segregating fish, and using it view of statutory backing, which trivial-
as a market to sell fish. However, the ises coastal commons and CRZ, privi-
city’s urbanisation and beautification leges state power and legal formalism
process began staking claims to the over the fishing communities’ alternative
commons. The Marina Loop Road which ways of knowing and claiming rights.
stretches 15.5 m wide, running through
Nochikuppam village, battering the Challenging the ‘Immediateness’
commons, is in itself a controversial of Eviction
space as the experts and fishing com- Finally, the high court’s order for “imme-
munity assert it as violating the CRZ diate eviction”1 without any prior notice
Notification, 2011 (Hindu 2023). The undermined the impact the “immediate-
high court’s eviction order did not have ness” could cause on the fishing commu-
any mention of the coastal commons and nities’ right to life and livelihood on
CRZ. It thus disregards the relevance of multiple levels. The demand for “imme-
the contested space as commons and the diate eviction” reflects the state’s precari-
statutory backings in CRZ notifications, ous characterisation of the fish vendors
and takes a very narrow conception of as “mobile” and “displaceable” popula-
the space as just a “road.” The Madras tions (Fasal and Manalodiparambil 2023),
High Court, in a similar case, order dated discrediting the fishing communities’
21 February 2020,4 suggested that the existence in Nochikuppam for the past
GCC and the state authorities to “explore many generations. Often perceived as
the possibilities of again constructing a “displaceable,” the fishing community
proper wide road connecting the said was uninformed of the suo motu public
Loop Road to Besant Nagar area” and in interest litigation when it was heard in
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vol lViII no 24 11
LAW & SOCIETY
the high court on 11 April 2023, and thus,
were not given an opportunity to repre-
sent their perspective in the court. The
fish vendors, many of whom were elderly
women, were reportedly unaware of the
eviction order until GCC officials arrived
on 12 April and forcibly began seizing
their shop properties and “kicking” the
fish kept for sale (Pandian 2023). This
immediate and forceful destruction and
eviction significantly affected the vendors
who heavily rely on their daily earnings
for survival. This suggests that the
court’s imaginary perceives the fishing
community and fish vendors as transient
and temporary, making it easier for
authorities to disregard their right to a
stable and dignified existence in the space
where they have lived for generations.
In the second hearing, on 19 April
2023, the high court in support of the
eviction mentioned that the GCC has
“seriously considered”2 the issue and has
already started the construction of an
alternative market to relocate the fish
vendors. However, the court and the
state authorities are not “seriously con-
sidering” the fact that, as the GCC sug-
gests, the construction would take at
least six months to complete, whereas
the eviction is “immediate.” There is not
much concern from the authorities on
how the fish vendors will practise their
livelihood in this intermediate period.
Here, the court overlooks the fish vendor’s
right to get an appropriate relocation
before eviction which is a crucial aspect
of their right to livelihood.
Apart from the “immediateness,” evict-
ing and relocating fish vendors to a new
market behind Santhome Church is
problematic because the land identified
is designated as open space reserve
(OSR) land, which is meant for maintain-
ing ecological balance and recreational
activities in urban areas. Building a market
on OSR land is illegal, which raises con-
cerns about the GCC’s claims to do so.
The court’s order for immediate eviction
does not strike at the complexities of
what jeopardises the traffic congestion,
rather it immediately (through suo motu)
frames the urban poor as the problem
and their erasure as the solution. This
reflects an urban, elitist imaginary that
reinforces exclusion. Furthermore, it is
12
highly debatable as to whether the same 3 Village commons refer to shared land or
resources that are collectively owned and man-
“immediateness” would have been applied aged by a village community.
if the entity in question was a large 4 Writ Petition Nos 16797 of 2015, 9159 of 2018,
corporation or complex. and 28690 of 2018 (Dated: 21 February 2020).
In Conclusion References
Overall, the high court’s eviction orders Fasal, Fathima Rayammarakkar and Swati Manal-
prioritise the urban elitist imaginary odiparambil (2023): “Urban Fragments in the
Politics of Infrastructure: Land Claims and
over the fishing communities’ imaginary Livelihood Spaces of a Fishing Community in
of the contested space as Nochikuppam Chennai,” Environment and Urbanization,
Vol 35, No 1, pp 220–37.
and the embedded socio-spatial relations.
Hindu (2023): “How Loop Road Along Marina
The impact of the order goes beyond the Beach in Chennai Came To Be,” Hindu Bureau,
material loss to livelihoods, as it also 13 April, https://www.thehindu.com/news/
cities/chennai/how-loop-road-along-marina-
obliterates the symbolic recognition of the beach-came-to-be/article66768352.ece.
space “Nochikuppam,” its history, memory, Jayaraman, Nithyanand (2020): “10 Reasons Why
representation, identity, and practices Chennai’s Marina Loop Road Should Not be
Extended to Besant Nagar,” News Minute,
associated with it. The materialist imagi- 26 February, https://www.thenewsminute.
naries of the space and the problemati- com/article/10-reasons-why-chennai-s-
marina-loop-road-should-not-be-extended-
sation of fish vendors are in direct conflict besant-nagar-118997.
with the lived experience of the fishing Pandian, Nithya (2023): “Madras HC Judges Want
Fish Stalls Evicted from Chennai Marina Loop
community, distancing them from the
Road, Fishers Protest,” News Minute, 13 April,
new imaginaries and the (re)production of https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/
urban space, exacerbating their vulner- madras-hc-judges-want-fish-stalls-evicted-
chennai-marina-loop-road-fishers-protest-175867.
ability and marginalisation. Sajeev, Upasana (2023): “Fishermen Cannot Claim
Traditional Rights without Statutory Backing:
Madras High Court on Marina Loop Road
Notes Encroachment,” LiveLaw, 19 April, https://
1 Suo Motu Writ Petition No 11064 of 2023 www.livelaw.in/high-court/madras-high-
(Dated: 11 April 2023) court/madras-high-court-marina-loop-road-
2 Suo Motu Writ Petition No 11064 of 2023 encroachment-fishermen-traditional-rights-
(Dated: 19 April 2023) without-any-226672.
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