When dariyacha rajas and ranis ruled the seas

A digital photo exhibition is documenting the history of the Kolis, highlighting the connections between the community, the larger city of Mumbai and the natural environment that binds them together

A lot of people migrate to Mumbai without knowing about the city’s history,” says Rajhans Tapke, a member of the Koli community and a participant in Through the Eyes of the Kolis: A Reflection on Mumbai’s Past, Present and Future. It is a digital photo exhibition documenting the history of the community and the transformations that have taken place in its relationship with the city and its ecological systems since the 1950s. He remembers the Amboli creek flowing through the Andheri and Amboli villages, when he was a child, and of taking big boats from Versova to the Andheri market to sell fish, and how he and his mates would drink from the streams of the Navrang hillock, whose waters met the Amboli creek. “This seems almost impossible [now] due to the dense urbanisation that has occurred,” observes architect and urban designer, and one half of the urban solutions experimental think tank Bombay61 Studio, Ketaki Bhadgaonkar, who has curated the show. “The water channels have become smaller, and the water is not deep enough to allow boats.”

She points out that Tapke’s narrative for the exhibition also highlighted how the names of the water systems have changed—a water body that is recognised as Mogra nullah (drain) in the BMC maps was known by the fishermen as the Amboli creek. “For the urban youth, it is difficult to associate with these natural systems because they have seen them in a deteriorated state,” she says, explaining how an acceptance and normalisation of this degradation is apparent in the present allusions to these water systems as ‘nullahs’ or gutters.   

A photo taken in 1980 showing tea and breakfast tapris (stalls) at the Versova harbour. At the time, the whole residential area was far away from the seashore as high tide levels were different before the construction of a jetty. Till 1990, the houses came only till Ramchandra Kharde Marg, with no buildings at least up to 100 metres from the coast. Pic courtesy/Prithviraj Chandi

“An older fisherman would speak of cleaner water systems and abundant fish, but a younger Koli will refer to them as drainage systems,” agrees Jai Bhadgaonkar. The couple has worked closely with the community for many years, researching concerns around climate change and vulnerabilities, and looking at public participation as the key for solutions and sustainability.

The current project’s focus, thus, they explain, is generational amnesia, where relationships with the environment have changed within a matter of a few decades. “Mumbai is developing in such a way that all the natural systems are being lost. We are trying to sensitise people towards how indigenous communities have taken care of these landscapes,” says Jai. At the same time, the couple asserts, that it was important to bring personal narratives from members of the community to the fore, as opposed to having historians and researchers document them to avoid the exoticisation that an outsider’s lens can occasionally bring.

Jai and Ketaki Bhadgaonkar, who head the urban solutions experimental think tank Bombay61 Studio, have worked closely with the community for many years, researching concerns around climate change and vulnerabilities

Vikas Motiram Koli, a social entrepreneur, and working president of the National Association of Fishermen, Maharashtra, who worked closely with the Bhadgaonkars on the exhibition, says, “We once had our own businesses, catching and selling a lot of fish, so we didn’t have to get caught up with going out and getting jobs. But we have now become an invisible community in Mumbai, and it is important for the youth to set out on their own entrepreneurial journeys.” With new technology, and allotment of land for aquaculture in areas like Bhayandar and Palghar to the Koli community, its youth, he insists, would be encouraged to join the trade. 
  
“The floating population that a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai hosts is not familiar with its history; many don’t have intergenerational information passed down to them,” says Arpita Bhagat of the Ministry of Mumbai’s Magic, a collective envisioned around biodiversity and its protection in the city, and one of the collaborators on the project. “We want young people to start thinking about [the Kolis] not just as a community that fishes and provides fish to city dwellers, but also as one that has deep historical roots to the city.” While building intergenerational knowledge, the aim, she says, is also to bring members of the community closer to policy arenas in the long run. This is essential given how deeply tied their livelihoods are to the sea and its ecology, and how the climate crisis, rising sea levels and the impacts to the coastline are all collectively threatening it.

This photo taken in 1958 shows the women from the Jafrabadi community of Gujarat, who dominated the dry fish business at Versova Koliwada. Pic courtesy/Sadashiv Raje

Ketaki also informs of the project’s plans to invite speakers from the Koli community for discussions around betterment, and the preservation of knowledge and culture, to enable this new generation to become the future custodians of the landscapes that their ancestors have preserved for so many years.

Arpita Bhagat, Medhavi Gandhi, Vikas Motiram Koli and Rajhans Tapke

Providing a digital platform to these stories of village, water, fishing and biodiversity is the platform The Heritage Lab, a community initiative started in 2016 to enable people to share their voices, experiences and stories, and create using openly accessible cultural content. “We always go to an exhibition, see it and come back. But how do we participate in this knowledge-building together? [This is important] because culture is not of the past, it is something ongoing. How do we then make ourselves part of cultural heritage?” asks Medhavi Gandhi, sharing some of her motivations behind starting the platform. The Heritage Lab, known for its work in public engagement, has created a participatory map that will enable anybody in Mumbai to take a picture, sound byte or video and add it to the location they are in. “We wanted to be a part of such a citizen-led investment in our cultural habitat. We’re really looking forward to seeing how the map is used and the stories that come in.”

To view exhibition: https://www.theheritagelab.in/mumbai-koli-archives-main/

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