The coastal town of Honnavar, Karnataka, has recently become a battleground between the local fisherfolk and a state-backed private port company called Honnavar Ports Private Limited (HPPL). On February 24th, this year, thousands of men, women, children, and elders staged a sit-in protest over the proposed construction of a private port at Kasarkod beach, in Honnavar against HPPL. The sit-in was met with severe police brutality where over 100 protestors were arrested. Over 50 demonstrators waded into the water, attempting mass suicide in desperation, three women collapsed due to heat exhaustion, one required medical care, one woman protester suffered serious trauma leading to a severe mental health crisis. A young girl warned to leave a note threatening to jump into the sea, holding the state Fisheries Minister accountable for the devastation. On February 25, police, under Section 163 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), were deployed to escort officials conducting land surveys for a road connecting the port to NH69. 81 houses were marked for demolition. 24 protestors including all the main leaders were jailed for 24 days to get the land surveyed. The entire fishing community struck work for a week targeting the fisheries ministry demanding their release.
Protests against this project have been ongoing since 2012. The current Fisheries Minister was a local independent MLA candidate who earlier supported the movement but betrayed the people after becoming an MLA and joined Congress. During the BJP’s regime, even DK Shivakumar declared there that the locals should not leave an ‘inch of land’ for the port. As of now, both BJP and Congress have clearly sided with HPPL exposing their role as pro-capitalist, anti-people parties. Despite Honnavar being an RSS-dominated region of coastal Karataka, they too have been exposed to the people in this process by not standing by them.
In 2013, the government notified new
port limits for all minor ports followed by the Karnataka Minor Ports Development Policy (2014) which aimed to develop commercial and private ports through public-private partnership. Then, in 2015, the Karnataka Maritime Board Act was enacted, paving the way for private investment, and in 2018, the Karnataka Maritime Board was empowered to oversee the sector. These policy changes are designed perfectly to align with the grand project to integrate Karnataka’s economy with global trade by promoting international ports enabling cheap transportation of mineral ores, by enabling aggressive privatisation of coastal land and ecologically sensitive areas. The Honnavar project is just one of the many instances where government policies have prioritised profits over people.
The peoples concerns raised in public hearing and Gram Sabhas were repeatedly dismissed and their land, livelihood, and fragile ecosystem were sold off to the corporate giants by both the state and centre. The HPPL is a subsidiary of GVPR Engineers Ltd., which is carrying out mining in Ballary with no prior experience of port construction. The primary purpose of the port is thus to enable cheap international transport for different mineral ores coming from mines. To make this happen, two co-ordinated projects have been declared -the port by HPPL and a road to connect the port to the highway by central government’s National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). This 200-crore road project is fully funded by the Modi government to facilitate the private port. Even a 300m long stretch of forest land has been cleared for this road. As for the Siddu government, their job is to ensure eviction of the people for smooth construction of both the port and the roadway. 6,000 families rely on fishing here and the port poses an existential crisis, threatening their primary source of employment, mass displacement, and destitution. In Honnavar, over 23,500 fisherfolk, many of who are women engaged in fish trading, drying, and selling, stand to lose their only source of income. The Tonka market and local fish trade infrastructure face complete collapse, with the potential mass displacement of around 60,000 people. The Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) has already forcibly acquired 44 hectares of land, displacing hundreds of families and their traditional fish-drying businesses without due process or fair compensation. In the face of impending doom, the class-divided fishing community of boat-owners, traders, fishmongers, workers, fishers, etc. has come together against HPPL and the state. As a result the wrath of the state was unleashed on them by the police. The communal cracks that existed among them, thanks to RSS’s decades of effort, have now healed making them stand united in the face of the state-sponsored attacks. This is a lesson to learn for anti-fascist forces fighting Hindutva fascism.
Ecologically speaking, the port project sits on a fragile sandspit (a narrow point of sandy land projecting into the sea) at the mouth of the Sharavathi River, a rich fish breeding ground, home to dense mangrove forests. The coastline is also a critical nesting site for the endangered Olive Ridley turtles, protected under India’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Despite this, the Karnataka High Court dismissed petitions challenging the project, citing flawed environmental reports. Activists argue that the final Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report did not adequately address the impact on wildlife. In addition to the Karnataka High Court ruling, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) rejected a petition challenging the construction of the road despite it violating Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms. Moreover, for the recent EIA, the government has exempted HPPL from any public hearing. Despite mounting evidence of environmental violations, authorities continue to push ahead with the project.
We see this same story playing out in countless places across our country. We see how conveniently the courts dismiss legal petitions, how environment assessments give free passes to the corporates, how mass arrests and, in some cases, killings of the local people take place. Nothing exposes the state-corporate nexus better than Bastar, Niyamgiri, the various struggles along the coasts, and so many others.
The Honnavar struggle is not just about one port—it represents a larger contradiction between the broad masses of people and the domestic, big capital backed by imperialism. This contradiction manifests as corporate plunder, environmental destruction, and the systematic marginalization of communities, all backed by the state and its machinery. The capitalist idea of development is thus development for their own profit; it signals danger to the people and nature. We must stand in solidarity with the communities fighting out this battle on the ground. We must unite and struggle to bring about an alternative, democratic model of development.
