Mumbai wants to drink the sea. The villages that fish it are pushing back

Manori had slowed down for its afternoon siesta after a morning of fishing and farming when word spread, in January this year, that government officials were inspecting the beach. Locals hurried to its rocky shore. There, the officials confirmed it. The site was earmarked for Mumbai's first desalination plant.

Until then, residents had only heard murmurs of the project. The survey raised more questions. Their own research, and a conversation with their local corporator, led them to a desalination plant in Chennai. Worried villagers from the Manori-Gorai-Uttan belt pooled money to fly in two fishermen from the southern coast to hear what had happened there.

The meeting confirmed their fears. "The fisherfolk who were based around Chennai's Nemmeli desalination plant told us how they had faced sea erosion and pollution. We mapped our boats, sought information from authorities and realised that our fish catchment and livelihoods could be similarly affected by the new desalination plant in our backyard," said Switsy Henriques, a local resident and president of the Gorai Villagers Welfare Association.

Posters against the plant now line the roads of these once-quiet fishing villages. The anger that had been building for months came to a head on October 19, when over 800 villagers and fishermen thronged the collector's office seeking cancellation of the project until discussion.