Saving Goa's Fishing History: Siya Sukhtankar on the Ramponkar Archive

[Frederick Noronha]

When mechanised trawlers began displacing traditional fishing practices along Goa's coastline in the late 1970s, the state's traditional fishing communities—the Ramponkars—found themselves fighting not only for their livelihoods but also for their way of life. This talk explores the history of the Ramponkar Movement and the work of the Goenchea Ramponkarancho Ekvott, which mobilised fishing communities through protests, petitions, telegrams, press statements and sustained advocacy to defend Goa's coastal heritage. Drawing on the Ramponkar archival collection housed at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research (XCHR), which the presenter helped to organise via an internship, the presentation examines crucial texts and fragments of pages. This includes letters, memoranda, newspaper clippings, petitions and organisational records assembled over decades by the late Fr. Braz Faleiro SJ. These remarkable documents preserve the voices of ordinary people who organised to protect Goa's coastline from the impact of mechanised trawling and other vested interests, demonstrating how struggles for environmental justice are also fought through documentation and public memory. The presentation is by Siya Sukhtankar, a first-year Integrated Programme in Management (IPM) student at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong, who undertook a social internship at XCHR working on the Ramponkar archives. The session was moderated by independent researcher Tyrone Fernandes, whose work focuses on Goan cinema history and subaltern studies. Fr. Braz Faleiro SJ (1936–2023), a Jesuit priest and social activist, played a pivotal role in supporting Goa's traditional fishing communities and meticulously preserving the documentary record of their movement. Today, the Ramponkar Archives at XCHR stand as an important collection documenting a landmark environmental and social justice movement in Goa. For more such talks, please like, subscribe and share the video to help preserve and promote awareness about Goa's rich social, environmental and archival history too. Visit the XCHR library. Audio recorded by Frederick Noronha (FN). WhatsApp : +91-9822122436.

https://youtu.be/x7FdqYOkZyI

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_/  Frederick Noronha  फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या  * فريدريك نورونيا‎
_/  AUDIO https://archive.org/details/@fredericknoronha
_/  http://goa1556.in +91-9822122436 784 Saligao Goa
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[William Robert Da Silva]

I had responded to you of my share in the work. To add, when I was in Bangalore at CSC Fathers and Brothers, St Mark's Road, I organized the youth with leadership from Devraj family to save traditional fishermen around North Kanara from Malpe Madhvaraj and others given to progressive mechanisation. John Devraj took the initiative and went about organising fishermen in Kanara, after Udupi and north. Later, they became a movement in Bangalore. I have lost contact with John, Sebastian etc. Devraj family and others.

WRDS

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[William Robert Da Silva]

The sea and fishing is gone so far beyond all you represent, that what want to speak is pure 'history'  in Goa. Is there a movement to traditonalise fishing with ramponn? Do you know what ramponn is? He was a catholic priest, Ramponn, who changed the traditional fishing with small boats and rounded nets around the boat into, shore-based fishing, where you pull up all the fish and leave them in the sea at the shore, so that people could buy in bulk or individually, fish for their use. It was alive, because ramponn kept it in water, not hauled up on shore as dead. It lived and could be bought alive. No one seems to know this part of Goan Ramponn.

WR da S

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[Frederick Noronha]

Dear William, Any pointers or details about the priest from whom the rampon's name supposedly comes, as some say? Somewhere (an Italian) Ramponi is being mentioned, but this could be speculative. Others seem to be tracing its name to the Portuguese rapão. connected to "to scrape," "to shave," or "to sweep away." Btw, here's a video link showing a form of fishing which could be encountered on many beaches even till the 1970s and 1980s: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTSq2LUkuml/  FN

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_/  Frederick Noronha  फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या  * فريدريك نورونيا‎
_/  AUDIO https://archive.org/details/@fredericknoronha
_/  http://goa1556.in +91-9822122436 784 Saligao Goa

_/ Goanet :: 30 years of discussions. goa...@goanet.org
_/ http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/

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