Black flags on the beach: Chennai fishermen rise against Vijay's ₹1,200-crore Secretariat palace

CHENNAI: Black flags fluttered over fishing boats, net-mending sheds and fish stalls across Pattinapakkam on Sunday as hundreds of fishermen marched against the Tamil Nadu government's plan to build a ₹1,200-crore Secretariat-Assembly complex on the sea-facing Foreshore Estate they have lived and worked on for generations. The October 4 march, organised by the Mylapore Area All Fishermen Village Panchayat Council, wound through the Mullikuppam–Srinivasapuram Loop Road junction in what participants described as a peaceful show of strength. It followed a larger protest on September 29, when hundreds of fishermen, including women, sat in demonstration at Srinivasapuram Beach while another group took out a black-flag procession, amid the deployment of more than 200 police personnel, barricades and traffic diversions. The fishers' core demand is the withdrawal of GO 564, the September 8 government order granting in-principle approval for the complex on 25.55 acres of Foreshore Estate. The council says the land in Survey Numbers 4592 and 4593 was acquired under a 1957 government order exclusively for the rehabilitation and housing of the fishing community — and that building the seat of government on it would breach that purpose. They also want the return of Srinivasapuram lands taken over by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board on promises of housing that were never kept, the grant of land titles, and the declaration of the area as a fishermen's residential zone under the Coastal Regulation Zone notification of 2019. Representatives of 36 fishing villages from Ennore to Kovalam have backed the agitation, and fishermen from 12 hamlets halted fishing in solidarity. The proposed complex would shift Tamil Nadu's seat of power from Fort St George to the Pattinapakkam waterfront. The government insists the project is only at the Detailed Project Report stage, with the Public Works Department asked to submit the DPR and cost estimates within three months. Law Minister C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar said on September 22 that the site itself is under review and alternatives in Chennai are being studied. But no meeting with the protesters has been reported, and no formal step has been taken to rescind the GO. For the fishing families, the message is unmistakable: the government is building itself a ₹1,200-crore palace on land promised to them in 1957, and answering their objections with police barricades. The pattern is becoming familiar. Last week, nurses who say they were invited to the Secretariat for talks were arrested instead. Now it is the turn of the fishers of Pattinapakkam — told that their sea-facing home is better suited to house power than the people who have fished these waters for generations.