Deconstructing Mumbai's Coastline: Power, Belonging and Politics of Land

Abstract

Mumbai’s urban sea is a deeply contested, amphibious threshold - one shaped by twin forces of colonial occupation and ongoing terrestrial processes of land expropriation. Yet, at its core, the struggle is not merely about territorial expansion but about the imposition of an ontology that divides land from water, fixing what was once fluid. This essay examines Mumbai as a site of forced encounter, where colonial and contemporary infrastructures have imposed rigid boundaries - spatial, material, and political - regulating access, shaping exclusions, and entrenching new regimes of power. Historically, colonial powers instrumentalized the sea as a passive conduit for trade, controlling waterways through architectures of dominance - ports, fortifications, and customs houses. These tactics of enclosure, designed domesticate fluid ecologies, manifest in Modern Mumbai in two ways: first, through ongoing efforts to keep water out, initially for trade infrastructure and today through urban plans, policies and modern transport networks; and second, enclosing water itself - bringing water in, albeit for although for controlled uses and purposes. From country clubs to urban plans, the essay explores these parallels to interrogate how these methodologies have been internalized in present-day governance and how they continue to perpetuate social inequalities. Yet, at the edges of encounter, where governance meets resistance, the city’s indigenous fisher communities offer an alternative paradigm - one that embraces the dynamic interplay of land and water rather than seeking to control it. By foregrounding their resilience, this essay aims to provincialize dominant urban theories and reimagine the coastal cityscape. It interrogates thresholds - both conceptual and material - that define Mumbai’s littoral spaces, questioning how spatial control has been weaponized and how its decolonization might begin. Ultimately, it explores how exclusionary urban practices emerge at sites of forced contact, how infrastructures of enclosure shape urban life, and how alternative spatial negotiations might foster more equitable urban futures.