Fish and Fisheries in Indian Heritage and Development of Pisciculture in India

From the beginning of history, fish became an inseparable part of human life in India. Over the course of time, fish proved to be food of high nutritional value through empirical observation. The practice of casting a fish motif on coins or stone sculptures and seals, or using fish insignia in flags by ancient Hindu and Muslim rulers in medieval India, or the use of fish as a symbol of fortune and an object in literature and folksongs, prove that fish transcended the narrow limits of cultural segmentation. The establishment of cities with an ever-increasing population and changing food habits created an obvious demand for large-scale fish culture in the 20th century. Fish production from natural waterbodies trended downward during the later decades of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the technologies of induced breeding and polyculture virtually revolutionized the freshwater pisciculture sector over the last 50 years, and Indian fish production registered excellent growth—from 0.75 mt in 1950 to 6.3 mt in 2002. Hopefully, pisciculture may be part of the solution to the increasing need for food diversity and arresting the decline in per capita protein nutrition of the Indian populace in the years to come.