This paper maps out the key drivers, actors, and policies that have shaped the shrimp aquaculture industry in post-independence India. While the existing aquaculture regulations vilify the farmers for the industry’s socioecological disaster, this paper—through its analysis—shifts the liability to the multilateral consultancies and technical research institutions that were arbitrated by the postcolonial developmental state with the help of international aid under the guise of food security and alternate livelihoods while the shrimps were being exported.
