The killings of three Pakistani fishermen in the Arabian Sea by the Indian Navy in the last week of May 2004 have once again highlighted the dangerous situation in which fisherfolk of both countries eke out a living. About a quarter of India’s coastline lies in Gujarat and about a third of the continental shelf of the country also lies off the coast of this one state. Quite naturally, Gujarat has rich fish reserves and a thriving fishing industry. The state can boast of being among the highest catches of fish in the country. Beyond the proud statistics, the general public knows little about the exploitative conditions in which the fisherfolk work and the dangers of fishing in the hostile waters adjoining Pakistan. The situation of the fishworker communities is a complex interplay of India-Pakistan relations, social hierarchies and the exploitative structure of the fishing industry.

Social Structure of Fishworker Communities

The South Saurashtra coast is dotted with big and small ports. There are three traditional fishing communities—Hindu Kharwa, Kharwa-Koli and Muslim Machiyara. The Hindu Kharwa community is dominant in the big ports like Veraval and Porbandar where they own big boats. This community is rich and enjoy political representation and clout in the state. Hindu Kharwas have members in the Legislative Assembly and some have even become ministers in the government. The Kharwa Koli is also a traditional Hindu fishing community, but it is not economically as well off as the Hindu Kharwa community and is considered socially lower. The Kharwa Kolis are mainly navigators and crew members and are rarely boat owners. The Muslim Machhiyara community, migrated from Sind about 400 years ago, is found in the small ports or ‘baru’. This community is poor and lives in huts near the sea, cut off from amenities such as drinking water, public distribution system, schools, health services and electricity. It has no entitlement to either house or land. Government loans and welfare facilities are appropriated by the Hindu Kharwas and the Machhiyaras are a picture of neglect and deprivation. They are also discriminated against because they are Muslims.

Structure of Fisheries Industry

The Hindu Kharwas dominate the fishing activities on the Saurashtra Coast. They are the big boat owners and in exceptional cases, some boats are owned by the Kharwa-Koli or Muslim Machhiyaras. Fish procuring and exports are controlled by Muslim traders based in Veraval or Bombay and also a few Hindu Kharwas. The skilled workers engaged in the cleaning and packing of fish for exports are migrant women from Kerala. From the mid-1980s, due to rising unemployment and land alienation due to industrialisation, members of the Koli and Dalit communities, who were earlier either small farmers or landless labourers, turned to fishing for their livelihoods. They became crew members on the big boats and worked in semi-bonded conditions after having taken loans from the boat owners. Due to their poverty, even children from these communities are put to work.

Victims of India-Pakistan Conflict

Over the past few years, due to over-fishing and industrial pollution, yields off the Saurashtra coast have diminished. Fisherfolk have been forced to sail farther and farther toward the Kutch coast and India-Pakistan border. However, in the absence of a clear and visible demarcating line of the maritime boundaries between the two countries, fishworkers are left to the mercy of the marine security agencies of both countries. They are frequently apprehended at mid-sea and kept in custody for years in both countries. The Hindu Kharwas rarely go on the boats themselves and so it is not surprising that fishworkers arrested by the Pakistani authorities are usually the Dalits and Kolis, many of them child workers. There exists no established policy and procedure to deal with the release of captured fishworkers, both adults and juveniles. Further, there is no established procedure for the repatriation for those who have already completed their terms of punishment served by many courts. They continue to be held in police custody, in sub-human conditions. It is only when senior bureaucrats or Prime Ministers of the two countries meet that, as part of bilateral talks or as goodwill gestures, these prisoners are released (The pattern of arrest of fishworkers is given below). The trend of arrests and releases has continued till 2003. At present, 407 Indian fish workers languish in Pakistani prisons.

The boat owners have their own organised association and are more worried about the safety of their boats than the well-being of the crew members. There is often no proper record of the names and ages of the crew members. The crew members have no trade union or welfare organisations of their own. While these poor and helpless fish workers languish in jails or police custody for years, their family members, back home, face starvation and acute social problems.

In most of the cases, the arrested fish workers are the only breadwinners in their families. Since there is no financial assistance from the boat owners or from the government to these families, their women members are forced to employ themselves as agricultural workers, salt workers and casual workers to get two square meals for their dear ones. Almost all of them are illiterate. In the backdrop of rising unemployment, the opportunities for these women to get gainful employment with just and proper wages are rare. None of the concerned authorities - government agencies like Marine Coast Guard and Department of Customs and Narcotics, Boat Owners’ Association or Fish Workers’ Association – has not bothered to help them. The fishworkers’ families have no source of information about their missing menfolk—where they are, whether formal trials have begun or how to bring them home if their jail sentence has been completed. For many women, their very identity is in question as they are unsure whether they widows or not. Many of them face sexual harassment from men in the village. As Saviben Sosa said, “To live without a husband is to exist like a container without a cover. Everyone in the village considers you ‘Bhabhi’ of the village and looks at you with strange motives. Being a widow is better. At least you have a fixed identity”.

Wanted: Solutions to the Woes

From time to time, as part of India-Pakistan diplomacy, fishworkers on both sides are released as “goodwill gestures” and after a while arrests and counter-arrests start all over again. The following steps are necessary to find a lasting solution to the problems of fisherfolk:

1. The arrests of Indian and Pakistani fishworkers at mid-sea and their imprisonment should be stopped immediately. All those in jails and detention centers should be released unconditionally.
2. Those fishworkers who are detained even after completion of their jail terms should be released immediately.
3. Arrangements must be made for the repatriation of the released fishworkers to their homes.
4. Pakistan and India must have a bilateral agreement to work out a permanent solution.
5. The bilateral agreement should clearly define the demarcation line between Indian and Pakistani maritime boundaries. Both governments should take practical measures like light-buoys to make the actual line visible to fishworkers.
6. Fishworkers’ organisations and trade unions should be represented and consulted on any bilateral negotiations on the issue.
7. Maritime Zones of India Act should be suitably amended to bring it in consonance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, of which India is a signatory.
8. A proper policy and procedure should be framed for the release and repatriation of fishworkers who may be arrested in the future. The practice of “exchange protocol” to release arrested fishworkers as if they are prisoners of war should be done away with.
9. Governments should take steps to provide emotional and material succour to the suffering families of arrested fishworkers in both countries.