LIVELIHOOD ISSUES

In risky waters

Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen who seek to make a living in the Palk Bay region face harassment as the bilateral maritime agreements are not sensitive to questions related to their fishing rights.

MUKUL SHARMA

THE list is long. Pathianathan, S.P. Royappan, Susha Raj, John, Sebastian, M. Sahayam, Pandi - they are among thousands of fishermen of Tamil Nadu who fish in the Palk Bay and other seas between India and Sri Lanka. When they stray into Sri Lankan waters , they are arrested, harassed and sometimes injured or killed. Their boats are sunk or captured. Scores of Sri Lankan fishermen have met the same fate at the hands of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. The charges against them are similar: illegal entry in to the territorial waters of a neighbouring country to engage in fishing activity. The fishermen are harassed for another reason too: with the continuing problems of terrorism in India and ethnic strife in Sri Lanka, they are often mistaken for terrorist s. The sheer need to make a living leaves the fishermen with no choice but to continue fishing in the increasingly unsafe waters, even at the cost of being gunned down.

The bilateral agreements on maritime zones and related issues agreed upon by the two countries on June 26, 1974 and March 23, 1976 would seem to treat the question of the fishermen's security and their fishing rights as tradable commodities, which can be given or taken away in order to satisfy geopolitical or security considerations.

Sri Lanka and India share a maritime border extending to more than 400 km. In the Palk Bay region, in which the island of Kachativu is located and which lies between the coastal regions of Nagapattinam, Than-javur, Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram districts and Sri Lanka, firing, killing, detention and imprisonment of fishermen are a regular feature. In 1996, I.K. Gujral as External Affairs Minister informed Parliament that 11 fishermen had been killed in 20 incidents of shooting by the Sri Lankan Navy on their fishing vessels. The Sri Lankan Navy admitted to its involvement only in three of the reported incidents.

The Tamil Nadu Government, in its report on the situation up to 1991, said: "Since 1983, till the end of August 1991, there have been 236 incidents of attacks by the Sri Lankan Navy on Tamil Nadu fishermen. Three hundred and three boats have been attacke d and 486 fishermen have been affected; 51 boats have been destroyed; 135 fishermen have been attacked and injured. Over 50 fishermen have been killed; 57 fishermen have been injured in firing incidents. The Sri Lankan Navy has seized 65 motor boats and arrested 205 fishermen. There has been an increase in these incidents, particularly this year (1991)."

MUKUL SHARMA
In Vercode village, some of the boats damaged by the Sri Lankan Navy.

Further, in an update, the Tamil Nadu Government noted in November 1993 that 25 fishermen were killed and 109 injured. A total of 136 attacks had taken place on fishing boats; 15 of the boats had sunk.

RAMESWARAM in Ramanatha-puram district is an island situated in south-central Bay of Bengal. It has a coastline of approximately 80 km, a land area of some 38.5 sq km and a fishing community of around 35,000 people, of whom around 8,000 are sea-going fis hermen. To the island's south is the Gulf of Mannar, and to its north is the Palk Bay. At its eastern tip is Dhanushkodi, from where it is only about 16 km to Talaimannar in Sri Lanka.

Saghai Nagar is a settlement of 1,000 fishermen in Pamban village near Rameswaram. Pathianathan, 45, who lives there with his wife and six children, says: "I had a country boat. On the stormy night of November 5, 1996, Richard, Armstrong, Adaikalam and I set sail. Our boat inadvertently crossed into the Sri Lankan side near Talaimannar. When we realised this, we started retracing our course, but we were confronted by a Sri Lankan naval boat. We beamed the light, raised our hands and begged for mercy. Bu t they opened fire and kept shouting. They captured us, removed our shirts, blind-folded us and started beating us. They pushed us onto their boats and continued to beat us. We were taken to the Mannar jail. The following day we were produced in a court in Kothi Mannar. We were detained in the Mannar jail for two more days and from there we were taken to the Marihana police station and detained for a week. We were served a small quantity of food, that too at odd hours. We even went on a hunger-strike fo r one and a half days."

He continued: "After 10 days in captivity, somebody from the Indian Embassy came to see us and assured us justice. But we spent 100 days in several police stations and jails before we were taken to Jaffna and handed over to an Indian naval ship at mid-se a." Pathianathan's life has changed since that incident. "We did not get the boat back. We made five trips to Talaimannar to recover the boat. When we got it back four months after our release, the boat was wrecked and the engine was missing. We never re ceived any compensation for the loss of our livelihood or for the damage caused to the boat. Our families survived on loans. I am no longer a boat-owner. I am only a boat worker who has a heavy debt to repay."

T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
Fisherpeople on the Vedaranyam coast.

Susha Raj of the same settlement owned a boat (RMS-30). It was his ambition to have a boat of his own. He took a bank loan to purchase a boat worth Rs.5 lakhs. The bread-winner of his six-member family, Susha Raj set out to fish late in the evening of Ja nuary 5, 1995 with six others. Around 11 p.m., when they were near Kachativu, Sri Lankan Navy personnel opened fire at them. "The boat began to sink and we were drowning. I swam to safety. The next day I went to sea with 10 boats in search of the other f ishermen. We found the body of Arulanandan. On the second day of our search, we found the body of Vinanzis. On the third and fifth days, we found the bodies of Michal, Panja Felice and Anthony near Irumeni and Sashamanakodhi. The body of the sixth fisher man, Moscow, was found near Dhanushkodi after 17 days."

Five fishermen - John, Sebastian, Arulanandan, Austin, George - were in a mechanised fishing boat on July 14, 1997, when they were attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy. The boat was smashed. Says John: "Austin and George died - they went down with the boat. T he rest of us swam to Nedundhevve island on the Sri Lankan side. There, some Sri Lankan fishermen rescued us and a local organisation took us to Jaffna for medical treatment. After being hospitalised for five days, we were jailed in Jaffna and produced b efore a court. No cases were filed against us, but at the end of every fortnight we were taken to court and then sent back to jail. We spent five and a half months in the Jaffna jail. The families of the dead have not got even the death certificates, lea ve alone compensation. The widowed women have none to care for them. For no fault of ours, our lives are being ruined. It was wind and water currents that took us to the Sri Lankan waters."

Sebastian shows the deep scar on his right hand, which is crippled. "I can't think of a future. I am married with three children and we are now dependent on my father," he says.

The owner of the destroyed boat, K. Raj, now works as a helper on another boat. "I took a loan to purchase the boat. I used the boat for eight months. I got no compensation, though I approached everybody." Why did he stray into the Sri Lankan waters? "We get a good catch there," says Raj.

T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
Fishing boats on the Vedaranyam coast.

In Vercode village, 22-year-old Antony Doss works in a fishing boat. He went in Ananth's boat to fish near Talaimannar in 1998. What followed were long, troublesome days. "Eight boats were fishing together. The Sri Lankan Navy captured all the boats but released four of them instantly. The other boats were kept at sea in Talaimannar under the Navy's watch. We were forced to fish for four days and the catch was taken away. No food was given, except one slice of bread each in the morning and in the evenin g."

Sahayraj, also from Vercode, owned a fishing boat (RMS-1829). It was taken out into the sea in December 1997 but never returned. Raj, Acquin, Sunil and Albert, who were in the boat, also disappeared. "The parents keep asking me about their sons, but I ha ve no answer. I have spent around Rs.40,000 to search for them. I suspect the boat was hit by the Sri Lankan Navy and it sank with the fishermen on board," says Sahayraj.

Sahayraj himself was arrested in March 1998 when he was fishing near Nedundhevve. "It happened early in the morning. The Sri Lankan Navy captured four of us. All our belongings - the catch, a compass, a radio and a tape-recorder - were taken away. We wer e beaten, and released after 24 hours," remembers Sahayraj. "Our lives and livelihood are in danger and no government has done anything about this."

Felix Gomez, Assistant Director of Fisheries for the Rameswaram region, says that between 1983 and 1997, 74 fishermen have been shot dead and 251 injured.

MUKUL SHARMA
Vercode village.

The incidents are not limited to Rameswaram. Fishermen of Pudukottai and Nagapattinam districts are also harassed. On January 29, 1990, James Chellathurai, Karuppan and Raja set out in their mechanised boat (ARS-32 Arulmurugar) from Kottaipattinam in Pud ukottai district. The Sri Lankan Navy fired at the boat, which caught fire and sank. Raja was killed. A fishing boat (BDK-609 MP) that set out from Jegathapattinam on May 20, 1991 with four fishermen - Mayavan, Manivannan, Senthivel and Senchivel - capsi zed following heavy firing by the Sri Lankan Navy. The four fishermen have not been traced. Muthuvel Rajendra, Samsu, Justin, Kumar Ravi and several others from Pudukottai district have either witnessed or suffered as a result of such firing. Chinnathamb i, Murugan, Veerappan, Govindarasu and several others have been missing for several years after similar incidents.

ON the Indian side of the maritime border, Sri Lankan fishermen are caught regularly by the Indian Coast Guard or Navy. According to the Sri Lankan newspaper Island (May 18, 1998), 80 Sri Lankan fishermen were at that point under detention in Indi a and 25 vessels had been confiscated. S. Gautama Dass, Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in Chennai, said: "According to our information, there are more than 100 Sri Lankan fishermen in Indian jails."

In May 1998, W. Antony Vincent, a Sri Lankan boat owner from Munnakara, Negombo, waited desperately outside the Madurai Central Jail in Tamil Nadu. He was in India to retrieve his boat 'Philip Sahana', which had been confiscated, and also to get five fis hermen released. Vincent spent more than Rs.10,000 to reach Thiruvananthapuram and Madurai and meet several people. His boat had cost him Rs.9 lakhs five years earlier: he had taken a bank loan of Rs.3 lakhs and had to repay Rs.15,000 each month. "I was not in the boat. So I don't know how the capture took place. The fishermen who were captured - K.S. Nicholas, W. Wilbert, K.S. Joseph, Sirinimal Fernando and Wijendra Wadugu Chandra - wrote to me that they were fishing on the Sri Lankan side of the Gulf of Mannar when the Indian Navy seized the boat. The boat is kept in Keelakarai, south of Mandapam. I want it back, otherwise I will not be able to survive. I am also making efforts to get the fishermen released... One day this country, the next day the o ther... how can we earn a livelihood?" he asked.

W. Wilbert, who is lodged in the Madurai Central Jail, says: "Personnel of the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard pursued our boat while we were returning after fishing on April 3 last year. They asked us to surrender, but we tried to flee. The Navy people said that they arrested us because the Sri Lankan Navy killed Indian fishermen."

MUKUL SHARMA
In Pamban village, the family of a fisherman who was killed at sea.

H. Mahadevan, an All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) leader, explained how Sri Lankan fishermen were harassed: "Fifteen Sri Lankan fishermen were released from the Madurai jail on May 25, 1998. They left with their boats from Mandapam. A lot of drama preceded their release. They had been charged under the Customs Act for smuggling in shark skin. Basically nothing incriminating was found in the vessels and the only material available was fish. A confession was obtained to the effect they smuggled in s hark skins for sale in India at a better price than in Sri Lanka. Actually marine fish fetches a much better price in Sri Lanka than in India, and shark skin is an internationally traded item, in whose case no significant price differences are likely - i n fact, exploitation by middlemen ensures that the beach prices of fish are often lower than what they should be. The Customs at Tuticorin levied a penalty of Rs.47,000 on the fishermen. In addition, they were prosecuted. What followed was a case of misc arriage of justice, and genuine fishermen were convicted as smugglers."

According to Sri Lanka's Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, between 1993 and 1997, as many as 269 Sri Lankan boats were seized and 338 fishermen detained. It takes up to a year to obtain the release of fishermen. Captured boats are not returned for years.

Gautham Dass says: "Whenever we get some information regarding the arrest of our fishermen, we inform the Tamil Nadu Government. The State Government gets a report from the departments concerned and sends it to the Central Government. The Central Governm ent takes a political decision about the release... We don't provide any legal support to the captives."

THE fishermen's travails have their genesis in the maritime agreements of 1974 and 1976. The 1974 agreement demarcated the maritime boundary between the two countries in the Palk Strait and ceded Kachativu to Sri Lanka. The 1976 Agreement demarcated the boundary in the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal and barred each country's fishermen from fishing in the other's waters.

MUKUL SHARMA
A mother holding photographs of her dead sons.

The 1974 agreement handed over Kachativu to Sri Lanka (Frontline, April 22, 1994) The tiny, uninhabited island is situated in the Palk Strait at a distance of between 12.8 km and 16 km from the nearest points of Sri Lanka and India respectively. A rticle 5 of the agreement, which safeguards the rights of Indian fishermen and pilgrims (who visit the isle to take part in the St. Anthony's festival there), states: "Subject to the foregoing, Indian fishermen and pilgrims will enjoy access to visit Kac hativu as hitherto, and will not be required by Sri Lanka to obtain travel documents or visas for these purposes." Article 6 states: "The vessels of India and Sri Lanka will enjoy in each other's waters such rights as they have traditionally enjoyed ther ein."

This agreement or any of its provisions was neither discussed with the State governments, fisherpeople's organisations or political parties, nor debated in Parliament before it was enforced. There were other dominant considerations for the then heads of state.

The aftermath of the 1971 insurrection by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) witnessed a change of mood with regard to the credibility of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government in Sri Lanka. The country went through a severe economic and political crisis. The Kachativu settlement contributed to a large extent in lifting the morale of the Bandaranaike regime. (S.D. Muni, "Kachativu Settlement: Befriending Neighbouring Regimes", Economic and Political Weekly; Vol.9, No.28; July 13, 1974; page 1,121) .

The maritime boundary settlement also helped curb the anti-India hysteria in Sri Lanka. In fact, the agreement strengthened the relations between the governments of Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Sri Lanka extended its support to India on some vital issues. While several countries condemned India's nuclear explosion in May 1974, Sri Lanka accepted India's stance on putting its newly acquired nuclear capability to peaceful use. Besides, when Pakistan tried to use the 15-member ad hoc United Nat ions Committee as a forum to attack India over the nuclear explosion, Sri Lanka in its capacity as the chairperson of that committee prevented the use of the forum for that purpose (Muni, as cited earlier). Thus the agreement was a political decision, wi th no thought or consideration to the fishermen.

MUKUL SHARMA
Sahayraj with another sufferer in Vercode. Sahayraj's boat was taken out into the sea but it never returned.

The 1976 Agreement is entitled "Agreement between India and Sri Lanka on the Maritime Boundary Between the Two Countries in the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal and Related Matters". There was an Exchange of Letters on the same day as it was signed b etween India's Foreign Secretary and Sri Lanka's Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Affairs. These letters also constituted an agreement. Significantly, this agreement was signed when India was under Emergency rule, when no discussion or di ssent was permitted.

Paragraph I of the Exchange of Letters says: "With the establishment of the Exclusive Economic Zones by the two countries, India and Sri Lanka will exercise sovereign rights over the living and non-living resources of their respective zones. The fishing vessels and fishermen of India shall not engage in fishing in the historic waters, the territorial sea and the Exclusive Economic Zone of Sri Lanka, nor shall the fishing vessels and fishermen of Sri Lanka engage in fishing in the historic waters, the te rritorial sea and the Exclusive Economic Zone of India, without the express permission of Sri Lanka or India, as the case may be."

It is the different interpretations of this portion of the Exchange of Letters and of Article 5 in the 1974 agreement that have led to the controversy over whether or not Indian fishermen have the right to fish in and around Kachativu. The Sri Lankan Gov ernment argues that the relevant portion of the Exchange of Letters supersedes Articles 5 and 6 of the 1974 agreement. It also claims that Article 5 allowed Indian fishermen only to dry their nets in Kachativu and not to fish in and around the island. Si nce then, India and Sri Lanka have held several meetings to solve the riddle. As Prof. V. Suryanarayan, Director, Centre for South and South-East Asian Studies, Madras University, who has studied Kachativu and the problems of Indian fishermen in the Palk Bay region, says: "It is always a fire-fighting exercise by both the governments, without removing the causes of fire. In fact, who cares in New Delhi and Colombo about the shooting and killing of some hundred poor fishermen?"

FOR the coastal fisherpeople, the immediate fallout of the rise of terrorism and militancy was that in 1993 Sri Lanka banned all types of boats in its territorial waters extending from Trincomalee to Mannar, thus giving a carte blanche to its Navy to open fire at any boat. In times of heightened conflict, Colombo promulgates emergency regulations, which convert Sri Lanka's territorial waters into a Prohibited Zone. Sri Lankan fishermen living in Jaffna and Mannar face restrictions on the types of boats they can own, areas where they can fish and the time they can spend at sea, owing to security reasons. Similarly, the Indian Government applies strict measures to prevent the infiltration and movement of militants. In these situations, nobody dist inguishes between militants and fishermen.

Indian fishermen are a regular target of attack allegedly by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). On April 23, 1997, a number of Indian fishermen were injured when the LTTE attacked a Sri Lankan naval camp in northern Talaimannar, using Indian fi shing vessels as cover. The militants virtually dragged the fishing vessels along with them. Muruganandan, president of the Ramanathapuram District Fishermen's Association, complains: "LTTE men regularly take away our fishing boats and send the crew back . People belonging to Rameswaram have lost at least 40 boats. As recently as March 1998, LTTE members came as close as Tondi on the Indian side of the sea and took away a fishing boat."

MUKUL SHARMA
W. Antony Vincent, a Sri Lankan boat-owner, waiting outside Madurai Central Jail in Tamil Nadu. His mission is to recover his boat confiscated by the Indian Navy and get five fishermen who went in it released.

Felix Gomez, Assistant Director of Fisheries, also views terrorism as an important issue. "It is owing to suspicion that most shooting incidents take place. In April 1998, one Indian boat was in the Sri Lankan waters, and its lights were switched off. Th e Sri Lankan Navy captured it, suspecting the crew to be LTTE men."

There exist some gray areas regarding the impact of terrorism on the fisherpeople. A.J. Vijayan, a leader of the fisherpeople, said in Rameswaram that generally fishermen who sought a livelihood from fishing were not involved in any activity supporting T amil militants across the border. It is alleged that some anti-social elements supply goods to the militants. Local fishermen point out that there are about 30 mechanised boats which are owned by people who do not belong to the fishing community. These b oats are actually not used for fishing, they allege, and wonder what these could be doing at sea.

WHAT forces fishermen from Tamil Nadu to the Sri Lankan waters beyond Kachativu, up to the Delft Island off the Jaffna coast, even at the risk of being killed? What compels the Assistant Director of Fisheries for the Rameswaram region to say: "If fisherm en do not cross the border today, tomorrow there will be no fishing in the region"? One answer is that the ocean currents and sedimentation on the Sri Lankan side of the Palk Strait have made it a rich field of Tiger prawns, which fetch a high price. Ano ther lies in the massive growth of fishing activity and income-sharing in the region. According to information from the Fisheries Department, the number of trawling boats operating from Rameswaram is about 1,000. In the traditional sector, there are abou t 1,500 craft. Ramanathapuram ranks first in the total marine fish landing of Tamil Nadu; it accounted for 23.57 per cent during the 1993-96 period. The growth rate of marine fish landings in the district is much higher than that of the State as a whole. It was 44.9 per cent during 1987-90, 10.6 per cent during 1990-93 and 20.7 per cent during 1993-96, whereas it was 9.9 per cent, 8.3 per cent and 9.2 per cent respectively for the whole State.

When the coastal region-wise marine fish production for 1992-96 is considered, the Palk Bay, with only 27 per cent of the coastline, accounted for 36.7 per cent of the State's fish landing, while the other two major coasts, Coromandel and Gulf of Mannar, with 35 per cent and 32 per cent of the coastline respectively, accounted for 28.6 per cent and 25.9 per cent respectively.

The system that is in vogue in Rameswaram also puts pressure on the fisherpeople to seek fishing grounds much closer to the Sri Lankan coast, where the availability of shrimp is high. Unlike other places in the State, where the net income is shared betwe en the boat owner and the crew in the ratio 60:40, in Rameswaram the boat owners pay daily wages. There are special wages for overnight trips, and incentives based on the catch in bottom-trawling. For every one kg of shrimp, the driver gets Rs.20, the se cond hand Rs.15 and the deck hands Rs.10 each. As a result, the crew want to catch more, even in dangerous waters.

"If you don't decongest Rameswaram and other affected areas, there will be no solution to the problem of fishermen from India and Sri Lanka crossing into the territorial waters of each other's country," says M.K. Suresh, Commandant of the Coast Guards i n Mandapam.

This report is part of Mukul Sharma's forthcoming book Landscapes and Lives: Environmental Clippings from the Edges of Rural India.