Migrant fishers: following fish

Item Type article

Authors Roshan, Manas

Download date 06/10/2021 03:44:04

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/1834/36003 MIGRANT FISHERS Following Fish

Since the late 1980s, thousands of men from the coastal villages of Andhra Pradesh, India, have travelled to to work as skippers and crew on board mechanized fi shing boats

n clear nights, when the fish trade—which was losing out to are aplenty in the nets and he modern shipping—and moved into Ocan take a break from steering, fishing. Today, Gujarat’s boats account S Apparao thinks of his little house in for a quarter of the country’s marine Srikakulam on the northern coast of fish catch and over 8,000 registered the south Indian state of Andhra boats pass through the state’s busiest Pradesh. Two lamps, one in the cabin harbour, Veraval, alone. and another on the mast of his 15-m Over the years, deep-sea fishermen boat, Parshuram, light up a tiny circle from Andhra Pradesh have replaced of the sea as it rolls under him. The those from and Kerala as first time he’d been out to sea as a boy, workers on the boats. Though there is fishing near Visakhapatnam in his no official count, anecdotal estimates home state, this gentle motion that now put the number of migrants at 25,000 rocks him to sleep had nearly thrown every season. They earn up to three 56 him overboard; he’d been sick for times as much in Gujarat as they do several hours afterwards. fishing in small traditional canoes That day, he’d set out before dawn, back home. A tandel like Apparao, with and the sun had risen ahead of the boat. over 10 years of experience, makes Rs These days, he looks toward the land 21,000 every month and a khalasi is paidp about half that sum (one US$ was equale to Rs. 68 in December 2016). Today, Gujarat’s boats account for a quarter of the The highlight, they said, is the country’s marine fi sh catch and over 8,000 registered steadys salary, paid in a lumpsum at boats pass through the state’s busiest harbour, thet start of the fishing season. “Fishing isis a gamble,” Apparao told me in Veraval, alone. July,J standing outside his home in SrikurmamS Machilesam village. “You don’td know if you’ll catch anything on forfor thethe sunrise;sunrise; onon thethe smallsmall radioradio in a given day.” Apparao himself only the cabin, the voices of other fishermen studied till the fifth grade but he said in Marathi or Malayalam alert him to that most of the migrants over 40 had where he is on the Arabian Sea. never gone to school. After nearly a Since the late 1980s—when there decade in Gujarat, Apparao was able to were too many fishermen and too rebuild his mud house with brick and few fish in the water—thousands of cement, and aims to complete another men from Andhra Pradesh’s coastal floor for his son by next year. districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam, have travelled to Punishing work the busy fishing harbours of Gujarat, In Gujarat, the money is steady but the working as tandels (skippers) and work is punishing: an average fishing khalasis (crewmen) on mechanized trip is nearly 20 days long and the fishing boats owned by local kharwa men—nine to a cabin the length of a merchants. Only a fraction of Gujaratis small car—have no steady work and eat fish but in the 1960s the state’s rest hours. The hunt for a big catch enterprising sea-faring castes had takes them as far south as Karnataka This article is by Manas Roshan ([email protected]), independent spotted the opportunity early and and Kerala, which doesn’t win them researcher shifted from traditional maritime any friends among local fishermen.

SAMUDRA REPORT NO. 75 MIGRANT FISHERS

“We’re in trouble if we ever run out of its residents, but for a few old Muslim fuel in these areas,” said M Sandiyya, sailors, that its merchants traded in a khalasi also from Machilesam. “The textiles, dates and—even earlier—in local fishermen don’t allow us to dock horses, from West Asia and the Arabian our boats on shore and sometimes Peninsula. they even confiscate our catch.” A few old merchant buildings Back at the Veraval harbour, the crumbling in the sea air—one houses boats dock for just a day or two to the Customs Department—hint at restock fuel, ice and rations. During the this history. But the Gujarati business eight months they spend in Gujarat, the classes are not the nostalgic kind; men wake up every morning on a boat. there’s little time for anything but work Veraval lies three hours south of and the aartis at the famous temple on Gujarat’s 1,600-km-long next door. Most conversations begin coastline. On streets that smell of fish with the salutation “Jai Somnath”, and damp wood, almost everybody is even among the Andhra fishermen employed in the fishing industry, but when they’re in Veraval. The closest the town is better known on Gujarat’s movie theatre is nearly two hours cultural map for a few shabby hotels away in . (Srikakulam has at that house pilgrims to the Somnath least seven theatres, all packed through temple 7 km away. Once every week, the day.) In most cabins on the boats, the Dwarka Express travels 52 hours the tiny 10-inch television-cum-DVD- and nearly 3,000 km from Puri— player is equipment as essential to mostly ferrying migrant workers the men as Garmin GPS systems or from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to fish-finders. industrial centres in Gujarat—stopping Besides being the country’s biggest at the Veraval railway station to drop fishing harbour, the town has a thriving 57 off fishermen like Apparao. But in boat-manufacturing industry, a large earlier times the port saw visitors number of ice factories and over 100 from other places than Srikakulam. fish-processing units, most of which It’s now forgotten history to most of export to Europe and China. One such NIKHIL ROSHAN

Workers pack fi sh into crates to be unloaded from the fi shing craft as it returns to the Veraval harbour, Gujarat, India. The boats dock for just a day or two to restock fuel, ice and rations. During the eight months they spend in Gujarat, the men wake up every morning on a boat

JANUARY 2017 INDIA

unit is managed by Kenny Thomas, the compensation promised by state whose company Jinny Marine is one laws. He didn’t expect a reply from of the larger exporters approved by the Government but claimed that the European Union (EU). Inside there’s been no action from the its sterilized factory, over 300 local Fisheries Departments of any state. women clean, sort and pack squid and In the Srikakulam villages I visited, shrimp into neat, impeccably labelled some of the men spoke a little Hindi containers headed for supermarkets and Gujarati but the women only in Spain and Portugal. “Women are Telugu, and they’d never talked to preferred because they can do this sort their husbands’ employers in Veraval. of work faster and more efficiently,” Apparao remembered the time when said Thomas. Nimble hands, he one of his crewmen fell into the sea explained with a shrug, for customers and was later found tangled in the that wouldn’t want any grazed nets. “It was too late when we brought calamari on their plates. him up. We packed the body with ice Thomas, though, is one of the in the fish hold and turned back responsible employers in a more towards Veraval,” he said. But in that regulated arm of the industry. Kenny’s instance, the seth sent the body back father, K M Thomas, arrived in to the village with another khalasi. as a fisheries officer in 1963 Apparao’s seth, Tulsibhai Gohel, and was instrumental in introducing is president of Veraval’s boat owners mechanized fishing in the area. He association, the Kharva Sanyukta later became a fisherman and went Machhimar Boat Association. It’s the into the export business himself. only grouping resembling a union but Jinny Marine has fair working designed to service capital rather than 58 conditions and even hostels for its labour. Gohel is a lean, light-eyed and migrant workers; labour inspectors respected president who, like several and EU norms ensure greater labour investors in the trade, owns about half protection in the processing units than a dozen boats. Apparao said his seth on the boats. is a good man, one of the few who gives his crew a bonus every year and doesn’t grudge when they return with a meagre catch. ...over 300 local women clean, sort and pack squid and When I met him in Veraval in July, shrimp into neat, impeccably labelled containers headed Gohel was finishing with a meeting for supermarkets in Spain and Portugal. with local officials to launch a Swachh BBharat (clean India) drive at the boat jjetty. Dressed in a formal shirt and derby leather shoes, he was driven Srikakulam is a bustling coastal in his Toyota Innova to a modest town nearly three hours northeast association office, where, seated on a of Vishakhapatnam. There, I met faded cushion on the floor, he oversaw Mylapalli Trinada Rao, who has tried the settlement of a few minor disputes. to draw the government’s attention There was no mention of the workers to a darker side of the migrant’s in the matters that came up for experience. Last year, Rao, a stocky, discussion. Later, I asked Gohel how affable director of the state Fishermen he dealt with cases of men drowning Co-operative’s Federation (APCOF), at sea. “There are very few because wrote to Prime Minister with a list we don’t let the men carry alcohol on of over 60 names, of fishermen from the boats,” he assured me. “All the the district who had drowned in accidents happen at the harbour when Gujarat, Goa and Odisha since 1990. the boats are back. The men sometimes The number may not seem alarming drink at night and fall into the water in a country where industrial between the parked boats.” accidents and farmer suicides are all Apparao agrees. (He stopped too common, but Rao pointed out drinking a few years ago while on that not one body has been returned vacation in Srikakulam when he to the families, who have also not got realized he was draining his savings.)

SAMUDRA REPORT NO. 75 MIGRANT FISHERS

NIKHIL ROSHAN

Migrant and local fi shers always work separately to avoid fi ghts. Labour inspectors and EU norms ensure greater labour protection in the processing units than on the boats

But others in his village denied that his crew. This was the last trip of 59 the deaths were caused by drinking the season. The radio crackled with alone. “How many deaths can you greetings of “Jai Somnath” between have at the harbour?” asked Sandiyya. the other boats sailing out, and Marine fishing laws require all boats through his cabin window Apparao to be equipped with lifejackets, buoys could see the giant temple on the and even portable toilets. Few boats edge of the coastline. They’d pass in Veraval have lifejackets and for in a day or two. The sea was toilets the men sit precariously on the a lot rougher because of the strong narrow bulwark, hold on to the monsoon winds, and the men held rigging and point their backsides on to the ropes. Normally, they could outward as the sea pitches the boat stand on their feet as the sea tossed from side to side. the boat and still haul in the nets In Veraval, the sun-bleached and sort the fish, but the men hadn’t marine police station sits on a deserted been home in eight months. No beach outside the town. Inside, a accidents on this last trip. Constable, thumbed through a large Apparao thought about the register to find me the information festivities in Machilesam the previous on deaths at sea this year. There were year. It had been his village’s turn to two: a Bhagwan-bhai from a village host the panchayat for the feast of in Valsad and Ramlu Badi of Dagalu their guardian deity, Polamamba- in Srikakulam, as they appeared in mata. Most of the other tandels did For more the careless handwriting of a nothing but eat and drink for the four station officer. There was no other months they were home. Not him; icsf.net/en/occasional-papers/article/ information; when I tried to find there were debts to settle and work EN/160-a-study-of-migr.html?limitstart=0 Dagalu in Srikakulam, I was told that needed to be done on that first- A Study of Migrant Fishers from there’s no such village. floor bedroom. He felt the engine Andhra Pradesh in the Gujarat One morning at the start of June, roaring under him as he turned the Marine Fishing Industry with the sun rising over Veraval boat southward in the direction of bundur, the Parashuram set out on the other boats. The screen of his another long trip down the western fish-finder glowed with numbers and coast, packed with over 7 tonnes of ice broad strokes of blue. Somewhere in and enough ration for Apparao and there was that prize catch.

JANUARY 2017