Woes betide the seafarer

Amidst the chaos of Kudankulam, the environmental desecration by SPIC and Sterlite, and widespread pseudo-legal sand mining, the fishing hamlets of Tuticorin may actually be fighting their last days of battle against inflation, thieves, the government, and nature itself.

Fishing in Tuticorin has been going on for a long time and is a major contributor to the region’s economy. Ever since the town’s port was declared a minor anchorage in 1868, trade centered on fishes, prawns, and pearls has been flourishing. Unfortunately, pearl-diving ceased in the 1950s for various reasons and fishing for prawns was banned by the Supreme Court in 2009, citing concerns of environmental preservation.

This left the fishing industry fighting a lone battle, and it has not done well. The most common sights upon entering a fishing hamlet in Tuticorin include fishermen unloading many thousands of fish caught in the day’s trip, unknotting and drying the nets for the next haul, sitting around and talking or playing cards, women collecting drinking water in large containers from the hand pump, and children running around without a care.

However, a plethora of issues underpin this pleasant picture, and even though they vary in intensity from hamlet to hamlet, they are all persistent.

Irrespective of the fishermen’s location, rising fuel costs are hampering their ability to catch more fish. As part of a central government scheme, of which the state government partakes, fishermen with mechanized fishing boats are supposed to avail a discount of Rs. 5.50 on the Central Excise Duty (CED) on every litre of diesel they purchase from bunks installed near the harbour for this purpose. That amounts to Rs. 37.90. However, the fishermen are provided only 300 litres of fuel per month, which they claim suffices for two weeks’ worth of fishing.

It is there that the vicious cycle of poverty amongst Tuticorin’s fishermen begins. For the following two weeks, the boat owners are forced to purchase fuel at the market price of Rs. 43.40, which shaves off an impressive part of their monthly income. At the same time, with the cost of fibre-glass and fishing nets increasing, a limit is imposed on their expenses which, in turn, limit their income, too.

At Thracepuram, an urban fishing hamlet near Tuticorin port, there are about 1,500 mechanized boats and 6,000 families that are dependent on them. Despite the cost of one mechanized boat having increased from a little more than a lakh rupees in 2001 to Rs. 7 lakh in 2011, the number of boats has increased. This is not an indication of prosperity, however, because even though more fishermen have been able to afford boats in the last decade, fishing has been unaffordable only for the last two or three years. In fact, it is notable that between 2008 and 2011, private lenders increased their lending rates from 8 per cent per month to 12 per cent per month.

In the 1970s, fishermen could catch the kumala, vanjaram (Indo-Pacific king mackerel), kanagatthai, oola, and vaaval (white pomfret) species of fish. Forty years on, only the white pomfret is widely sought after because it continues to have some export value (Rs. 400 per kilogram). In the same period, the fishermen’s dependence on mechanized weaving has increased. Not that net-weaving is an art, but because it is a laborious process that can sometimes take up to two weeks, they begrudge the Rs. 1,300 per net as being necessary.

The market where the fishes are sold does not interface directly with the boat owners but via a fishermen’s union comprised of representatives from amongst the fishing population, a situation observed in many of the coastal hamlets in the district. The union is responsible for negotiating the selling rates for export-grade fishes with the state government, providing storage facilities, and, on a minor note, settling local disputes. At the same time, an auction is also held as soon as a boat returns from its trip, where the fisher is able to sell his catch to a bidder then and there.

The opportunity for communal conflicts within these entities, however, further distorts the region’s economic and political arrangement. A common complaint has been the issuance of a fisherman’s ID card, which a fisherman can use to prove his identity in case he ventures far into the sea and is apprehended by the Indian Navy. The card, they demand, could also be used to streamline fuel, electricity, and rice subsidies and not necessitate separate applications for each of them.

The unions are controlled by those of the Nadar community. The fishermen, all belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC), insist that even though the fishers unanimously agreed to the introduction of the fisherman’s card, the cards are being withheld on communal grounds. Unfortunately, they also insist that they cannot afford to persist with their fight because they don’t have the resources for it. Instead, they have to fight to retain control in their own waters.

Ever since the introduction of trawlers, fishermen have suffered greatly for two reasons. One, the trawlers reduce the catch available, and two, they rake up the seabed, reducing its consistency and ability to support marine life. Because a majority of the fishing community constitutes small fishermen and few enterprises, larger vessels (not trawlers) invade common fishing space, pushing smaller boats away from their own coast in search of food. This has been the case in Tuticorin, whereby trawlers prowling in Rameswaram and Tiruchendur have resulted in the smaller vessels going as far south as Kanyakumari in search of fishes.

For all these reasons, alternative cost-cutting solutions are sought after, such as no longer venturing out deep into the ocean. This increases the fisherman’s dependence on those organisms closer to the coast, such as crabs, molluscs and smaller fish, which do not have good remunerative value. Those who have lived near the sea all their lives claim that the water levels are rising, too, and that in five years, the hamlets will be no more. They could be true, but it won’t be the sea that swallows them. It will be the nonchalance of the government that refuses to recognize these unspoken issues.