Fishy questions
WITH 6,000 kms of coastline and innumerable rivers, lagoons, lakes, reservoirs and ponds, India's fisherfolk population is one of the largest in the world. Exceeding 7 million, one-third of this populace depends on marine fishing while the rest subsist on a variety of inland water bodies. Usually very poor, these communities have low social status and negligible political clout.
However, some organisations have evolved over the past few decades, taking cudgels on behalf of the fisherfolk. The National Fishworkers' Forum (NFF) is a federation of state-level fishing groups in India fighting to place fishworkers' rights on the national agenda. Its membership comprises of fishermen plying both mechanised and non-mechanised craft, fish vendors, processing plant workers and marine and inland sector personnel. It liaises with the government and the press to facilitate a recognition of the fishworkers' problems.
The NFF has been helping groups make representations to the Parliamentary Committee on issues relating to fisherfolk. Kerala fisherwomen, for instance, are discriminated against by metropolitan bus drivers, ostensibly because they smell of fish. The NFF and its member unions have managed to force the state government to provide separate buses for fisherwomen, which ply regularly on the market route. The NFF also links various fishworkers' groups and organises bandhs and demonstrations at the national level.
In February 1994, the NFF had called for an "All India Fisheries Bandh" to protest against the government's anti-fisherpeople Deep Sea Fishing Policy.
Generation support
The Programme for Community Organisation (PCO) is entrusted with keeping them abreast of the changing fishery scenario, improving their traditional skills and promoting collective action through integrated training and education.
PCO help women fishvendors in the villages discuss and solve their problems through Mahila Samajams (women groups). They learn to organise themselves, and are informed about tourism development and its impact on fisherfolk and the seas. The PCO also conducts camps for youth in the fishing villages, aimed at leadership training and social analysis and the creation of scientific awareness in the fishing sector. It also has a Fisheries Research Cell which conducts studies on the techno-economic and socio-economic aspects of traditional fishing on the southwest coast.
To generate support for them, the Alternate Communication Forum (ALCOM), a group of film activists, have made two films. A Campaign Begins records two simultaneous marches along the coastal belts of India with the slogan "Protect the waters, protect life". Another film, Living in Fear, is based on the life of the Kerala fisherfolk.
Problems related to marine fishing often cross national boundaries. The International Collective in Support of Fisherworkers (ICFS) is an international network; it has the objective of providing fisherworkers with a platform to make their voice heard internationally so that the numerous problems they face both at land and at sea may be taken into consideration by their governments and the international organisations. It works in close cooperation between scientists and social workers at one end, and fishworkers at the other.