Palk strait fisheries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WesrJBgEmyw&t=21s

This video by Vox, in their series on Borders, is about the Indo-Sri Lankan fisheries dispute, and has been making the rounds. It needs some clearing the air. This is a complex issue with multiple narratives, and different perspectives are needed to understand it:

1. Classic trawler vs small-scale fisher (SSF) struggle

2. Arbitrariness of a boundary (terrestrial jurisprudence approach) over fluid marine spaces

3. Naval action not for SL fishers but to protect offshore oil assets

Narrative 1 is the most popular one. But it’s mistakenly portrayed as an Indian fishers vs Sri Lankan fishers. Similar class based struggles are seen within India all over, including Rameswaram itself. The Ramnad district fishers unions themselves oppose the trawlers with full force. Big struggles there have resulted in several negotiated settlements, but disputes are frequent. From the 70s onwards, bulk of the trawler loans, subsidies were given to commercial investors who weren't from traditional fishing communities. Mostly short term investors who dint have long term interests in the resource. In due course, few fishing communities also joined. This commercial class was out of the control of the traditional fishing governance systems that were in place in Rameswaram among the fisherfolk. That community institution based regulation system broke down because of this. Power over regulating fishing activities shifted away from the communities towards the state, and just became an absolute mess. The state made it an unregulated anarchy, purely for commercial motives. 

Narrative 2: The boundary is problematic. Fishing communities in Talaimannar side of SL & Rameswaram have long had social and cultural ties with each other. Thus, there was no concept of boundaries in the sea. They had other types of regulations among themselves. From 1947 onwards, the island of Katchatheevu was in India. The seas around that island were traditional fishing grounds of Rameswaram fishers as well as Mannar fishers. But the 70s treaties between Indira Gandhi and Bandarnayake introduced this new concept of a boundary to these communities. The boundary negotiations happened between India and SL with zero consultations with the actual resource users on either side. This was an absolutely arbitrary line. Despite this, the Indian govt, remote controlling in New Delhi gifted it to SL during the 70s negotiations. Hence, the fishing grounds around the island also went to SL. 

Numerous efforts at resolution by the local communities have taken place in Talaimannar and Rameswaram. There's also a St.Antony's church where the church festival was jointly conducted by both communities as part of their negotiations. These were their own ways to resolve. Among the agreements was that traditional fishing grounds are open for non-destructive SSF. Thus, trawlers not allowed in Mannar, but Indian SSF allowed. But such initiatives were never followed up seriously by the govts both sides. SL shoots SSF boats too.

This leads to Narrative 3. The Sri Lankan Navy itself attacks the Tamil fishers of the Mannar and Jaffna regions. The waters just north and south of Talaimannar are oil blocks for SL. Northern Tamil fishers face issues, not just from Indian trawlers, but more so from mechanised boats from sinhalese southern SL. This openieng up of northern waters to sinhalese fishers from the south is actively encouraged by the SL govt. That's the biggest reason for so much navy patrolling there. SL navy presence there is not for safeguarding rights of tamil fishers of northern Sri Lanka but chiefly to safeguard some of the oil exploration wells, and Sinhalese fishing interests. Hence, they attack any Indian fishing boat in the area. The larger political economic oppression in northern SL against Tamils have meant a double whammy for the Tamil fishers, they are a further marginalised community within an oppressed Tamil community.

SEPPADU : Indigenous Fisheries Commons In Nagapattinam Region

Marine fisheries, much like all direct uses of natural resources has its own systems of tenure rights, resource governance systems, in order to manage the resource in accordance with the values of the resource using communities it serves. In slightly more egalitarian societies, the rules and institutions governing the resource would be fairly equitable, and in others, not so much. For instance, in a totally caste based agrarian setup, the best lands and water drawing rights would be of the dominant castes and as we move down the hierarchy, the lowest castes would have practically no rights over these resources.

Seppadu:
Among fishers in Nagapattinam district, there existed the system of ‘Seppadu’, which was an indigenous resource allocation and governance system. A Seppadu is a fish aggregating device made from various reeds and leaves attached to a central casurina trunk (Soukku in Tamil). This apparatus would be placed out at a specific spot in the sea and anchored with a heavy stone at the seabed. This would act as a source of nutrition, with the nutrients oozing out of the vegetation slowly into the waters. This would attract phyto-plankton and zoo-planktons, which in turn would attract tiny anchovies, and slowly in time, attract species higher up the trophic levels. Such an apparatus would last for up to 6-8 months, after which it would be repeated next season.

Seppadu Rights:
This whole process of preparing the Seppadu, and laying it on a specific spot in the sea would be done by families who invested finance and labour in that Seppadu. In return, boats associated with those families would be allowed to fish in and around that Seppadu. Fishers here traditionally used various types of bag-nets, including one called idai valai, whose operation could be seen as some sort of a precursor to today’s ring siene nets.   

In this way, each Seppadu would be shared by a group of families, and in turn a village would have any number of Seppadus. Thus, the whole village would have fishing rights over the areas spanned by all the Seppadus belonging to that village. This was a kind of spatial zonation of the marine space to distribute and allocate the common fisheries resource. Fishers from one Seppadu would not be allowed near other Seppadus. Fishers from one village would not be allowed in Seppadus belonging to other villages. Thus the entire stretch of near coastal waters in the Nagapttinam-Karaikal region was divided into Seppadus.

Significance of the term:
Each Seppadu would also be named after the families who have fishing rights around that Seppadu. Thus, the term Seppadu would not only mean the actual fish aggregating device, but also a term for fishing grounds, or locations on the sea. To an outsider, all the sea looks the same, but traditional fishers have cultivated a marine sense of location and direction that is a little difficult to appreciate by completely terrestrial communities, who are much more comfortable with sense of direction, routes and location on land. Thus, fishers could be out at sea, and would identify locations on the sea by referring to different Seppadus as landmarks. Even in Pulicat, the term Padu is used in this spatial sense, to refer to specific fertile fishing grounds on the lake. In due course, the term Padu has also come to mean a rich haul of fish, caught from these fishing grounds. The various changing uses and origins of these terms is in itself an interesting question worth pondering by those interested in cultural heritage and linguistics. From a resource governance perspective, this shows how intimately connected fishing rights, access to fishing grounds and actual fish catch are.   

Institutions:
Obviously, for such a system to be operational, it would need dispute resolution mechanisms. Any dispute between boats in the same Seppadu would be resolved within those families. Any dispute within Seppadus of the same village would be resolved by the local village panchayat – which is the traditional panchayat of the Pattinavar fishing caste, and not the Panchayati Raj Institution introduced by the state as part of local self-government. For all disputes between villages, you had the regional head village of Nambiyar Nagar (called Nuzhaipadi in medieval Tamil texts) which was vested with powers of adjudicating inter-village disputes. It was meant to consult all the village heads and take decisions on behalf of the collective Nagapatinam-Karaikal region.

Origins:
Oral history is that Nambiyar Nagar is named after a prominent figure, Nambirajan from this village, who won the favour of Sarfoji Raja of the Tanjavur Maratha dynasty when they ruled the delta areas in late 18^th centuries. It is said that Serfoji Raja made Nambirajan as the representative of all fishers in his court, and thus all marriages, big events, disputes were brought to his village for settling. However, it is also believed that the traditional head village status is much older than this, and that Nambirajan was just a prominent figure in the lineage. The powers of the head village were also etched in religious, social and political affairs. Thus, this is to show that resource governance systems formed the base for the entire organisation and cultural-material life of the Pattinavar community here.

Technology and Decline:
However, this Seppadu system no longer functions, and the head village tradition too is under strain. From the 1970s onwards, the long floating nylon gillnets first made their entry to this region, by a few fishers in Akkaraipettai, another fishing village close to Nambiyar Nagar. These became a commercial success as it was durable and got good catch. However, it would frequently float along with the currents and get entangled and damage the Seppadu apparatus out at sea. This was a cause of increasing conflict between the Seppadu holders and the new gillnetters of Akkaraipettai. Old fishers even say that Akkaraipettai fishers were unruly, and unresponsive to decisions of Nambiyar Nagar even then!

Also while this tension was simmering, trawlers also began to proliferate. The success and proliferation of the trawlers in this region was down to 2 causes – new prawn traders who came from Kerala, and also the jugaad innovation of using second hand 110 HP Leyland bus engines to power their trawlers, which suited these high current waters of Nagapattinam. With the coming of trawlers, many Seppadu apparatus got entangled and destroyed by the fast trawl nets. The combination of new gillnets and trawlers thus put an end to the Seppadu system. Thus bringing to end an indigenous system of commons resource management.    

However, the institutions of the fishing panchayat and head village however havent yet fully died, though under stress. The tensions and politics of these institutions at present, is a story that deserves another post soon !!

Kalaignar – a political survivor, a social reformer . The curious mix.

The task of writing an obituary for anyone is fraught with risks. And especially so for someone who has spent over 65 years in active public life – someone who has seen politics from the pre-independence days. His sheer longevity and political survival has meant he has made several twists, turns and compromises in his career. There is almost too much material to analyse and comment upon. Almost anything written on him shall be an act of neglecting major events. But more fundamentally, what is an obituary meant to do? Is it a review and analysis of the man and how he lived his life? Are we meant to sing praises for the dear departed? Should we look at what his legacy could be?

Kalaignar lived through a tumultuous and radical era of tamil and national politics. He is as much a product of his times, as much as he shaped it. Born in Thirukkuvalai village in erstwhile Thanjavur district (presently in Thiruvarur dist), as Dakshinamurthy, he is said to have an early initiation into social reform and political activism, and changed his name to Karunanidhi to remove references to god and religion in his name in his early days itself. Hailing from a backward Isai Vellalar community, that accompanied music troupes playing the Nadaswaram, he had a ringside view of how caste played out in all walks of life, including music. They were considered as lower grade to the singers, and hence were to be bare chested while performing. It is said that he dropped out of music lessons early on due to such caste based biases he faced, and chose not to accept. Another anecdote narrates that as a kid, he would visit the annual Thiruvarur temple festival where the whole town would join the procession of the temple chariot. Dalit caste labourers would be whipped by landed classes and their henchmen, in order to pull the heavy chariot faster and keep the procession moving. These scenes hardened his views against the caste system. In fact, he has more than once stated that if he hadn’t formally joined the Dravida Kazhagam, he may well have joined the Communist Party of India, which was playing a lead role in labour mobilisation in the Kaveri Delta region at that time. Such incidents show that from very early on, he was showing an intuitive and innate understanding of social injustice. This wasn’t a man who had to get to college to get his political education; long before his entry to formal activism, he was quite politicised himself.

In his long innings in electoral politics and in government, he has helped initiate several reforms in the economic and social development of Tamil Nadu. Many have been discussed at length in the popular press including the expansion of govt schooling and the midday meal scheme, the health insurance scheme among others. Several obituaries have highlighted many of these achievements, I shall try to highlight the not so well-known ones. TN has among the best bus networks in the country with high frequency buses to the remotest corners of the state. Much of this was due to the state takeover of private bus companies when Kalaignar started the State Transport Corporation in 1972 and banned inhuman hand rickshaws (the ones we still see in Kolkata). His starting the Transgender Welfare Board in 2006 and reserving seats in colleges has meant a whole generation now has access to professional education for the first time. This is partly the reason why TN has quite many transgenders in regular white collar jobs – banks, police, lawyers, etc. TN was the first state in India to legally recognise other genders and extend all welfare benefits to them.

His impacts are indeed greater on the national scene, as a bulwark for federalism and state rights. Under his leadership, the state govt and the party have always resisted over centralizing tendencies of New Delhi, and has provided a political cushion for other states to maintain autonomy. The Inter-State Council, though recommended by the Sarkaria Commission, was formed in large part due to the political pressures of leaders like Kalaignar. The legal status of all regional languages as official languages, and the fact that Hindi isn’t our national language, is largely down to the DMK.

But personally, the true lasting impacts of Kalaignar will be the hardest to gauge for those unfamiliar with TN society. The extent of feudalism and the strength of the caste hierarchy is much lower than most other parts of the country. Mere change in policy and schemes doesn’t result in social change. Kalaignar kept alive the rhetoric of social reform very strong throughout his political career. He made sure the public discourse in the state always had social justice woven into it. Coupled with the various social justice schemes, adequate representation of all communities in administration, education, govt jobs, and through universal public welfare schemes – it is his political rhetoric of anti-caste and secularism that ensured the state inched towards actual social change, and not just on paper. For instance, he championed the giving up of caste surnames for all TN households – something rest of India still fails to understand when reading a TN name. His constant rhetoric of rationality and opposition to superstition has also enabled a whole generation of tamilians to speak up against religious bigotry, for atheism and against blind belief in religion in a free and engaging manner in mass public discourse. Indeed, several of the ideas that even now exist in the liberal fringe of the national discourse have been relatively mainstreamed in tamil discourse, thanks largely to the overall political climate of social reform he championed. Especially in today’s times of Hindutva aggression, where we see increased reluctance to call out bigotry, Kalaignar’s DMK has placed TN in a far more progressive position on this question.

Critics have often highlighted a culture of corruption and family nepotism under him, albeit as part of a whole systemic criticism of our Indian political process itself. More specific to him is the criticism of a political culture of personal attacks, ridicule, mockery and general fall in standards of political debate. Ironically, it is this same trait that his supporters cite as introducing characteristic wit and sarcasm to tamil political debate. These are thus, a matter of taste and aesthetics. Indeed, so strong has been his impact over the language of political debate in TN that his opponents have all come to use these same techniques of ridicule and high literary flourishes in speeches. His characteristic voice speaking in “stage tamil” indeed is the gold standard for politicians now.  

Obviously for a career spanning 65 years in public life, political opponents aside, Kalaignar has had his share of ideological opponents as well – those who bemoan some of the above social changes in TN. With the demise of the 2 big colossus of TN politics, Dravidian politics faces threats from 2 fronts – Hindutva as well as Tamil Nationalism, both of them have been more vociferous in the last few years. Over the years, Dravidian forces largely succeeded in TN thanks to their strong ground mobilisation on the social reform plank, their strong intellectual and literary tradition, combined with a political face that Kalaignar provided. But far more than Jayalalithaa or MGR, it was Kalaignar who offered the ideological opposition to these forces. Some say he tasted power too quickly in 1967, and the taste of power has inhibited the ideological and institutional growth of the Dravida Kazhagam. In his absence, the coming years are certainly unclear and hazy for Tamil Politics as well for the larger social reform story of TN.