This fascinating book depicts the agonizing life of millions of innocent coastal fisher-folk in South Asia who have become indirect victims of nationalism and interstate rivalry in the region. It demonstrates how these voiceless and downtrodden people are subjected to different forms of routine violence by competing states in the name of protecting their borders and commercial interests. Thus, while lending a voice to the voiceless the authors eloquently question the fundamental premise of state policy of restricting the movement of coastal fisher-folk and preventing them from crossing borders. Unconventional and radical in its approach and argument, the book covers a wide range of issues relating to nationalism, border security, ecological crisis and fisher-folk identities. States define their maritime boundaries as their inviolable national borders and sea border crossing by fisher-folk is considered as breach of national security.
Surely this is a far-fetched interpretation of national security which states conveniently use at their will to subject innocent and unarmed fisher-folk to harsh treatment including death. State borders sanctioned by national and international law are invariably incomprehensible to fisher-folk and crossing them is a ‘part of their daily existence’ (p. 4). It is not out of their desire for any adventurism, but due to economic compulsions of earning their livelihood. Fishing is the source of their economic survival and thus the community’s dependence on the sea is total. For them, seas do not have borders and state demarcations of them, though political and legal, are unacceptable.
Cases studies cover the agonizing experiences of fisher-folk in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Given the Indo-centric nature of the South Asian region there is a bilateral dimension to the problem involving India and its immediate neighbours. While Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan fisher-folks suffer in Indian jails, Indian fishermen are deprived of basic human rights in these South Asian countries. Arrest and detention of fishermen has enormous economic consequences for their families. Thus, it is not only fishermen as individual bread-winners who suffer but also their families due to their arrest or death. Governments in South Asia are not concerned about such sufferings. For them, maintaining security and sanctity of borders is far more important than upholding human rights of boundary-crossing aliens. In this context, the authors portray a grim and pathetic picture of the life of hundreds of such jailed people in South Asia. India and Pakistan are at the top in ill-treating fisher-folk. Their fishermen are, in the words of authors, ‘victims of a world obsessed with national pride and rampant with boundary wars’ (p. 68). Both states consider each other’s fisher-folk as a national security threat that they deal with in a similar fashion of using coercion and national laws for detention. Their behaviour is also influenced by their built-in tendency to take revenge. National or state-level built-up antagonisms are directed towards hapless fishermen who become the worst victims of state rivalry. Freedom for the jailed fishermen is contingent upon improvement in bilateral relations. Since India-Pakistan relations are seldom good, fishermen are seldom released from jails.
The story of Indian fishermen in Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan fishermen in India is not very different. The number of victims may be less but the experiences are the same. This reveals that in dealing with the fishermen issue, states behave the same way. Border crossing in the Palk Strait has a long history. As such, problems of Indian and Sri Lankan fisher-folk are longstanding without a permanent solution. The Sri Lankan navy is periodically involved in the killing of Indian fishermen, whereas the Indian coastguards arrest those Sri Lankans who cross to Indian borders. Interestingly, improvements in bilateral relations do not make any impact on the treatment meted out to each other’s fisher-folk. Rather, they provide the condition for larger bilateral securitization measures aimed at preventing border crossing without, at the same time, addressing deeper socio-economic issues at stake. India-Sri Lanka border crossing has a sub-national dimension; it is an important influencing factor in Centre-State relations in India. Detention and killing of Tamil Nadu fishermen often echo in state politics where the political parties seek to make political mileage in a competitive fashion. Furthermore, ethnic civil war in the island has added a serious dimension to complicate the issue; this has strengthened the desire of both India and Sri Lanka to adopt securitization measures. The India-Sri Lanka fisher-folk problem reveals that the cross-national ethnic linkages tend to be weak and fluid. Though the Tamil fisher-folk from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka share a common ethnicity, they are strongly opposed to each other’s border-crossing. Commercial interests outweigh ethnic affinity.
The same can be said about fishermen from West Bengal and Bangladesh where identities crosscut, thereby highlighting the ‘arbitrariness and violence of discourses of nationhood, citizenship and sovereignty’ (p. 182). In opposing border crossing both the Indian and Bangladeshi states totally ignore the ecological and socioeconomic dimensions of the problem. Bangladesh faces a severe ecological threat to 6,000 sq km Sundarbans; Indian sea fishing has also suffered from the same problem but of a different magnitude. This coupled with the economic backwardness of fisher-folk works as a compulsive factor in crossing sea borders. Availability of fish forms an incentive for border crossing. Because of such activities of the fisher-folk, as the authors rightly argue, the ‘significance of border and religion’ in the case of India and Bangladesh are often underplayed. For fisher-folk involved in such activities, ‘the existing maps often do not provide directions for their movements, and the routes, boundaries and territories demarcated are not the one they often know’ (p. 176).
The strength of the study lies not only in its analytical rigour but also presentation of views of the fisher-folk by way of substantiating their arguments. Both authors have done a commendable job of collecting primary data through painstaking field visits to the coastal zones of South Asia. Adopting a subaltern approach, the authors represent and reflect the views of the coastal fisher-folk communities when it is usual to find state-centric national security perspectives dominating any discourse. In that sense it is a view from below, highlighting ‘elements of inequality, domination and exclusion, and their rationalization through the control of sea frontiers’. The exercise, in the words of the authors, underscores ‘a kind of social panopticon of surveillance and coercion, whereby the movement of coastal fisher-folk is restricted in multiple ways’ (p. 201). Revealing the inherent desire of fisher-folk to cross sea borders, the book vividly highlights the price they pay for such movements.
In any field of study, arguments invariably evoke counter arguments. This is also true in the case of the book under review. Looking at the everyday misery of coastal fisher-folk in South Asia purely from a normative standpoint, there is no difficulty in accepting what the authors have argued so passionately. But there are some fundamental legal and political principles determining state behaviour, which need to be factored in discussions on people (non-citizens)-state relations. It is extremely difficult to find a borderless state in the world. If borders are legally and politically accepted structures which states seek to build and protect, what should be questioned is not creating borders but states’ border management policies. This is where, in relation to the treatment of fisher-folk in South Asia, the argument of creating flexible, soft sea borders assumes significance. This will address the basic concerns and inherent desires of fisher-folk communities in the region. Discussions and policy decisions in this regard should incorporate the six principles the authors have identified: prevention, precaution, right to information, participation in decision-making, access to justice, and perpetuator-pay principle. If creating soft borders is contingent upon improvement in relations between states, civil society has a greater role in sensitizing states to the need to protect the interests of fisher-folk and push them to be favourable to the idea and practice of new border regimes in South Asia. The authors have done their bit by exposing the untold miseries of fisher-folk to the world. The multiple approaches and perspectives adopted in the book have enhanced its utility. It is a welcome addition to the literature on maritime, security and ecological studies.
- Sahadevan is with the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.