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Story From Trenches: Life Of Fishermen and reforms needed

My dad, Dr. K. K. Raju, is a highly motivated , dedicated, public service minded person. He truly believes that he is a 'Public Servant' and lives by the same principle. I have been urging him for a while to write about his observations and finally he is here with his first article (edited by me)

This article is based on the observations of fishermen's life and covers the following topics:

1. Lifestyle

2. Victims of money lenders

3. Impact Of Education

4. What they need

1. Lifestyle: Fishermen live is small villages on seas shores headed by Panchayat of 4 to 5 persons and all the fishermen of the village abide by the panchayats rules and regulations. (If you have seen 'Swadesh' movie you will know what panchayat looks like.) They usually live in small huts beside sea with bare minimum amenities and almost no luxury items. They usually don't have deep contacts with people in villages/towns on the main land.

   Fishermen go for fishing on the sea and stay there for about a week and come back with good catch. They sell the catch to the middlemen and earn handsome(in their terms) money. But all of this handsome money is immediately spent on alcohol. Once they come out of alcohol influence they realize that they need money to manage their families and so go to money lenders to borrow money. According to my research 70% to 80% of the fishermen above the age of 30 are alcoholics. In lean periods i.e. when the time is not conducive for fishing their debts keep mounting as they don't have land or cattle or any other occupation to earn a living.

2. Victims of money lenders / middle men: Who are these money lenders? They are the same middlemen who buy their catch, supply alcohol to drink . Lets see how this cycle works:

   • Fishermen go for fishing and come back with their catch.
   • They sell the catch at drop dead prices to the middlemen.
   • They spend almost all of this money on alcohol.
   • Then they go to moneylenders for debts to manage their lives until they go for fishing again.
   
   
   So a regular fisherman is money generation tool for middlemen and the middlemen makes sure that the fishermen are mired in poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and alcoholism.

3. Impact of Education: I have mentioned earlier that about 70%-80% of the fishermen above the age of 30 are alcoholics. To my surprise I realized that only 20%-30% of them below the age of 30 are alcoholics. And I had to ask these questions:

   Q: “How did this change come?”

   A: “Some of the youth are educated and education changed our perspective. We got exposure to the people on the main land villages and towns and became aware how abstaining from alcohol increased our social status. As non-alcoholics we command more respect in the society.”

   Q: “How many people are educated? What education do they have? ”

   A: All elders are uneducated. Kids are going to school, but the school has facilities to teach only up to 5^th class. Very few of them will go for further studies as there is no local high school and there is no proper road and bus facility to the nearest high school. Hence out of 90 families one intermediate and two tenth class students are there in the village.

   Its surprising that these few meagerly educated people of the village are coming forward to embrace change and the change started with adopting non-alcoholism. Education's impact is not stopping at alcoholism, it continuously keeps displaying its charms. Previously middlemen used to buy fish at exorbitantly low prices and exploit the fishermen. Now the educated youth are coming forward and asking help to form co-operative societies. They explain that co-operative societies at Cochin in Kerala are doing wonders to the fishermen. By forming co-operative societies they can sell the fish without middlemen, distribute the profits among themselves and entirely changing their lifestyles. Benefits of co-operative societies also include capacity to construct cold storages to store fish for longer periods of time, loans/grants from government/banks to safeguard themselves from fishermen, group insurances for fishermen their nets and boats. They are aware of this benefits and they need assistance and guidance to go about this process.

4. What they need:

   • More Education Facilities.
   • Infrastructure like bus, road and may be telephone and other forms of infrastructure.
   • Proper Housing.
   • Land to cultivate and Milch Animals to earn during their lean period and food assurance in their lean periods.
   • Cold storage to store their fish for longer periods and thus command better prices.
   • Insurance facilities.
   • Co-operative societies.

   About The Author: Dr. K. K. Raju, Joint Director, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Prakasam Dt. Managing director of Prakasam Dt. sheep breeders co-union ltd. In addition to managing animal husbandry department he also manages works of agriculture, horticulture, sericulture and fisheries departments as an incharge ATMA. He is currently working as a special officer for TSUNAMI, at NG Padu mandal, Prakasam Dt, Andhra Pradesh, India, to look after the welfare of the fishermen at sea coast. When he was young he has to travel almost 20km everyday on foot to get a high school education.

   Dr. K.K. Raju can be reached at +91-94408-10756 or arun_raj_yadav at yahoo dot co dot in