After a lifetime spent at sea, Noor-ul-Islam is now landlocked. He has traded his fishing nets for cauliflower, tomatoes and onions, his sturdy boat for a wooden push cart.
This unwelcome swap is the price of freedom for a simple fisherman caught between the enmity of two quarrelling nations.
Islam returned to this Karachi slum late last year after almost three years spent languishing in neighboring India’s penal system. But without his boat — confiscated by Indian authorities — he had to find a new career to support his seven sons and one daughter.
“I was left with no choice but to give up fishing and start selling vegetables to make ends meet,” Islam said in an interview.
The 61-year-old was among a group of 21 fishermen arrested by Indian maritime guards in 2011. They had been fishing in Sir Creek, an almost 100-kilometre-long stretch of waterway that divides Pakistan’s Sindh Province from India’s Gujarat State. Just where the boundary lies in the middle of the channel is, like many border issues between the two countries, a matter of contention. But local fishermen on both sides believe it is teeming with fish, and so they risk arrest in hopes of filling their nets.
When Islam last tried his luck there in 2011, Indian authorities seized his boat.
“We begged Indian forces to let us go, telling them that we were fishing in our own area, but we were scared into silence with kicks and punches,” Islam recalled.
He said Indian authorities accused him of terrorism, of spying and of possessing weapons. After nine months of frequent court visits, he was convicted of “violating territorial waters” and handed a two-year jail sentence.
What Islam experienced is not uncommon for fishermen on either side of the border. The friction between Pakistan and India plays itself out here on the coast, where there are no physical boundaries to delineate the two countries’ maritime claims.
Fishermen like Islam are effectively pawns in the larger dispute: if India arrests Pakistani fishermen, Pakistan will do the same in kind. Rather than being released and sent home, however, they are often jailed, like Islam, spending more than a year in prison.
Authorities on both sides treat fishermen more like prisoners of war. They are arrested, imprisoned, then released in batches when it is politically advantageous.
Diplomatic gestures
The number of fishermen jailed in both Pakistan and India runs into the hundreds. Abdul Kabir Kazi, the home secretary in Sindh, told journalists in Karachi in February that about 250 Indian fishermen remained in custody; he said a similar number of Pakistanis were held in Indian jails.
But advocacy groups on both sides say there is no reason for either country to arrest fishermen who stray into each other’s claimed maritime territories. Muhammad Ali Shah, chairman of the Karachi-based Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, said the bickering nations should sign a mutual “no-arrest policy”, charting out a “safe zone” where small-scale fishermen will not face prosecution.
“Pakistan and India need to find a permanent solution for this issue,” he said in an interview.
Shah contends that both Pakistan and India are guilty of flouting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, or UNCLOS. The convention states that arrested crews or vessels must be released “promptly” after a “reasonable bond” has been posted, and that penalties for violating a country’s fisheries laws “may not include imprisonment” or “any other form of corporal punishment”.
Instead, Shah said, authorities on both sides treat fishermen more like “prisoners of war”. They are arrested, imprisoned, then released in batches when it is politically advantageous.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fresh off an election victory, threw his inauguration ceremony last May, he extended a rare invitation to his counterpart in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif. In turn, Sharif then ordered the release of some 151 jailed Indian fishermen in what analysts said was a show of goodwill.
The fates of those fishermen were caught in the ebb and flow of a tense, cross-border relationship. For Pakistan and India, it was just one step in a pattern of catch and release that continues today.
In August last year, the two countries were scheduled to hold high-level talks before Modi canceled the planned summit days before, reportedly because Pakistani authorities had met with Kashmiri separatists to India’s chagrin.
It was a setback for India-Pakistan relations just months after Modi’s inauguration invitation suggested restrained optimism. Accordingly, in September, Pakistan announced the arrest of two dozen Indian fishermen. Further arrests have continued in the ensuing months.
But earlier in February, representatives of both countries announced that talks would soon resume: India’s Modi had agreed to send his foreign secretary to Pakistan. Shortly after, Pakistan announced that it would release 172 Indian fishermen.
“We have freed 172 Indian prisoners as a goodwill gesture,” Kazi, the Sindh home secretary, said when he explained the decision to Pakistani media. “I hope that India will reciprocate the gesture.”
Across the border, along a tip of Gujarat coastline, a weary family celebrated.
“Fishermen are not pirates or criminals. They go fishing and earn a livelihood for their families, and nothing else.”
Maritime politics
Chaganbhai Bamania reckons he’s just a shadow of his former self. When the 36-year-old set off on a routine fishing trip into the Arabian Sea almost a year ago, he weighed 65 kilograms, or about 145 pounds. But when he returned home to coastal Diu last week, he had lost more than 30 pounds — the result, he claims, of the paltry meals he had been eating in a Karachi jail for the last 11 months.
Bamania was one of the 172 fishermen Pakistan released earlier in February. What he came home to, however, was a poverty brought on by his absence.
Speaking by phone with ucanews.com, Bamania said he was the sole breadwinner in his family. After his arrest by Pakistani authorities, his wife was forced to pull four of their young sons from school because she could barely afford to run the household without his income.
“Our families have become almost destitute due to our arrest,” he said.
It’s a common story among many in this fishing community. Kamalaben Vazzar said her two sons-in-law were arrested two years ago. Her daughters, she said, have become “paupers” in their absence.
“Fishermen are not pirates or criminals,” she said. “They go fishing and earn a livelihood for their families, and nothing else.”
Jatanbhai Bamania — no relation to Chaganbhai — said he witnessed the deaths of three Indian fishermen during his 11 months in prison.
“They were taken out of the jail for treatment after their condition deteriorated, but they could not be saved,” he said.
For years, Indian authorities have urged local fishermen not to venture into Pakistani territory. They have introduced public awareness programs and even installed GPS systems on boats. These efforts, however, have not stopped the arrests.
Bamania said he had a GPS system on his boat when he was arrested, but he did not understand how to use it.
“I am not educated, and hence could not read the warning,” he said.
Even so, the promise of large catches in the open seas means that many fishermen will continue to risk arrest. Bamania said many local fishermen believe there are more fish in Pakistani waters.
Ukiben Varjan, whose husband was arrested by Pakistani authorities two years ago then released in February as part of the 172, said it is poor people who are bearing the brunt of a political rivalry.
“Political relations between the two countries are responsible for the plight of the fishermen,” she said. “Both countries should improve relations so that poor people, like fishermen, don’t suffer.”
The fates of those fishermen were caught in the ebb and flow of a tense, cross-border relationship. For Pakistan and India, it was just one step in a pattern of catch and release that continues today.
Death in prison
Back across the border in Pakistan, Sindh’s minister for fisheries, Jam Khan Shoro, said authorities are attempting to stop Pakistani fishermen from crossing into Indian territory. Like their counterparts in Gujarat, local officials want to equip fishermen with GPS technology so that they know when they are in disputed waters.
However, he admits that it is a lack of diplomatic effort on both sides that has seen the problem fester.
“We are ready to assist the federal government. It should direct the High Commission to provide legal assistance to fishermen languishing in Indian jails,” he said in an interview.
Any resolution to this long-running issue, however, will be too late for one former fisherman.
In Rehri Goth, a coastal community near Karachi, a fisherman named Nawaz was on a boat that mistakenly crossed into Indian territory during a 1999 cyclone.
For years, his wife, Hamida knew nothing of Nawaz’s fate. Both Nawaz and Hamida use only one name. A few years ago, though, Hamida learned through friends that her husband had died in an Indian prison. They had heard about it in the media.
“All we know is that he died of some illness,” Hamida said, wiping her tears on a scarf.
She held her husband’s national identity card in her hands.
“What was his fault? He had gone to sea to do what we had been doing for generations,” she said.
On the open waters, the maneuvering between Pakistan and India continues. Two months after Pakistan released the 172 fishermen as a goodwill gesture, authorities in April announced they had netted another 47 Indian nationals. They stand accused of “violating territorial waters”, according to local media.
This story was reported by ucanews.com reporters in Karachi, Pakistan and Ahmedabad, India, and originally published at ucanews.com.
