Conflicts between fishermen of two States are not new, say community leaders. So are conflicts among fishermen inside Tamil Nadu.
Almost every fishing village in the country has had skirmishes with its neighbours when it comes to fishing grounds and fish landings.
However, when it comes to resolving them, the police and fisheries department officials are afraid of only thing — they don’t want a law and order issue on their hands, said C.R. Senthilvel, State General Secretary, Tamil Nadu Meenpidi Thozhil Sanga Kootamaippu, which is affiliated to the CITU.
“Recently, when fishermen of Dhanushkodi went to fish off Seeniappa Dargah in the Gulf of Mannar, the fishermen there objected strongly and the Dhanushkodi fishermen were packed off. The police did not see it as a right of the fishermen to fish anywhere on the Indian coast.
The police at times intervene and encourage the Fisheries Department to deny anchor permission to fishermen from other villages to prevent a law and order situation,” he said.
Local regulations
Different villages have different rules. Some villages demand a percentage of the catch and in some places the fish would have to be sold to only one strongman from the village.
Clusters of fishing hamlets have what is called the thalamaigramam (a village that is considered the leader) and they set the rules relating to fishing. “The paadu system cannot be violated and if it is, violators are fined hefty amounts,” explained a former official of the Fisheries Department.
There have also been instances when boats belonging to a village that had a fishing harbour fished in grounds belonging to adjacent fishing villages, and the fishermen got beaten up.
The most recent instance was in Periya Thaazhai in Thoothukudi district. Similar incidents have also happened in Nagapattinam and Kanniyakumari.
“When fishermen from the next village can’t tolerate the other, how do you expect fishermen from neighbouring States to keep quiet,” the official wondered.
The relatively small area between Tiruchendur and Kanniyakumari is an excellent fish breeding ground. The mega mechanised boats of Thoothukudi and Chinna Muttom and Colachel fishing harbours in Kanniyakumari district would test their fortunes in these areas with huge bottom trawling nets.
Whenever the mechanized boats entered this ‘danger zone’, particularly before dawn, the larger vessels would plough through the smaller crafts in the night, leading to loss of fishnets and irreparable damage to the fibreglass boats, and even men, at times.
An agreement was reached between the country boat fishermen of Tirunelveli district and the mechanized boat fishermen of both Thoothukudi and Kanniyakumari in the presence of Fisheries Department officials decades ago.
As per the accord, the mechanised vessels should not carry out their fishing operations in the areas situated 3 nautical miles from the seashore as the fishermen with smaller fibreglass crafts will be out into the sea between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.