Rules of enragement- the Enrica Lexie affair

I am flummoxed by the usually smug, often bigoted and always sanctimonious Indian media coverage on the Enrica Lexie affair. 

This is why. 

A little more than a month ago, yet another Indian fisherman was reported to have been killed by the Sri Lankan navy while fishing off the Kodiakarai coast- Point Calimere- which sits at the edge of the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. He was the second to have been murdered within ten days. The fisherman, 28-year-old Jeyakumar, was on an Indian fishing boat that was boarded by the Lankan navy, after which he and two other fishermen in the boat were ordered to jump into the sea. Jeyakumar was frozen with fear- some reports say he remained traumatised by his experiences during the tsunami that struck the coast in 2004. Enraged by his apparent disobedience, the Lankans tied a rope around his neck, threw him overboard and dragged him in the water until he drowned. His body was found with the rope tied around its neck by his friends later.

About two hundred Indian fishermen have been killed by the Sri Lankans in the last thirty years.  And, although a few of these deaths have made it to the Indian media, there has been no large-scale indignation and no self-righteous screaming. No strident reminders about India being an emerging power that should act like one. No outdated outrage after pulling old colonialist rabbits out of a hat. Nobody has their knickers in a twist here: not the government, not the media, not shipping and certainly not the broader Indian society- outside southern fishing communities, of course.  Jeyakumar and the incident- that the Sri Lankans said was 'baseless'- was quickly forgotten after a brief mention in the newspapers last month. 

On another sea border, this time with Pakistan, the war of attrition (read 'Harami Nala', published HERE two years ago) - and of torture and worse- has gone on for decades. Thousands of fishermen have been arrested, their boats confiscated and sometimes auctioned. At least sixty Indian fishermen have been detained in Pakistan for fishing in its waters in the last month alone. Fishermen are kept in Indian and Pakistani jails without trial for years; sometimes neither side will even release their names, something that would let their families know whether they are dead or alive at least. Some presumably die in prison; we just do not know how many or who. Of those actually brought to trial, hundreds have completed their sentences and have not been released.  All this a result of a combination of stubborn antagonism, the absence of GPS on many fishing boats and nebulous, disputed borders that lie between two stubborn States. 

This has been going on for decades without media outrage. No screaming headlines even for a day, actually. I guess an ongoing atrocity is stale news- the old adage about a million deaths becoming just a statistic rings true. Or perhaps following a story for more than a week is too fatiguing for the apathetic folk in our newsrooms who claim to be journalists.

More than three years ago, on 18 November, 2008, the Indian naval vessel Tabar fired upon and sank the Thai fishing vessel 'Ekawat Nava 5' about 300 miles southwest of Salalah, Oman.  The fishing boat had a crew of 15 or 16. Only one survived- he was picked up by a passing vessel after six days in the water. INS Tabar had claimed it saw armed pirates on deck and the Ekawat was a pirate mother vessel; the survivor claimed that the boat had been hijacked but was not being used as a mother ship.  The owner of the fishing boat had reported to the International Maritime Bureau that his boat had been hijacked, a fact that the British Navy had then confirmed, adding that any military action could harm the crew of the fishing boat. The IMB sent an alert to other multi-coalition patrol vessels but IMB head Choong said it was unclear whether the Indian naval vessel had received it, as it had no direct IMB links. "The Indian navy assumed it was a pirate vessel because they may have seen armed pirates on board the boat which had been hijacked earlier," Mr Choong told the Associated Press, calling the incident an 'unfortunate tragedy'.

Not a squeak at that time, or since, in the Indian media, except for reports carried about the 'heroic' efforts of the Indian navy in counter piracy operations. Not a thought for more than a dozen Thai and Cambodian fishermen presumably killed by us. 

The Indian response to piracy was no less indiscriminate and trigger happy when piracy came to its own shores two years or so after the Ekawat incident. Rattled by insurance companies adding its west coast to the 'war zone' after a spate of attacks  close off Gujarat, Mumbai, Kerala and Lakshadweep, the Indian government seemed to have authorised its navy with shoot to kill orders at the time. There are many incidents that point to this, including that of the sinking of the mother vessel Prantalay off the Lakshadweep coast a year ago, in January 2011.  The Indian navy fired upon (and subsequently sank) the Prantalay disregarding its hostage crew, many of whom jumped into the water after a fire broke out on the mother vessel. Did any of the crew die in the Indian attack? It does not appear so, judging by reports, but if so it was providence, and not because of Indian actions. 

Of course, there have been incidents involving other navies- the South Koreans, the Russians and the Americans, who killed a Taiwanese skipper of a fishing boat- but we are talking, somewhat uncomfortably, of India here. Let us point our fingers at ourselves first.

So why has the tragic killing of two Indian fishermen by Italian naval personnel on the Enrica Lexie precipitated such outrage in the Indian media that it has consumed headlines for days? Could it have something to do with the simple fact that the Lexie was brought to Kochi and- along with the crew and the armed guards- could be paraded, photographed and videotaped? Is the television coverage just a Costa Concordia moment or is it something more?  

Why the stridency and screaming? Why the derogatory and colonial references to Italians that smack more of bigotry than anything else does? I do believe that the Indian media is more interested in the story than the Indian nation is, for whatever reason. If you disagree, tell me the names of the two dead fishermen, please.

Who decides to ignore the atrocities committed on thousands of fishermen for decades and go to town on the killing of two others? Who decides to send out a call for India to disregard due process, legal jurisdiction or international law? Who decides that the saga of the Enrica Lexie is more important, or more tragic, than that of the fisherman Jeyakumar? Who decides to tell us what we should be upset about?

Who decides these rules of enragement?

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Harami Nala

(Green line: Boundary claimed by Pakistan. Red line: boundary claimed by India, source wikipedia)

Locals call it the ‘Harami Nala’ (‘Bastard Channel’ is my closest translation); the rest of the world knows this area, formed by the estuaries of the Indus, as Sir Creek. This hundred kilometer stretch of the Rann of Kutch is disputed; claimed by India and Pakistan for over forty years, the fracas goes back to Partition. The reasons are political, historical and economic: parts of the creek may be rich in oil and gas, and the brackish water makes for good fishing grounds.

It is the arena of fishermen, criminals, smugglers and Pakistani backed infiltration: the terrorists that attacked Mumbai from the sea are thought to have taken the Indian fishing boat ‘Kuber’ in Sir Creek, and Indian Border Security Force officials say that this is a regular infiltration zone with Pakistani terrorists trying to enter India disguised as fishermen. The creek is also the setting of much anguish and despair: hundreds of fishermen are detained every year by both India and Pakistan in a continuing war of attrition that is against all international norms and in contravention of the UN Law of the Sea convention, which bars detention of fishermen even if they stray into hostile borders.

The fishermen are instead kept in Indian and Pakistani jails for years without even any pretence of human rights. Their families only know that they are missing: neither side will often not even release the names of those that it has detained. Not that things are better when the Indians or Pakistanis formally convict these fishermen: as things stand today, an estimated 480 Indian and 100 Pakistani fishermen have completed terms of their imprisonment but have not been released, And, although each side claims that these detainees were fishing illegally in their waters, the fact is that most of the fishermen were on small fishing boats in a disputed area and with no access to modern navigational position fixing systems: they did not know exactly where they were when they were arrested. And of course, there are no lines drawn in the sea or in estuaries that mark marine borders anyway, and the borders in this case are hazy and disputed to begin with.

Guess what? I think that things are going to get even worse for the fishermen.

I say this despite the release, in one of those periodic confidence building measures that both countries seem to love but which accomplish little, of a hundred Indian fishermen by Pakistan in December and around thirty Pakistani fishermen by India in January. I say this despite India and Pakistan both claiming that they will not imprison the other’s fishermen any longer: this is periodic rhetoric that fools nobody (the Pakistanis have subsequently arrested other Indian fishermen). I say this despite other feel good (but, eventually impotent) initiatives like the ‘Aman Ki Aasha (Hope for Peace)- a joint effort by the Times of India and the Pakistani Jang newspapers, one that some hope will address the plight of fishermen as well. I agree with Muhammad Ali Shah, Chairman of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, when he says that both countries are playing a numbers game and nothing more.

I say things will get worse for the main reason that the security situation in the waters of the Arabian Sea is deteriorating and threat perceptions must therefore be raised. For one, the by now infamous ‘Karachi Project’- where Indian nationals are being trained by the Pakistanis as sleepers for future terrorist strikes in India- requires a fair level of illegal cross border movement from Pakistan. The other favourite hunting ground, Kashmir, is far away, and Sir Creek is a logical and tested infiltration theatre; I am sure that Karachi was chosen as the centre for command and control for this reason.

In the broader context, the movement of fighters from Afghanistan and regions of Pakistan where things have got a little hot in the glare of American scrutiny is old news. Amorphous organisations and official elements from within the State of Pakistan are again sending their jehadi foot soldiers out, this time into Yemen, Somalia (including, in some cases, to Somali pirates) and the like: much of this traffic will, again logically, move through Karachi, as it always has. This is nothing new: many of us who sailed in the region a year or two after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US will recall Western naval vessels and aircraft keeping a strict (and unofficial) traffic control system in place in the Western Arabian Sea and southwards. Chatter on the VHF made it obvious that they were particularly interested in ships departing Pakistan- that usually means Karachi. We were regularly requested to report details of our ship and its ownership, cargo, crew and particularly of any stowaways to these navies. German military planes used to buzz us often- and once, when I was ahead of schedule and had stopped engines briefly for a boat drill (but also to enjoy the sight of the hundreds of dolphins that gambol in the warm waters of the ocean), I found a French naval vessel curious enough about my shenanigans to approach within half a mile of me.

There are enough signs already that life will be getting even more complicated for our fisherfolk. Post Mumbai attacks, the Indian Government has, amongst its other sometimes painfully slow anti-terrorist countermeasures, started installing ISRO developed tracking devices on the country’s trawlers; boats can also use these to send out alerts in emergencies, including, I presume, if they are boarded by Pakistani agencies as a prelude to detention. In addition, a census of Gujarati fishermen has been taken and a database is to be setup. In addition to other such actions, and in a move that had the fishermen’s lobby protesting outside Parliament in New Delhi, a new Marine Fisheries Bill is proposed. It gives the Centre greater powers to regulate fisheries in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The proposed legislation intends to effectively amend the Constitution that gives the States the right to govern such activity up to 12 miles from land. Fishermen are particularly angry about the requirement that will make them get a special permit from the central administration for undertaking any fishing activity outside territorial waters.

It is a given that any counter-terrorism measures a country takes will encroach upon the life and freedoms of its citizens; fishermen should be no exception. However, the tit for tat arrest of fishermen that has been accepted as normal in Sir Creek for decades is reprehensible- and illegal in international law. This, too, is criminalisation of those that go to sea to make a living. These fishermen are sailors, like so many of us. Their detention- and sometimes alleged torture- should not be summarily ignored by most citizens of their own countries, as it is today. They should no longer spend years in jail on trumped up charges- or even none. Their families should not have to live in torment, not knowing whether their husbands and fathers have drowned or are alive and being tortured.

This travesty has gone on for far too long already. It must stop at once, before more people start wondering whether it is more than just the nala that is harami.

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