Tip of the Iceberg

The MV Iceberg 1 was taken by pirates on March 29 2010 with 24 crew, one of whom died last November of ‘malnutrition and distress.’ Another had to be ‘tied down’ because he had lost his mind and had threatened to kill himself. The owners, Azal shipping, broke off negotiations for ransom months ago. The crew- including 6 Indians- has been held for more than a year. They ran out of food, medicines and water last year, and are now surviving with no power, on bare rations the pirates give them once a day- and are drinking sewage water. Some are obviously physically and mentally sick. Sometime last year the crew were forced to sail- probably after beatings and torture- the renamed ‘Iceberg’ as a mother ship while the pirates looked for other prey. The pirates are said to have threatened the crew then that they would ‘kill them and sell their body parts’. Some in the industry said later, from the safety of their conference rooms, that this statement was a hoax and a pressurising tactic.

I normally do not watch Indian news channels; my sadomasochistic tendencies do not include watching shrill and vacuous news anchors substituting sound-bytes and sensationalism for news or analysis. But I did watch most of the CNN-IBN circus on the ‘Iceberg’ last week. The channel had managed to get recent video footage from aboard the Iceberg from a Somali who was there; the ship’s crew- minus the one already dead- looked shell shocked and beyond despair as they pleaded for their lives on camera.


Amidst the other self-absorbed ‘experts’ paraded on CNN-IBN was the gutsy Sampa Arya, the wife of one an Indian sailor held hostage in Somalia, and who has been at the forefront of trying to get the Indian government to do something about the indefensible state of affairs. She was scathing in an attack on the Directorate General of Shipping and the Ministries of External Affairs and Defence, all of whom- she said- were making her run from pillar to post while doing nothing, and showing no interest in trying to bring tortured Indians home.

I must declare that the purpose of this piece is not to restate the Indian- or the international community’s- impotence in the face of piracy; that statement is a given and will not look any prettier on repetition. The purpose of the piece is different, and is brought about by the fact that I wondered, as I watched CNN-IBN, also hearing Ms Arya say that piracy was a more than ten year old problem, what my sense of the shipping industry would be if I were not a seafarer, but an ordinary guy: Joe Public with little knowledge about the marine world. What impression would I have of shipping? Not just with the Iceberg story, but in general, based on what I had seen on the news in the last year or three.

Etched into my mind would be the Deep Water Horizon disaster- to a layman, the oil and shipping industries are lumped together- where I was told that a mix of less than safe practices and corruption within the administration in the US were the main reasons why an environmental catastrophe occurred and was covered up.

I would have seen reports of ships, accidents, sinkings and oil spills- including in Mumbai and at least Black Rose off Paradip, if not some others.

I would remember TV reports on the Hebei Spirit incident, and perhaps the faces of the two officers as they came home after jail.

I would remember that Seema Goel, the ‘Stolt Valor’ Captain’s wife, had looked as distressed as Sampa Arya does today when her own husband’s ship was hijacked. I would remember that she ran around Delhi’s babudom trying to get somebody to do something too. I would wonder, was that last year? Two years ago? So nothing has changed?

I- Joe Public- would not be aware of the depth and width of piracy today, or that it had reached Indian shores- the broader corporate mainstream media has done a good job of leaving that alarming news buried- but I would be well aware that Somali piracy has been a huge threat to mariners and ships for a long time. Hijacking of ships seems to be an everyday affair, I would rightly conclude from watching the news. Crews remain hostage for months and are sometimes being tortured. Or killed.

I would have watched reports of the Indian Navy’s ‘successes’ against mother ships and pirates. If I were a thinking man, I would wonder what happened to the hostage crews of those ships when the navies attacked them. How many seamen were killed and by whom in these ‘successes’, I might ask myself?

I would have watched, repeatedly on camera over the weeks, distraught families of seafarer’s taken hostage crying for help. I would wonder why our government did not do anything to help, and how ship owners could just walk away.

“Because we are from a third world country no one cares,” a seafarer hostage told CNN-IBN. I would have noted that, too.

I would have watched, on earlier shows, the Minister of External Affairs wringing his hands- the sole defence of the impotent- claiming that the government was ‘doing everything’ to get the Indians released. I might even wonder what that ‘everything’ was. Considering that Ms Arya had told me that this was more than a ten year old problem, I may even start to think that the Government of India, like God, had been moving in slow, strange and mysterious ways for a long time here, and would continue to do so while more Indians were taken, tortured or even killed.

Shipping is a dangerous, unscrupulous and dirty industry, I would conclude. Like those uneducated labourers who go to oppressive Middle Eastern countries and are treated worse than cattle, seamen do not seem to have any human rights or protection. The Indian Government walks away if there is a problem. The middlemen who call themselves management companies do nothing. Piracy, environmental disasters and innocent workers arrested after accidents seem to be common at sea. Companies abandon seamen. Hostage seamen are being tortured, dying or threatening suicide. Seamen are drinking sewage for water and being given some morsels once a day for food. No medicines. No lights. No hope.

Joe Public doesn’t consciously think about all this, mind. This is just the impression that is reinforced over time. Same as other stories on television.

But then, a year or so later, Joe runs into an old pal who has been sailing for many years. This pal tells him, over a beer or two, that Joe should consider a career at sea for Joe’s now teenage son. The money is good, and the sea makes a man out of a boy, the mariner pal says.

Joe puts down his beer and looks his friend dead in the eye. “A good career option for my son, you say? You must be out of your mind”.



Postscript: another piece of news has just hit CNN-IBN as I write this - Somali pirates have just released the 'Asphalt Venture' after extorting a 3.6 million dollar ransom but retained all its Indian crew as hostages in Somalia; the pirates say that they have collectively decided that these Indians will only be released after India sets free more than a 100 pirates that it’s navy has apprehended off the Indian coast.


Oh boy, those news channels are sure as hell going to milk this one.
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Quiet damnation

Stena lines, the cross Channel ferry operator, brewed a mini storm in a small British teacup recently: Director Pim de Lange said it was hard to find British seafarers “unless you want types with fat bellies and covered with tattoos”. De Lange was happy with Filipinos, who he said were “jumping after a two month holiday to work again for six months.” (I suspect his joy had more to do with the 2.2 GBP an hour wage that the Filipinos are apparently being paid.)


Nautilus, the British maritime union, reacted angrily to de Lange’s comments on British seafarers, calling them slanderous and a “disgrace to the hard working men and women who go to sea.” Many days later, the Stena Director expressed regret for any offence caused. Regret, not apology, and he has not retracted his statement so far.

Well, shipping is not booming today, so maybe de Lange thought he could get away with his tirade. But it was certainly booming about two and a half years ago when a very senior manager in an international ship management company (one that still has a large recruitment presence in India and the Philippines loves to pretend that the organisation is all one big happy family) was reported to have compared seafarers publicly to whores, saying, “if seafarers behaved liked mercenaries and prostitutes, that is how they themselves would be treated.” There was no public outrage in India or elsewhere over this scurrilous denunciation, perhaps because he was talking about seafarers from the developing world.

Do we really expect things to be different in India? A country where the shipping ministry is sometimes used as an economic pay-off for political support? Where the shipping administrations are headed by bureaucratic appointees that will change every couple of years? Where ship managers, with rare exception, can barely hide their disdain for seafarers in stray conversation? A country that has much substandard, poorly maintained and crewed tonnage? Where corruption in the new-entrant recruitment business has reached a stage where it is hard to get a training berth without paying off touts? When little can be done in government ports or with connected authorities without bribery? Where the industry motto seems to be as on a sinking ship, where every rat should be for himself?

I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell do not expect much different, and I suspect neither do most Indian seafarers who are still out at sea. I do not expect much better from other countries either, if that is any consolation. Or from self-serving international institutions that are meant to promote safety but end up adding to mariner problems instead. With stray exceptions, a huge part of our industry is not part of any solution, and, unless mentalities change, never will be.

I suspect change, if and when it comes, will come from commercial pressures alone. It will come from quality owners who are unable to find enough quality seamen. It will come from far thinking managers who will see the commercial advantages in retaining good employees (and letting go the bad ones). It will come from a gradually changing mindset that realises that the dying breed of mariners who choose the career as a first option (and not the last, as too often happens today) and for the right reasons (which are to do with more than just dollars and cents) needs industry support. I can risk saying that this change should be inevitable, because, as far as I can see, shipping is not shutting up shop and going away: it therefore needs quality mariners as much as mariners need quality ships.

But I am not too sanguine about this change happing easily: somehow, I cannot see Chinese or Indian ship owners- as just two examples of countries where tonnage is likely to grow rapidly- losing too much sleep over quality just yet. I am more confident of Western ship owners spearheading change, also because their national regulations are tougher, environmental and safety requirements more robust and administrations cleaner. Tougher implementation of laws means a greater demand for quality seafarers.

Not everything is very clean in the West, though, as evidenced by the recent MAIB UK report on the fishing vessel Olivia Jean. Amongst an assemblage of findings to do with poor stability criteria, maintenance, documentation and equipment, the vessel was carrying up to 15 crewmembers at a time when restricted to six, the Latvians and Ghanaians were working long hours without rest, and the owner “was showing a total disregard for the safety and welfare of his employees.” The fishing industry in the UK, Scotland and Ireland has been accused in the past of ‘slavery of Indonesian and Filipino fishermen’ – not enough has changed, judging by more recent reports.


An aside: Lloyds recently carried an article that said, “A significant number of UK officer cadets are so short of money that they are taking second jobs to make ends meet during their training.” Flipping hamburgers at MacDonald’s was mentioned. Dignity of labour banalities aside, is this the state of affairs that we want to see in the industry? Do we expect people to take pride in a profession when they cannot make ends meet pursuing it?


As for the present sorry state of affairs in India, the more I think about it, the more I reach the conclusion that the few remaining Indian mariners who expect the country or their peers to come up with ideas to address their issues (and obviously connected, problems of the recruitment business) bang their unprotected heads against a brick wall. Which is why few sailors actually expect anything out of the country in general and their colleagues ashore in particular. Ask them. All they want to do is to come home in one piece with their wages paid, without facing a major incident at sea or being taken hostage- on one pretext or the other- by the likes of either illegal Somali pirates or properly authorised thugs of legal governments.

Much as I hate to say this, I think they are right in their low- nearing zero- expectations from the industry. I think it is people ashore that make a big noise- and only a big noise- about the need to improve the seafarer’s lot everywhere. The average sailor, however, has given up expecting anything from anybody in the business ashore. He is getting on with his life anyway.

If you ask me, this stoical acceptance of neglect by our seamen is the biggest condemnation of all.
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Kitty litter and the STCW amendments.

Never mind that the war is being lost: the good folk at the Manila STCW conference did what the Americans would love to do in Afghanistan and Iraq: declare victory and go home. Meanwhile, in the wake of the ‘Manila amendments’ (this nomenclature will long cause heartburn to many a presumptuous Indian) will be found the usual debris of the dashed hopes of seafarers.


Bluntly put, the Manila amendments read like a business plan and not a serious attempt to address issues related to training or fatigue of watchkeepers at sea. They results are the maritime education industry’s wet dream: the new requirements and “guidelines” will open up new revenue streams for these MET businesses that have proven to be largely substandard in all major seafarer supplying nations of the world.

Regardless, new training will be required in ECDIS, “marine environment awareness” (whatever the hell that is), dynamic positioning systems, navigation in polar waters, leadership and teamwork, security, liquefied gas tankers and OSVs, to begin with. Later on, we will be blessed with new training and certification for electro-technical staff. And, in a pathetically hilarious interlude, “New requirements for security training, as well as provisions to ensure that seafarers are properly trained to cope if their ship comes under attack by pirates.” (Cope? What is cope, please? Is it like a cop out?)

Fatigue, the second major issue, has been covered in the usual blinkered and cynical manner, and is, in a way, a testimony to impotence. At a time when present rules are universally ignored and ships are operated every day with fatigued watchkeepers, the IMO, in its infinite wisdom, ignores this blatant non-compliance. It admits, though not in as many words, that it cannot do anything about Safe Manning Certificates that are within the purview of Flag States (who, as we know, have no interest in making their flags less attractive to owners). Instead, the STCW amendments come up with new provisions for hours of rest for watchkeepers: ten hours minimum a day, 77 hours a week and with the usual claptrap of details and exceptions. Is this the best we can do, two decades after the issue of fatigue surfaced?

All that I foresee, because of all this ballyhoo, is a fudging of rest period records on an even bigger scale post the Manila amendments. I do not know anybody who seriously expects anything different. Ten hours a day? Seventy-seven hours a week? I hear the industry scoff: what do you people think this is, a luxury cruise?

The third major issue addressed was related to certification- measures to prevent fraudulent practices and other such subjects. Seafarers can move along: nothing much for them here either.

The problems I have with the Manila amendments are many, but the continued myopic system of regulation, guidelines and amendments has to be my biggest objection. Consider:

• Problem: many MET institutes in the major seafarer supplying nations- including India and the Philippines- are way below par. The IMO’s solution: none.
• Problem: seafarers are already hugely burdened with costs and time for training. The IMO’s solution: add more training.
• Problem: piracy and the failure of the ISPS code. The IMO solution: salt on mariner wounds. New training in anti-piracy and security.
• Problem: existing rest period requirements flagrantly ignored. The IMO solution: amend them upwards. That should do the trick.
• Problem: IMO sets minimum standards, member States interpret, but the interpretation is often egged on by businessmen. The IMO solution: none
• Problem: too much regulation, too little compliance. The IMO solution: more regulation.

Thank God, I don’t intend to sail anymore. Besides the obvious reasons, I cannot think of anything in the Manila amendments that will greatly promote safer seas or cleaner oceans, or indeed make the career any more attractive for a new seafarer- another IMO objective, at least on paper, in this “Year of the Seafarer”.


To end, a short story: We often leave a large plastic tray filled with kitty litter when we go out for the weekend. The cat does the dirty deed in it, and then covers the waste up by pawing around and covering up with clean litter. The kitty litter is then good to be reused again. And again, after some more pawing and covering up.

Thing is, once in a while the old faeces has to be cleaned up to keep the tray clean, else the cat will just not use it. Perhaps we should have done that first, this time with the Manila amendments, before we poured new litter into the same old bin. Maybe there is a lesson for all of us in there, somewhere in the kitty litter.
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What Indian maritime fraternity?

Notwithstanding the clichés spewed out regularly by interested parties, it is with deep ruefulness that I allege that the ‘maritime community’ does not exist. It died before it was even born, for it is a maritime community sans the mariner.


The ostensible reasons for the lack of cohesion in the supposed fraternity are well known. A fragmented industry, globally dispersed, ridden with conflicts of interest and staffed by generations of contractual employees must have particular problems keeping the flock together. Contentious issues are difficult to address because the ‘community’ is international but agendas are commercial, national or regional. Additionally and at the national level, unions are often politicised, industry bodies are narrow in outlook and scope and powerful interests often dominate regulatory systems. We all know this; consequently, many of us consider the possibility of a cohesive national industry community with an international mindset inconceivable. And so we don’t even try.


I submit that such a posture is overstated and defeatist. I am convinced that attempts to form maritime constituencies are not made seriously enough or are made by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Myopic stalwarts of the industry do not see the commercial advantages of cohesiveness when it comes to involving mariners in their narrow definition of ‘community’. For, let’s face it, a ‘maritime community’ without mariners is like chicken curry without the chicken: meaningless. I am equally convinced that some are even wary of promoting organised national seafarer bodies, for obvious reasons. Keeping seafarers scattered and disenfranchised, or in any event uninvolved in their own future and that of the industry, is convenient for some.


There seems to be no hesitation in associations being formed when it comes to other common commercial pursuits in the maritime industries. National and international shipmanagement, ownership, insurance, P&I and Class associations exist, however inept some may be. Many are well represented by a cross section of constituents from their narrow fraternities. Such groups represent their cause in larger industry fora; they are part of a wider maritime community, such as it is. Not so the seafarer.


This indurate rejection of mariners from the wider maritime community is worse in India than in many other countries. I further submit that this wanton exclusion of Indian mariners from all walks of maritime life not directly associated with their jobs is a reason for discontent in the profession, with the resultant fallout that such discontent inevitably induces. We need to examine this dissatisfaction closely while we ponder questions of seafarer shortages, to which, thus far, we have proposed the same hackneyed solutions.


It is quite possible that there is no big conspiracy here; that the missing mariners from the fraternity are absent because of the reasons already mentioned. It is also quite possible that many mariners themselves are not really interested in being part of a fraternity; that the cycle of contract/leave/contract is a comforting known devil to them, and alterations to this routine are not welcome. Maybe some are just lethargic.

I do not really think so. I think that at least some Indian officers would welcome the camaraderie and challenge involved in participating in a wider maritime community. Some are clearly interested; some are clearly bored with their present professional lives. Some have much more to offer the industry, which seems to be incapable of devising a mechanism in which they could do so.


The advantages of a true Indian maritime constituency, with representation from a wide cross section of marine representatives, are so obvious that they do not need to be stated. The greatest rewards such a constituency will offer is a focused and broad based approach to the many challenges and opportunities out there, and the progress that can be made when people see the big picture and pull together in one common direction. However, by pretending that this maritime fraternity exists, as we now do, we ignore our shortcomings to our own peril. In the absence of such a fraternity, the Indian maritime industry, including components that cater to foreign flag ownership, continue to be fractured instead of just fragmented. If we do not change this, we will be forced to be content with picking on the carcass, like vultures, after the lions have had their fill. We will never be major global players in the industry, just participants in the low end parts of it. Our divisions, or at least our lack of cohesiveness, will continue to weaken us.


But what if we get it right? Imagine. An industry that carries the vast majority of goods worldwide. A developing country with one of the fastest growing economies and a huge potential workforce. A major maritime powerhouse, not just in shipmanning or body shopping, but also across a wider, more lucrative spectrum. Miles ahead of China and the Philippines in quality, and constantly widening the gap. Imagine the transformation in the Indian maritime industry if we get it right.


The problem really is that there is a vacuum of leadership in Indian shipping. There is a crying need for a visionary leader who can inspire others with an executable and transformatory plan. When I look around, all I see are functionaries out there, not visionaries. Transformations do not occur with functionaries. Functionaries just soldier on.


We have many soldiers; what we really need are a few generals.
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Barking up the wrong tree after Mumbai

A couple of weeks after the end of the carnage in Mumbai, this seafarer remains bewildered by the country’s amnesia that makes it continue to forget, simply, that oceans exist. This national blind spot, known to mariners for decades, now stands exposed.


The TRP driven, media provoked ranting of the urban middle class and the elite, rattled by the invasion of their world for once, cannot escape from this simple fact: that the 7500 mile of coastline, the 13 major and the almost two hundred minor ports, the 1200 barren Indian islands, the few hundred offshore oil installations and close to sixty mobile oil platforms and the tens of thousands of registered boats (and the equal number of unregistered ones) did not appear on the horizon overnight. Our security analysts acknowledged the threat caused by our topography, amongst others, years ago, but we all had blinkers on. This weak link of amnesia in our national consciousness has now broken, and it has cost us


Fully twenty months ago, in March 2007, two militants coming in from Karachi by sea “paid a “huge sum as a bribe” to Indian Coast Guard officials who let them go. After they were apprehended in Kashmir, the Jammu and Kashmir police "sounded more than adequate alarm about the potential of this spiralling into a bigger challenge", according to a State police official anonymously quoted in national newspapers. Abdul Majeed and Mohammad Jameel, the two Pakistanis arrested, told the J & K police that they were amongst a group of eight infiltrators coming in by sea. The Jammu and Kashmir police official regretted recently that the "input and alert by us in this regard was not paid due heed.”


RDX comes in by sea; this time too, but also at the time of the 1993 Mumbai bomb attacks; corrupt police and customs officials were involved in smuggling it in from the sea at Shekadi, Raigadh. The urban elite were not sufficiently enraged then to take to the streets, perhaps because they themselves were not the targets of those attacks.

While on the subject of RDX, will the authorities clarify what happened to the rest of the reported 70 kg of RDX (and the remainder of the up to 25 terrorists) believed to have entered the country this time?


The Mumbai terrorists used the same strategy as was used in Kargil: nonexistent policing, appalling intelligence analysis by India and the utilisation of barren lands (islands, in this case) to devastating effect. Incidentally, this maritime modus operandi is well known to the authorities, as it has always been popular with drug smugglers and gunrunners. Security experts say 70% of smuggled arms come into India by sea. Corruption undoubtedly pays a part in this, and may even have in Mumbai 2008, though we may never be told how much.


Back in 2001, the “Border Management Report” recommended an overhaul of our coastal security. A unified maritime agency was mooted, modern technology and infrastructure proposed. Various ministries approved four separate reports. Fully five years later, in 2006, a plan to protect coastal areas from incursions was finalised by the Union Government, but nobody was interested in implementing the plan at the State level, and funds were scarce. The one thousand fibreglass boats, the hundred patrol boats and an equal number of coastal checkpoints, the coastal police stations and other such infrastructure was simply not built, except, ironically, in Gujarat. One State Government even said, with a straight face, that it did not have enough land to build coastal police stations! Incompetence and lethargy at its most glorious, or maybe there were more kickbacks to be milked elsewhere.


The Central Government is now, after seven years, talking of implementing what it had decided to put in place years ago. A federal agency, nationwide coastal security, more funds, transponders and GPS systems on trawlers, digitised identity cards, beefed up intelligence networks including reports from fishermen (ignored in Mumbai before the tragedy) are now promised in a flurry by our politicians and babus closing doors after the horse has murderously bolted. Boat registration has finally been made mandatory for motorised craft. One retired Indian naval expert estimates, however, that there are up to a hundred thousand unregistered boats in the country, many of them not motorised. The Centre also decided to allow the coast guard to hire boats for patrolling as they have an acute shortage of boats; a sad reflection on the state of affairs. There is also no synergy between the coast guard and the Indian navy in search and protect operations. The gaping holes in such a system are obvious.


It has been reported in some newspapers that the nearly sixty mobile oil drilling platforms in the country have now been asked by the Directorate General of Shipping to conform to the International Ship and Port Facility regulations, which we know were rolled out after the World Trade Centre attacks to prevent exactly what occurred in Mumbai. The ISPS came into force in 2004, but many Indian operators have now informally told reporters that they do not implement the rules to save costs or, in some cases, to increase revenues. No fly zones are now to be enforced over the hundreds of permanent oil installations off both the coasts, many unmanned. Notwithstanding that the recent events off Somalia and in Mumbai have proved what was known to seafarers for a long time, that the ISPS code has failed, the fact remains that an internationally mandated statutory regulation is being wilfully ignored, even sabotaged, by an industry four years after it came into force. This, when the Oil Industry remains a prime terrorist target for economic and environmental reasons. In fact, some of these units have approached the authorities asking to be exempted from the ISPS provisions! This is shocking. This is corruption too, even if it is by big business.


While ranting at politicians is fashionable, the rattled urban middle class needs to take a long hard look in the mirror, for once. We are a part of the problem. The political class is an issue, sure. However, many of the politicians come from our ranks, and most bureaucrats do. We tend not to vent at the babus, perhaps they are ‘people like us’; some are our siblings, parents, friends or otherwise within our social circle. They are far more dangerous than the politicians are, though; they do not even have to win any elections, ever, and they almost can never be sacked. Many, crooked, callous and lethargic, continue to play the same never ending games of patronage along with politicians and criminals. Efficiency and competence is thus hostage to corruption, and inertia rules. The rot is everywhere around you; all of us who have ever given or taken a bribe or used “influence” to grease the system are part of the problem. Indian naval, coast guard, police, excise and customs officials come from within our group, and so do big businesspersons and top executives. So folks, time to stop being so self righteous. The Mumbai failure is ours as much as anybody’s is, stop blaming just the politicians alone.


I fear that an overhaul of the maritime or other security apparatus in India will not suffice; we need an overhaul of the entire culture of corruption and patronage that is the real system. A system so depraved that it has subverted entire organisations and undermined a nation’s ability to defend itself can only destroy, not protect. We need to stop lighting candles or waving catchy printouts against politicians, and use that time to start to reform ourselves. If we do not do that now, when the rising waters threaten to choke our oxygen, we should then shut up, at least, and let the television media find another cause to temporarily boost its ratings.


As events in Mumbai have proved, it is breathtakingly easy to circumvent Indian maritime security, which seems to be akin to a bunch of holes masquerading as a system. We need to force a change to our culture of corruption, lethargy, patronage and plain cussedness right now. The way things stand, I am amazed we have such few terrorist strikes. I am also fearful that the next one may be a nuclear or biological attack. It seems so easy.


Think that we have woken up after Mumbai? Consider this: As I write this, reports are coming in of at least two abandoned boats being found on our southern coastline. One is pockmarked with bullet holes; it is assumed that some LTTE fighters escaping the Sri Lankan offensive may have escaped to India. Even if this is true, I must ask, though, that given the support that has always existed in parts of the country for the LTTE, and given that the organisation assassinated a Prime Minister of the country, and given that the LTTE is a terrorist setup, why are we still so ineffectually and blissfully sanguine? Has the urban elite reached its limit of selective raving? Has the methane finally run out?


Our termite infested system is not just stopping us from greater economic growth; it now threatens our very existence. Mumbai was not just an “intelligence failure”; it was the collapse of a rotting edifice. The blind leading the blind are now barking up the wrong tree, or, at best, just one branch of the right one.


Time to look in the mirror more often, instead of television screens.

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Single-handed sailor. (An open letter to the unconcerned.)

Greetings from the three quarters of our planet that you will never see! Welcome to the world of the forgotten Indian mariner!!


We are the tens of thousands of Indian Captains, officers engineers and crew at sea. We move the ships that carry your oil, steel, grain, fertiliser and a million other goods. Whenever you tank up your car, shop at the supermarket, move into a house or otherwise live your daily lives, we have made a lot of it possible.


You see us only sometimes, though, either on stock photographs holding sextants and gazing at the horizon or on TV being blamed for pollution and other environmental disasters.
We are here to tell you that neither of these pictures tells the truth.


The countries of the world call us, the merchant navy, their 'second line of defense', yet they weaken our own defenses every day. As I write this, three hundred seafarers are held hostage by armed hijackers in Somalia. Mrs. Goyal, the wife of an Indian Master held hostage, is doing the rounds in Delhi alone and unsupported to try to get her husband and his crew released in Somalia. Industry organisations are conspicuous by their absence at her side. The Government is dithering as usual. Three weeks have passed.

This is not a new threat, by the way, as many would have you believe by implication. This is years, even decades old. The hijackers have known terrorist links. Ransoms have been paid by ship owners for years encouraging this lawlessness while the international community has stood by, impotent and uncaring. Western naval coalitions have admitted they cannot guarantee our safety. They have asked owners to take steps to protect themselves. Owners place their financial interests above our survival, so don’t hold your breath.
Meanwhile, we continue to look for protection, but realise that we are abandoned. Some of us even say out loud that the emperor has no clothes. Most don’t see that, most choose the blinkers they put on; most should hang their heads in shame.


Meanwhile, the shipping recruitment industry in India and abroad continues to serve us platitudes and hogwash on how they support seafarers. When we are held hostage, the buck is passed from owners to managers to recruiters. The Government does little. The industry continues to want to hide the true state of affairs from new talent for fear of discouraging them. It continues to want to do nothing except body shop.


India is one of the largest pools of qualified manpower in the maritime world, yet it accepts the reduction of workers on ships to dangerous levels without second thought. It has recently even encouraged further short manning on Indian ships. Everybody is jumping around to show that they are more loyal than the king on this one.


The world admits that it overworks us to the point that fatigue impairs our judgment. It even makes regulations similar to those in the aviation industry mandating rest for us, and then blatantly ignores its own rules. In fact, it systematically delays, ignores or otherwise undermines any efforts at improving our working conditions, because such improvements cost money.


It worries about the projected shortfall of tens of thousands of seafarers over the next few years and the fact that few youngsters want to sail today, yet governments, national and international organisations and the Industry do precious little to address this issue in any systematic manner.


Some countries trust us to bring massive ships into their ports, and then treat us like criminals and terrorists once we are there. They violate our human rights in many ways, denying us shore leave, arresting us for accidents, sometimes even detaining us after we have been proved innocent in their own courts. Moreover, they do this despite the international industry wide outcry against all norms of civilised behaviour.
(Two innocent Indian Officers are detained in South Korea as I write this; both were exonerated by the Korean courts. Hang your heads in shame again.)


Our own sound byte hit media ignores us. We don’t seem to sell anything, so advertisers and news anchors move on. They feed on us rarely, though, like vultures, with screaming headlines and concerned voices, which mean nothing beyond today’s ratings. (Case in point, the recent hijack of the Stolt Valor with 18 Indians. One or two news channels carry this story, which is sensationalist, inaccurate, ill conceived and will be canned as soon as ratings drop. Hostages released or not. Welcome to the jungle.)


Our own governments sideline our petitions; we are not vote banks. Our society takes us for granted.


The country grows fat on back of the oil and material we bring in, yet does nothing for our welfare.


Our fellow citizens do not know what we do; they stereotype us as dumb sailors. They do not want their children to work with us. They want to enjoy the benefits we provide and yet do nothing to make us stronger. They are worse than spectators to our plight, because they do not even know what our plight is.


Indian Officers are acknowledged as the finest in the maritime world, and have been for decades. Yet we are unsung and undefended at home. Worse, we are ignored.


We spend months away from our families at a time trying to make an honest living. Yet drowned seamen never get media attention, though dead seagulls after an accidental oil spill do.


We contribute substantially to the Indian economy. Tens of thousands of Indian seafarers work abroad, earning good foreign salaries, most of which are remitted back home. This has been going on for decades. Yet, and although Shipping carries the vast majority of goods into and out of India and is a vital element of a growing economy, Industry demands for a level playing field are brushed aside.


Members of our fragmented industry do not look beyond their own individual self interest. Headhunters call themselves managers. Small accountants with big calculators compromise safety at sea. We watch, spectators with no say in matters of life and death. Ours.


We have no national seafarer organisations worth the name. We have no lobbying groups. Therefore and consequently, we have no voice and no say in anything, including in our own working conditions. We have, though, self appointed guardians of ‘seafarer interests’, most useless, many with their own axes to grind, many with huge conflicts of interest and some even downright and proven corrupt. The list of their acronyms covers all the letters of the alphabet; their usefulness covers nothing.


The industry reacts to every change and every threat very predictably; part of it regulates and most of it rubs its hands at new revenue streams being generated in training us poorly and in our own time. It then adds the workload of this regulation to our overworked working life. It does so without consultation, thought or empathy, all the while ignoring with cynicism old regulations that mandate minimum rest for us. It does so in the complete absence of any HRD policies or oversight on existing workloads. And then it is surprised when it gets the reputation of being a backward industry!


Some of us started working when barely out of our teens. We do our jobs to make a honest living. We do not expect gratitude but we do not expect ridicule either. We do not expect to be ignored and marginalised and held hostage by either armed terrorists or unarmed managers and bureaucrats. And we do not accept being treated as criminals by your world any more.


We were always the forgotten people, but now we are being ground into the dust.


The irony is that tomorrow your world will need more of us.









.

Chinese Water Torture

(in which water is slowly dripped onto a person's forehead, driving the victim insane)



Okay, this one is personal.


After a few decades at sea, there is a serious debate going on in my tortured head about whether I need to hang up my boots and quit. So far the nail in the wall is winning.

It would have been very nice if I had debated this in my dotage, or even at some unknown and mysterious superannuatory stage, but I am (as I like to think) in my middle age now. I am sure I have a few years at sea left in me, health issues notwithstanding.
It would have been equally nice if I had debated this in an overall aura of satisfaction and pride in the industry I have worked in for so many years. (And still might do so, because the debate is not over yet, and because man does not live by bread alone- he needs a new cell phone every two months).

But it is not so nice. Because, you see, the overwhelming sentiment I have when I think about quitting sailing is one of relief, and of “good riddance”.


That says a lot about to me about my profession – a profession I joined a few decades ago in great excitement, a little awe and a dash of fear. However, I had no doubt in my mind then that this was going to be a career; unlike the youngsters of today, I had no plans of an MBA, or a few years at sea leading to some business. I was a sailor, and so I remained, through the marriage and children, through the 80’s recession and out of it, through family emergencies and celebrations, and through thick and thin.

So what happened? At what stage did a die hard sailor get disillusioned, jaded and, yes, disgusted at the state of affairs at sea?

I doubt it happened suddenly, and I know it has not happened to me alone; like Chinese water torture, it happens drip-by-drip, drop by insane drop- till, finally, the sailor cries- enough! - and, being an all or nothing person, chooses nothing.

One drop was probably the eighties recession, when I saw, for the first time, how petty, small and mean my seniors ashore could be, and how blinkered and clueless many were.

Another drop was undoubtedly the incremental short manning as time went on, and the increased workload and paperwork, paper straw by paper straw until the last straw was loaded on this camel’s back.

A few drops were added by the arrival of the children, and the realisation that the price I was paying was getting too high.

A big drop was the criminalisation of sailors and the impotence of the industry- or was it negligent callousness? - to address the issue.

A small drop was the alcohol policy: not because I could not have a drink, but because Shipmasters were being treated like children by minor bureaucrats, bean counters and blinkered colleagues.
A moment of clarity was when I realised I did not want to recommend the profession to any youngster at all, except those who, through circumstance, had limited choice.

Another drop was when I realised that the seafarer had really no say in much, and that though on every ship there was probably more than a hundred years of collective seagoing experience, an accountant with a calculator and not much else had sometimes more say than the Master.

A drop was at the disgust felt in attending substandard training and Company Seminars- and being asked to pay for both.

A drop or two because of the authorities who issued and revalidated certificates, CDC’s et al -and who then treated seafarers like taxi drivers at the local RTO.

A smattering of drops when shore leave became a luxury because of short manned ships and hectic turnaround times. Another dribble at the restrictions placed after terrorism became a US problem. More disgust at the impotence and spinelessness of people who should have known better, or who didn’t care because it did not concern them directly.

A drop because of stories of a few casualties at sea - and the appalling behaviour of a few countries against all norms of acceptable behaviour and tradition, not to speak of common and international law.

A small drop for sheer boredom.

The realisation that a seafarer was being increasingly discriminated against, was powerless to do anything about it- and that platitudes were of no use to him in prison or in the grave- and that was all the Industry really offered him, a wage and platitudes.

Disgust at the way a few manning agencies in India behaved- and continued to behave, when the entire marketplace and other industries transformed around them.
Ridicule at their surprise at the downgrading of shipping as a profession. They didn’t see the train coming till it hit them?

A drop at the double standards of the industry with respect to safety at sea- and indeed with most regulatory matters. Minimum compliance, maximum certification. Way to go.

A drop at the “Cover your backside” philosophy of many at sea and ashore. Sure, that is a prudent thought. However, when it is the overwhelming philosophy, we have a problem. It leads too often to inefficiency, inertia and even paralysis in maritime operations. Usually it is paralysis by discussion or by information.

The blazing realisation, a year or two ago, that nothing was going to change in my professional lifetime.
The penultimate drop, when I understood that since I was not part of the solution, I was part of the problem.



One Master Mariner quitting is a statistic. But if a hundred are quitting for similar reasons, it may become a little more noteworthy. Add Chief Engineers to this. Add other officers who are dreaming of this and who never looked at sailing as a career anyway, and you are reaching alarming statistics already. You can choose to live with it, but being surprised at it is naiveté’.

From the little I know, it seems quite a few seafarers are quitting and thinking about it; and while our myopic industry is concentrating on advertising and hiring, perhaps it should spare a thought or two on retention as well.

And the final drop, the acidic one that made me pause. Can I, in all good faith, look for a job ashore, feeling the way I do? Will I make a difference, or join the multitudes of colleagues who crossed the Styx and made no difference? Can I digest being another brick in the wall?

The jury is still out on this one; so far, the defendant has not much hope.

Because it does not take much for the last drop to become the final straw, or the final nail.


(first published in www.marexbulletin.com)