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By Freny Manecksha
Parts of the Chennai coast look like a mini UN, with shelters, fibreglass boats, and the signboards of various benefactors working in the area. The fishing communities hit by the tsunami are readying to go back to sea. In other parts, however, are the dalits, Irulas, saltpan workers and marginal farmers, huddled under tarpaulin sheets, quite forgotten in the rehabilitation effort
 The East Coast Road that spools down the coastline from Chennai is one of the most scenic in India. On the far left hand side of the road is the blue sea, bordered by the beaches and coastal land now dotted with several temporary shelters housing the fisherfolk. It looks like a mini UN with signboards proclaiming the names and nationalities of various benefactors. Several fibreglass boats lying beside the road, in various stages of repair or construction, bear testimony to the resolve of a hardy community readying to go back to sea.
On the right hand side are the backwaters -- home to the ‘invisible’ people. Here live the Irulas driven out of the jungles, the dalits, the marginal fishermen, the women who fish by hand or handpickers as they are known, the saltpan workers, the agricultural labourers and others. The tsunami wave that rose to a height of three to 10 metres and penetrated from 300 metres to 3 km inland also swallowed up their land, standing crops, belongings and means of livelihood. But as in most disasters, the plight of this most vulnerable group has by and large been ignored. They have been left out of the net of many relief and rehabilitation schemes.
One such village is Vadanameli, a small dalit hamlet in the backwaters of Kancheepuram district. Selvaraj, an adept inland fisherman, is displaying his skills with the vissrivalai or cast net in the small adjoining pond. Slowly he raises the net, twirls it skillfully and then tosses it into the waters. Slowly he trawls it up and in the squelchy mud are a number of small fish still gasping and wriggling. Some that are too small are thrown back into the waters, others that are good for eating are carefully taken out and stacked in a small heap. Some will be sold to the nearby Crocodile Bank (a tourist spot and breeding ground for crocodiles run by Romulus Whittaker) at Rs 11 per kilo.
The demonstration by this old man is particularly moving because until some weeks ago even this humble activity had come to a standstill.
K Raja, president of the Upwala Todilala Sangam (Dalit Inland Fishermen’s’ Society), explains the villagers’ plight. The marginal fishermen who fish in the pools and backwaters lost their source of livelihood when their nets were destroyed. The women who handpick the fish or collect earthworms for prawn hatcheries suffered losses too because of the disruption in market supplies. The saltpan workers who clung to a precarious livelihood because of the government’s control over the saltpans were completely devastated when the tsunami destroyed the land. “But although I wrote several letters to the district collector, the concerned MLA and MP seeking relief for all these people, we got none. Nobody bothered about us,” said Raja. It was SALT (Social Action Legal Trust) of Kovalam that eventually came to their rescue, giving the Fishing Society a number of cast nets.
It is also under their guidance that women like Kaniamma who handpicks the fish and sells it, have been motivated to form self-help groups. SALT is making a concerted effort to make the 60 women members aware that they are also part of the fishing community and so entitled to demand their rights as well.
 In some cases the exclusion of a community has been deliberate because of caste and communal biases. In the kuppams (fishing villages) of Kovalam in Kancheepuram district, 170 Muslim fishermen found that their names were not in the government’s official list of relief. They were told they were not registered members of the powerful Fishing Society.
The RSS that was actively involved in rehabilitation efforts in this stretch distributed 45 boats but categorically stated they were not meant for the Muslim fishermen. Again it was SALT that helped by engaging a traditional boat builder (wadali) to build 10 kattumarams (from the Tamil word kattu meaning to tie logs together) with plastic sails. These will be distributed by the panchayat with each boat being shared by three or four Muslim members.
Further down the coast in Pondicherry is the village of Pillaichaveddy. Here the caste divide is literally demarcated by a wall. A concrete building determines the boundaries of the dalit settlements. Beyond that is the beach and the sea.
On the beach lie a few fibreglass boats, gifts to the fishermen by international NGOs. On the dalit side lie thatched huts with blue tarpaulin sheets in makeshift repair amid the rubble of destroyed homes. A poignant symbol of the politics of giving.
Rueben Raj of the Dalit Mannurimmai Kootamaippu (Dalit Land Rights Federation), a partner of ActionAid, explains the social and economic dynamics of the village. “From Pondicherry to Chennai the sea is perceived to be the property of the fishing community. The kuppams or fishing settlements own the boats and go out to sea while the dalits provide the labour. The dalit women are the ‘coolies’. They must clean and sell the fish. Dalits are traditionally not allowed to fish. After a protracted discussion with the fishing community here they agreed that the dalits too can now engage in fishing, but they have no boats and have received no rehabilitative measures after the initial government relief of Rs 12,000 to each villager. Although a petition was given to the Collector and there was a discussion with him, the dalits were not on the approved list for rehabilitation.”
The dalit women -- Govindamma, Matchagandhi, Selvi and Devi -- narrate their plight. “The government says it will recompense those who lost their means of livelihood. So fishermen get boats and nets. But we who are dependent on the fishing community have received nothing even though we lost our homes, our ornaments and household goods worth around Rs 40,000. Worse still, when the boats did not go out to sea we lost our only form of income. We are surviving only because we have borrowed from private moneylenders and because we had carefully stored some of the rice given by the government and NGOs. We are illiterate and have no occupation other than our labour.”
On the day that I visit the village, members of a legal collective are busy urging the dalits to sign letters petitioning the government again. But as Rueben points out, for NGOs and other concerned members of society, the tsunami rehabilitation effort is also a time to focus on a larger issue -- bridging the social and gender divide and bringing about change. “We are trying through an animator and volunteers in the various kuppams to bring about a change in thinking. We are happy that in some kuppams the fishermen are accepting the synergy with dalits and women and are ready to end discrimination.”
(Freny Manecksha is an independent journalist based in Mumbai)
InfoChange News & Features, May 2005
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