Hundreds of Tamil Nadu fishermen are stuck in Iran – many of them on their boats

These days, A Shaji is only able to speak to her husband for a few minutes at a time. Each time he calls, she asks him to try and call her again the following day. But even as she does, she knows that it will be at least two days before she hears from him.

Shaji’s husband Ravi Kumar is one of around 600 Indian fishermen stuck in Iran, unable to return because of the ongoing war. Most are from Kanyakumari, in Tamil Nadu, while some are from neighbouring districts such as Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Ramanathapuram.

Kumar is currently living with 12 other fishermen in a rented accommodation – he has been working in Iran for five years. He is the only one in the group with a SIM card. Shaji explained that since the war started, the fishermen have been facing troubles with the WiFi connection in their home, and have been unable to make WhatsApp calls from their own phones.

“All the 12 use the same SIM card to call their families and let them know how they are,” Shaji said. “The calls also depend on whether he can recharge, and how much money they have to do that.”

The uncertainty about when the war will end has left Shaji feeling scared and anxious. “Sometimes, the newspapers say it is ending soon, sometimes they say it will go on for long,” she said.

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched airstrikes on several locations in Iran – the country’s “Supreme Leader” Ali Hosseini Khamenei was killed on the very first day of the strikes. Since then, the war has raged on, and its effects have been felt across the world: it has led to an energy crisis and an economic slowdown, and has severely affected global supply chains.

According to India’s ministry of external affairs, 1,043 Indian nationals, including 717 students, have been brought back from Iran to India.

However, Shaji said she has seen “no attempts from the government to bring back the fishermen” from Tamil Nadu. Father John Churchil, a priest and the general secretary of the South Asian Fishermen Fraternity, echoed this observation. “The government had shown little concern for the fishermen” so far, he noted.

“About 450 fishermen who are stuck in Iran are from Kanyakumari,” Churchil said. “Many of them are stuck on their boats. Even if their area is attacked, they have nowhere to run.”

He added, “The sea is not a safe place for them to reside either during the day or night. They should at least have a place where they can reside when a war is raging on.”

Churchil noted that many of the fishermen are struggling to find food and medical supplies. “They don't have food in the boat because the employers provide them with rations only when they go fishing,” he said.

Fishermen from Kanyakumari have travelled to Gulf countries in search of a livelihood for a few decades now. While they worked in countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia through most of these years, fishermen who have worked in Iran said that they had begun migrating there as well more recently, in the last decade or so.

“When people from Kerala and Tamil Nadu started to find jobs in the Gulf, they noticed that not much fishing happened there,” Churchil said. “They told people there that fishermen from Kanyakumari were experts in deep sea fishing.”

He added, “People there were not as skilled at it as our people were, so employers chose to hire people from Kanyakumari.”

Sahaya Ansel, a 38-year-old fisherman, began working as a fisherman in Saudi Arabia in 2011 after a friend told him about job opportunities in the country. After this, he worked for a brief stint in Bahrain, and in 2016 moved to Iran.

Ansel has been in Kanyakumari for the last three months – he was supposed to return to Iran on March 3, but cancelled his plans after the violence escalated. While Ansel sympathises with his colleagues who are stuck in Iran, he hopes to return there for work after the war ends. He explained that this is because he cannot make a comparable income in Kanyakumari.

In Iran, fishermen typically go on fishing trips that last between eight and ten days, he explained, for which they can earn as much as Rs 50,000. “In India, we cannot even imagine making that much in ten days,” he said.

In the three months he has been in India, he has only managed to earn a total of Rs 20,000 from his fishing trips. “In these three months, I could have managed to earn at least a lakh in Iran,” he said.

Churchil explained that a key reason for the fishermen’s higher earnings is because in Iran, they fish in smaller water bodies that yield better catches. By contrast, in India, they have to travel far to fish, and typically land smaller catches – even those have been dwindling in recent decades. He added that fish is also sold for much higher prices in Iran than in India.

When Cyril Raj first set foot in Dubai in 2013, he assumed that most men he saw were priests because they wore white robes, known as the thwab. “That’s how little I knew about the countries in the Middle East,” he said.

But Raj quickly learnt about the local culture and customs – between 2016 and 2023, he worked in Iran and found it rewarding. “In Iran, we are able to catch a lot of fish,” he said. “There is no limit in these countries for how much and how long we can fish.”

Raj explained that in India, fishermen usually own their boats and have to bear the expenses of their maintenance, and also have to share the profits with others who work on the boat with them. By contrast, in Gulf countries, employers typically own the boats and manage associated costs.

“In the Gulf countries, they get paid once every two or three months and so, since it is a large sum, they have the ability to invest as well,” Raj said.

In India, the fishermen also struggled with poor infrastructure. Churchil explained that though one-third of the population in Kanyakumari were fishermen, there were only four harbours, three run by the government and one a private harbour. “These aren’t sufficient for the number of fishermen here,” he said.

The fishermen’s opportunities in India were also hurt by a shift away from traditional fishing. “The government is more focused on aquaculture and not on actual fishing,” Churchil said. “So nobody is helping the fishermen.”

Ansel also explained that working conditions in general were superior in Iran. In India, “nobody cares what happens when we go off to sea”, he said. “If someone falls sick while at sea, nobody cares.” In Iran, however, “when someone on our boat fell sick, a helicopter was arranged immediately, the navy came and ensured he got help”.

The fisherman said that he didn’t feel too homesick because his colleagues almost always hailed from Kanyakumari or the surrounding districts. “We are always together, while fishing and when we weren’t, so we didn’t feel lonely,” he said.

But despite the many advantages that fishermen enjoy while working in Gulf countries, Churchil noted, the lack of a support system does leave them vulnerable to exploitation. “Whenever our people have problems, it is not possible for them to go and approach the labour department of that government or our Indian embassy in that particular country,” he said. “It’s because most of their passports will be held by the employer.”

He explained that the fishermen were experiencing this problem acutely in the current scenario of the war. “I held a discussion with an employer regarding the safety of the fishermen, and he said, when he himself is not safe, he won’t be able to provide any support to the fishermen,” he said.

Churchil also noted that many of the fishermen are unable to communicate their needs because they do not speak local languages, such as Persian. He said that it was essential that the Indian government “post a Tamil-speaking person there to address all their needs”.

But, Churchil said, support had not been forthcoming from Indian state or central authorities. “We have voted in Congress MPs but none of them are also showing interest,” the activist said. “The Tamil Nadu elections are coming up. Does the Tamil Nadu government not want everyone to participate in the elections? They also don’t seem to be bothered.”

As strikes continue, Mary Raj is desperate to help her 20-year old son return home. Raj, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, said her son had made desperate calls to his family asking them to arrange for his return.

“He lives on the boat and he called us and said that he was unable to sleep at night because of the bombs, and that they were running out of food,” she said. “He asked us to somehow bring him back home.”

The family is making every effort they can to help her son return. “We borrowed money and pawned our jewels, at this point we are ready to do anything to bring him back,” she said. “He’s my eldest son, and he’s been without any food or proper shelter.”

Eventually, the family managed to arrange Rs 1.5 lakh to cover his travel. “It is a lot of money for us,” Raj said, adding that they did not have a choice but to raise the funds because they had not received any communication or support from the government.

“I just want him to somehow find a way back home safely,” she said. “No matter how much it costs to travel, I want him to find a way back.”

Churchil said that some fishermen who can afford it are making a two-day trip to Armenia and then finding a way back to India. “It will take six days,” Raj said.

The recent experiences have been harrowing enough to some to outweigh the economic advantages of working in Iran. Shaji, for instance, is certain that she will not let her husband return to the country even after the war ends.

“It doesn’t matter how much he gets paid, we can manage here, I don’t want him to go back,” she said.

Source: Scroll
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