A few nautical miles from the Gujarat coastline, inside the Kutch Sea another theatre of war was being enacted but nobody seemed to be bothered of its devastating implications for the state’s 25-lakh fisherfolk. Whenever traveling along the Kutch-Saurashtra coastline, which was devastated by the Kandla cyclone in 1998, one would often hear the locals say: ‘The wind is our enemy. When a strong wind blows over the Kutch Sea the fishermen at sea are in for big trouble, for the wind turns them over to the enemy’.

“We thought we were in safe waters, until the wind changed direction,” recalled 18-year-old Harish Mandan, one of four fishermen from the island of Diu who were spared by the Pakistani Marine Guards after they crossed into their territorial waters on April 22, 2003. Harish told me it was around 11 am and they had already spent six days at sea looking for the elusive catch, when the Pakistanis came in speedboats. “They abused us saying, ‘Why do you come here? We are tired of capturing you,’ and took away 21 fishermen. They released four of us – a 60-year-old and three minors”.

It was after this incident of Indian fishing boats being captured in the Kutch Sea that I had reached Diu, a former colony of the Portuguese, to meet the local fishermen.

Diu has only one overland entrance and exit. Sea surrounds it on three sides. Only to the north does water give way to a marshy creek that separates the island from the Saurashtra peninsula in Gujarat. The Union territory also encompasses a small part of the mainland, but the picturesque island itself is about 11 kilometer long and two kilometer wide. A narrow channel running through the swamp connects it with the mainland.

It is an isolated existence for the 44,000 residents heavily dependent upon fishing in the inland and coastal waters that are rich in hilsa, Bombay duck, shark, prawns and the popular pomfret. Only 20 per cent of Diu’s area is cultivable land growing wheat and bajra (pearl millet), which are suited to the dry climate.

Ramjibhai Solanki, village head of Vanakbara, a fishermen’s village on the island, said fishing activity is on a decline: “Our livelihood is dead. There is no fish left along the coastline. And if you venture out in the high seas, you risk being captured by the Pakistanis. Many of our men and boats have been taken away, leaving the families to starve”.

Click here for Part I of this series : Fishermen in dock after terror attacks
Watch out for this space tomorrow for Mumbai terror aftermath – Part III