Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

An issue much larger than braving the waves focus

— Photo: C. V.Subrahmanyam

SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME: A barbed wire kept ready to fence the village at Dibbapalem.

VISAKHAPATNAM: They had braved scores of cyclonic storms and the ‘invincible’ tsunami but had never vacated their village. In fact, life itself is an every day ‘battle with death’ for them as they brave the waves to eke out their livelihood.

“We had never vacated our village, even during the tsunami,” a fisherman of Dibbapalem told this scribe in the past. A majority of them are not educated like their urban counterparts but they bank on their own life experience as also that of their ancestors. It didn’t take them long to realise that the construction of breakwater by the Gangavaram Port had changed the direction of the waves that lashed on the walls of their huts located on the elevated bank.

“We believed the words of the Gangavaram port management that a model fishing village would be developed elsewhere and we would be rehabilitated, a job would be given to one member of each family,” fishermen of Dibbapalem say.

“They had initially planned to rehabilitate us at Yathapalem, about 10 km away from the coast, but we had refused to go there. We can’t carry our heavy fishing gear all the way every day. Though they had promised to give one job in each family they latter went back on their word and said that only qualified persons in each family could be accommodated in the port,” the villagers say.

“They are refusing to give anything in writing and the authorities are insisting on our leaving the village before any compensation could be worked out. There is heavy deployment of armed policemen and now our village resembles a battle field where war could break out any moment,” they say.

RTC buses to the village have been withdrawn, power supply has been cut and houses being demolished when all members of a family go out of the village on some work.

“The Government is trying to implement the ‘Divide and rule’ policy by creating a rift among fishermen and other communities of Dibbapalem village. A majority of the villagers from other communities left the village and they were rehabilitated as they had no compulsion of living near the coast,” said Dr. M. Satyanarayana of Andhra University, who represents Jyothi Rao Phule Forum for Economic and Social Justice.

When the fishermen struck to their demand for rehabilitation near the coast and provision of jobs, the officials are trying to suppress them with the use of force.

“They have been living there for generations. Others cannot understand the intricacies of the problem of evacuating them. The fencing of the beach and the village is ridiculous,” said Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha general secretary P.V.N. Madhav.

He deplored the booking of cases on Fishermen Association leaders on the pretext that they had stolen a computer from the Gangavaram Port’s project office.

“I wonder whether they know what a computer is, leave alone knowing its utility. He called for an apolitical solution to ensure justice to the fishermen.

“We are leading a life of misery in our village. Both men and women are being forced to ease themselves at the same place due to barbed wire fencing around the beach area and the village. Fishing has been banned in the area,” says Dhanraj of Gangavaram Matsyakarula Aikya Vedika.

The villagers allege that the district administration, under pressure from the Government, was playing into the hands of the Gangavaram Port management so that the port would be ready for inauguration by Congress President Sonia Gandhi as per schedule.

They vowed not to allow it and signed a ‘dying declaration’ stating that they were prepared to die if the situation warrants and noted that the district administration and the Government would have to share the responsibility for their deaths.

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