April 2008 Edition
Adil Jawad Khan
Karachi
FISHERMEN risk life and limb to get their catch. Helping them assert their
rights is the indomitable Mohammed Ali Shah, chairperson of the Pakistan
Fisher Folk Forum and a member of the fishing community. “We educate fishermen about their rights,” he says. “We tell them about the
importance of their vote. Without struggle, nobody can achieve their rights.”
The World Forum of Fisher
Peoples, an international organisation,
has ranked the Pakistan Fisher
Folk Forum as the largest and most
exemplary in the world. The Forum
has 30,000 members and 130 units.
Mohammed Ali Shah has risen
from the ranks. His family is from
Ibrahim Hydri, a slum on the outskirts
of Karachi where most fishermen
and their families live.
He was born and brought up here and he works for his people. His father was a fisherman who wanted him to study. But Shah would look for every chance to run away from school. An old friend advised his father to enroll him in a seminary and that’s where he was marched off. But the teachers of the seminary were so cruel they sparked a strong sense of rebellion in Shah, so strong that he ultimately went on to transform the lives of Pakistan’s four million fishermen. He says seminary teachers would beat up all the children badly. They would hardly be allowed to visit their parents. The attitude of his teachers and the tough life he faced made him a resolute rebel for life.
In the seminary he would often get into trouble with the teachers and then run back home. Eventually his father took him out of the seminary and, contrary to the advice of family and friends, gave him another chance to get an education at a government school. "But by this time, I had realised it's better to get education in a school," says Shah. He eventually joined a school in the heart of the city in Class 8, because the quality of education provided in the slum schools was not good. In 1977, he passed school. At that time, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the prime minister. This was also an election year. Shah and his friends worked for a candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). They were the only educated men in the slum who helped in the election campaign. After the elections, Shah and his friends decided to begin welfare work for their people.
They started a tuition centre under the Students’ Welfare Organisation (SWO) and visited every house in Ibrahim Hydri to convince eople to educate their children. The motto of the SWO was, Elm ka noor phelana, (Spread the light of education). The group distributed prizes to those who did well and organised education fairs. "Eventually it was this welfare work that got in the way of my education. I wanted to become a doctor, but didn't get admission into a medical college,” he says. Not one to be a loser, Shah enrolled for a raduation degree. But he couldn’t afford college. Instead he became a full-time social worker. He ensured his organisation expanded and in 1983 named it Anjumane Samaji Behbood. "When I was on my way to Bolan Medical College, one day, I saw a passenger reading a book titled, Moosa to Marx. I bought the book when I came back. I fully agree with communist philosophy. Later, these thoughts helped me join the Sindhi nationalist party, Jeay Sindh, and after that, the Socialist Movement of Rasool Baksh Palejo, who, as you know, is a wellknown socialist leader," he says.
Shah was inspired by this movement and worked against General Zia-ul-Haq’s military dictatorship, Sindh's influential landlords andwestern capitalism. At the end of the 1980s, Shah retraced his steps. “I realised that all problems faced by our people are related to their economic condition. A fisherman's problems include marine pollution and depleting fish reserves,” he says. In 1994 Shah and his companions started working exclusively for the fishing community of Ibrahim Hydri. They affiliated their organisation with the Asian Culture Forum on Development. This forum gave Shah the opportunity to attend international workshops and conferences on fishermen. He expanded his activities across the coastal belt of Sindh and began educating fishermen on their rights.
In 1997, his group got all the organisations of fishermen united under the All Pakistan Fisher Folk Federation. It works with national and international organisations, spreading awareness and helping needy fishermen. The forum holds seminars and has started a campaign for growing mangroves to protect the coast. In November 1997, Shah attended the international conference of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers in New Delhi. Representatives of fishermen from 32 countries took part. During the meeting they decided to cele-brate November 21 as the International Day of Fishermen. "During the conference I developed very close ties with the National Fish Workers’ Forum of India and observed their organisational structure," he says.
In May 1998, Shah and his group formed the Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum during a conference in Karachi. They started to work for the welfare of fishermen with new zeal and spirit. They organised seminars to highlight the problems of fishermen, held demonstrations nd public meetings and ran awareness programmes . Shah has two major achievements. The first is providing fishermen of inland waters an opportunity to sell their catch in the open market by doing away with contractors. The contract system still exists in Punjab so the Forum is now working to get it abolished there as well. The second is ensuring that Pakistan Rangers do not usurp the fishermen’s hard earned catch. Fishermen of Badin on the east coast of Sindh used to be forced to sell their entire catch to Pakistan Rangers at throwaway prices. Sometimes they were not allowed to take a part of their catch home. In 2001, Shah and his Forum launched a movement against this injustice. He was arrested and spent 22 days in jail. But the movement was successful. The matter was resolved three years ago and fishermen now sell their catch in the open market.
Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum meets most of its expenses from subscriptions and the rest through donations. The Forum does not accept money from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank “because most of the anti-fishermen projects are funded by the World Bank and the ADB,” says Mohammad Ali Shah.
E-mail: adiljawadkhan@gmail.com
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