'I can trust the sea. But I can’t trust the missiles'

"Abba jhooth bolte thhe ki, je dariya ma rehta hoy emne maut no dar na hoy (my father was lying when he said those who live on the sea don’t fear death). He told me that when I took my first job as a sailor at 17,” says Nazir Junas Bhaya (43), staring at his hands. Hands that had steered MSV Al Faiz Noor-e-Sulaimani for six months before it sank in the Gulf of Oman.

He recalls the dreadful moment a missile struck the ship as it crossed the Strait of Hormuz. “I was terrified the minute I saw water entering our ship. It was past 12.00 am on 8 May. Iran had not restricted us from crossing the Hormuz. So, it’s unlikely they were the attackers. We heard a loud explosion, and a massive fire broke out instantly.”

Nazir takes another long pause, his sentences a mix of Hindi and Gujarati instead of the Kutchi Sindhi he speaks with his people. We are in his single storied house in the port town of Salaya in Gujarat’s Dwarka district. His partially paralysed father Junas Bhaya sits next to him. Now in his 60s, Junas worked in ship engine cabins for almost 40 years. Nazir avoids eye contact with his mother Sabira who sits opposite.

“There were 18 of us. The impact threw two sailors into the air,” Nazir resumes. “One was seriously injured and Altaf Talab Ker (40) died. We had no time to collect our belongings, not even our phones, before the ship capsized. We jumped into the sea and clung to a plastic water tank encased in iron rods, struggling to stay afloat for the next seven hours. I was freezing. After surviving the missile, it seemed the icy Gulf of Oman would kill us.”

The ship that sank — a three-year-old wooden dhow with a carrying capacity of 3,000 tonnes — was one of the famous handcrafted vessels built by the Jam Salaya, Kutchi Muslims whose ancestors migrated from Mandvi and Mundra and settled in Dwarka about 200 years ago.

The community depends on the shipping industry for a living. Most men either build or sail the ships, or work as cargo handlers. The ships carry goods across India, UAE, Oman, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea. Those not working on and with the ships are out at sea, fishing for ghol (black-spotted croaker) and dholdara in the Gulf of Kutch.

Between September and May, about 200 Salaya-built vahaan or laanch (large cargo boats) sail through the Strait of Hormuz. From June to August, Indian authorities disallow boats from entering the Arabian Sea.

“I was on a 13-month contract, but I came back earlier,” says Nazir. “The trip in May was my last. I had saved Rs 4.5 lakh for my sisters’ weddings and to finish building our home. I lost everything, even my passport and seaman’s identity card.”

Nazir gets Rs 5,000 a month from the shipowner. The real earnings are in Sharjah, Yemen, Somalia, where foreign traders pay 10 dirhams per tonne of cargo loaded or unloaded. His take-home depends on available work, exchange rates and the number of people who split the amount. An attractive proposition for someone from a town where education, infrastructure and job opportunities are either low or absent.

“I’ve been sitting at home for two months now,” he says. “I’m scared stiff. I tried working on a fishing boat but we don’t get permission between June and August because of stormy weather.”

Sitting at home makes him even more anxious about his future. The shipowner refused to help him get a new passport, which will cost him Rs 7,000-10,000. Like others, he hasn’t received any compensation.

Shipowners claim they are in the same boat. For the last two years, insurance companies are refusing to cover Salaya-made dhows sailing across war zones. Even insured vessels aren’t getting paid.

“I paid a premium of Rs 13.5 lakh to an Indian insurance company, but I received nothing,” says Sultan Ahmad Sanghar, whose ship, the Haji Ali, was going from Somalia to Dubai when it was hit by a missile in the Strait of Hormuz. “Visa and ticket expenses for workers rescued by the Omani coast guard were borne by me.”

On 13 May, Aejaz Akbar Sanghar (30) and 14 others on the Haji Ali learned about the fate of the MVS Faiz through a WhatsApp group.

“It was 3.00 am. Our destination was still five hours away when a missile struck our ship near the coast of Oman,” says Aejaz. “We didn’t have enough balance on our phones to call our Indian shipowner, so we called the Somali trader. The lifeboat could only accommodate 12 people, but all 15 of us got in until the coast guards arrived to rescue us.”

Months later, Aejaz is still in shock. After his father drowned in the Gulf of Oman in 2002, his mother didn’t want him to go to sea. But Aejaz didn’t study after Class 10 and there were no other opportunities in town.

“Aejaz is my nephew, and he’s not the only one unwilling to come back,” says Sultan. “My other ship, Haji Ali 1, is ready to sail in October, but my entire crew is terrified.”

Shaqib Haji Amin (30) and Azeem Haji Amin (33) live two kilometres from Sultan’s shipbuilding yard. The Sumbhaniya brothers are among those young seamen who came back from Dubai due to the ongoing war, despite knowing that being in Salaya between June to August means being jobless.

For five years, Shaqib and Azeem served on dinner cruises. In early March, they received forwarded videos of drone and missile attacks on Palm Jumeirah. Shaqib’s phone fell into the hands of the police and he ended up in Dubai central jail.

“My aged father had to arrange money to get me out,” says Shaqib. “My manager abandoned me. The UAE banned me from entering Dubai for one year.”

“In July, I started working at a garage, painting bikes,” says Azeem. “But Salaya is a small town, some days I have customers, other days I don’t. My visa has not been cancelled. But with the war intensifying again, I cannot risk my life. I’ll try to make ends meet here.”

The brothers have since withdrawn their children from a private school in Khambhaliya and put them in a government school in Salaya. “My life began to improve only over the last 3-4 years,” says Shaquib. “I was hoping to give my son a better education. Now, that dream is broken.”

Nazir doesn’t want to go back immediately either, not even if normalcy is restored. “Allah saved my life once and gave me a chance to live. He might not save my life again.”

His mother Sabira says, “This is our ancestral profession. The women of Salaya are used to our men leaving for months at a time. I can trust the sea and the vessels that our men have built. But I cannot trust the missiles.”

Courtesy: People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI)