The alleged attack on the fishermen crew from Olaikuda hamlet, near Rameswaram, by personnel of the Indian Coast Guard, set off a train of thought on why the fishermen can’t stay off trouble. News Today tried to figure out the traditional and historical background of the trawling methods of the fishermen of Rameswaram and rest of Tamilnadu, that subjects them to these cross-border problems. Whenever a fishermen crew from Nagapattinam, Ramanathapuram or Karaikkal is arrested or attacked by Sri Lankan navy at mid-sea, the first accusation is why should they cross the border having a vast ocean here to fish. The Coromandel coast of India is long and vast. Having such a resource on hands, the fishermen from Tamilnadu still converge at Palk Bay for fishing where the problem actually arises, said a source from the Fisheries Department of Tamilnadu. The Government of India has made a lot of alternatives for the Tamil fishermen to trawl in deep sea. Already, the Government of India has set up an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Bay of Bengal, that stretches for 200 nautical miles from the coast of India. It also includes the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the source said. The Fisheries Department and the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) are ready to support the fishermen trawl in this deep water. The Fisheries Department will be releasing subsidy for trawlers of Tamilnadu to fish in EEZ and stay safe from the foreign armed forces, the source added. The problem is that the traditional bloodline of the fishermen from the central coast of Tamilnadu do not have the skill for deep sea fishing, say ocean researchers and marine archaeologists. It is not as easy as suggested. Genetically, the fishermen from Nagapattinam, Karaikkal and Ramanathapuram have been raised with skill for shallow water fishing for over 10,000 years. Their skill set is exceptional in catching passing fishes than deep sea fish, says S Balasubramani aka Orissa Balu, a marine archaeologist and ocean researcher. According to Balu, Deep-sea fishing is done only by fishermen from Kanyakumari that, too, from a set of nine fishing hamlets between Thengapattinam and the Kerala border. Not all Tamil fishermen can do deep-sea fishing. So, we cannot impose deep-sea fishing on a fisherman from Ramanathapuram or Nagapattinam. Balu said the depth of EEZ in Bay of Bengal is about 4,000 metres from mean sea level and it is very dangerous. For a fisherman from Kanyakumari, their gene has the ability to travel for thousands of miles and so they can go till Iran and the Red Sea for fishing, while fishermen from Kodiakarai or Dhanushkodi will be an expert in trawling fish that pass Palk Bay. In this particular incident, the fishermen from Rameswaram would have been trawling the passing fishes. The geographical reason for this is that the ocean currents pass from Kodiakarai to Indian Ocean through Palk Bay through which the fishes travel and get caught in their nets. It is their tradition and it is not fair to break it. Be it the Sri Lankan navy or the Indian Coast Guard, stopping the fishermen from practising their tradition is not right. At the same time, when we ask a fisherman to trawl in EEZ, the assurance of fishes getting caught is very minimum for their skill set. For one trip of trawling, he has to spend around Rs 3 lakh. The returns have to be just as good. Will this be possible is the first question, Balu elaborated. Fishermen from the area raise the same question. When News Today approached David Arockiyaraj, a fisherman from Rameswaram, and asked why are they not ready to leave their traditional fishing waters, he said, First for us shallow water fishing is more feasible in terms of our skills and economics. We have been doing this for thousands of years and it is in our gene.