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SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS
IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
Report on a Mission of Enquiry
October-November 1947

by
James L.

MOWAT,

Ph. D.,

Chief of the Maritime Service,
International Labour Office

International Labour Office
Geneva, 1949

STUDIES AND EEPOETS
New Series, No. 14

PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR
GENEVA,

OFFICE

SWITZERLAND

Published in t h e United Kingdom for the INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE
b y Staples Press Limited, London

P R I N T E D BY " L A TRIBUNE D E G E N È V E '
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

CONTENTS

Page
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.

The Background

General Characteristics
Composition of the Seafaring Population
Employment and Unemployment
Employment on Foreign Vessels

4
6
8
10

CHAPTER I I . Recruitment - Historical Survey
The Clow Committee
The Royal Commission on Labour in India
The War and Unemployment

11
11
12
14

CHAPTER I I I . Recruitment — Present Practice
Recruiting in Bombay
Recruiting in Calcutta

16
16
22

CHAPTER IV. Recruitment — New Schemes
The Bombay Joint Supply Scheme
The Calcutta Joint Supply Scheme

27
30
33

CHAPTER V. Recruitment - International Standards
Principles Adopted by the I.L.0
National Practice

37
37
40

CHAPTER VI. Recruitment - Summing up
Abolition of Fee-Charging Agencies
Establishment of Free Public Employment Offices
Administration by Persons with Maritime Experience
Integration in a National Employment Service
Specialised Employment Offices for Seamen
Status of Staff of Employment Services
Summary of Recommendations
Proposals for Immediate Action

44
47
48
51
51
52
52
53
53

CHAPTER VII. Conditions of Work on Board Ship
Rates of Pay
Hours of Work and Holidays
Accommodation on Board Ship
Food and Catering
Social Security

. . .

56
56
58
59
61
62

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
Page

CHAPTER VIII. Welfare and Hygiene Ashore
Accommodation in Ports
Boarding Houses
Trade Union Boarding Houses
Seamen's Homes and Hostels
Welfare in Foreign Ports
Hygiene
Amenities in Shipping Offices
CHAPTER I X .

Education and Training

CHAPTER X . The Trade Union Movement among Seafarers
CHAPTER X I .
CHAPTER X I I .

The Effects of Partition
Conclusion

64
64
64
67
67
69
70
72
73

76
81
84

Appendices
I. Extract from the Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920
II. The Calcutta Joint Supply Scheme
III. Seafarers' Remuneration
IV. Official Scale of Food for Indian Crews

89
91
94
97

INTRODUCTION

India has suffered much from visitors who have spent a
week or two in some part of the million and a half square
miles of the subcontinent and then have returned home and
written a book on India. The writer must confess that he
spent only a comparatively short time in the two Dominions,
and only part of that time could be devoted to the purpose of
the present enquiry, which is to study the conditions of
employment of seafarers in India and Pakistan. Nevertheless,
such excellent arrangements were made by the Government
departments concerned, and such ready co-operation was
forthcoming from the shipowners and from the seafarers'
unions that the writer feels justified in attempting to give
a general picture of the conditions of Indian seafarers, the
main problems which call for urgent attention and the solutions
that may be envisaged.
For many years it was alleged that the International Labour
Organisation was unduly European (and, more recently,
European and American) in outlook and that it neglected the
special problems of Asia. I t is unnecessary here to go into the
justification for that charge or the historical reasons that
explain the initial concern of the I.L.O. with industrial conditions in Europe. The holding of the Preparatory Asian
Eegional Conference in New Delhi in October and November
1947 marks a new step in the direction of more adequate
and understanding treatment by the Organisation of the labour
problems of Asia. In addition to the general complaint, the
Chinese and Indian seafarers' representatives at the International Labour Conference frequently pointed out that their
conditions were not fully realised and that they must be studied
at first hand. In response to an appeal of this kind, made by
the Indian seafarers' delegate to the 28th (Maritime) Session
of the Conference in Seattle in June 1946, the DirectorGeneral of the Office gave an undertaking that at the earliest
possible opportunity a representative of the Maritime Service
of the Office would visit India to see for himself the conditions
of Indian seafarers. Such was the origin of this mission of
enquiry.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

The brevity of the mission was the result of a number of
factors outside the control of the Office. The unrest in India
and Pakistan immediately after the partition of the country
made it uncertain whether the date proposed for the enquiry
would prove appropriate. Once a decision had been taken,
the writer's departure from Geneva was delayed by the
cancellation of air services owing to the cholera outbreak in
Egypt and by various formalities concerning visas and inoculations. Nor was it possible to prolong the visit, because there
were urgent tasks waiting in Geneva which made return
imperative. It nevertheless was possible to pay a brief
visit to Karachi, the main port of Pakistan, and to make
a rather longer stay in Bombay and Calcutta, which, with
Madras, are not only the main ports of India but the only
ports of registration of vessels and recruitment of seafarers
in the subcontinent.1 Visits to some of the many smaller
ports might have produced some additional information on
welfare facilities ashore, but as regards the fundamental
problem of recruiting and the general conditions of employment all the necessary studies can be carried out in Bombay
a n d Calcutta.

I t is therefore hoped t h a t , although t h e writer

had to rush his tour, he was able to get a clear and accurate
picture of the existing situation, and that it will prove possible,
in the light of the international experience of the International Labour Office, to make some useful suggestions for
removing some of the abuses which undoubtedly exist.
It must also be mentioned that the delay in publishing
the report was due in part to pressure of other work, but mainly
to the desire of the International Labour Office to submit it
in draft to the Governments of India and Pakistan so as to
ensure that it contained no factual inaccuracies resulting from
the speed at which the investigation had to be carried out.
This consultation at a distance involved long delays, but
the final text has the advantage of incorporating certain
corrections on points of fact suggested by the two Governments.
1
Since the date of this enquiry, the Governor-General of Pakistan has
issued a Notification of 6 December 1947 approving the ports of Karachi
and Chittagong as ports of registry for the purposes of the Merchant Shipping
Act of 1894 ( Government of Pakistan Gazette, Notification No. 26 - S(l)/47(1)).
Shipping offices are being set up in these two ports, and there are also plans
for establishing seamen's welfare offices at Chittagong and Sylhet (which is
not a port, but an important recruiting centre—see below, p . 6).

INTRODUCTION

One point should be made clear at the outset : throughout
this report, the term " India " should be understood as referring
to the whole subcontinent, i.e., to India before partition,
except where the context obviously implies a distinction
between the two new Dominions of India and Pakistan, as is
the case particularly in Chapter XI. The conditions which
were studied have so far been little affected by partition, and
the legislation governing seafarers is still the pre-partition
legislation, so that in the main there is no need to distinguish
between the two Dominions. Similarly, references to " the
Government of India " will as a rule be to the Government
before the two Dominions came into being.
Finally, the writer wishes to express his gratitude to all
those who helped him to arrange his tour, to see so much
at first hand and to obtain information on the various aspects
of the problems of Indian seafarers. In particular, thanks
are due to Mr. O.P. Srivastava, M.A., LL.B., of the Ministry
of Commerce, Government of India ; Mr. Khwaja S. Mahmud,
M.B.B., Director of Seamen's Welfare, Ministry of Commerce,
Government of Pakistan ; Mr. F.N. Eana, Shipping Master,
and Mr. L. Krishnan, Port Welfare Officer, Bombay ; Mr. M.A.
Master, of the Scindia Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., Honorary
Secretary of the Indian ííational Shipowners' Association ;
Mr. Finney, of Messrs. Mackinnon and Mackenzie, Bombay ;
Mr. D. Stephens, of the same firm in Calcutta and Joint Secretary of the Calcutta Maritime Board ; Mr. A. Chowdhury, the
other Joint Secretary of the Board, Lt.-Cmdr. Aftab Ali,
Member of the Legislative Assembly and, at the time, National
President of the All-India Seafarers' Federation ; Dr. A.M.
Malik, Member of the Legislative Assembly and, at the time,
National Secretary of the Federation (now Minister of Labour,
Agriculture and Co-operation, East Pakistan) ; Mr. D. Mungat
and Mr. T.E.M. Eosario, General Secretary and Calcutta
Branch Secretary respectively of the Maritime Union of India ;
Mr. Dinkar Desai, General Secretary of the Bombay Seamen's
Union ; Mr. Mirza A. Hassan, B.A., LL.B., M.L.A., and
Mr. A.K. Mohamed Serang, President and Treasurer respectively of the National Seamen's Union, Bombay. I t is impossible
to mention by name the many other representatives of Government departments, shipowners and trade union leaders who
showed so much personal kindness and gave such helpful advice,
but to all of them the writer would express his deepest gratitude.

OHAPTEB I
THE BACKGROUND
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

It is essential to an understanding of the situation of
Indian seafarers to have some knowledge of the general
economic and social background. India is predominantly
an agricultural country, over 70 per cent, of the gainfully
occupied population being engaged in agriculture and fishing.
Indeed, many of the seafarers are at the same time owners
or tenants of agricultural holdings, which are cultivated
in their absence by other members of the family. There
are no figures available of the proportion of seafarers who
are at the same time agriculturists, and estimates differ
widely. One of the chief characteristics of the rural population
in India is extreme poverty ; the average annual income of
a peasant in 1931-32 was estimated at only 48 rupees (about
£3.13s.). Seafaring, which at present is relatively well paid,
can therefore provide a very valuable addition to the family
income that can be used to meet the indebtedness into which
the Indian agriculturist almost inevitably and chronically
falls. We shall see later on, however, that indebtedness is
also one of the banes of the seafarer himself during long
periods of his working life, and one of the problems for which
some solution must be found.
Most of the seafarers, coming as they do from the villages,
are illiterate, and this also is a fact that has a bearing on
their conditions. The development of education is a necessary
concomitant of any scheme to improve the social wellbeing
of the Indian worker in general, including the seafarer. I t
might, indeed, be said to be the basic social problem of India.
For the seafarer, lack of education has several disadvantages.
In the first place, he cannot fully understand his rights merely
from hearing extracts from laws or regulations read out
to him, as is done when he signs on. Moreover, he cannot

THE BACKGROUND

receive his orders or voice his complaints directly, but requires
an interpreter. Hence the importance in the system of recruitment and in the working of the ship of the serang, who ranks
as a boatswain, but who in the past has been largely responsible
for engaging the crew of his own department (deck or engine^
room) and also for discipline on board. Again, an educated
body of workers forms a much more satisfactory basis for a
well-organised and responsible trade union movement. It is
true that the seafarers in India had reached a fairly high
standard of trade union organisation as compared with
workers in general in that country, but there has been some
disintegration during 1948. Moreover, as will be seen in
Chapter X, allegations of bribery, political self-seeking and
exploitation of the workers are still sometimes made against
certain unions.
Exploitation by unscrupulous leaders is
always easier when the workers in general cannot read and
can be readily swayed by persuasive oratory. Yet another
consequence of lack of education is the fact that the Indian
seafarer is very strongly bound by tradition. We shall see
in a moment that seafarers come regularly from certain parts
of India, and in other ways also the hold of tradition is strong.
Any sudden change, therefore, in the system of recruitment,
for example, is likely to be regarded with a certain suspicion,
especially as it may not be immediately evident that it will
benefit the seafarer. The habits of centuries cannot be lightly
eradicated, especially when, as is sometimes the case, they
are backed by religious sanction.
Reference has just been made to bribery. This is another
feature of Indian life which will be found to lie at the root
of one of the main problems to be solved. The matter will
be discussed in Chapter I I I in so far as it is a factor in the
system of recruiting; it must also be mentioned as part of
the general background. Those who are in a position to render
a service expect to get some reward for it, and those who
receive the service take it for granted that they must pay a
consideration.
A number of incidents like the following
were related to the writer. A seaman did not receive adequate
compensation from the owner for an injury on board ship.
The welfare officer intervened in the normal course of his
duties and was able to have the matter satisfactorily settled ;
the following day the grateful seaman came to offer him
50 rupees, and it was extremely difficult for the man to realise

SEAFABEBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

why this should be declined. When the practice of bribery is
prevalent and is accepted as a normal thing, it is not surprising
that poorly paid minor officials in the administration should
be amenable to bribes or should even demand them for certain
services they can render. The habit of bribe-giving must
be rooted out, but the roots are extremely strong and tenacious ; if they can be destroyed, bribe-taking will gradually
die out.
COMPOSITION OF THE SEAFABING POPULATION

As was mentioned, seafaring is a tradition among the
population of certain areas of India, and it is almost entirely
from these areas that the seafarers come. A visitor to the
villages in those districts will find in many huts pictures
of the ships in which the father or grandfather of the owner
sailed. For geographical reasons, men from certain areas
go to Bombay to seek sea employment, while from others
they go to Calcutta, these being the only two ports of registry
at which seafarers are recruited, except for occasional engagements to fill a vacancy owing to sickness or the like. 1 The
areas from which maritime labour is mainly recruited are
shown on the map opposite. 2 In Calcutta, nearly all the seamen
come from Bengal. It is believed that the largest number
of men for the deck department come from ïfoakhali district,
and the remainder from the following districts in order of
importance : Chittagong, Calcutta, Dacca, Tipperah and
Fardipur. The crews of the engine department come from
Sylhet (53 per cent, of the total), ÎToakhali, Chittagong,
Mymensingh, Calcutta, Tipperah and Allahabad.
Saloon
workers come mainly from Calcutta (50 per cent.), Goa and
Dacca. For Bombay, no percentages are available, but in
general deck. crews come from the Malabar region, from
Ahmedabad, Diu, Surat and Daman north of Bombay, and
from Kolaba and Eatnagiri to the south. Engine-room crews
consist mainly of Punjabis and Pathans from the far north
of India—the ÏTorth-West Frontier Province and the Punjab—
and of men from Janjira and Eatnagiri, immediately south
1

See above, p . 2, footnote 1.
The information concerning the districts of origin of seafarers was
supplied mainly by the Ministry of Commerce of the Government of India.
See also Dinkar DESAI : Maritime Labour in India (Bombay, Servants of
India Society, 1940), pp. 22-23.
2

THE BACKGROUND

of Bombay. Workers in the saloon department are largely
Christians from Goa, South Kanara and Cochin. In some of
these cases the maritime tradition can be traced back for
centuries : in Bengal, it is attributed to the influence of the

PRINCIPAL AREAS FOR RECRUITMENT OP SEAFARERS
IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

seamen of the famous Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama,
and the same tradition may be seen in the seafarers who
come from Portuguese Goa, Daman and Diu. Along the
Malabar coast, there was the example of the enterprising
Arab sailors of the twelfth century, who carried on a flourishing
trade between their own country and this part of India.

SEAFAKBES' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT

There are unfortunately no reliable statistics of the total
number of seafarers in India, and estimates vary widely.
Fairly complete records are available of all the men to whom
continuous discharge certificates 1 have been issued, but
there is no means of checking how many of these men have
left the sea or have died. In Calcutta, for instance, the
number of certificates issued is over 170,000, but how many
of the holders are still seeking employment at sea is not known.
The number actually serving on articles at any one time was
estimated at about 22,000 in 1946, but is believed to have
fallen during 1948. In Bombay, estimates of the number of
seamen seeking employment in 1947 vary from 50,000 to
70,000, and estimates of the number of jobs available at any
given moment show an even greater discrepancy, ranging
from 15,000 to 40,000. At the first meeting of the Indian
Maritime Advisory Committee in April 1947 it was stated
t h a t the number of seamen in India was anywhere from
250,000 to 300,000, for 65,000 jobs available annually. In
any case, one has only to see the hundreds of men who present
themselves at the shipping office in Bombay or Calcutta in
search of employment to realise that the applicants for jobs
far outnumber the vacancies available ; it would seem no
exaggeration to say that there are more than three men for
every vacancy, and some sources put the figure as high as
five men. Moreover, the average duration of each engagement
is estimated at four to six months, so that the ratio of potential
seafarers to each man-year of employment available is much
greater than that just mentioned of potential seafarers to
seamen on articles at any one time.
I t follows that at least two out of every three seafarers in
India are unemployed, and the proportion is probably higher
in view of the average duration of engagements. I t may be
suggested that this is not so serious as it sounds, since it has
been mentioned that very many of these men have agricultural
holdings to which they can return while awaiting employment.
This, however, is a point on which conflicting views are held.
1
The seamen's employment record—a document containing his photograph and full personal particulars, together with a record of each engagement and discharge and the quality of his work and behaviour on each,
voyage.

THE BACKGROUND

On the one hand, it is frequently said that the Indian seafarer
does not want to have steady employment at sea ; between
voyages, he prefers to spend six months or a year in his village
looking after his affairs there and enjoying family life. Others,
again, state very categorically that this is not the case ; they
maintain that it is force of economic necessity that compels
the seafarer to spend long periods in his village, where he can
live much more cheaply than in either of the cities where he
can hope for a new engagement on board ship. According to
this view, the seafarer would prefer to have a holiday of two
or three weeks at home between voyages and then be able to
return to a port with the certainty of fresh employment.
The balance of evidence seems to favour the latter view, but
an exhaustive enquiry among the seamen would be necessary
in order to settle the question. It is true that a certain number,
particularly serangs and butlers, have brought their families
to Bombay or Calcutta, where their wives can find employment to help maintain the family, and where the husband is
on the spot for obtaining a job at sea. But the bulk of the
seafarers, whether they remain in the port in the hope of
re-engagement or whether they return there when they feel
the call to go back to sea or when they have spent all the
money earned on their last voyage, must wait in the ports
for weeks, months and sometimes years before being selected
to man a ship. Meanwhile they live in boarding houses (which
will be described later) and accumulate an ever-growing load
of debt. Mr. Dinkar Desai 1 quotes cases from his personal
knowledge of seamen in Bombay who were without employment for periods ranging from four to eight years. The Eoyal
Commission on Labour in India in 1931 also reported cases
of serangs and butlers who had given satisfactory service but
who had been out of employment for from one to four years. 2
There is another feature of the employment position which
must be briefly mentioned. The number of applicants for
employment at sea varies with conditions in agriculture. In
1947, severe cyclones and floods in the Chittagong area did
tremendous damage to crops. The immediate consequence
was an increase in the number of men from that area seeking
employment at sea. These were by no means entirely men
who had never been to sea before ; many were old hands who
1

Dinkar DESAI, op. cit., p . 41.

Beport of the Boyal Commission on Labour in India. Cmd. 3883 (London,
1931), p . 178. The abbreviation B.O.L.I. will be used for further references
to this report.

SEAFABEBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

had given up the sea for some years and settled down as
farmers. One actually produced a continuous discharge
certificate which showed that he was last discharged from a
ship in 1916 !
EMPLOYMENT ON FOREIGN VESSELS

One final part of the background of the Indian seafarer
which has an important bearing on his conditions of employment is the fact that so far about 90 per cent, of these seafarers
have been employed on British ships, largely owned by companies with their head offices in England and acting through
agents in their dealings with the Indian seamen. A few are
employed on vessels of other nations^ particularly the Netherlands, but their number is relatively unimportant. The
majority of those not employed in British ships work for
Indian shipping companies. This situation will doubtless
gradually be changed. Before partition, the Indian Government was discussing plans to promote a national mercantile
marine. I n March 1947 the Eeconstruction Policy Subcommittee on Shipping criticised the Government's neglect
of shipping in the past and advocated that, as an interim plan,
100 per cent, of purely coasting trade, 75 per cent, of trade
with adjacent countries, 50 per cent, of distant trade and
30 per cent, of trade formerly carried by Axis vessels in the
Orient should be secured for Indian shipping in the next five
to seven years. The new Dominion of India has already
devoted attention to the development of national shipping,
and plans have been discussed between the Government and
the shipowners. 1 It is reasonable to expect that a determined
effort will be made in this direction. Pakistan also appears
anxious to build up its own merchant navy to carry at least
a certain proportion of its imports and exports. Arrangements
have now been made to have Karachi and Chittagong recognised as ports of register for ships, and consequently as centres
for the recruitment of seafarers.2 Further reference will be
made to this question in Chapter XI, where the effects of
partition on the situation of Indian seafarers will be discussed.

1
2

The Statesman (New Delhi), 4 November 1947.
See above, p . 2, footnote 1.

CHAPTER I I
RECRUITMENT — HISTORICAL SURVEY
T H E CLOW COMMITTEE

It has long been recognised and is still agreed on all hands
that the fundamental problem of the Indian seafarer is the
organisation of recruitment.
A Seamen's Recruitment
Committee was set up as early as 1922 under the chairmanship
of Mr. (later, Sir) Arthur Clow to study this question, and the
matter bulked largely in the section of the report of the Royal
Commission on Labour in India, 1931, dealing with transport
services. The International Labour Organisation may indeed
take some share of the credit for focusing attention on the
subject in India. The 2nd (Maritime) Session of the International Labour Conference at Genoa in 1920 adopted a
Convention concerning facilities for finding employment for
seamen. 1 When the Indian Legislature came to consider this
Convention in 1921, it did not recommend ratification but
suggested that " an examination should be undertaken without
delay of the methods of recruitment of seamen at the different
ports, in order that it may be definitely ascertained whether
abuses exist and whether these abuses are susceptible of
remedy ".2 As a result, the Clow Committee was set up. I t
reported that in Bombay recruitment was conducted through
a single firm of licensed brokers, whereas in Calcutta the
principal company in question recruited seamen through its
own servants, and the other companies acted through one of
the local licensed brokers. The Committee found that the
system had led to grave abuses, and it was unanimous in
recommending an entirely new system which did not involve
the employment of intermediaries. I t proposed the establishment of employment offices under officers with practical
marine experience. The Committee further urged that bribery,
1
2

Extracts from this Convention will be found, in Appendix I.
B.O.L.I., p . 175.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

whether indirect or direct, to obtain employment as seamen
should be regarded as a serious offence punishable by a considerable term of imprisonment.
I t was only slowly that action was taken on the Clow
Eeport. In 1924 the Government of India appointed an officer
of the mercantile marine as shipping master at Calcutta 1,
with instructions to reorganise the shipping office and to
consider the question of establishing a recruiting office. Later,
an assistant was appointed to the shipping master at Bombay
to deal with the question of recruitment. In 1929 further
steps were taken by the Government to implement some of
the Clow Committee's recommendations. Orders were issued
that leading ratings (serangs for the deck and engine-room
departments and butlers for the saloon department) were to
be recruited either directly by the shipowners or through the
shipping office, thus doing away with the brokers as intermediaries as far as these higher ratings were concerned.
Companies were required to undertake that " preference will,
as far as possible, be given to men who have been longest out
of employment ", but the shipping master had no power to
enforce this rule.
T H E B O T A I , COMMISSION ON LABOUR IN I N D I A

When the Royal Commission sat in 1931, it found t h a t
there was still much room for improvement. I t reported that
licensed brokers and other intermediaries had not been
abolished, but that their powers had at least been curtailed.
I t suggested that licensed brokers were unnecessary and should
be completely abolished. The evidence received by the
Commission on the prevalence of bribery was conflicting, the
seafarers' representatives maintaining that there had been no
improvement since 1922, whereas the shipping masters and
the owners considered it was no longer serious. " I t was not
possible for us ", the Eeport states, " to sift the truth from
these conflicting statements, particularly as we had been
supplied with no figures that could be compared with those
collected by the 1922 Committee. " 2 The Commission went
1
The shipping master is an officiai of the Government, responsible for
superintending the engagement and discharge of seafarers.
2
B.C.L.I., p. 177. The present writer frequently suffered from the
same difficulty with regard to many aspects of the problems studied in this
report, and it is some consolation to know that even a Royal Commission
found it impossible to obtain reliable evidence on which to base a conclusion.

RECRUITMENT—HISTORICAL SURVEY

on to point out that one of the basic causes of bribery was the
large volume of unemployment, and that a reduction of
unemployment was therefore essential. The aim should be
to reach a stage when the number of seamen would be sufficient
to satisfy the reasonable needs of the industry and when
capable seamen would be assured of reasonable regularity of
employment. The Commission therefore recommended a
temporary suspension of the issue of new continuous discharge
certificates—for one year only, as a longer suspension might
have had unfortunate consequences as regards the long-term
supply of labour. Thereafter, certificates should be issued
only to persons for whom employment was available. It
further recommended that all seamen should be registered with
the shipping offices, and that registration should be refused
to those who had not been in employment for three years. I t
was agreed that shipping companies should have liberty of
choice from among men who had been discharged from one
of their ships not more than two years previously, this period
being gradually reduced until the choice was limited to men
employed by the company within the preceding nine months.
If a company were unable to make up a crew in this manner,
it was proposed that it should be required to apply to the
shipping office, which would select candidates from a live
register.
The Commission also dealt with certain unsatisfactory
conditions connected with the final payment of wages on
discharge, the allotment of wages to dependants, workmen's
compensation and welfare facilities on shore, but these need
not concern us here.
The Government of India duly gave consideration to the
recommendations of the Commission. Some were held to be
impracticable or too costly ; others continued for years to be
" under consideration " without reaching the stage of action.
Between 1932 and 1938 action was, however, taken on a few
points. Some progress was made in withdrawing the licences
of shipping brokers in the port of Calcutta. The proposal to
restrict new recruitment was implemented with certain reservations. The Government decided in 1936 that no fresh
continuous discharge certificates should be issued unless the
shipping master was satisfied that no suitable man was available for a given vacancy. I t called for annual reports on the
results of this measure and on the volume of unemployment,
s

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

with a view to deciding how long this restriction should remain
in force. The Government at the same time instructed shipping
masters to exert their influence to discourage the employment
of seamen with no entries on their continuous discharge
certificates for three years or longer. Certain action was also
taken with regard to workmen's compensation and the allotment of wages. During the war a new method of recruitment
was introduced in Calcutta, but the details of this method
may be left for consideration in the following chapter, which
deals with the present practices for the engagement of seafarers.
The action thus taken by the Government of India did
little to mitigate the scourge of bribery. In March 1939 the
Seamen's Union, Bombay, organised a demonstration to
protest against unemployment and the abuses of the existing
system of recruitment. The resolution adopted on that
occasion contained the following passage :
In view of the acute unemployment prevailing among the crews
of the engine-room and deck departments in the Port of Bombay,
and in view of the fact that there is no method of recruitment
for the employment of seamen, and further in view of the fact that
the ghat serang recommends the serang and the serang in turn
picks up any seaman he likes, no seaman can secure employment
without paying a bribe to the man who recruits him.
This meeting, therefore, requests the Government of Bombay
and the Government Shipping Master to persuade the shipping
compames to evolve a method of recruitment for seamen which
will check and completely stop bribery.1
T H E W A R AND UNEMPLOYMENT

I t may be noted at this point that the recent war, like
that of 1914-1918, made the problem of the Indian seafarer
much more acute. Shipping was a vital necessity, and more
men were required to man the steadily growing fleets of ships
carrying troops, war materials and food. But these ships
were subject to enemy attack from the sea and the air, and
the first reaction of some of the Indian seamen was, not
unnaturally, fear. Just as the first bombings in East Bengal
led to villages being completely abandoned for a few days
while the inhabitants fled to the jungle, so the first sinkings
of ships caused a number of Indian seamen to return to their
villages and give up for the duration of the war a career that
1

Bombay Chronicle (Bombay), 31 March 1939.

RECRUITMENT—HISTORICAL SURVEY

had become too dangerous. 1 It required considerable efforts
by the authorities and the unions to persuade some of these
men to return and to collect new recruits. As in other countries, war-risk bonuses were paid and a system of post-war
credits was instituted. Gradually, the growing demand led
to an increase in the number of seafarers employed, bringing
the total to well beyond the normal peacetime requirements.
Consequently, after the second World War, as after the first,
the question of unemployment among seafarers is acute and
some remedy must be found. The solutions that have been
suggested and are already being tried will be examined in
Chapter IV.

1
This must not be read as a criticism of the courage and loyalty of
Indian seafarers as a whole, whose war record was admirable. It is estimated
that over 6,600 lost their lives during the war, and many more were permanently disabled. But the defection of some has to be mentioned as a factor
affecting the post-war employment situation.

CHAPTEE I I I
RECRUITMENT — PRESENT PRACTICE
The methods at present employed for recruiting seafarers
differ in the two main ports, Bombay and Calcutta. One
feature that is common to both is that the operations of
selection and signing on must be carried out under the supervision of the shipping master or his deputy, who is responsible
for ensuring that the regulations are complied with and,
so far as his limited powers permit, that the selection is made
fairly and with some regard to the time spent out of employment. The duties of the shipping master in connection with
the engagement and discharge of seafarers under the Indian
Merchant Shipping Act, 1923, include :
(a)
(b)
(c)
(dj

checking officers' competency certificates ;
seeing articles of agreement signed by each seaman ;
having the agreement read over and explained to seamen ;
supervising the discharge of seamen and the payment of
the wages due ;
(e) making an award in any dispute submitted to him jointly
by a master and any of the crew.
In the following description of the recruiting procedure in
Bombay and Calcutta, no mention will be made of officers.
They are normally engaged directly or, in the case of many
of the Indian companies, through the National Maritime
Union, which represents some 95 per cent, of the officers
of the Indian mercantile marine.
BiECEUITING IN BOMBAY

In Bombay, for the past seventy years or more, seamen
have been recruited through intermediaries—a method which
is by no means restricted to maritime employment, but is
fairly widespread for other occupations in many Asian coun-

RECRUITMENT—PRESENT PRACTICE

tries. The Indian Council of World Affairs, in a survey published in 1947, lists among the " specifically Asian problems "
which the International Labour Organisation should help
to solve " the invariable employment of labour through
intermediaries . . . and the resultant exploitation of labour ",l
The system has repeatedly been condemned because of the
scope it affords for bribery, and in Calcutta it was changed
in 1941, but, as will be seen, the system which replaced it
is still far from satisfactory.
When shipping agents in Bombay require a crew for the
vessel of a company for which they act, they notify the
shipping master. The first step is to select the serangs for
the deck and engine-room departments and the butler for
the catering department. The agents send for the serangs
and butlers who are on their books to present themselves at
the shipping office, or the shipping master may issue a notice
calling for candidates. These candidates are mustered at
the shipping office at a given time, and one of the ship's
officers comes to make his choice. He probably requires two
serangs, and he may be offered seven or ten candidates.
He examines their continuous discharge certificates in the
presence of the shipping master or his deputy and makes his
choice. A typical difficulty attending a selection of this kind
in Bombay may be described here. The shipping master
is required to urge the officer to give preference to men who
have been longest out of employment, but he has no power
of compulsion. I n the case in question, the officer selected
one man who had been discharged only a few weeks previously.
Both the shipping master and a trade union representative
who was present remonstrated with the officer and tried to
persuade him to take one of the other serangs who had been
paid off a year or more before. The officer appeared reluctant
to give reasons for his choice. He first suggested that he
was giving preference, quite naturally, to a man who had
served with his company on previous voyages ; but it was
pointed out that this was true of some other candidates.
I t finally transpired that the ship for which a crew was
required was a tanker, and the officer wished to have a
serang with experience on tankers, who would know the
1

INDIAN COUNCIL OF WORLD AFFAIRS : Asia and the I.L.O. (New Delhi,

1947), p . 10.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

special conditions of work, and particularly the safety precautions to be observed on vessels of that type. This seemed
reasonable, but it illustrates one of the difficulties in applying
strict rotation in filling vacancies.
On another occasion, the writer arrived outside the Bombay
Shipping Office to find an excited, vociferous mob engaged
in a free fight, in which the police had to intervene after a
few broken heads had been suffered. The origin of the trouble
proved to be a case in which a ship's officer had, for unexplained reasons, selected a serang comparatively recently
discharged, in preference to others who had long been out
of employment. Some of the latter, incensed at what they
felt to be unfair treatment (for which there may have been
a valid reason, but no explanation was offered), cried their
grievance aloud to the crowd of seamen invariably waiting
in the hall of the shipping office and in the street outside.
Feelings of sympathy were soon aroused ; an attempt was
made to attack the favoured serang, who was defended by
his friends, and soon a miniature riot was in progress. Such
scenes are apparently of quite frequent occurrence, sometimes
fanned by trade union representatives who want to show
that they are protesting on behalf of members of their union
whom they consider as unfairly treated. I t should be mentioned that if a seaman has been too long away from sea,
an officer often declines to select him, believing that he may
have grown too soft for the strain of work, say, in the engineroom of a ship in the tropics.
The procedure for the selection of serangs is comparatively
straightforward and would seem to offer little room for abuses,
even if not wholly satisfactory from the point of view of
rotation of employment. Nevertheless, there appears to be
some corruption involved. The method by which serangs
are appointed or are selected by the agents to appear for
engagement are obscure, but in the background lurks a
shadowy figure known as the ghat serang, who wields considerable power. He is often a boarding-house keeper, and
usually also a moneylender, who eventually amasses a fortune
and becomes the owner of extensive house property.
In
order to secure payment for board or the repayment of
advances, he recommends to the agents those serangs on whom
he has a claim. In other cases, a serang himself may be in
a position to bribe a minor clerk in the agent's office so as

RECRUITMENT—PRESENT PRACTICE

to get himself put forward for selection. The writer interviewed some Punjabi engine-room ratings in the Indian
seamen's hostel in Bombay. One man aged about sixty,
with the rank of Uncial (assistant to the serang) had a record
of 44 voyages with one of the big companies, and his work
and conduct were regularly described in his discharge certificate as " very good ". 1 When asked why he had never
gained promotion to the rank of serang, he at once replied
that he could not afford to buy the job. The fee is said to
range from 200 to 500 rupees (£15 to £37). Again, although
the process of selection would seem on the face of it to prevent
any one individual from making certain of employment
by bribery, it is always possible for the agent's clerk who
accompanies the selecting officer to influence the latter to
give preference to a candidate who has paid a bribe in advance
or promised one in the event of his being selected. In some
cases junior officers are said to have been directly bribed in
advance to select a certain serang. 2 Thus, even at this first
stage in the process of crew recruitment, there are distinct
possibilities of corruption which the shipping master is
clearly powerless to detect or check, since he can only ensure
that a selection is made from a number of candidates and
cannot really know or influence the motive for the choice
made or prevent it from being a pure formality.
The situation is still worse as regards the recruitment of
the remainder of the crew. Once the deck serang, the engineroom serang and the butler have been engaged, it is their
sole responsibility to find the crews for their respective departments. Some justification for this system is alleged to lie in
the fact that it is essential for the serang to exercise good
discipline over his crew on board and that this is facilitated
if he picks the men himself. He can, for example, make sure
of getting a relatively homogeneous crew—men of the same
race or religion, from the same district or group of villages,
sometimes possibly including men of his own village or family.
1
I t is true that ships' officers, who suffer from an exaggerated desire
not to prejudice any seaman's chances of future employment, tend to assess
every man's conduct as " V.G. " unless he has been extremely troublesome
or guilty of some serious offence. The -writer examined some hundreds of
certificates and was impressed by the uniformly good behaviour there
recorded. Nevertheless, in the instance cited the seaman had been re-engaged
so often by the same line that there could be no doubt about his efficiency.
2

Dinkar DESAI, of. cit., p . 33.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

This is not without its importance in a country where religious and racial feelings often run high and where differences
of custom may, for instance, cause difficulties in catering.
Punjabis want meat and chapattis (pancakes), whereas Bengalis demand rice and fish, and men from the Malabar coast
insist on rice but do not care for fish. A mixed crew in any one
department may therefore cause certain practical difficulties.
But a reasonably homogeneous crew could be assured even
under a system of employment offices, and the comparatively
slight advantage claimed for the method of recruitment by
the serangs is immeasurably outweighed by the crying defects.
That the serang should sometimes give preference to men of
his own family or village is, apart from the possible advantages just mentioned, relatively harmless. But all the evidence
goes to show that he normally gives preference to those who
can pay most. He also may run a boarding house, in which
the seamen are allowed to become gradually more indebted
until the serang decides to find a job for them, whereupon
he claims most, if not all, of their advance of a month's pay
in settlement of their board and of the cash advances made
t o t h e m a t e x o r b i t a n t r a t e s of interest.

I t is n o t easy t o

obtain any definite information as to the extent of indebtedness or the amounts claimed by way of bribes, but a few
figures may be quoted. An enquiry conducted by the Social
Service League in Bombay in 1927 brought to light the case
of a married seaman who had been out of employment for
two years and whose debts amounted to 500 rupees (£37),
on which he was being charged interest at from 72 to 108 per
cent. 1 The chronic indebtedness of the Indian worker is of
course a much wider problem, affecting most classes, and
particularly agriculturists, and it is impossible and unnecessary to enlarge on it here. But there remains the question
of the fee or bribe paid by a seaman to the serang for obtaining a job. When the system of recruitment still in force in
Bombay was practised in Calcutta, cases such as the following
were reported. Where the prescribed rate of wages for a deck
hand was 22 rupees a month, a serang had engaged one man
at 21 rupees, two at 20, three a* 17, and so on, one being
paid as little as 12 rupees. Out of a total pay bill for the
1
P . Gr. KANEKAK : Seamen in Bombay (Bombay, Social Service League,
1928), p. 8.

RECRUITMENT—PRESENT PRACTICE

company of 330 rupees, the serang received 88 rupees, or
over 26 per cent., for himself.1 Mr. Dinkar Desai also states 2
that it was believed that in 1922 the Clow Committee found
that each seaman among the deck crews in Bombay paid from
five to ten rupees (7s.6d. to 15s.) to the serang. In a speech
at the Preparatory Asian Regional Conference the same authority estimated that in the course of a year in Bombay some
two million rupees were paid by seamen in bribes. A resolution adopted at a meeting of seamen in Calcutta on 12 September 1937 stated that the introduction of a system of free
and open selection would save the seamen of that port two
million rupees annually in bribes. Even if these estimates
cannot be checked, no-one disputes that bribery is still
widespread.
if or is bribery necessarily limited to the ghat serangs and
the serangs. I t has been alleged that it is also prevalent
among the companies' recruiting agents, minor officials of the
shipping office, the staff of the shipping brokers (some of
whom are still at work), the police and the minor officials of
trade unions. I t is virtually impossible to verify these
accusations, but they are repeatedly made in various quarters,
and it seems probable that there is some element of truth
in them.
When the serangs and the butler have collected their
crews, the process of final selection takes place at the shipping
office in the same way as for the choice of the serangs in the
first instance. The serangs usually, but not necessarily,
produce more than the number of men actually required, so
that the ship's officer can enjoy a certain freedom of choice.
As soon as the men are selected, they are signed on, the articles
of agreement being read out to them in such languages as
may be necessary. They then receive a month's pay in
advance, and they are immediately required to pay the agreed
fee to the serang. Trade union officials are also on the spot to
collect dues from their members, from whom it would be difficult
to get payment otherwise. The remainder of the advance is
usually claimed by the owner of the latti, or boarding house,
in which the seaman has been living during the months of
waiting for employment, if the serang was not at the same
1

Dinkar DESAI, op. cit., p . 34.

*Ibid., p . 33.

SEAFAKERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

time proprietor of the boarding house. Debts for clothing
or repayments to moneylenders (at extortionate interest) may
well account for anything that remains of the first month's
pay or remain a charge on the seaman's wages when he is
paid off at the end of the voyage.
There are certain modifications of the above system of
recruiting which should be mentioned. I n some cases efforts
have been made to restrict the power of the serangs and their
scope for bribery by arranging that only about one third of
the crew of each department will be picked by the serang, the
remainder being engaged directly by the company through
the Shipping Office. Again, the Bombay Seamen's Union has
an arrangement with the Scindia Company whereby, when
the company asks for a butler, the union sends either the first
on the roster or the first two or three, from whom the company
can make its choice. The selected butler then returns to the
union and picks his staff from among those on the union
register who have been longest out of employment. In these
ways both the owners and the unions have gone some way
towards eliminating bribery and other abuses from the recruitment procedure. We shall see in the following chapter the
steps that are now being taken jointly by the owners and the
unions to evolve a better system.
EECBUITING IN CALCUTTA

The Clow Committee, as early as 1922, found that bribery
was more serious in Calcutta than in Bombay. I t was in
Calcutta, therefore, that the Government, as already mentioned, began the abolition of the shipping brokers. In a
further effort to improve the situation, the decision was taken
in 1941 to change the method of recruiting in that port, which
had up to then been the same as in Bombay. The new method,
which still operates, is known as the " open muster system " ;
it is certainly open and it might be called a muster, but it
most definitely is not a system. The main feature of the
open muster, and the essential reason for its adoption, is that
it eliminates all intermediaries—recruiting agents, serangs,
etc.—leaving the ship's officer to make the direct selection of
his crew from among all the available men. I t may be asked
why, if intermediaries could thus be got rid of, the method
was not also introduced in Bombay. The reason given is

RECRUITMENT—PRESENT PRACTICE

that the seafarers in Calcutta are more or less homogeneous,
of the same racial origin and the same religion, whereas in
Bombay there are four or more distinct groups, whom it would
be undesirable to mix in the same crew for reasons indicated
earlier. 1 The serang, it is said, takes account of this point in
selecting his crew ; it is clearly in his interest to do so, as he
is responsible for discipline during the voyage.
We must now consider how the open muster works in
practice. When a company in Calcutta wants a crew for one
of its ships, it notifies the shipping master, who at once informs
the seamen's unions that a muster for selecting the crew will
be held at the shipping office, say from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on
a certain day. A notice to the same effect is posted in the
shipping office. The seafarer has free choice of ship in that he
need not present himself if he does not like the ship, but in
view of the extent of unemployment this rarely happens. The
men begin to assemble about 7 a.m., and by 10 o'clock there
may be from 500 to 1,000 squatting or standing in the courtyard of the shipping office. A part of the area is sheltered by
a roof, but many of the men are in the open, exposed to a
broiling sun in summer. Even in November many of them
will be found holding umbrellas to keep off the sun. They are
arranged in groups according to departments (deck, engineroom, saloon), and within those groups according to rating.
Ships' officers representing the different departments then
come and choose their crews, under the supervision of the
shipping master or one of his deputies. Several trade union
officials are also in attendance, partly to look after the interests
of their members and see that the selection is fairly made,
and partly to collect dues from the men who are chosen.
Consider the problem facing a deck officer collecting his
crew. He requires, let us say, one first tindal, one second
tindal, a winchman, a sweeper, some other special ratings
and some twenty, fifty or more lascars according to the size
of the vessel (serangs and butlers do not come to the muster
but are selected directly by the companies). Even for the
job of first tindal there may be some fifty applicants (as was
the case when the writer watched this operation), and for the
lascars there will probably be several hundreds. All the
applicants stand in rows, holding their continuous discharge
1

See above, p . 19.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

certificates in front of them, so that the officer can see at a
glance each man's record of service. In addition to the name
of each ship on which the man has served, his dates of engagement and discharge and his record of efficiency and conduct,
the certificate may bear a cross in red ink opposite the name
of one ship, which indicates that the seaman was serving in
it when it was sunk by enemy action—a factor to which the
selecting officer is asked to attach some slight weight in making
his choice. The unfortunate officer must go along each row
and glance at every certificate, otherwise the selection is
thought to be unfair and trouble is likely to start. Even if he
has done this, he may still be suspected of favouritism if he
makes his entire selection from one row when there are four
rows of applicants. Just as in Bombay, it is a commonplace
to have a free fight over some alleged injustice, and the police
may have to be called in. Indeed, the risk of a mêlée is greater
in Calcutta, where all the available seamen are assembled in
the one yard and some dozens to some hundreds are following
the operation of selection for the various ratings, whereas in
Bombay only the limited number of candidates already picked
are admitted to the office where the final selection is made.
The seafarer does not know on what basis the officer makes
his choice, and language difficulties will often prevent direct
explanation between the two. But the seafarer, though
uneducated, is no fool and is quick to see any trickery, and
perhaps even quicker to suspect unfairness when none is
intended. How can an officer be completely fair when he has
to select one man from among 50, or 30 men from among 200 1
After his first quick round of everybody for form's sake, he
makes a second round and picks his men. He is probably, if
experienced, influenced largely by the man's appearance ; he
also takes for preference those who have served several times
with his own company (and this may be to the seaman's advantage, for several companies have benevolent schemes for men
with long service with the company) ; he may pay some heed
to age and to war sendee ; except in so far as he wishes to
avoid those who have been too long away from the sea, he
probably pays little attention to duration of unemployment,
although he may be exhorted to do so by the shipping master's
representative or by a trade union official. I t will be clear
that when a harassed officer has to select his crew in this way
from some half-dozen groups of different ratings, the choice

RECRTJITMENT—PRESENT PRACTICE

must of necessity be haphazard, and that is why this so-called
" open muster system " was described above as no system
at all.
But it may be objected that this method nevertheless
marks a great step forward in that it has eliminated the
bribery and corruption of the earlier method. This, however, is not entirely certain. There is no direct evidence that
bribery still exists, but allegations to that effect are frequently
made. The company clerk who accompanies the selecting
officer may be in a position to influence his choice in favour
of certain men from whom he has collected or hopes to collect
a bribe. It is asserted that there have been cases where unions
have instructed their members (or some of them) to wear
a special distinguishing mark and have arranged for those
men to be picked. The unions would then naturally collect
a fee in addition to the union dues and to the sums owing
by the seafarer in respect of board and lodging (for the unions
in Calcutta run a number of boarding houses) and of advances
made while the man was awaiting employment. Even if the
union representative did nothing to influence the choice
beyond extolling the merits of some of his members, he might
still—in view of the general attitude described earlier—be
•considered as entitled to a fee from such of those members
as were actually selected. A case has been known where a
selecting officer had written on his palm in indelible pencil
the numbers of certain discharge certificates, the holders of
which had paid a bribe in advance to ensure being picked.
The trick was discovered, and the officer narrowly escaped
lynching. Another form of unfair selection sometimes occurs :
most ships employ port crews after the seagoing crew has
been discharged. The officers get to know these men, who
may present themselves at the muster and may wear a prearranged recognition badge so as to be engaged for the next
voyage.
Whatever truth there may be in the suggestions that
bribery still persists under the open muster method of recruiting, the method is obviously still very unsatisfactory in other
ways. I t is unsystematic, cumbersome and wasteful of the
time of the officers concerned and still more so of the time of
the seafarers who attend day after day for months in the
hope of finding employment. Above all, it does nothing to
•ensure a reasonable rotation and hence a certain degree of

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

regularity of employment for the seafarers. That regularity
and continuity of employment are earnestly desired by seafarers of all nationalities was clearly brought out during
the discussions on this subject at the Maritime Preparatory
Conference at Copenhagen in 1945 and at the 28th (Maritime)
Session of the International Labour Conference, Seattle, 1946. 1
Several European countries have now introduced " established
service " schemes or similar plans for achieving this end, and
other countries are considering the possibility of doing so.
For Indian seafarers, irregularity of employment weighs more
heavily than it would on those in most western countries
because there is no unemployment insurance scheme from
which they can draw benefits while waiting for a job. Moreover, they are faced by the alternative of going to their villages
and living comparatively cheaply for a time, with no certainty
that after some months they will have a good chance of fresh
employment under some scheme of rotation, or else remaining
in the port in the hope of early engagement, and meanwhile
accumulating debts once they have used up the pay received
on discharge from their previous voyage.
So far as present practice goes, then, the fundamental
problems of unemployment, irregularity of engagement, and
bribery have not been solved. We shall see in the next
chapter the solutions that have been advocated and the steps
that are already being taken towards remedying the intolerable
conditions under which the Indian seafarer has to seek
employment.

1
Cf. International Labour Conference, Twenty-Eighth Session, Eeport
VII : Continuous Employment for Seafarers (Montreal, 1946).

CHAPTER IV
RECRUITMENT — NEW SCHEMES
While there is unanimity as to the existence of flagrant
abuses in the present methods of recruitment of Indian seafarers, there are considerable differences of opinion as to the
best means of remedying them. I t was pointed out above 1 that
the Clow Committee was set up precisely to ascertain whether
abuses existed, and if so whether they were " susceptible
of remedy ". The Committee's findings were clearly positive
on the first point, and as a solution it advocated the establishment of employment offices in each main port, under officers
with practical marine experience, together with strict measures
against bribery. So far, the Government of India has done
little to give effect to these recommendations.
I t is true that section 10 of the Indian Merchant Shipping
Act of 1923 provides that " if a shipping master, deputy
shipping master, clerk or servant in a shipping office demands
or receives, other than the fees authorised under this Act, any
remuneration whatever . . . for hiring or supplying any
seaman for a ship . . . he shall be liable for every such
offence to a fine which may extend to 200 rupees, and shall
also be dismissed from his office ". In spite of this provision,
it is alleged that minor clerks in the shipping offices are still
open to bribery. Be that as it may, the more serious problem
of the bribes extorted by the serang remains untouched by
the Act.
It may be suggested that the fact that recruiting operations
are carried out under the supervision of a Government official,
the shipping master, goes some way towards meeting the
proposal of the Clow Committee for employment offices. But
it has been seen in the preceding chapter that the shipping
master is virtually powerless to stop bribery or to ensure a fair
rotation of employment. This is no criticism of the shipping
masters, who are conscientious officials, anxious to improve
1

See p. 11.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

the methods of recruitment but granted no statutory powers
to do so.
The writer questioned representatives of all concerned, to
elicit their views as to the best solution—shipping masters,
port welfare officers, shipowners and trade union leaders. The
shipowners' representatives, while admitting the existence
of bribery, were inclined to consider it as something that had
to be taken for granted, although it might be deplored. They
suggested that a certain improvement could be achieved by the
general adoption of a practice already followed by some shipping companies, whereby the serang is allowed to engage
directly only one third of his crew (a nucleus for the maintenance of discipline, including the tindals who assist the serang
in his work), while the remaining two thirds are engaged
directly by the ship's officers from among the applicants
available at the shipping office. This would certainly eliminate
a certain proportion of the bribery practised by the serangs,
but for the rest it would seem to be equivalent to the open
muster method in force in Calcutta, the defects of which we
have already seen. Apart from the above suggestion, the
owners frankly considered that the existing methods of
recruitment provided them with the seamen they needed, and
they therefore saw little need for change. Some of the suggested
alternatives had, in their view, defects as compared with the
existing methods. This would seem to lend some colour to
Mr. Dinkar Desai's criticism of the Indian Government, which,
he says, did nothing to give effect to the recommendations of
the Clow Committee, because its policy has consistently been
" not to do anything which the powerful British shipping
interests declared to be impracticable "^
Nevertheless,
in practice the shipowners, both in Bombay and in Calcutta,
have given way to strong trade union pressure and have agreed,
even if without much enthusiasm, to co-operate in the new
systems of recruitment which were being established in 1947
and which will be described later in this chapter.
There was general agreement among all those consulted
on several of the steps that should be taken in connection with
the regulation of recruitment, irrespective of the actual system
which might eventually be adopted for placing seafarers in
employment. The first of these steps is to register all those at
1

Dinkar DBSAI, op. cit., p„ 35.

RECRUITMENT—NEW SCHEMES

present serving as seafarers and all those who have so served
and are still seeking employment in that capacity. The second
is to restrict or suspend the issue of new continuous discharge
certificates for a certain period—in other words, to restrict
entrance to maritime employment with a view to reducing
the number of potential seafarers and bringing it more into
line with the number of jobs available. For the same purpose
it is agreed that there should be some weeding out of seafarers
at present serving or seeking employment, by eliminating
those over a certain age or those unfit for the work on medical
or other grounds. But while the need for this is generally
recognised, it is pointed out that those who are eliminated
have no social security scheme to protect them when they lose
their employment, and it is suggested in some quarters that
compensation should be provided, possibly by Government
grants or perhaps out of the yield of a fee to be charged to all
seafarers on engagement. Such a fee, it is suggested, would be
much lower than the bribe which the seafarer normally pays
at present. The compensation would, according to those who
advocate it, be merely a transitional measure until such time
as a proper social insurance system for seafarers can be introduced, and it is widely recognised that this cannot be done
until the number of seafarers is reduced to a reasonable level
and a proper system of recruitment organised.
There is not such complete agreement as to the form of the
new recruitment system. Some of the Government officials
who were consulted tended to favour the immediate preparation of registers of seafarers by the shipping offices, which
would then act as employment offices, filling vacancies by
rotation, but with certain limitations and adjustments. For
instance, different racial or religious groups might be kept on
separate rosters, within which rotation would operate. The
shipping offices, thus acting as employment offices, would
continue to be administered by the Government, but shipowners and seamen's unions would have a certain right of supervision, probably through a joint committee. On the other hand,
the seamen's unions were practically unanimous (in spite of
rivalries and conflicting views on other points) in thinking
that the ideal solution was a joint supply system—employment
offices managed jointly by the shipowners and the unions.
They agreed that there should be some degree of Government
supervision to ensure proper working and the enforcement of
3

SBAFABEES' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

any statutory provisions governing recruitment. They also
felt that some financial assistance from the State would be
necessary to meet the working expenses of the offices.
As was already mentioned, the shipowners are lukewarm
in their support of this idea, but they have agreed to co-operate
in the establishment of such a system, and a beginning has
already been made both in Bombay and in Calcutta.
T H E BOMBAY J O I N T SUPPLY SCHEME

During 1947 a Maritime Board was set up in Bombay
for the purpose of discussing seafarers' conditions of employment and of bringing into operation a joint system for the
recruitment of seamen. The Board consists of four representatives of the shipowners (including a representative of
Indian shipowners) and four representatives of the National
Seamen's Union of India. About the time of this enquiry
there was some discussion as to the possibility of increasing
the number of members to five a side so as to make room
for a representative of the other seamen's unions in Bombay.
I t is not disputed that the National Seamen's Union is the
oldest and largest seamen's organisation in Bombay, but the
owners felt that the scheme could not be entirely satisfactory
unless some representation was given to all the seamen's
unions in the port. The other unions, however, decline to
co-operate in any way with the National Seamen's Union. 1
Consequently, the Bombay Joint Supply Scheme is being
organised by representatives of the shipowners and the largest
seamen's union.
Early in the following year, the Bombay Seamen's Union,
which is the chief rival of the National Seamen's Union,
condemned the Maritime Board, suggesting that it provided
no solution to the problem. A Bombay Seamen's Conference
on 22 January 1948 called on the central Government to put
an end to corruption and bribery in the recruitment of seamen and to evolve a rotation system according to the Genoa
Convention of the I.L.O. The Conference expressed resentment
that the shipping companies should have established a Maritime
Board without the co-operation of the Bombay Seamen's
1

The trade union situation among Indian seafarers will be discussed in
more detail in Chapter X.

RECRUITMENT—NEW SCHEMES

Union ; it urged the Government not to recognise the Board.
Mr. Dinkar Desai, General Secretary of the Bombay Seamen's
Union, said that the British had left India but that the corrupt
practice of recruitment of seamen was still functioning. He
said that if the Government and the shipping companies did
not stop the system in a short time, seamen might contemplate
strike action. 1 In an interview, Mr. Desai stated that if the
Government of India did not ratify at an early date the Convention concerning facilities for finding employment for seamen, Government shipping offices and private shipping
companies would be picketed. 2
The Maritime Board is meanwhile continuing its task of
registering all seamen in the port. 3 In November 1947 the
register was still in a very embryonic stage ; it can only be
built up gradually as seamen return from voyages and report
for discharge and as others apply for employment. In the
process of registration, the Board is eliminating all men over
the age of sixty by refusing to consider them for employment.
N"o new continuous discharge certificates are being issued,
thus preventing for the time being any additions to the already
unduly swollen ranks of the seafarers. Men who did not serve
during the war are also refused employment, this again
eliminating a certain number of candidates. Finally, the Board
is endeavouring to tighten up the medical examination of
seafarers, so as to remove those who are not completely fit.
This raises a point on which there is disagreement between
the shipowners and the unions. The owners insist that the
medical examination must be carried out by the company's
doctor. Their main argument is that if a seaman falls ill in
a foreign port, the shipowner is responsible for his maintenance, hospital treatment and eventual repatriation to his
home port. This is often a very costly obligation, and the
owners therefore want to avoid engaging any man who is not
thoroughly fit and is likely to become a heavy liability. The
unions, on the other hand, suspect the company's doctor
of being used by the owners to keep seamen out of employment for reasons that have nothing to do with physical fitness.
1

Bombay Chronicle, 24 January 1948.
Times of India, 31 January 1948.
3
As far as can be ascertained, the Bombay Board has made little progress
in the year that has elapsed between the time of the writer's visit and the
date of completing this report.
2

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

They therefore urge that the medical examination should be
made by a Government medical officer, with the company's
doctor in attendance if the owners so desire. 1
The representatives of the National Seamen's Union did
not appear to be as enthusiastic over the joint supply system
as the Calcutta unions are. They indicated that they would
have preferred seamen to be engaged directly from their
Union, which already keeps a register of its members classified
in gToups according to the length of time out of employment
(three, six, nine, twelve months, and so on) and would thus
be in a position to operate a system of rotation. They added
that there were some advantages in the method of recruitment by the serangs, and they thought the serangs might still
be left free to select their key men (tindals). However, as the
Union had been pressing for an improved system of recruitment, and as the owners wished to have some say in any
new system that was introduced, they were readily co-operating in the scheme, which is still in its early stages.
One matter which will arise as soon as the new system
comes fully into operation is the question of finance. It is
estimated that the joint supply system of the Bombay Maritime
Board will cost about 30,000 rupees a year. The unions suggested that slightly more than half of this sum could probably
be covered by the fee of one rupee per man engaged which
the shipping companies are required to pay to the shipping
office under the Indian Merchant Shipping Act, but it may be
doubted whether this statutory deduction could be used for
this purpose. Consequently, the cost will have to be met
from some other source, and the question arises whether the
central Government will be prepared to cover part of the
administrative expenses of the scheme. As an alternative,
it has been suggested that the Government might authorise
a similar deduction of one rupee from the advance of pay
made to each seafarer on engagement. So far as the writer
is aware, no decision has yet been taken on this point, although
in Calcutta the decision to charge this fee to seamen has
already been reached.
1
The Government of the Dominion has recently taken steps to meet
the wishes of the seafarers in this matter. A system of medical examination
by Government medical officers was introduced during 1948. The company
doctors have still the right to conduct a supplementary examination, but
their powers are limited.

RECRUITMENT—NEW SCHEMES

T H E CALCUTTA J O I N T SUPPLY SCHEME

In Calcutta, too, a Maritime Board was set up in 1947.
It is intended, like its Bombay counterpart, to provide
machinery for preventing and adjusting disputes, establishing
rates of wages and other conditions of employment and organising a joint supply system. 1 The Board consists of five representatives of the shipowners (British, Indian and others)
appointed by the Calcutta Liners Conference (Crews) and five
representatives of the seafarers appointed by the All-India
Seafarers' Federation. 2 This Federation groups virtually all
the unions in Calcutta, as well as the unions in Bombay
other than the National Seamen's Union.
The Board is very keen and energetic, and proposes in
time to deal with questions of welfare, the organisation of
boarding houses and various other matters affecting the
wellbeing of seafarers. In the meantime, however, it is concentrating its efforts mainly on the fundamental problem of
recruitment. Its constitution lays down the following principles which are to govern the operation of the joint supply
system :
(i) the shipowners shall have the right to select their own crews
at any time through a jointly controlled supply office to be
established on a basis to be mutually agreed ; special arrangements to be made by the Calcutta Maritime Board to meet
special cases such as coasting trade and shipping of substitutes ;
(ii) equal rights of registration and employment must be secured
for all seamen ;
(iii) the seamen shall have the right to select their ship.
This statement of principles, while not exhaustive—which
it was presumably not intended to be—shows that the aim
of the joint supply scheme is to safeguard the rights both
of owners and seafarers. The text is reminiscent of Article 6
of the international labour Convention concerning the placement of seamen (1920) : " In connection with the employment of seamen, freedom of choice of ship shall be assured to
the seamen and freedom of choice of crew shall be assured to
shipowners."
The first step taken by the Calcutta Maritime Board,
1
The full text of the constitution of the Board will he found in
Appendix II.
2
During 1948, after lengthy negotiations, provision was [made for two
Government representatives to he added to the Board.

SEAFAEJBRS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

as by the Bombay Board, was naturally to register all seamen
and persons seeking employment as seamen. The form used
for this purpose is reproduced in Appendix I I I , but it may
be well to quote here the explanatory notes printed (in English
and in Bengali) on the back of the form, as they throw further
light on the principles and methods which the Board proposes
to follow :
1. The Calcutta Maritime Board has been jointly constituted
by the Calcutta Liners Conference (Crews) and the All-India Seafarers' Federation representing the shipowners and the seamen
respectively. The Board has established a joint Supply Office to
regulate the employment of seamen from the Port of Calcutta. The
principal lines engaging Indian seamen in Calcutta are members
of the Calcutta Liners Conference (Crews).
2. All seamen, with such exceptions as may be agreed by the
Calcutta Maritime Board, are eligible to register for employment
in this form at the Calcutta Maritime Board's Joint Supply Office,
provided that they have not less than one voyage to their credit
commencing after September 1939, and are physically fit for service
at sea.
3. Eegistration is no guarantee of employment.
4. Do not pay any one to fill up this form for you. If you cannot
arrange for this to be done yourself, the staff of the Calcutta Maritime Board's Joint Supply Office will gladly do this for you free
of charge.
5. Details to be filled in must be accurate extracts from your
C.D.C. These registration forms will be checked against your
C.D.C. and if found deliberately false will be invalidated, and you
will be debarred from registration now and in future.
6. Muster cards will be issued in due course to enable you to
attend musters for the selection of crews. Musters will be confined to seamen in possession of muster cards which will be issued
to those seamen who satisfy the conditions mentioned in clause 2
above and who have been longest out of employment.
7. The signing of this registration form implies agreement to
pay an employment fee of one rupee to the Calcutta Maritime Board
for its services, and for the drawing of this amount as an advance
of wages at the time of signing on. The Owners/Agents of the
ship on which you sign on will then remit this sum to the Calcutta
Maritime Board, together with an equal sum as their share of the
expenses.
The first point to be noted in this text is that no-one
will be accepted for registration unless he has at least one
voyage to his credit either during or since the war. This is
in accordance with the view generally expressed by Government officials, owners and the unions that pre-war seamen
who declined to go to sea during the war should be debarred
from employment, at least so long as there is a surplus of
applicants for sea service. In addition, the application of

RECRUITMENT—NEW SCHEMES

this rule will debar from registration anyone who has not
been to sea at all since 1939—that is, for a period of some
nine years. It is felt by the Board that anyone who has been
so long absent from sea service is no longer entitled to be
considered a " career " seaman and should reasonably be
expected to remain in whatever shore employment he may
have followed in the meantime. In view of the urgent need
for reducing the numbers in the overcrowded maritime occupation, this rule is understandable. At the same time, the rule
automatically excludes from registration any persons who
have never served at sea, thus closing for the time being the
door to any would-be new entrants.
The second point to note is that musters will be confined
to those seamen " who have been longest out of employment ".
This means that the Board intends to apply a system of
rotation for placing seamen in employment. In order to be
able at the same time to give the shipowner (or the master
of the vessel, acting for him) the freedom of choice of crew
mentioned in the principles quoted earlier, the Board proposes
in practice to summon for muster from the top of the roster
of those awaiting engagement in each category of ratings
two or three times the number of men actually required,
so that a selection can be made by the master from within
that group. Similarly, the seaman will have freedom of choice
in that he can refrain from attending the muster if he does
not wish to serve on the ship for which the muster is being
held. Once the register is completely established, the Board
hopes that it will be able to avoid the necessity for seamen
waiting indefinitely in Calcutta in the hope of an engagement,
by adopting the following method. When a seaman is discharged at the end of a voyage, his name will be put at the
bottom of the roster for his particular rating, and he will
then proceed to his home. The officials of the joint supply
scheme will know from experience the probable demand for
seamen, and when any man's name begins to come near the
top of the roster a communication will be sent to him inviting
him to return to Calcutta, where there is a prospect of employment for him in the immediate future. In this way it will
no longer be necessary for the seaman between voyages to
spend long months in a Calcutta boarding house, accumulating
debts which may absorb the whole of his first month's wages
or more.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Finally, in Calcutta as in Bombay, the problem of financing
the scheme has not yet been definitely solved. The central
Government provided the Maritime Board with the buildings
in which the registration of seafarers is being carried out.
These premises were erected for military purposes during
the war and are conveniently situated and reasonably suited
to their present purpose. In view of the general housing
shortage in India, the Board deemed itself lucky to obtain
the buildings it has. A grant of 10,000 rupees was made by
the Calcutta Liners' Conference to meet the initial cost of
salaries and office equipment, and in this connection it should
be mentioned that the joint secretaries of the Board emphasised very strongly to the writer the necessity for paying
good salaries to all their clerks so as to reduce any possible
temptation to accept bribes. They agree that bribery is
so ingrained that it will take a long time to eradicate, but
they are firmly determined to do everything they can to
ensure that the new scheme is entirely equitable to the seaman
and that he cannot obtain any unfair advantage by bribery.
I t will have been noted that the explanatory notes on the
scheme, which were quoted above, provide that the seaman
and the shipowner shall each pay a fee of one rupee in respect
of each engagement. This will go some way towards meeting
the administrative expenses, but whether it will be sufficient
remains to be seen. The question whether this is the most
desirable method or whether the administrative expenses
should be met in whole or in part by the Government will
be considered in Chapter VI, where an attempt will be made
to assess the value of the new method of recruitment which
is gradually being established in Bombay and Calcutta.
Before attempting to make this assessment and to formulate
proposals for solving satisfactorily the fundamental problem
of the recruitment of seafarers, it would seem desirable to
consider briefly the principles governing the placing of workers
which have from time to time been accepted by the International Labour Conference and laid down as international
standards to guide all countries in the development of their
employment services. An analysis of these principles will
be found in the following chapter, together with some notes
on the methods of placing for seamen practised in a few of
the leading maritime countries.

CHAPTER V
RECRUITMENT—INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
PRINCIPLES ADOPTED BY THE

I.L.O.

At its very first session, in 1919, the International Labour
Conference dealt with the question of employment exchanges
for the placing of workers, and the Organisation has continued
to devote great attention to this important question ever
since. The principles which have received international
sanction through their adoption by the Conference in the form
of Conventions or Eecommendations are to be found in the
following texts, the relevant passages of which will be examined
below :
Unemployment Convention, 1919
Unemployment Recommendation, 1919
Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920 x
Fee-Charging Employment Agencies Convention, 1933
Fee-Charging Employment Agencies Recommendation, 1933
Employment Service Recommendation, 1944
Employment Service Convention, 1948
Employment Service Recommendation, 1948
This list of titles serves in itself to show the trend of evolution in the matter. The earliest international texts dealt
with unemployment, and therefore considered employment
agencies mainly from the point of view of their negative value
in preventing unemployment. The most recent texts reflect
the tendency to set up a nation-wide co-ordinated employment
service with the positive task of organising the placing (and
to some extent the training) of workers and ensuring the
maximum degree of stability in the national labour market.
Attention was drawn to this evolution in the report prepared
by the International Labour Office for the 1947 Session of the
Conference 2 :
At first, such placement work as was done was in the hands of
private agencies conducted with a view to profit. Later, it was also
1

Extracts from the text are reproduced in Appendix I.
International Labour Conference, 30th Session, Report
Employment Service Organisation (I.L.O., Montreal, 1946), p . 4.
2

V (1) :

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

undertaken by employers' associations or trade unions, each one
defending its own special interests. Gradually, joint employer-trade
union placement schemes were put into effect in certain industries
and certain countries. Finally, the idea of a public employment
service began to take shape.
The same evolution can be traced in the texts adopted by
successive sessions of the Conference. The Unemployment
Convention, 1919, laid down the following rule :
Each Member which ratifies this Convention shall establish
a system of free public employment agencies under the control of a
central authority. Committees, which shall include representatives
of employers and workers, shall be appointed to advise on matters
concerning the carrying on of these agencies.
The Eecommendation of the same year urged Governments to " take measures to prohibit the establishment of
employment agencies which charge fees or which carry on
their business for profit " and to abolish existing agencies of
this kind as soon as possible.
In the following year the first special maritime session of
the Conference was held and dealt, among other things, with
the problem of placing in employment as it affected seamen.
As a result, the Conference adopted the Placing of Seamen
Convention, 1920, which laid down the following principles :
The business of finding employment for seamen shall not be
carried on by any person, company or other agency as a commercial
enterprise for pecuniary gain ; nor shall any fees be charged directly
or indirectly by any person, company or other agency, for finding
employment for seamen on any ship. . .
Each Member which ratifies this Convention agrees that there
shall be organised and maintained an efficient and adequate system
of public employment offices for finding employment for seamen
without charge. Such system may be organised and maintained,
either :
(1) by representative associations of shipowners and seamen
jointly under the control of a central authority, or,
(2) in the absence of such joint action, by the State itself.
The work of all such employment offices shall be administered
by persons having practical maritime experience. . .
Committees consisting of an equal number of representatives
of shipowners and seamen shall be constituted to advise on matters
concerning the carrying on of these offices. . .
The Convention further provided that it should be left to
each country to decide whether similar provisions should be
put in force for officers.

RECRUITMENT—INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

The Fee-Charging Employment Agencies Convention, 1933,
provided for the abolition of such agencies (making this
mandatory for ratifying States instead of merely a recommendation, as in 1919). The Eecommendation of the same year
suggested that where there was difficulty in at once abolishing
fee-charging agencies for certain occupations, consideration
should be given to the possibility of having specialised public
employment offices for particular occupations. The Employment Service Eecommendation of 1944 laid down the following
principles :
1. The essential duty of the employment service should be to
ensure, in co-operation with other public and private bodies concerned,
the best possible organisation of industrial, agricultural and other
employment as an integral part of the national programme for the
full use of productive resources.
2. (1) To fulfil this duty, steps should be taken to strengthen the
employment service and related authorities.
(2) These services should be responsible for :
(a). . .
(b) assisting workers to And suitable employment and employers
to find suitable workers. . .
The Employment Service Convention, 1948, provides that
each Member which ratifies it shall maintain or ensure the
maintenance of a free public employment service, consisting
of a national system of employment offices under the direction
of a central authority. Arrangements must be made through
advisory committees for the co-operation of employers and
workers in the organisation and operation of the employment
service. It is provided that measures shall be taken to set
up local and, where appropriate, regional offices and to facilitate specialisation by occupations and by industries within
each employment office. Further, it is laid down that the
staff of the employment service shall be public officials " whose
status and conditions of service are such that they are independent . . . of improper external influences ". Finally,
the Employment Service Eecommendation, 1948, suggests
that " in appropriate cases " measures should be taken to
develop, within the general framework of the employment
services, " separate employment offices specialising in meeting
the needs of employers and workers belonging to particular
industries or occupations such as . . . merchant marine . . . ".
The international standards which may be taken as criteria
for assessing the adequacy of the new joint supply system

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

now being introduced in India, and for making proposals for
future improvements, may be summed up as follows :
(1) Fee-charging or profit-making employment agencies
should be abolished.
(2) There should be established free public employment
offices for seafarers. These might be organised and maintained
either :
(a) by representative associations of shipowners and seamen
jointly under the control of a central authority, or
(b) in the absence of such joint action, by the State.
In the latter case, there should be a joint committee of
shipowners and seamen to advise on the working of the system.
(3) The work of these employment offices should be administered by persons having practical maritime experience.
(4) As the ultimate goal, employment offices should be
integrated in a national employment service.
(5) If the competent authorities should consider it appropriate, once the national employment service has been established, specialised employment offices for seamen might be
set up.
(6) The staff of the employment offices under the national
employment service should be Government officials with a
status and remuneration which makes them independent of
improper external influences. Such independence should, of
course, also be guaranteed in the case of the employees of a
joint supply system.
NATIONAL PRACTICE

The Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920, which provides
for the abolition of fee-charging employment agencies for
seamen, has been ratified by 28 States, including virtually
all the, important maritime countries with the exception of
Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. 1 The
systems of hiring seamen in force in these three countries are
not in complete conformity with those laid down in the Con1
The United States was not a Member of the Organisation when the
Convention was adopted and has not ratified any of the Conventions adopted
before it became a Member.

RECRUITMENT—INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

vention, so that ratification has not been possible, but the
seafarers concerned are satisfied with the guarantees provided
by the traditional systems, which they see no need to change.
India naturally has not been in a position to ratify the Convention, in view of the situation described in earlier chapters.
In general, however, it can be said that the great majority
of maritime countries have abolished fee-charging employment agencies or agencies run for profit. Apart from this
one point of uniformity, there are considerable variations in
the nature of the agencies responsible for the placing of seamen in the various countries.
In the first place, there are those countries in which the
placing of seamen is carried out by special offices, or by special
sections of general employment offices, which form part of a
national employment service. This is (or was until recently)
the case in France, Italy, the Netherlands (as regards the
main port of Eotterdam), Norway and Sweden. I n all these
countries, the offices are managed by joint committees of
shipowners and seafarers, usually with an independent chairman, or such a committee is at least associated in their administration, and provision is made for general supervision by
the State.
In the United Kingdom, there was a joint supply system,
which was the model for the systems now in course of establishment in the ports of Bombay and Calcutta. The system was
under the general supervision of the National Maritime Board,
and there was no Government supervision except for the fact
that a Government superintendent had to be present when
the articles of agreement were read out to the crew after the
engagement had been duly made. The National Maritime Board
is a joint body, the members of which are elected by the organisations of shipowners (the Shipping Federation and the
Employers' Association of the Port of Liverpool) and the
officers' and seamen's unions. The constitution of the Board
lays down virtually the same rules for the engagement of seamen as have already been quoted from the constitution of the
Calcutta Maritime Board. 1 Applicants were taken in rotation from the top of the register of seamen, the master and the
seaman being equally free to accept or reject the applicant
and the job, respectively. This, it should be noted, is the
1

See above, p . 33.

SEAFAEEKS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

situation as it existed up to 1947. On 31 March of that year
the Established Service Scheme came into force as a means
of ensuring regularity and continuity of employment for seafarers. Under this scheme there are two types of contracts
which may be entered into by seafarers, each for a period of
two years, renewable for like periods. The first of these is a
contract with an individual company for service on ships
under its management (" company service contract ") ; the
second is with the Administration x of the scheme for service
in any ship to which the seafarer may be assigned (" general
service contract ")• In both cases a seafarer who becomes
unemployed is entitled, in addition to unemployment benefit,
to " establishment benefit " at a rate varying according to
his rate of pay on articles. Other benefits are granted, but
need not be examined in detail here. It will be seen that the
Established Service Scheme, which is intended to apply to
not less than 70 per cent, of the seafarers eligible for admission to it, does away with the need for an employment office
for those who have contracts under the scheme—at least
until the contracts are terminated. The established seafarer,
instead of being signed off at the end of each voyage and
registered as an applicant for employment, is now guaranteed
employment (or, failing that, benefits) for at least two years
at a time. Similar schemes are now in existence in Belgium,
France and the Netherlands, with the same consequences as
regards the methods of recruitment previously in force in
those countries.
In the Belgian port of Antwerp and in Netherlands ports
other than Eotterdam, the employment offices were organised
by the shipowners' organisations under the supervision of
joint committees. In Belgium, priority for re-engagement was
given to the members of the crew which had just signed off ;
thereafter, vacancies were filled in rotation from the roster.
Finally, in Canada and the United States, all seamen are
engaged through the union hiring halls, which are organised
and managed entirely by the seafarers' unions for the benefit
of their members.
1
The scheme was established by the National Maritime Board and is
administered by the Shipping Federation and the Employers' Association of
the Port of Liverpool. A Central Committee representing the seafarers'
organisations and the Administration determines the conditions of working
of the scheme, subject to the final authority of the Administration.

RECRUITMENT—INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

I n the following chapter an attempt will be made to consider the extent to which the proposed joint supply systems in
India are in line with the international labour Conventions or
with the practice of some of the leading maritime countries,
and whether these systems can be endorsed unreservedly or
whether some improvements can be suggested.

CHAPTER VI
RECRUITMENT — SUMMING UP
We have surveyed past and present practices as regards
the recruitment of seafarers in India, and we have glanced
briefly at the international principles on the subject and the
methods in force in certain maritime countries. The point
to be considered now is whether the joint supply system at
present being evolved in India is in line with these international
principles or with sound national practice, and, if not, what
recommendations can be made for its improvement or for the
adoption of some better scheme. After a glance at some of the
detailed methods which it is proposed to apply, it will be
convenient to take as a basis for this examination the six main
principles concerning recruitment laid down in the international labour Conventions, as listed in the preceding chapter. 1
We have seen that the Calcutta Maritime Board has laid
down the rule that a seaman shall have freedom of choice of
ship and the shipowner freedom of choice of crew. The same
rule is to be applied in Bombay, and this is in accordance with
the principle embodied in the Placing of Seamen Convention,
1920. At the same time, the boards wish to maintain a rotation
of employment, so as to ensure that the available employment
is spread equitably over the available labour force. This
is a general practice in other maritime countries, although the
principle has not so far been expressly mentioned in an international text. The Employment Service Recommendation
adopted by the 1948 Session of the Conference, however,
states that employment services should make continuous study
of such questions as "the régularisation of employment". There
is, of course, a possibility of conflict between strict rotation
and freedom of choice, whether of crew or of ship. I t is for the
employment service (whatever its nature) to strike a reasonable
balance between the two principles, and for the central author1

See above, p . 40.

RECRUITMENT—SUMMING UP

ity to ensure equity in their application. In several countries
the practice is that a seaman may refuse the first two, or
possibly three, jobs offered to him, but the next refusal to
serve involves his transfer to the bottom of the waiting list.
I t is difficult to apply any similar rule if successive masters
decline to employ a seaman who is at the head of the list.
The international Convention is in agreement with national
practice in granting the master the right to refuse to engage
any man, and no compulsion can be brought to bear on him.
It seems reasonable to suppose that if a seaman is repeatedly
refused employment he must be unsuitable or undesirable
for work at sea.
Eeference has already been made to a special difficulty
which may arise in the application of a rotation system in
India, especially in Bombay : it is said that crews should be
homogeneous as regards race and religion.1 On the other hand,
it has been pointed out that during the war mixed crews worked
harmoniously together in naval vessels. The writer has not
sufficient experience of this problem to be able to express any
opinion. If the problem is a real one, there would seem to be
no serious objection to the solution proposed in certain quarters
in Bombay—to have separate rosters for each rating according
to racial or religious groups. If that were done, however,
special care would have to be exercised by the supervising
authority to ensure that there was no unfair discrimination
against any such group in selecting applicants for employment.
It is to be hoped that with the spread of education there will
be a development of racial and religious tolerance which will
eventually cause this problem to disappear altogether.
Another question which arises in connection with rotation
is whether the crew which has just been paid off from a vessel
should have priority for re-engagement on the same vessel
for the next voyage. There is much to be said for continuity
of service in the same ship or with the same company, but
so long as there is underemployment in the merchant marine
it seems difficult to advocate priority for immediate reengagement at the expense of seamen who may have been
waiting some considerable time for a job. It may be that
eventually it will prove possible to introduce in India some
kind of continuous employment system on the lines of the
1

See above, p. 19.
4

SEAFABEBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

British Established Service Scheme 1, but in the meantime
rotation would appear to be a more equitable method. One
suggestion that has been made with a view to spreading the
opportunities of employment over the greatest possible
number of seafarers is that the period of employment at sea
should be limited to " a single voyage or nine months' continuous service ". If the proposed rotation system were
applied, as is suggested here, this would probably achieve
the same result.
There remains the question of the measures to be taken
to reduce the number of potential seafarers : stopping or
restricting the issue of new continuous discharge certificates
and eliminating seafarers over a certain age (sixty years has
been suggested) and those who are not completely fit
physically for strenuous life at sea. These are matters on
which little guidance can be obtained from international
texts. The suggested rules are in accordance with proposals
made both by the Clow Committee and by the Eoyal Commission on Labour in India, and it is recognised on all hands
that one of the first essentials in improving methods of recruitment and ensuring regularity of employment is to reduce
the number of applicants for employment until it bears a
reasonable relationship to the number of vacancies available
for sea service.
The joint supply systems are also refusing to register as
seamen persons who have not served at sea since 1939. Apart
from the question of giving preference to men who served
during the war, it seems reasonable to consider that, so
long as the occupation is overcrowded, those who have been
absent from it for nine years cannot be counted as seafarers.
The only suggestions which might perhaps be made in
connection with these provisional measures are :
(1) that the issues of new continuous discharge certificates
should be gradually resumed as soon as possible, so that as
older men withdraw from sea service new men are being
trained to replace them ;
(2) that the most serious consideration should be given by
the Government to the possibility of providing compensation
or alternative employment for the seamen who are eliminated
from the register on grounds of age or physical unfitness ;
1

See above, p. 42.

RECRUITMENT—SUMMING UP

4.7

(3) as a measure for the future, that a comprehensive
social security scheme for seafarers (either separately or as
part of a wider scheme) should be introduced at the earliest
practicable date. 1
ABOLITION OP FEE-CHARGING AGENCIES

The purpose of the joint supply systems in Bombay and
Calcutta is to do away with the abuses inherent in the existing
methods of recruitment, the chief of which is bribery and
corruption. In intention, therefore, these systems aim at
the abolition of fee-charging or profit-making. They can
be considered entirely satisfactory in that there is no profit
motive, but it will be recalled that the Calcutta scheme
provides for a fee of one rupee to be charged to each seaman
on engagement in order to meet part of the administrative
expenses, and the same practice is contemplated in Bombay.
There would seem to be two other ways of covering expenses,
either of which would be preferable. If a system of bipartite
boards is retained, the shipowners' and the seafarers' organisations concerned might share the entire administrative
expenditure in a proportion to be fixed by agreement. I t
may be argued that this would in effect amount to the same
thing as far as the seamen are concerned. The seafarers'
organisation would pay its share out of the trade union
dues of its members, and these dues might be raised so as to
meet this charge. Moreover, the method has two very serious
disadvantages. The first is that the collection of trade union
dues in India is a very difficult matter. I t will doubtless
become easier among seamen as and when their conditions
are improved and they are guaranteed more or less regular
employment, but at present it would put a very severe strain
on the finances of the unions to oblige them to meet a fixed
proportion of the cost of the joint supply system. The second
objection is that, while in Calcutta the All-India Seafarers'
Federation, which would be the organisation responsible for
meeting the seamen's share of the costs, embraces nearly all
seamen who would benefit by the scheme, the same is not
true in Bombay. The union participating in the joint supply
system in Bombay is the National Seamen's Union, but the
1
Further reference to social security for seafarers is made in Chapter VII
(see p. 62).

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

system would apply to all seamen, irrespective of union
membership, and a fairly substantial minority of them are
members of other unions. I t would thus be unfair to require
the National Seamen's Union alone to pay the seamen's
share of the administrative expenses.
It is therefore suggested that it would be preferable for
the administrative costs of the system, or at least a substantial
proportion of them, to be met by the State. This would, it
is thought, have at least three advantages :
(1) I t would obviate any risk of bribery creeping in again
through the charging of a fee to the seamen—either directly
or in the form of increased trade union dues.
(2) I t would enable the competent Government authority
to claim, in return for its contribution, a certain right of
participation in the working of the scheme. This is in accordance with the second of the recognised international principles,
to be discussed below, and it would, moreover, ensure a certain
co-ordination between the Bombay and Calcutta systems
which seems to be lacking at present.
(3) It would facilitate the integration of the seafarers'
employment offices in a national employment service when
the time was felt to be ripe in India for the establishment of
such a service.
ESTABLISHMENT OF F K E E PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OFFICES

I t will be remembered that the Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920, called for the establishment of free public
employment offices, either (a) by representative associations
of shipowners and seamen jointly, under the control of a
central authority, or (b) in the absence of such joint action,
by the State itself, with a joint committee acting in an advisory
capacity.
It has been pointed out that this is now regarded as one
stage in the evolution of recruitment practices, to be superseded eventually by a national employment service. But
while this may have been the general trend, it is not one that
can necessarily be followed in all countries. A system of
employment offices established on a bipartite basis presupposes the existence of strong, stable and responsible organisations of shipowners and seafarers. At the time of the writer's

RECRUITMENT—SUMMING UP

visit to India, this condition appeared to be fulfilled in Calcutta,
and there seemed to be some hope that it might be reached
in Bombay if the various unions there could compose their
differences. Since then, however, it is reported from reliable
sources that the position in the seafarers' unions in India
has become chaotic. Some of the leaders of the All-India
Seafarers' Federation have left Calcutta for Pakistan, and as
a result of this it seemed at one time as if the Federation
would disintegrate. As far as can be ascertained, it is still
in existence, but there are conflicting factions, some of which
may attempt to establish separate unions. In Bombay, the
opposition between the National Seamen's Union and the
other unions appears to be as strong as ever.
In these circumstances, a considerable degree of Government control, or perhaps active Government participation
in tripartite boards, would seem to be necessary at the present
stage in India. There is another argument in favour of some
control by a central Government authority. Since the date
of this enquiry, efforts have been made to hamper the work of
the Calcutta Maritime Board in various ways. It is alleged
—with what truth the writer cannot pretend to judge—that
the local government authorities were opposed to the Board's
activities and were anxious to sabotage them. It may be that
certain elements among the unions or among unorganised
seafarers were hostile to the scheme. Whoever the instigators
may have been, interference with the Board's activities went
so far that the joint secretary (shipowners' side) of the Board
was attacked and very severely beaten up. A recurrence
of such incidents would probably be avoided if the Board
were tripartite and thus became an official organ of the central
Government. As was mentioned above \ the decision was
recently taken to add two Government representatives to
the Board. No details have so far been received of the system
of voting under the new arrangement ; but if each member
has one vote, the Government representatives will have only
two votes, as against five for each of the other groups.
There was doubtless opposition from the owners to
granting Government representation, and the seafarers may
also have wished to retain the bipartite system, which they
seemed to consider the more satisfactory. There are several
1

See p . 33, footnote 2.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

reasons for this. The great majority of the owners are representatives of large British shipping interests, and the unions
have had the benefit of advice and guidance, during their
growth, from the British trade unions. It is therefore only
natural that the model on which the joint supply systems in
India were based should be the traditional British joint system,
over which, as was pointed out earlier, there is no Government supervision. It would also be argued, particularly on
the owners' side, that Government control would mean intolerable interference and delays. New Delhi, the seat of government of India, is far from Bombay and Calcutta, and it certainly
seemed to the writer that this physical distance made for some
lack of close contact between the Ministry of Commerce and
the maritime boards in the two ports. 1 This may well be
due in part to shortage of staff in the Ministry and in part
to the difficulties of a country which has just taken over full
control of the machinery of government and has not yet
had time to decide many matters of policy or to get the
machine running smoothly.
Another development since the date of the enquiry must
also be mentioned here. The Government of Pakistan is
naturally anxious to ensure that Pakistan seafarers are signed
on at the Pakistan ports which have now been declared ports
of registry. In order to assist shipowners in the selection of
seamen, the Government recently decided to set up a Joint
Maritime Board, consisting of two representatives each of
the seafarers, the shipowners and the Government. 2
Thus, both Dominions have reached the conclusion that
some form of tripartite board is the best method of controlling
recruiting at the present stage. I t would seem that the decision
is sound, especiaEy in view of the present situation in the
seafarers' trade union movement. When the unions have
attained the degree of integration and discipline of the unions
represented on the National Maritime Board in the United
Kingdom, a joint supply system with little Government supervision would be practicable. By that time, however, the two
Dominions may have so far developed their national employment service systems that the placing of seafarers can be
1
Now that Karachi and Chittagong have been declared ports of registry
in Pakistan, there is the same difficulty of geographical distance between
the seat of government in Karachi and the port of Chittagong.
2
The Statesman (New Delhi), 2 November 1948.

RECRUITMENT—SUMMING UP

entrusted to special sections of the public employment offices
or to separate employment offices, with the co-operation of
advisory committees of shipowners and seafarers, in accordance with the latest international principles laid down in the
1948 Convention. This is a problem for the future, and either
of the solutions just mentioned would be acceptable.
ADMINISTRATION BY PERSONS WITH MARITIME EXPERIENCE

This principle is already being applied. The joint secretaries
of the maritime boards, who are engaged in organising the
registration of seamen and in applying the new system of
recruitment, represent respectively the shipowners' organisation and the seamen's unions. Consequently, all that need be
said under this head is that in selecting the staff of the joint
supply offices in the future, attention should be paid to the
principle of having at the head of each office a person with
maritime experience. This is already the practice in many
countries. In Sweden, for example, the special employment
offices for seamen in the four principal ports are managed by
ex-masters, assisted by retired engineer officers ; in the smaller
ports, an ex-master is usually in charge in the seamen's section
of the employment office. The advantages of such an arrangement are too obvious to require comment.
INTEGRATION IN A NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT SERVICE

I t is clearly outside the scope of this report to make proposals as to what the Governments of India and Pakistan
should do in the future in the field of employment service
organisation. The question is mentioned here because, as has
been shown, the general trend of development in this field
seems to be towards a national employment service. If such
a service is established, it is clear that it cannot adequately
fulfil its functions as a means of regulating the labour market
unless all employment-finding agencies are integrated in it.
Consequently, a national service may be considered as the
ultimate goal to be aimed at ; and if this is so, the fact has a
certain bearing on any provisional system that may be accepted
in the meantime. India, at least, has already made considerable
progress in this direction. It may also be mentioned that one
Of the resolutions adopted at the Preparatory Asian Eegional

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Conference in New Delhi in November 1947 contains recommendations on this subject, which were thus endorsed by
representatives of Governments, employers and workers of
Asian countries. The resolution in question contains the
following passages :
(2) The development of a proper employment service organisation
is necessary for securing the proper utilisation of national manpower
resources and for promoting the mobility of labour and it will also
be a useful preliminary to the introduction of unemployment insurance and relief.
(3) The Conference, therefore, expresses the hope that these
services will be further expanded so that they will be made available
in due course to all employers and workers in the community, and
invites the Governments concerned to implement the principles
and practices embodied in the International Labour Code as fully
as possible in organising the employment services and recommends
to its members, the representatives of Governments as well as those
of employers' and workers' organisations, that they take steps to
promote the engagement of workers through employment offices
where such exist.
SPECIALISED EMPLOYMENT OFFICES FOR SEAMEN

Little need be said on this point at the present stage. If
national employment services are eventually established, it
will then be for the Governments concerned to consider whether
it seems appropriate to have, within the framework of those
services, specialised employment offices for seamen. I t may be
recalled that this is already the practice in a certain number of
countries, which presumably find that the conditions of
employment of seafarers differ so greatly from those of workers
in other industries that it is justifiable and advantageous to
have separate offices for placing them in employment.
STATUS OF STAFF OF EMPLOYMENT SERVICES

It is only in the case of a national employment service that
it is possible to insist on the principle contained in the Employment Service Convention, 1948, that the staff of such a service
should be public officials. But the text further lays down
that their status and remuneration should be such as to render
them independent of improper external influences, and this is
an extremely important point for any employment office,
whether part of a Government service or not. The question is

RECRUITMENT—SUMMING TIP

particularly serious in India, where, as has been shown, the
habit of offering and accepting or extorting bribes is deeply
rooted, and where the main evil in the earlier methods of
recruiting seamen has been precisely bribery. I t is therefore
strongly recommended that in the joint supply systems, and
in any other system which may later replace them, every
effort should be made to select staff of high integrity and to
pay them salaries which will remove, or at least reduce, the
temptation to succumb to attempted bribery. This is, of course,
not an evil which can be eliminated simply by the payment
of good salaries. Other measures, particularly of an educational
character, will be required, but this wider aspect of the problem is beyond the scope of this survey.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Even at the risk of repetition, it may be convenient to
summarise the recommendations which the writer would
venture to make on this fundamental question of recruitment. They are put forward as suggestions, formulated in
the light of international and national experience, for consideration by the Governments and the shipowners' and
seafarers' organisations of India and Pakistan, in the hope
that they may provide some assistance and guidance in their
national efforts to establish more satisfactory methods of
recruiting seafarers. In making them, the writer has in mind
the situation in the Indian ports of Bombay and Calcutta,
and it is to that situation that the suggestions are primarily
directed. As far as he is aware, there has as yet been little
development in recruiting in the ports of Pakistan, which have
only recently been declared ports of registry. But if, as a result
of this development, Karachi and Chittagong should become
important centres for recruiting seamen, the recommendations
would apply equally to these ports.
Proposals for Immediate

Action

(1) The joint supply systems set up in Bombay and Calcutta marked a great step forward on former methods of
recruitment. They could have been recommended as a satisfactory basis for the organisation of placing if the seafarers'
unions had shown the necessary degree of cohesion and sta-

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

bility. Since this is not the case, it seems desirable at the present stage that there should be direct Government participation
in the working of the system by means of representation on
the boards (as has recently been decided both in India and in
Pakistan).
(2) If agreement can be reached among the unions concerned, it would be desirable to provide representation on the
Bombay Maritime Board for unions which are not so far
represented.
(3) Government participation should imply not only
representation on the maritime boards but also :
(a) co-ordination of the working of the joint supply systems
in the different ports of each Dominion ;
(b) supervision of the day-to-day work of the employment
offices in the placing of seafarers through the shipping
masters ;
(o) examination of annual (or more frequent) reports on the
operations of the employment offices ;
(d) determination, after consultation with representatives of
the shipowners and seafarers, of the principles to be
followed in the placing of seafarers, these principles being
as far as possible uniform in all ports where employment
offices may be set up ;
(e) supervision of the financial administration of the joint
supply systems and approval of the annual (or more
frequent) financial statements.
(4) The Government should cover the whole, or at least a
substantial part, of the administrative expenses of the system.
(5) The persons directly in charge of the working of the
employment offices should have had maritime experience.
(6) All persons on the staffs of the employment offices
should be of the highest integrity and should be so remunerated
as to obviate or reduce to a minimum the risk of bribery.
(7) In the practical operation of the joint supply system,
the principle of rotation of employment should be applied as
strictly as is compatible with free choice of ship for the seaman and free choice of crew for the shipowner. If necessary
in the port of Bombay, separate rosters might be kept on the
basis of racial or religious groups, subject to very strict measures
to prevent possible discrimination against any such group.

RECRUITMENT—SUMMING UP

(8) As regards provisional measures, the issue of new
continuous discharge certificates should be suspended or restricted (as is already being done), but should be gradually
resumed as soon as the employment situation permits.
(9) In order to alleviate the present overcrowding in
maritime employment, registration should be refused to men
over sixty years of age or duly certified as physically unfit
for sea service and to men who have not served at sea since
1939, but every consideration should be given to the possibility of providing compensation or alternative employment
for those eliminated on the first two grounds.

CHAPTEE VII
CONDITIONS OF WORK ON BOARD SHIP
During his interviews with the leaders of the seafarers'
unions in India, the writer was somewhat surprised not to
be overwhelmed with long lists of grievances about unsatisfactory conditions of employment on board ship. The reason
was, not that conditions are by any means perfect, but that
every one agreed that the first and fundamental evil to be
remedied was the system of recruitment, which was discussed
at great length in all its aspects. Once that had been put
right, the unions felt that it would be time enough to turn
attention to other problems, and they gave the impression
that they felt themselves strong enough and sufficiently well
organised to deal with them. This explains why recruitment
has bulked so largely in this report, while conditions of work
on board will be discussed in a single chapter.
BATES OF P A T

The tables of seamen's wages in Appendix I I I , which were
supplied by courtesy of the Indian Ministry of Commerce and
were confirmed by representatives of the shipping companies as
still being in force in November 1947, show the wages paid to
different ratings in British ships (crews engaged in Calcutta)
and in the ships of a leading Indian company (Scindia Steam
Navigation Company, Bombay). It will be seen that the
present total earnings of a lascar (130 rupees a month) are
five times the pre-war rate, whereas the cost-of-living index
for Bombay during the same period rose from 100 to 282, so
that the Indian seaman has some reason to be satisfied with
the improvement in his wages. Moreover, these rates of pay
compare very favourably with those of shore workers. I n
The Times of India one sees posts advertised for teachers at
200 to 300 rupees a month ; an advertisement for a doctor
offered a salary rising from 85 to 195 rupees a month (plus a

CONDITIONS OF WORK ON BOAED SHIP

"57

temporary bonus, a dearness allowance and free quarters) ;
a stenographer offered 100 rupees a month, rising to 175 rupees.
And it must be remembered that the seaman has free food
and quarters. But, on the other hand, it must also be borne
in mind that the seaman may be employed for only a few
months of the year and spend many months or years out of
employment (except in so far as he returns home to agricultural work between voyages). During these periods of
unemployment, he generally exhausts the savings awaiting
him at the end of the voyage. He then borrows from the
village moneylender in order to pay his fare back to Bombay
or Calcutta, where he accumulates further debts to the
boarding-house keeper or to a city moneylender. If seafarers
were once assured a reasonable degree of continuity of employment, it would seem that the present rates of wages might be
considered not unsatisfactory.
There is the further very important point that the Indian
seaman employed on a British ship naturally compares his
wages with those prescribed in British agreements. From
this point of view the lascar finds his £6 15s. to £9 7s. very low
as compared with the British able seaman's basic £20, rising
to £24 after four years of efficient service. When this is
advanced as an argument for raising the wages of the Indian
seaman, the shipowner replies that if he mans a ship with an
Indian crew, he requires a much larger number of hands than
if he ran the same ship with a British crew, and that he
cannot afford to increase his total wages bill, which is a
considerable item in his working costs.
This difficult problem gave rise to lengthy discussions at
the 28th (Maritime) Session of the International Labour
Conference at Seattle in 1946, when a Convention was under
consideration on the subject of wages, hours of work and
manning. The Convention finally prescribed a basic wage
of £16 a month as an international minimum. The Conference
agreed by a majority that account should be taken of the fact
that when certain Asian, African or other seafarers were
employed, the size of the crew had to be increased. I t therefore
included the following provision in the Convention :
Article 6
1. In the case of ships in which are employed such groups of
ratings as necessitate the employment of larger groups of ratings
than would otherwise be employed, the minimum basic pay or

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

wages of an able seaman shall be an amount fixed as the adjusted
equivalent of the minimum basic pay or wages stipulated in the
preceding article.
2. The adjusted equivalent shall be fixed in accordance with the
principle of equal pay for equal work and due allowance shall be
made for—
(a) the extra number of ratings of such groups who are employed; and
(b) any increase or decrease in cost to the shipowner consequent
on the employment of such groups of ratings.
3. The adjusted equivalent shall be determined by collective
agreement between the organisations of shipowners and seafarers
concerned or, failing such agreement and subject to both countries
concerned having ratified the Convention, by the competent authority
of the territory of the group of seafarers concerned.
This text has not yet been ratified, but it represents the
view of the majority of the delegates at an international
conference of representatives of Governments, shipowners
and seafarers. I t may therefore be suggested that the wages
paid to Indian seamen should at least not fall below the figure
that would result from the application of the international
provision just quoted. The matter would seem, therefore,
to be one for negotiation between the organisations of
shipowners and seafarers concerned if the latter find that their
present wages do not come up to this requirement.
In the case of officers, the rates of pay would appear to be
satisfactory.
During 1947, the Maritime Union of India
negotiated agreements with two companies—the Scindia Steam
Navigation Company for foreign-going officers and the Bombay
Steam Navigation Company (and its associated companies)
for home-trade officers. The rates fixed in these agreements,
which took effect on 1 April and 1 July 1947 respectively,
are shown in Appendix I I I .
HOURS OF WORK AND HOLIDAYS

The Indian Merchant Shipping Act, 1923, contains no provisions concerning hours of work or holidays with pay for
seafarers, nor are there any other statutory rules or collective
agreements on these matters so far as seamen are concerned.
In practice, the hours worked vary for different ratings and to
some extent also on different unes, and it is difficult to determine what these hours actually are. I t would appear, however,
that the hours of work at sea are normally at least fifty-six in

CONDITIONS OF WOBK ON BOAKD SHIP

the week, and sometimes more. The Wages, Hours of Work
and Manning (Sea) Convention, adopted at Seattle in 1946,
prescribes a maximum of 112 hours in two consecutive weeks
on near-trade ships and a maximum of eight hours a day
on distant-trade ships, with the right (in the latter case) to
compensatory time off in port for all work, other than recognised overtime, in excess of forty-eight hours a week. This
Convention has not yet been ratified, but it may be taken as
an international standard to be aimed at. In the meantime,
it would seem reasonable to apply to Indian seamen on British
ships the rules laid down in the present British agreement,
which prescribes a maximum of fifty-six hours a week, subject
to certain conditions which need not be enumerated here.
For officers, the agreements mentioned above between the
Maritime Union of India and two leading Indian shipping
companies provide that hours of work and (with certain minor
adjustments) overtime will be regulated in accordance with the
standards laid down in the Wages, Hours of Work and Manning
(Sea) Convention, 1946. This means that the conditions of officers
in Indian merchant ships are at least up to the accepted
international minimum standards, and it is particularly
gratifying to find these standards incorporated in national
agreements even though the Convention in question has not
yet been ratified.
ACCOMMODATION ON BOAKD SHIP

The writer had little opportunity for obtaining information
on this subject. The trade union leaders whom he met hoped
to be able to arrange a visit to some of the less satisfactory
ships, but this proved impossible. The only ship he was able
to inspect was a six-month old cargo vessel of 7,000 tons,
carrying a crew of 12 officers and 79 ratings, the latter all being
Indians. If this ship can be taken as typical of the vessels now
being built, there is very little to complain of as regards
accommodation. Each serang had a single cabin, and the
tindals double cabins. The other ratings were accommodated
in large cabins for eleven men each, with ample floor space.
It is true that the Accommodation of Crews Convention
adopted at Seattle in 1946 lays down that the number of ratings
in a sleeping room should in no case exceed four, and should
wherever possible be limited to two or three. While this ideal

SEAFAREBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

should be borne in mind, it may be found more practicable to
build cabins for a larger number of men and locate them where
fresh air and natural lighting can be obtained. In tropical
waters, a large airy cabin for ten men may prove more comfortable than small cabins for three men, especially if so placed
that they are dependent on artificial ventilation. Each member
of the crew in the ship visited had his own locker ; these lockers
were only about 2 feet 6 inches high, but for the clothing
carried this is adequate. In addition, there were special
cupboards for oilskins. All cabins had portholes, central
electric light, blowholes for ventilation and benches. There
were separate messrooms for deck and engine staff. The only
criticism was that washrooms and showers seemed rather
scanty for the size of crew in tropical waters.
There would seem to be grounds for thinking that on most
new vessels the accommodation is satisfactory. I n the case
of vessels owned by British companies, the owners have
always to bear in mind that at some future date they may
wish to transfer the vessel to some other service where a
European crew may be employed, and the accommodation
must therefore be up to British standards, or at least capable
of being converted to these standards with only slight alterations. With regard to Indian companies, it may be noted that
a new ship launched in Britain for the Scindia Company in
1947 has crew accommodation which complies largely with
the requirements of the Accommodation of Crews Convention,
1946.
It is in the older ships, and particularly in the smaller
coastal vessels, that the accommodation is reported to be
extremely unsatisfactory in most cases. Too much cannot
be expected by way of improvement here. Where the provision
of better accommodation on an old ship would involve extensive structural alterations, the expense may be difficult
to justify in view of the probable life of the ship. In small
coasters, increased accommodation could often be obtained only
at the expense of reduced carrying capacity, and this might
have grave economic consequences. Nevertheless, the possibility
of certain improvements in accommodation often exists even
on such ships, and it may therefore be urged that all the
companies concerned should take as a guide for their action
in this matter the Seattle Convention referred to above. That
Convention applies to all vessels over 500 tons and, where

CONDITIONS OP WORK ON BOABD SHIP

reasonable and practicable, to vessels between 200 and 500
tons. It provides that, in the case of existing ships, efforts
must be made to bring the accommodation standards up to
those of the Convention, having regard to the practical problems involved, whenever a ship is re-registered or substantial
structural alterations or major repairs are made. The best
method of ensuring that this is done would, of course, be for
the Governments concerned to ratify the Convention, which
it would then be their duty to enforce.
In this connection it should be mentioned that the Convention takes account of the fact that with certain types of
seamen a larger crew may be required, or is normally carried,
than is the case if seamen of other racial groups are employed
to man the same ship. Reference has already been made to the
possibility of wage adjustments in such cases.1 With regard to
accommodation, Article 10 (5) of the Convention states :
5. In the case of ships in which are employed such groups of
ratings as necessitate the employment of a substantially larger
number of ratings than would otherwise be employed, the competent
authority may, in respect of such groups, reduce the minimum floor
area of sleeping rooms per person, subject to the conditions that —
(a) the total sleeping space allotted to the group or groups is not
less than would have been allotted had the numbers not been
so increased, and
(b) the minimum floor area of sleeping rooms is not less than —
(i) 18 square feet per person in ships under 3,000 tons ;
(ii) 20 square feet per person in ships of 3,000 tons or over.
The normal floor area per person in sleeping rooms in general
is laid down in the Convention as being 20 square feet in vessels
under 800 tons, 25 square feet in vessels of 800 tons or over
but under 3,000 tons, and 30 square feet in vessels above that
size. The Convention further provides (Article 16) that :
1. In the case of the ships mentioned in paragraph 5 of Article 10
the competent authority may, in respect of the members of the crew
there referred to, modify the requirements laid down in the foregoing
articles as far as may be necessary to take account of their distinctive
national habits and customs, and in particular may make special
arrangements concerning the number of persons occupying sleeping
rooms and concerning mess room and sanitary faculties.
FOOD AND

CATERING

As already mentioned, various religious or racial groups in
India have different types of diet, and when a mixed crew is
1

See above, p . 57.
5

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

carried it is usual for each group to have its own cook. The
writer had no time to investigate the standard of food and
catering on board ship, but there is one point mentioned by
Mr. Dinkar Desai in his book * which would seem to call for
attention. Section 28 (2) (f) oí the Indian Merchant Shipping
Act, 1923, requires the master of a ship to enter into an agreement with every seaman regarding the scale of food to be
supplied. This may not be less than the minimum scale fixed
by the Governor-General in Council.2 This is in accordance with
the practice of other maritime countries, but in most countries
the scale, once established, remains in force for years without
any attempt being made to modify it in the light of advances
in the science of nutrition. Mr. Desai's main complaint about
the Indian scale is that it contains no provision for the supply
of fresh fruit and fresh fish. Here again, it may be suggested
that the Governments of India and Pakistan should give
consideration to the possibility of ratifying and applying the
international labour Convention on the subject. 3 The Food and
Catering (Ships' Crews) Convention, 1946, requires each country
which ratifies to see that a proper standard of food supply and
catering service is maintained for the crews of its seagoing
vessels. The functions of the competent national authority
with regard to the inspection of food supplies are prescribed
in detail in the Convention. A further Convention concerning
the certification of ships' cooks is intended to ensure that the
food which is provided will be used to the best advantage by a
trained cook. It may require some time to make adequate
provision for the training of cooks, but some such system is
clearly desirable with a view to ensuring the health and wellbeing of ships' crews.
SOCIAL SECURITY

It has already been pointed out from time to time in the
preceding pages that a system of social security for Indian
seafarers would be extremely desirable, but that it is not
1

Op. dt, pp. 100-104.
The scale at present in force is given in Appendix IV.
3
The Government of India has reported to the International Labour
Office that it is giving consideration to the possibility of ratifying this and
other Conventions adopted at Seattle. In Pakistan, a Tripartite Labour
Conference, held on 26 and 27 October 1948, recommended ratification,
inter alia, of the Food and Catering Convention (The Statesman, New Delhi,
2 November 1948).
2

CONDITIONS OF WORK ON BOARD SHIP

possible to establish such a system until the basic questions
of limiting the number of seafarers and organising methods
of recruitment have been solved. There is no need to add
anything here on this subject. A draft scheme has been prepared by Professor B. P . Adarkar, and a joint report on
the scheme, explaining the difficulties inherent in the present recruitment situation, was drawn up by Dr. Laura Bodmer
of the International Labour Office and Professor Adarkar. 1
The present writer can only endorse the conclusions of that
report.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, DEPARTMENT OP COMMERCE : Social Insurance

for Indian Seamen. A Scheme, by Professor B. P . ADARKAR, M.A.; and Joint
Report on the Scheme, by Dr. Laura BODMER and Professor B.P. ADARKAR,
M. A. (New Delhi, Government of India Press, 1946).

OHAPTEE V i l i
WELFARE AND HYGIENE ASHORE
There are three problems for consideration in this chapter.
The first, and probably the most serious, is that of accommodation for the seafarer while he is waiting for employment
in Bombay or Calcutta. The second is the question of facilities
for medical treatment. The third, which is relatively less important, is the provision of amenities in the shipping offices,
where the seafarer may spend several hours a day in his
search for a job.
ACCOMMODATION IN POETS

We have seen how the Indian seafarer may spend several
months in one of the large ports waiting to be engaged for
another voyage, and reference has several times been made
to the debts which he accumulates with the boarding house
keeper. As reforms are introduced in the system of recruiting,
with consequent stability of employment for the seafarer,
many of the defects of the boarding house system will automatically disappear. But the seafarer may still be obliged to
spend a few days in port, or may wish to do so, and when he
does he should be able to find much more satisfactory accommodation than at present.
Boarding Mouses
Housing in general is an acute problem in India and
Pakistan. Bombay and Calcutta are extremely overcrowded,
the population having increased very rapidly in recent years.
In Karachi, also, although the floating population of seafarers is much smaller, living accommodation is very hard
to find. The traditional home of the seafarer between voyages
is the boarding house, of which there are a variety of types.
Those of Bombay will be described as examples, because the
writer was able to visit a few of the less disreputable ones

WELFARE AND HYGIENE

ASHORE

and see the conditions at first hand ; his guide, the Port
Welfare Officer in Bombay, advised against visiting the worst
types, or even getting out of the car in the Grant Boad district, where, it is said, throats are slit for a few annas. There
are three kinds of boarding houses in Bombay—coods, lattis
and deras.
The coods are used by the saloon crews, who are Christians
from Goa. They are run on a co-operative basis, and not
for profit. They are clubs as well as providing sleeping accommodation, and many of them also practise various forms of
mutual assistance, such as organising provident funds out of
which benefits can be paid to the family of a member who
dies. Each of the clubs is reserved for men from a particular
village or from a particular group of villages, and the number
of members ranges from about fifty to several hundred. It
keeps a register of all members and their whereabouts, and
those who are in residence take it in turn to perform various
duties—inspecting the premises, collecting the daily payments for food, and the like. The Goans are deeply religious,
have high moral standards and show a certain care for cleanliness in their clubs. Nevertheless, in many of the coods the
conditions of sanitation and ventilation leave much to be
desired. Some of the better ones have a small courtyard
where the men can sit out of doors. Others are approached
by a dark, smelly passage and have little light or ventilation
inside. The sleeping accommodation is in bare dormitories,
often overcrowded. Boarding is optional, and the food supplied is usually poor.
One distinctive feature of the coods is that a member
must pay his monthly rent or subscription both while in
residence and while at sea, but not during any period when
he returns home to Goa. This means that he pays whenever
he is earning, and also when he is living in the club (although
unemployed and in search of a job), but not when he is on
leave at home between voyages and therefore neither earning
nor utilising the club facilities. While much might be done
to improve the sanitary conditions in the coods, there is no
doubt that in conception and in operation they are admirable
institutions, efficiently and democratically run. They not
only protect the interests of their members and save them
from exploitation, but they also train them in co-operation
and in mutual aid.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

The lattis and the deras are in a very different class. They
are run for Muslim seamen, the former mainly, for the deck
ratings, most of whom come from the areas north and south
of Bombay, and the latter for the engine-room crews, who
han largely from the Punjab. They can be considered together,
for there is no substantial difference between them, except
that the deras are reputed to be in general even filthier and
more obnoxious than the others ; it is said that the quarters
provided are often so cramped that the seamen prefer (like
countless thousands of workers in Bombay and other cities)
to sleep outside on the pavement, using the dera merely as a
place where they can leave their boxes with their scanty
belongings during the day.
The latti visited by the writer was approached through a
dark passage and up unlighted, evil-smelling stairs. It consisted of a tiny office, where a bearded old villain with twinkling eyes sat at the receipt of custom. The accommodation
for the seamen consisted of two rooms of perhaps 20 feet by
12 feet, each of which was supposed to hold twenty men, but
if more seamen sought accommodation, there is little doubt
that they would have been taken in. This being one of the
better lattis, each room had a window (most of them get only
such light as can be obtained through the door), and there
was fairly clean matting on the floor. Apart from a few rolledup mattresses and bundles of clothing, the rooms were completely bare. A small, unlighted space of about 3 square feet
was available for washing if the seaman was prepared to go to
the street and fetch water from the nearest pump. Beyond
that, there were no sanitary facilities of any kind.
There are some 200 known lattis, and it is believed that
200 more exist, but it is difficult to keep a check on them, as
they may consist of a room or two behind a shop, and many
of them change frequently from one address to another. The
worst of them are scattered along streets which consist largely
of brothels, where painted women sit in a tiny cage behind
stout iron bars awaiting their customers. The latti keeper
may often be in league with these women in robbing the
seaman who has just been paid off. As a rule, meals are not
provided, but a group of seamen from the same village may
sometimes club together to have meals prepared in the latti.
I t is obvious that life in the noisome, insanitary conditions
which prevail in the boarding houses for seafarers must be

WELFARE AND HYGIENE

ASHORE

extremely detrimental to the health and moral welfare of the
men. There would seem to be two possible courses for securing
improvements : better equipped boarding houses could be
provided on a non-profit-making basis, or hostels could be
established by the authorities. Both of these methods have
already been tried, but not on a scale to meet the present
requirements.
Trade Union Boarding Rouses
In Calcutta, the All-India Seafarers' Federation already
runs boarding houses for its members, but shortage of funds
has made it impossible so far to do much towards providing
improved accommodation and better sanitation. The Federation can only rent such premises as it can obtain at a
reasonable price—and reference has already been made to the
acute housing shortage in Calcutta and other ports. The one
definite advantage of this method is that it eliminates the
private boarding-house keeper who exploits the helpless seafarer and encourages him to plunge into debt at exorbitant
rates of interest. But it is doubtful whether the unions alone
would ever be able to cope adequately with this problem,
although they must be given credit for realising the gravity
of the situation and for doing what is in their power to remedy it.
The experience of most of the maritime countries in Europe
seems to show that Government assistance is needed, and
indeed it is widely held that it is the duty of the authorities
to see that adequate accommodation is available for seafarers
during their stay in port. Since the war, the question of
welfare facilities for seafarers in port has been studied by
special committees in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the
Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
The general conclusion has been that, while voluntary organisations have done extremely useful work, their funds are not
always adequate and there is a risk of overlapping. I t is
therefore felt in most of these countries that there should be
a central official body to co-ordinate welfare work for seafarers both in home ports and abroad. The Governments of
India and Pakistan may well find guidance in the experience
of these countries in dealing with this problem.
Seamen's Homes and Hostels
I t must not be thought that nothing has been done by the
authorities to provide accommodation for seafarers. But

SEAFAREKS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

hitherto the number of seafarers in the main ports at any one
time has been so far in excess of the capacity of the existing
institutions that the great majority of the men necessarily
lived in private boarding houses.
In Bombay, the Indian Sailors' Home can accommodate
500 men, and it is always full. When a seaman is in transit—
i.e., still on articles—his board is paid for by the shipowner,
but in other cases accommodation is free. The length of stay
is limited to six months, and as many seamen spend longer
periods out of employment they are obliged to go to the lattis
once they have exhausted their rights in the Home. The men
sleep in huge dormitories, with bunks in two tiers, there being
space under the lower bunk for their boxes. The double-tier
system means that the dormitories are crowded, but they are
airy and kept clean by the hostel staff. Bedding is supplied
free of charge. Attached to each dormitory are a kitchen and
a washroom. The men buy their own food (the Home arranging
for ration cards and the issue of rations while the rationing
scheme is in force) ; they can have it cooked in the adjoining
kitchen by a caterer who has a contract with the Home. The
premises also comprise a hall, a prayer room, a reading room
and some gymnastic equipment, and a small hospital is
attached, where free medical attention is provided.
This institution was founded in 1931 as a memorial to
Indian seafarers who gave their lives in the 1914-1918 War.
The site was presented by the Bombay Port Trust ; about one
third of the cost of building was paid by the Government of
India, and one eighth by the Government of Bombay.
A new hostel is now being built close to the existing one.
When completed, it will be a three-storey building with
accommodation for 500 men in dormitories with only a single
tier of bunks. The ground floor is already occupied, although
the building is still far from complete ; at the end of 1947
progress was held up by lack of steel, but it was hoped to
finish the building by the middle of 1948. This hostel has a
large courtyard, a reading room and a recreation room.
If the recruitment and employment problems of Indian
seafarers are satisfactorily dealt with, these two hostels would
probably be sufficient to cope with the normal needs of seafarers for accommodation in Bombay.
In Calcutta, a modern hostel is being built by the Government of India to accommodate 500 seafarers. A scheme is

WELFARE AND HYGTENE

ASHORE

also on foot for the construction of a seamen's home which
could accommodate 3,000 men. The Port of Calcutta Commissioners have provided the necessary site, and contributions
to the cost of building are being made by the Government
of India, the Government of Bengal, the shipowners and
voluntary organisations, while part of the cost may be covered
by a loan. 1
In Karachi, the needs of Asian seafarers are catered for by
the McHinch Memorial Marine Club, opened in December 1945.
The Club was established with the help of grants from the
Government of India, the Karachi Port Trust and shipping
companies, as well as donations from private individuals
and from the Ministry of War Transport, London. I t provides
sleeping accommodation for petty officers and seamen, with
separate dormitories for Indians and Chinese. The accommodation is rather crowded, but the premises are clean and
appear to be well looked after. The charge is one rupee per
night, or three rupees for board and lodging, and on this
basis the Club is expected to be self-supporting. It would
seem (but this impression, based on brief visits, may be
mistaken) that more is done in Karachi than in the Sailors'
-Home in Bombay to provide recreation for the seamen.
There is a cinema hall, a well-stocked library, a gramophone
and ping-pong equipment, and from time to time entertainments of various kinds are organised. In Bombay, complaints
were heard that nothing was done to stimulate social activity
or provide recreation for those living in the Home.
Welfare in Foreign Ports
The present report is concerned primarily with conditions
in India and Pakistan, but for the sake of completeness
reference should be made to the welfare of Indian seafarers
in foreign countries. At present, about 90 per cent, of these
seafarers are employed by British companies. Many of them
sail regularly to British ports, in several of which, thanks
in part to developments to meet wartime needs, there are
now special homes for Indian seamen. Port welfare committees
or welfare officers have been appointed to look after the
interests of Indian seafarers in South Africa, Australia and
1
Information as to the progress made with the Bombay and Calcutta
schemes is not available ; so far as is known, no new hostels were opened
during the year.

SEAFAKEKS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

the United States. If the mercantile marines of India and
Pakistan are developed and carry a larger proportion than
hitherto of the overseas trade of the two countries, the Governments may find it necessary to consider extending the existing
welfare facilities in ports regularly frequented by their seamen.
HYGIENE

There is considerable room for improvement in the measures
taken to protect the health of seafarers. This is of course
part of the much wider problem of public health and the
education of the people in elementary hygiene. A tremendous
task faces the Governments in this field, and any action taken
to improve public health will naturally benefit the seafarers ;
but in addition there is need for special measures to meet
the needs of this particular group. Seafarers, by the nature
of their profession, are exposed to risks of infection in foreign
ports, and it is important that these risks should be reduced
to a minimum so that they do not carry diseases back to their
own countries. Moreover, it is clear that the conditions under
which the seamen of India live during their long stay in port
—extremely insanitary accommodation, undernourishment
and no employment—expose and predispose them to disease
of all kinds, including venereal disease, which is very prevalent.
The facilities available for treatment when a seafarer
falls sick are most inadequate, and some of those which
exist on paper are worth little in practice. In Bombay, there
are three hospitals which provide treatment for Indian seafarers, but it is alleged that in many cases the seafarer who
requires hospitalisation is told that there are no beds available,
although some of the hospitals receive substantial annual
grants from the Bombay Port Trust. 1 A delegation of the
British Social Hygiene Council which visited Bombay in
1927 reported that " adequate [hospital] facilities maintained
in accordance with the most advanced standards of scientific
methods are not available for seamen visiting the port of
Bombay ".2 This statement referred primarily to the provision
made for visiting (i.e., mainly British) seafarers, and in general
1

Dinkar DESAI, op. cit., pp. 155-156.
Beport of the Indian Delegation of the British Social Hygiene
to the Government of Bombay (1927), p . 3.
2

Council

WELFARE

AND HYGIENE ASHORE

the facilities for Indian seafarers fall far short of those provided
for British seafarers. The Bombay Port Trust maintains
two prophylactic clinics in the dock areas, but in-patient
treatment for venereal disease is not available for Indian
seamen in any of the Bombay hospitals.
I n Calcutta, treatment for Indian seafarers is available
at the Howrah General Hospital, where a certain number
of beds are supposed to be reserved for these men. But in
practice this does not help the seafarers as much as it should.
For one thing, the hospital is the most outlying one in Calcutta,
situated a long way from the dock area. The seaman in need
of treatment must either walk there or, if he is unfit to walk,
go by rickshaw—if he can afford the fare, which is often
doubtful. It would seem essential to provide some form of
free transport in these cases. Again, there is a tendency
among doctors to use the free beds in hospitals for their
private (paying) patients, so that here again the seafarer
may find himself refused admission because there is no vacant
bed. There is a seamen's clinic in the dock area in Calcutta,
close to the shipping office. It deals on the average with
about ninety cases a day, of whom ten to twenty are usually
new patients. The great majority are venereal disease cases.
The writer examined the records of the clinic, from which
it appeared that between one and three persons a month
were sent from the clinic to hospital for out-patient treatment
or hospitalisation, and no check is kept as to whether these
cases actually report to the hospital or not. In view of the
widespread incidence of disease among Indian seafarers, it
seems improbable that in the great port of Calcutta only
such a small number should require hospital treatment each
month. The clinic is somewhat dreary and not particularly
clean, but it appeared to a layman to be reasonably well
staffed and equipped with drugs, instruments, dressings, etc.
The clinic has a waiting room, examination rooms, a dispensary,
a dental surgery and a small laboratory.
It is clear that there is still room for much improvement
in this important field, particularly as regards ensuring free
treatment for seafarers, adequate hospital accommodation
and free transport to hospital when the patient is not fit
to walk there. Moreover, there has in the past been discrimination between European and Indian seafarers. It is to
be hoped that in future the Governments of India and Pakistan

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

will see to it that proper accommodation and treatment are
available to all sick and injured seafarers in their ports,
irrespective of race or religion.
AMENITIES IN SHIPPING OFFICES

This point may be treated under the heading of welfare
ashore. I t was raised more particularly in Bombay, where
the shipping master fully realised that the premises at his
disposal were inadequate, but saw little hope of obtaining
anything better so long as the acute housing shortage persists.
Eepresentatives of the National Seamen's Union, Bombay,
also drew the writer's attention to this question. They pointed
out that many seamen came from distant parts of the country,
not only to seek employment but also to enquire into and
collect their post-war credits (granted during the war, but
paid into individual accounts to be drawn after the end of
hostilities). The space available is so small that many of
those waiting to make enquiries or waiting for the arrival
of a ship's officer to recruit a crew must sit on the stairs or
the stone floor or stand in the street outside the office. This
goes on in many cases for days or weeks on end. I t would
therefore certainly be desirable, as soon as the housing situation
permits, to provide the shipping office with more spacious
premises, including large waiting rooms with plenty of seating
accommodation. If possible, a canteen should be organised,
and a reading room with periodicals and news bulletins would
be useful for those who are literate.
In Calcutta, the offices of the joint supply scheme are
pleasant and quite adequate for their purpose. The shipping
office also was more spacious than in Bombay, although
there appeared to be some shortage of waiting rooms. This
shortage (and the same would apply to a lesser degree in
Bombay) will not be so marked if the number of seafarers is
reduced and if a satisfactory system of recruitment is introduced whereby the number of applicants for employment
at any one time is cut down to a reasonable figure.

CHAPTEE I X
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
The problem of the education of seafarers is too wide to be
discussed in detail here, and it is bound up with the general
need for a campaign against illiteracy in India and Pakistan.
In 1931, the Eoyal Commission on Labour in India reported :
" In India nearly the whole mass of industrial labour is illiterate . . .
I t is impossible to overestimate the consequences of this disability, which are obvious in wages, in health,
in productivity, in organisation and in several other directions." 1 There are no exact statistics, but the great majority
of the seamen—perhaps 90 per cent.—are still illiterate. It
has already been pointed out how much of a handicap this
is to them in their work and how detrimental to their efficiency.2
While the whole tremendous question of education will have
to be tackled by the Governments, it may be suggested that
some special system of adult education for seafarers should be
established as rapidly as possible. An attempt was made in
Bombay in 19323, but apparently met with little success, and
it would be necessary to work out more suitable educational
methods to meet the needs of this particular class of workers.
Until the problem of general education has been solved, it
is perhaps too early to speak of the need for some vocational
training for seamen, but the matter may simply be mentioned
here as one to be borne in mind at some future date. The need
for such training will be found to be increasingly urgent as the
merchant navies of India and Pakistan expand.
The training of officers is a more immediate problem. The
expansion of the merchant fleets of the two Dominions will
mean a demand for a much larger number of officers, but even
the present requirements of the Indian companies cannot be
met ; the British-owned companies employ only a very small
number of Indian officers.
1
2
3

B.O.L.I., p. 27.
See above, p . 4.
Dinkar DESAI, op. cit., p. 147.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Until recently, the only training available for officers in
India was in the training ship Dufferin, which has been used
as a school in Bombay since 1927. But not all who have been
trained in that ship enter the merchant navy ; some go to the
Royal Indian ÍTavy and others to shore jobs with the port
trusts, pilot services, etc. The Dufferin is excellently suited
and well equipped for its purpose. There are numerous classrooms, good accommodation for messrooms and for recreation,
and adequate, if somewhat exiguous, sleeping quarters. At any
one time about 200 cadets are in training, of whom approximately half are Hindus and half Muslims, the two groups
working harmoniously together.
Eighty candidates are
selected annually by competitive examination, the number of
applicants being often 250 or over. When the writer was in
India, the courses (one for deck officers and one for engineer
officers) lasted for three years. Since then, however, a separate
training establishment has been set up ashore for engineer
officers. The entrance age for the Dufferin has been raised
from fifteen to seventeen years, so that there is no longer the
need for much general education for the cadets. The course
has therefore been cut down to two years, devoted mainly
to vocational training. The fees are not high, the Government
of India paying a subsidy to cover part of the expenses. In
addition, a number of scholarships are available for those
whose parents cannot pay even the modest fees. The commanding officer of the Dufferin stated that a majority
of the cadets come from the Bombay area, where the ship is
most widely known, but others come from all parts of India.
Some cadets are sent from Ceylon and Burma at the expense
of their Governments to receive training. The discipline and
training on the Dufferin seem to be excellent. The writer met
a number of officers who had been trained there, and was much
impressed by their general bearing and high standard of
education.
The Maritime Union of India, which groups virtually all
the officers in the Indian mercantile marine and which is
organised by ex-cadets from the Dufferin, started its own
school for officers in order to meet the crying need for additional training facilities. The scheme began in 1947 as a means
of assisting a few members of the Union to prepare for their
Board of Trade examinations. In October of that year a regular
Nautical School was established by the Union in Bombay.

EDUCATION AND TEAINING

Classes were held in the early morning and in the evening in
premises placed at the disposal of the Union by the Scindia
Steam Navigation Company, which was itself having difficulty
in finding sufficient officers for its ships. The instruction was
given on a voluntary basis by officers of the Union.
After the writer was in India and saw the Nautical School
at work, the School merged with another institution, the
Premier School of Navigation, to form the School of Navigation
and Marine Engineering, using the premises of the Merchant
Navy Officers' Club in Bombay for its classes. The Maritime
Union is also trying to arrange for the advanced training of
senior officers with the assistance of officers' organisations in
other countries. In addition, it has recently submitted to the
Ministries of Commerce of India and Pakistan a broad scheme
for the training of seafarers in general, which, if adopted,
should go far to remedy the present lack of training facilities
in these countries.
Quite recently, the Government of India took action to
deal with the urgent question of officers' training. On 1 October
1948 it established a Nautical and Engineering College, which
provides advanced technical instruction for candidates for
deck and engineer officers' and masters' tickets. The question
of training for ratings is also receiving consideration. I t may
thus be hoped that, although the general problem of education
is one which must take years to solve, the special needs of
seafarers will from now onwards be adequately catered for.

OHAPTEE X
THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AMONG SEAFARERS
Seafarers are among the most extensively and most effectively organised workers in India. 1 I t is therefore all the more
regrettable that not all the unions have been able to unite
for the joint defence of the interests of their members. I t is
impossible for a casual visitor to grasp the underlying reasons
for the rivalries which still exist—some appear to be personal,
others political. All that will be attempted here is to give an
outline of the structure of the trade union movement among
seafarers as it existed in November 1947, with a brief note on
certain important developments that have taken place since
that date.
Owing to the great distance between Bombay and Calcutta
and the differences in conditions in the two ports, trade unions
originated separately in these two centres, and to a considerable extent their activities are still localised. The first organisation of seamen was formed in Calcutta in 1908 and now has
the title of Indian Seamen's Union. The trade union movement
has remained stronger in Calcutta, where it was first launched,
than in Bombay. In the latter port, the first organisations
were the Asiatic Seamen's Union and the Portuguese Seafarers'
Union, which amalgamated in 1921, also with the title Indian
Seamen's Union.
The registered trade unions in Calcutta in 1947 were the
following :
Indian Seamen's Union
Bengal Saloon Workers' Union
Indian National Maritime Union
Indian Sailors' Union
Indian Quartermasters' Union
Indian Serangs' Union
1
Since the date of this enquiry, there has unfortunately been a considerable disintegration among the unions, to which reference will be made at the
end of this chapter.

TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AMONG SEAFARERS

Of these, the Indian Seamen's Union is the largest, claiming
to cover nearly 60 per cent, of the organised seamen in the
port, with about 40,000 members. 1 The Bengal Saloon Workers'
Union has a membership of over 10,000, while the others
range from 3,000 to 8,000 members, except for the Serangs'
Union, which is a very recent creation and has only a small
membership, the number of serangs being naturally much
smaller than the number of ordinary seamen.
In Bombay there were the following unions in 1947 :
National Seamen's Union
Bombay Seamen's Union
Indian Seafarers' Union
Indian Seamen's Union, Bombay
Goan Association
Indian Saloon Workers' Union
In addition there is the Maritime Union of India, several
times referred to in earlier pages. I t must be listed separately,
since it is an organisation of officers only. It recently established a branch office in Calcutta. Of the seamen's organisations in Bombay, the largest and oldest is the National
Seamen's Union, which claims a membership of 26,000. The
others range between 1,500 and 4,000 members.
Finally, in Karachi, there is the Merchant Navy Seamen's
Union, which is active in protecting the interests of the seamen who wait in that port in the hope of employment. As
was explained, Karachi was not a port of recruitment in 1947,
but vessels calling there frequently need to replace a seaman
who has fallen sick or who leaves the ship for some other
reason. There may be 1,000 or 1,500 seamen in Karachi
at any one time who prefer or who are forced by circumstances
to wait for such a chance vacancy, rather than go to Bombay
or Calcutta in search of employment.
Towards the end of 1944, representatives of several of
the Bombay and Calcutta unions met to discuss the possibility
of joining in a federation to cover the whole country. The
result was the establishment of the All-India Seamen's Federation, which in 1946 became the All-India Seafarers' Federation. The latest membership figures at the writer's disposal
1
All membership figures must be accepted with caution, as they may
include seamen who are much in arrears in the payment of union dues.
It is said that the Bombay unions especially suffer from inability to collect
dues and are therefore on the whole weaker financially than the Calcutta
unions.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

(for 1946) are 66,000 seamen and 600 officers. The Federation
includes the following unions :
Indian Seamen's Union, Calcutta
Bengal Saloon Workers' Union, Calcutta
Indian Quartermasters' Union, Calcutta
Indian Sailors' Union, Calcutta
Bombay Seamen's Union
Maritime Union of India (officers)
Apart from the saloon workers in Bombay, the most
important absentee from this list is the National Seamen's
Union of India, which, as was mentioned, is by far the largest
of the seamen's organisations in Bombay. Bepresentatives
of that union were present at the discussions which led to
the establishment of the Federation, but it apparently proved
impossible to reach an agreement as to the terms on which
it would join the Federation. The unions affiliated to the
Federation condemn the National Seamen's Union in no
uncertain terms. They allege that its leaders are not seamen,
but politicians who use the seamen's votes to obtain political
posts. I t is true that four members of the executive of the
Union are municipal corporators in Bombay, but such participation in municipal government does not appear in itself
incompatible with leadership of a trade union. The President
of the Union is also engaged in private legal practice. It is
further said that, apart from occasional action to secure some
benefit for the seamen in order to win votes, this Union does
nothing of value for its members and, on the contrary, exploits
them and is guilty of acts of bribery and corruption. Finally,
the National Seamen's Union is condemned as a " company
union ", subservient to the shipowners.
The National Seamen's Union retorts that the other unions
in Bombay are mushroom growths—the National Seamen's
Union is certainly one of the oldest, having been registered
in 1926—and that they resort to unfair means to extort union
dues from seamen as soon as they are engaged, even stealing
away members of other organisations.
This is not the place to pass any opinion on the merits
of these allegations. They are recorded merely to indicate
the difficulty of reaching a united front among the seafarers'
unions in India at the present time. How this situation is
affecting the development of the joint supply system in Bombay

TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AMONG SEAFARERS

has already been described. 1 I t may be added that in the
course of an interview, the President of the National Seamen's Union, Bombay, expressed the opinion that it was
not desirable to have a single trade union federation for
all Indian seafarers. He maintained that there should
be separate unions for the ports of Bombay and Calcutta
because conditions in the two ports were so dissimilar—seafarers of different racial or religious groups, different customs
that had grown up over many years, etc. As an instance, he
pointed out that while the saloon staff in Bombay are almost
entirely Goan Christians, in Calcutta the saloon staff are
predominantly Muslims.
Such rivalries between unions are, unfortunately, by no
means peculiar to India. Instances could be cited from nearly
every country, at least at certain stages in the development
of trade unionism. As the trade union movement in India
grows to full maturity, it is to be hoped that the present
differences and rivalries will gradually disappear and that the
seafarers' unions, which are already ahead of the general
trade union movement as regards their degree of organisation, will be able to set an example of unity in the defence
of the interests they represent.
Two important developments have taken place since the
date of the enquiry. The first was the decision of the unions
which form the All-India Seafarers' Federation to withdraw
from the All-India Trade Union Congress. The two motives
for the decision were the situation created by the partition of
India and that resulting from the formation of the Indian
National Trade Union Congress in opposition to the A.I.T.U.C.
—opposition based entirely on political grounds. In a statement issued to the press, the unions concerned claimed a
combined membership of nearly 43,000, of whom 90 per cent.
were said to come from Pakistan and were therefore " aliens
in India ". The unions believed in a labour movement free
from political control either of the Left or of the Eight. The
statement went on :
It is, therefore, essential that we should remain outside all political
or semi-political organisations in the Indian Union so that the
protection and hospitality which are internationally recognised and
given to trading communities of one country in another, may not,
in any way, be impaired in our case. In the circumstances, we advise
1

See p. 30.

SEAFAEERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

our unions forthwith to withdraw from the A.I.T.U.O. and also to
see that hereafter we remain absolutely aloof from any political
controversy or agitation in the Indian Dominion so that the present
economic relationship between India and Pakistan may not be
disturbed on our account.
We come and remain here for a little while only to obtain employment at sea and we must not become involved in internal affairs
of India whose goodwill we must fully respect and cultivate irrespective of any political or communal considerations.
We wish the workers of India well and hope they will be reunited
into a single and great labour movement soon.1
The second development came towards the end of 1948,
and so far the available information is slender. Mr. Aftab Ali
resigned from the post of President of the All-India Seafarers'
Federation, and Dr. A. M. Malik, Secretary of the Federation
and President of the Indian Quartermasters' Union, left to
take up a post as Minister in the Government of East Bengal.
The situation at the end of 1948 was described by observers
as being one of dissension and chaos. This is extremely
regrettable, because the Federation, grouping a number of
the most important unions, did appear to have a certain
strength and stability which enabled it to co-operate usefully
in the work of the Calcutta Maritime Board. It can only be
hoped that wise leadership will prevent a split, so that the
Federation can continue to work for the much needed improvement of seafarers' conditions.

The Statesman (Calcutta), 15 November 1947.

CHAPTEE X I
THE EFFECTS OF PARTITION
It is still too early to assess accurately the consequences
for seafarers of the establishment in August 1947 of the separate Dominions of India and Pakistan. All that can be done
is to point out the problem which arises as the result of
partition.
In the absence of statistics it would be rash to attempt to
say what proportion of the seafarers of the subcontinent come
from Pakistan. I t is frequently stated that about 90 per cent.
of these seafarers are Muslims, but this does not necessarily
mean that all of them are citizens of Pakistan. Many of
them, however, do come from East Bengal and the Western
Punjab, both of which areas now form part of Pakistan. It
is probably safe to say that the very great majority of the
deck and engine-room ratings in Calcutta come from Pakistan,
as do also a large proportion of the engine-room ratings in
Bombay. At the time of this investigation, the only ports of
recruitment for these seafarers were Bombay and Calcutta,
both in the Dominion of India, except for the possibility of
casual recruitment in Karachi or Chittagong to fill vacancies
in the crew of a vessel calling at these ports.
I t is true that the ports of Karachi and Chittagong were
declared ports of registry (and therefore also of recruitment)
on 6 December 1947, but it is doubtful whether this will
make much practical difference to the seafarers for a long
time to come. As Pakistan builds up its own mercantile
marine, it will gradually provide employment for a certain
number of seafarers ; but, for financial reasons if for no other,
this process seems likely to be a lengthy one. In the meantime, the ships of Indian companies will still require crews,
and it is doubtful whether, even if the attempt were to be
made to employ Hindu seafarers only, a sufficient number of
trained Hindus could be found.
In any case, British ships at present employ some 90 per
cent, of the total number of Indian seafarers, and, although

SEAFAEEBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

this proportion seems likely to decline, the large majority of
these seafarers will presumably for many years be dependent
on British ships for employment. It was the opinion of those
with whom the writer discussed this question in India (shipowners' and seafarers' representatives) that British ships
would continue to use the ports of Bombay and Calcutta,
since these had been selected as commercially desirable ports
of call in the light of long years of experience. Consequently,
it will still be in these two ports that the main opportunities
for employment for Indian seafarers will be found.
It must be remembered that at the time this enquiry was
in progress communal1 rioting and massacres were only
just dying down, and partition was still such a recent development that no one knew exactly how relationships between
the two Dominions might evolve or what policy each might
adopt towards the citizens of the other. This doubtless
explains why both the authorities in Pakistan and some of
the representatives of seafarers' unions expressed some anxiety
as to whether it would still be possible for Pakistan seafarers
to go to the Indian ports and wait there for jobs without
being exposed to attacks inspired by religious fanaticism.
Happily, it would appear that so far these fears have not
been justified. It is to be hoped that a spirit of toleration
and co-operation will steadily develop, for in the case of the
seafarers free passage from one Dominion to the other would
seem to be not only advantageous for both countries but also
essential if these men are to continue their vocation and avoid
the scourge of unemployment on a tremendous scale.
Certain practical difficulties are said to have arisen during
the year that has elapsed since this investigation was made.
Pakistan Government representatives at international meetings
in Geneva have mentioned two grievances. The first is that
the Government of India has declined to allow Pakistan to
appoint welfare officers to look after the interests of Pakistan
seafarers in the Indian ports. In view of the admittedly high
proportion of these seafarers, this would seem to be a reasonable request. On the other hand, the Government of India
points out that their welfare officers have been given instructions—which are being strictly carried out—to protect the
interests of all seafarers without distinction. They add that
1
It should perhaps be explained that "communal" is used in these
countries to describe friction between different religious groups.

THE EFFECTS OF PARTITION

if two welfare officers, one from India and one from Pakistan,
were working side by side in each port, this would merely
accentuate communal distinctions and tend to split the
seafarers into two groups.
The second grievance mentioned by representatives of
Pakistan is that Pakistan seafarers are not allowed to transfer
freely to their own country the allotment of wages which
they often wish to make to their families. I t is true that
owing to the vast movement of refugees from one Dominion
to the other the Government of India found it necessary to
impose restrictions on the transfer of currency. But it will
doubtless be possible for the two Dominions to reach an
agreement on this point, which is of such great importance
to the seafarers and their families, as well as on any other
difficulties arising from partition.
Mention was made in the previous chapter of the action
taken by the All-India Seafarers' Federation as a result of
the situation in which their members found themselves after
partition. It is clearly a delicate matter for a trade union the
members of which are almost all " aliens " to operate in a
foreign country. Yet it is precisely in the Indian ports that
the seafarers have the most urgent need for the support and
protection which strong unions can afford. In the statement
already referred to 1 , the unions concerned announced their
intention of continuing to co-operate with their employers
and of supporting the Calcutta Maritime Board. It is to be
hoped that they will carry out this intention and also their
declared policy of refraining from participation in political
activities in India. If they can avoid internal dissension and
follow a wise policy of tolerance, they can do a tremendous
amount to help the group of workers they represent. If equal
wisdom and tolerance are shown by the Governments concerned, it may be hoped that the fact of partition will not
in the long run adversely affect the situation of the seafarers.

See p . 79.

CHAPTEE X I I
CONCLUSION
The foregoing pages contain, it is hoped, a fairly complete
and unbiased survey of the conditions of life and work
of seafarers in India and Pakistan as they were at the end
of 1947, and as they have been for many years past. Had
more time been available, it would clearly have been possible
to amplify the study by a greater number of concrete examples.
Some not unimportant points may have been omitted because
of lack of first-hand knowledge, since an effort has been made to
describe only what was actually seen or what was gleaned from
conversations with experts, some additional evidence being
occasionally quoted from published sources. Again, on certain
debatable points it has been impossible to pass judgment,
and all that has been done is to state the arguments on both
sides. Subject to these reservations, it is hoped that this
report will help to make more generally known the conditions
of Indian seafarers, and that it contains some recommendations
which may be of value to those responsible for improving
these conditions.
The suggestions with regard to recruiting and employment
organisation were fully summarised in Chapter VI, and there
is no need to repeat them. But anyone who has read through
the whole report will now realise why so much space was
devoted to this question.
A complete and satisfactory
solution of the fundamental problem of recruitment would
greatly facilitate the solution of most of the other problems
mentioned in the remaining chapters. We have seen that it
is generally agreed that a social security scheme, while eminently desirable, is impracticable until the number of seafarers bears a reasonable relationship to the number of jobs
available. The improvement of accommodation on shore and
the amenities in shipping offices would be much more easily
achieved if the ratio of seafarers to jobs were such that only
a relatively small number would be in search of employment

CONCLUSION

at any one time, and if the system of recruitment were organised by rotation, so that seafarers would be summoned back
to the ports only when their turn for employment was
approaching.
This does not mean that nothing should be done immediately, and that these problems will solve themselves as soon
as a well-organised recruitment system is working satisfactorily. While better recruitment will reduce the number
of seafarers waiting for long periods in the ports in the hope
of an engagement, there will always be many seafarers in
transit through the ports, for whom satisfactory accommodation must be assured, and the number will doubtless increase
with the growth of the mercantile marines of India and
Pakistan.
It may be well to sum up the recommendations contained
in the report on matters other than recruitment. Before dealing with the specific points covered in the preceding chapters,
it should be clearly stated that the ultimate objective of the
Governments of India and Pakistan should be to apply to
their seafarers, as rapidly as conditions permit, the minimum
international standards and guarantees already laid down in
international labour Conventions and Becommendations. India
has so far ratified only three of the eighteen maritime Conventions adopted by successive Conferences.
This total
includes the Seattle Conventions, adopted in 1946, which
are only now beginning to be ratified by other countries, and
it is realised that the recent constitutional changes and the
tasks arising out of partition have so fully occupied the Governments of the two Dominions that the question of ratification
of the Seattle Conventions has necessarily been somewhat
delayed. I t is known that the matter is receiving consideration,
and it is to be hoped that action will be forthcoming at an
early date. The ratification of these Conventions would give
effect to all the recommendations contained in this report
concerning wages, hours of work, accommodation on board ship,
food and catering and medical examination. There remain
a number of earlier Conventions, concerning the minimum
age for employment at sea (Nos. 7 and 58), unemployment
indemnity in the event of shipwreck (No. 8), facilities for
finding employment for seamen (No. 9), repatriation of seamen (No. 23) and officers' competency certificates (No. 53).
It is suggested that consideration should be given also to the
7

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

possibility of ratifying and applying these Conventions, all
of which provide extremely important guarantees for the
seafarers.
In addition to the Conventions, there is the Eecommendation concerning seamen's welfare in ports, adopted in 1936.
The Government of India has already reported to the International Labour Office on certain measures taken to give
effect to the Eecommendation, but the report acknowledges
that it has not so far been possible to take action on all the
matters covered. Attention may be drawn here to two
provisions of the Eecommendation which seem particularly
worthy of attention in view of the situation described earlier
in this report :
8. The treatment of seamen suffering from disease should be
facilitated by suitable measures including :
(a) as wide extension as possible, especially in the dock area, of
free and continued treatment for venereal diseases, as provided,
for example, by the Agreement concerning Facilities to be given
to Merchant Seamen for the Treatment of Venereal Diseases,
signed at Brussels, 1 December 1924 ;
(b) the admission of seamen to clinics and hospitals in ports, without
difficulty and irrespective of nationality or religious belief . . .
9. Arrangements should be made, at least in the larger ports'
for the material and general assistance of seamen while in the port
and such arrangements should more particularly include :
(a) the institution or development of seamen's hostels of a satisfactory character and furnishing suitable board and lodging at
reasonable prices ;
(i>) the institution or development of institutes—which might be

distinct from the seamen's hostels, but should keep as far as
possible in touch with them—providing meeting and recreation
rooms (canteens, rooms for games, libraries, etc.) ;
(c) the organisation, where possible in co-operation with ships' sports
clubs, of healthy recreations, such as sports, excursions, etc. ;
(d) the promotion, by every possible means, of the family life of
seamen.
With regard to paragraph 8, just quoted, what is required
is perhaps, not so much the creation of additional facilities,
as measures to ensure that the facilities existing on paper
are really available in practice and measures to raise the
standard of free treatment given to seafarers in the existing
clinics and hospitals. In addition, some arrangements should
be made for the free transport of sick seafarers, especially
when hospitals are situated far from the dock area.

CONCLUSION

As regards paragraph 9 of the Becommendation, it may
be that the hostel accommodation existing or now under
construction or planned in the various ports would be sufficient
when the recruitment system has been perfected. But steps
might then be taken to improve the amenities of the hostels
and to organise increased facilities for recreation and education.
If the hostel accommodation proves adequate and is made
sufficiently attractive, the seafarers would doubtless cease
to frequent the lattis, but at the same time any immediate
steps that might be possible to control or abolish these boarding
houses would be very beneficial for the health and moral
wellbeing of the seafarers.
There remains the question of education and training.
There appears to be urgent need for increased training facilities for officers and the introduction of training measures
for ratings. This has been realised by the authorities, and
some progress was made in 1948. If there is truth in the
widely held belief that an Indian crew for a vessel of a given
size must be larger than the European crew required for the
same vessel, this may be due in part to the physique of the
seamen, in which case it is linked up with the general problem
of health and nutrition for the whole population. But it may
well be due also in part to lack of training for sea service.
I t would therefore be desirable to introduce a training scheme
for seafarers with a view to increasing their efficiency. In
addition, as was mentioned in Chapter I, the problem of
general education and the spread of literacy is basic to social
progress in India and Pakistan. This is obviously not a matter
which can be dealt with in a short period ; time will be required
to train teachers, build schools and ensure economic conditions
which will permit school attendance up to a reasonable age.
The Governments are fully alive to the problem and also
aware of its magnitude. I t is for consideration whether,
in addition to tackling the long-term general problem, it
would be desirable and possible to organise special literacy
classes for seafarers, with pedagogical methods adapted to
their special needs.
Such, then, are the suggestions which the writer ventures
to make for improving the lot of the seafarers of India and
Pakistan. The description given of their conditions of life
should make it abundantly evident that improvement is
urgently called for. On the other hand, it is impossible to

SEAFAEEBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

overlook the fact that there are millions of other workers
in the two Dominions, as in the other Asian countries, who
are living and working under deplorable conditions—undernourishment, wholly inadequate wages or earnings, bad
housing, lack of elementary sanitation and hygiene, etc.
The whole social problem of the Asian countries was thoroughly
discussed at the Preparatory Asian Eegional Conference of
the International Labour Organisation at New Delhi in
October and November 1947. The Conference roughly mapped
out the ground to be covered and called on each country in
Asia to prepare a programme of action for raising its standards
of living and working conditions, where necessary by stages.
The Conference recognised that the existing minimum international standards incorporated in international labour Conventions provide valuable guidance on the lines of social
policy to be pursued for many years to come. The enthusiasm
which the delegates (representing Governments, employers
and workers) showed for the work of the Conference is a
most encouraging earnest of the seriousness with which all
the nations of Asia are confronting the enormous task of
ensuring the prosperity, social wellbeing and human dignity
of their peoples. Within the framework of the reforms which
will be envisaged more particularly by the Governments
of India and Pakistan, in co-operation with the employers'
and workers' organisations, it is surely not too much to hope
that the seafarers, who have played such a gallant part in
war and can make such a valuable contribution to prosperity
in peace, will find the recognition they deserve and be rewarded
by conditions of life and work in keeping with their services
as workers and their dignity as men.

APPENDICES

APPEKDIX I
EXTRACT FROM THE PLACING OF SEAMEN
CONVENTION, 1920
Article 1
For the purpose of this Convention, the term "seamen" includes
all persons, except officers, employed as members of the crew on
vessels engaged in maritime navigation.
Article 2
The business of finding employment for seamen shall not be
carried on by any person, company, or other agency, as a commercial
enterprise for pecuniary gain ; nor shall any fees be charged directly
or indirectly by any person, company or other agency, for finding
employment for seamen on any ship.
The law of each country shall provide punishment for any
violation of the provisions of this Article.
Article 3
ïfothwithstanding the provisions of Article 2, any person,
company or agency, which has been carrying on the work of finding
employment for seamen as a commercial enterprise for pecuniary
gain, may be permitted to continue temporarily under Government licence, provided that such work is carried on under Government inspection and supervision, so as to safeguard the rights of all
concerned.
Each Member which ratifies this Convention agrees to take all
practicable measures to abolish the practice of finding employment
for seamen as a commercial enterprise for pecuniary gain as soon as
possible.
Article 4
Each Member which ratifies this Convention agrees that there
shall be organised and maintained an efficient and adequate system
of public employment offices for finding employment for seamen
without charge. Such system may be organised and maintained,
either :
(1) by representative associations of shipowners and seamen
jointly under the control of a central authority, or,
(2) in the absence of such joint action, by the State itself.
The work of all such employment offices shall be administered by
persons having practical maritime experience.
Where such employment offices of different types exist, steps
shall be taken to co-ordinate them on a national basis.

SEAFAREBS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Article 5
Committees consisting of an equal number of representatives of
shipowners and seamen shall be constituted to advise on matters
concerning the carrying on of these offices ; the Governement in each
country may make provision for further defining the powers of these
committees, particularly with reference to the committees' selection
of their chairmen from outside their own membership, to the degree
of State supervision, and to the assistance which such committees
shall have from persons interested in the welfare of seamen.
Article 6
In connection with the employment of seamen, freedom of choice
of ship shall be assured to seamen and freedom of choice of crew shall
be assured to shipowners.
Article 7
The necessary guarantees for protecting all parties concerned shall
be included in the contract of engagement or articles of agreement,
and proper facilities shall be assured to seamen for examining such
contract or articles before and after signing.
Article 8
Each Member which ratifies this Convention will take steps to
see that the facilities for employment of seamen provided for in this
Convention shall, if necessary by means of public offices, be available
for the seamen of all countries which ratify this Convention, and
where the industrial conditions are generally the same.
Article 9
Each country shall decide fcr itself whether provisions similar to
those in this Convention shall be put in force for deck-officers and
engineer-officers.

APPENDIX II
THE CALCUTTA JOINT SUPPLY SCHEME
CONSTITUTION OF THE CALCUTTA MARITIME B O A R D 1

1. Objects. With a view to securing closer co-operation and providing Joint Negotiating Machinery between the British, Indian and
other shipowners and Indian seafarers, there shall be constituted
a Board known as "The Calcutta Maritime Board" for the purpose of :
(a) the prevention and adjustment of differences between
shipowners and seafarers ;
(b) the establishment, revision and maintenance of a standard
rate (or rates) of wages and approved conditions of service ;
(c) the establishment of a single source of supply for recruitment
of seafarers jointly controlled by employers and employed in accordance with the following principles :
(i) the shipowners shall have the right to select their own crews
at any time through a jointly controlled supply office to be
established on a basis to be mutually agreed ; special arrangements to be made by the Calcutta Maritime Board to meet
special cases such as coasting trade and shipping of substitutes ;
(ii) equal rights of registration and employment must be secured
for all seamen ;
(iii) the seamen shall have the right to select their ship ;
and
(d) the consideration of such other matters of common interest
as may be mutually agreed upon from time to time.
2. Composition. The C.M.B. shall consist of an equal number of
representatives on each side and its total strength shall be determined
mutually from time to time. The shipowners' representatives shall
be nominated by the Calcutta Liners Conference (Crews) and the
seafarers' representatives shall be nominated by the All-India
Seafarers' Federation.
I n the event of any members of either side failing from any cause
whatever to continue truly representative of those they purport
to represent then they shall cease to be members of the Calcutta
Maritime Board and alternative members shall be elected if in the
opinion of the majority of the remaining members the new candidates
are fully qualified.
3. Special Committees. The C.M.B. shall have the power to appoint
Special Committees for specific purposes with a view to facilitating
the work of the Board.
4. Meetings. Meetings of the C.M.B. shall be held when, in the
opinion of either side of the Board, or any of its Special Committees,
1

See Chapter IV, p. 33.

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

a question has arisen which it is desirable should be submitted for
the consideration of the whole Board.
5. Quorum. A quorum of the Board shall be three (3) members
on each side of the Board. When a member of either side cannot
attend a meeting the organisation by which he is appointed may
appoint a deputy for that meeting.
6. Chairman. There shall be two Chairmen, one elected by and
from either side of the Board, one of whom shall take the chair at
alternate meetings. In the absence of the Chairman whose turn it
is to take a meeting the Chairman for that meeting shall be appointed
by the side which appointed the absent Chairman. The Chairman at
any meeting shall hold office until the following meeting. He shall
not have a casting vote.
7. Secretariat. The secretarial work of the Board shall be placed in
charge of two Joint Secretaries, each side nominating one.
8. Duties of the Joint Secretaries. I t shall be the duty of the Joint
Secretaries to convene all meetings of the Board, to take proper
minutes of the proceedings thereof ; to attend all Committee meetings,
taking minutes of the proceedings thereof ; to maintain such financial
records, to perform such other functions, and to carry out such other
duties as may be assigned to them by the Calcutta Maritime Board.
9. Voting. The voting in the C.M.B. meetings shall be usually by
show of hands or otherwise as each meeting may determine. No
resolution shall be regarded carried unless it has been approved by
the majority of the members present on each side. The Chairman of
the Board shall have no casting vote. A majority vote on either side
shall be regarded as a vote binding on all the members of that side.
10. Finance. The shipowners' and seafarers' organisations represented on the Board shall be responsible for the expenses of their
members attending meetings of the Board, but all other expenses,
unless otherwise determined, shall be met by the two sides of the
Board in such proportion as may be mutually agreed between the
shipowners' and seafarers' representatives on the Board.
11. Special Representatives. Either the shipowners or the seafarers
shall have the power to summon by general consent such additional
approved representatives, not necessarily members of either side,
who may be coropted when in the opinion of the shipowners or the
seafarers this course would be likely to contribute to the fuller
attainment of their objects, but such co-opted members will have
no voting power.
12. Obligation of Parties. ïfo stoppage of work or lockout shall
take place until any difference or dispute between the shipowners
and the seafarers has been referred to and dealt with by the Board
or its appropriate Committee, if any.
13. ÎTo indemnity, strike-pay, assistance or encouragement direct
or indirect shall be afforded by either side or by any official or individual members thereof to any person or persons failing to submit a.
difference or dispute to the Board or its appropriate Committee, if
any.
14. Amendments. The Board shall have the power from time to
time to amend or add to this Constitution in such way as it may
think fit at a special meeting. Two months' notice of the actuaL
proposed alterations to be given before the date of the meeting.

APPENDICES

^REGISTRATION F O E M 1

Calcutta Maritime Board
JOINT SUPPLY OFFICE

Takta Ghat
Registration

Form

(To be filled in at once by seamen desiring to be registered for employment subject
to conditions noted overleaf)
Department

Rating .

C.D.C. No

Date of last discharge from voyage
of over 6 months' duration

Date of original issue of C.D.C.
Name

Father's Name

Village

P.O

P.S

District

Calcutta address, if any
Date
Signature or Left Thumb Impression.

For Office use only
Serial No.

Date of signing on Articles

Date of issue of Muster Card

Name of Ship

Date of issue of bill for collection of Signing-on Fee

See Chapter IV, p. 34.

APPENDIX III
SEAFARERS' REMUNERATION
SEAMEN'S WAGES IN INDIA, 1947

CALCUTTA RATES
(monthly)
Pre-war
rate of
pay

Present
rate

Rs.
70
40
30
1
22
!
45
!
60
,18 t o 25
120
60
18
i
25
10 t o 12

Rs.
140
80
60
44
90
120
36 t o 50
240
120
38
50
20 t o 24

Ratings

Butler
Head waiter . . .
General saloon boy
Topass (cleaner) .
Dhobi (laundryman)
Lascar
Fireman serang
Coal trimmer . .
Bhandari (cook) .
Bhandari's mate .

War bonus, War-risk
(100 per and postTotal
cent, of war credit
money
pre-war
rate)
Rs.
Rs.
Rs.
70
66
276
40
66
186
30
60
150
22
44
110
45
66
201
60
66
246
18 t o 25 36 t o 50 90 t o 125
120
360
66
60
246
36
18
90
50
25
125
10 t o 12 20 t o 24 50 t o 60

1
BOMBAY BATES
(monthly)
Wages on
16 September
1939

Ratings

Deck:
Serang
Bhandari's mate
Carpenter

. .

Engine r o o m :
1st tindal
Saloon :
Butler
Chief cook
General servant. . .

See Chapter VII, p . 56.

Present
rate

War-risk
allowance
(200 per
War
allowance
cent.
subject to a
maximum
of Rs. 66)
Rs.
Rs.

Total

Rs.

62
26
18
90

130
52
40
240

65
26
20
120

66
52
40

261
130
100
360

Rs.

46
30

80
60

40
30

66
60

186
150

90
78
28

170
150
52

85
75
26

66
66
52

321
291
130

APPENDICES

OFFICERS' BATES OF P A Y IN INDIA, 1947

Agreement between the Maritime Union of India and the Scindia
Steam Navigation Company for Officers with Foreign-going Certificates,
1 April 1947 2
All employees are to be on probation for six months from the
date of joining the Company's service. The first increment in wages
becomes due on expiry of one year's service after completion of this
probationary period.
OFFICERS WITH FOREIGN-GOING

CERTIFICATES

(monthly rates) •
Chief officer
Years

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

3rd officer

4th officer

With
superior
certificate

With
rating
certificate

With
superior
certificate

With
rating
certificate

Certified

Uncertified

Certified

Uncertified

Rs.

970
1,030
1,090
1,150
1,210
1,270
1,330
1,390
1,450
1,510
1,570
1,630
1,690
1,746
Commodore
Extra

740
755
770
785
800
820
850
After
acting
on
higher
grade
for
over 3
years

690
700
720

570
580
595
610
627

534
544
554

475
485495
515
535

425
435
450

390
400
415

320
335
350

Master

100

2nd officer

900

After
acting
on
higher
grade
for
over 3
years

675

See Chapter V I I , p. 58.
Oceanite (official organ of t h e Maritime Union of India, Bombay), JulySeptember 1947.
2

SEAFARERS' CONDITIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
ENGINEERS WITH FOREIGN-GOING CERTIFICATES
(monthly rates)

Years

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

2nd engineer

3rd engineer

Chief
engineer

With
superior
certificate

With
rating
certificate

Certified

Uncertified

Certified

Uncertified

Certified

Uncertified

Rs.

910
945
980
1,015
1,050
1,085
1,120
1,155
1,190
1,225
1,260
1,300
1,340
1,390
Commodore
Extra
100

740
755
770
785
800
820
850
After
acting
on
higher
grade
for
over 3
years

690
700
720

570
580
595
610
627

534
544
554

475
485
495
515
535

425
435
450

900

4th engineer

5th engineer

390
400
415

After
acting
on
higher
grade
for
over 3
years

675

Agreement between the Maritime Union of India and the Bombay
Steam Navigation Company for Officers on Home-trade Ships,
1 July 1947 1
Monthly rates
Rs.
Rs.
Masters with pilot's tickets
725
1,250 in 12 years
Chief officer :
With superior certificate
550
675 in 7 years
Rating . . . .'
500
fixed
Second officer :
With superior certificate
430
500 in 6 years
Rating
425
fixed
Third officer :
Certified
360
420 in 5 years
Uncertified
300
fixed
Chief engineer :
Diesel or Steam I class
875
1,325 in 12 years
II class
725
1,025 in 10 years
Second engineer :
I class
700
800
I I class
600
700 in 5 years
Third Engineer :
I I class
550
600
Uncertified
400
fixed
1
Oceanile, October-December 1947.

APPENDIX IV
OFFICIAL SCALE OF FOOD FOR INDIAN CREWS

Bice or atta (Indian whole-wheat flour), daily .
Flour or atta, daily
Dal, daily
Ghee, daily
Salt, daily
Curry stuff, daily
Dry fish at sea, 3 days a week
Fresh meat free from bone at sea, 4 days a week
and in harbour, daily
Vegetables dry at sea, such as onions, potatoes,
daily
Vegetables fresh in harbour, daily
Tamarind, daily
Tea, daily
Sugar, daily
Condensed milk, per week
Lime juice, daily
Oil (mustard), daily
Water as required

See Chapter VII, p. 61.

Ordinary
weather
lb. oz. dr.

Cold
weather
lb. oz. dr.

1
0
0
0
0
0
0

1 4
0
0
0
0
0
0

4
8
5
2
0
1
4

0
0
0
0
8
0
0

0 4 0
0
0
0
0
0
1
/3
0
0

10 0
10 0
1 0
0 4
1 8
0 0
1 0
0 12
—

8
5
3
0
1
4

0
0
0
0
8
0
0

0 4 0
0 10 0
0 10 0
0 1 0
0 0 8
0 2 0
1
/3 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 12
—