Katchatheevu dispute: A proxy for wider battles

Katchatheevu lies 25 kilometres north-east of Rameswaram in India

An uninhabited island in the Palk Straits between India and Sri Lanka, measuring about 285 acres, is now an issue in Tamil Nadu politics as the state prepares to vote on April 19 in the Lok Sabha election.

Katchatheevu, 25 kilometres northeast of Rameswaram, was settled as a territorial dispute between the two countries in 1974 through an agreement signed by the two Prime Ministers, Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. But a tangentially related conflict over fishing rights between fisherfolk of the two countries brought the issue back to political limelight in 1991 when the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, in her first Independence Day address, demanded the retrieval of the island.

Though governments at the Centre have consistently honoured the agreement ceding the island, despite appeals for integration from political leaders of Tamil Nadu, the issue gathered heat when Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the Congress had “callously” given away Katchatheevu. Evidently, his remark was prompted by details revealed through an RTI application. But the resultant controversy was at odds with the stated position of the Indian government.

In 2014, the Modi government, represented by the then attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, told the Supreme Court bench led by the then CJI RM Lodha, “If you want Katchatheevu back, you will have to go to war to get it back.” In December 2022 too, the Modi government told the Rajya Sabha that Katchatheevu “lies on the Sri Lankan side of the India-Sri Lanka International Maritime Boundary Line” and that the matter was sub-judice in the Supreme Court.

The question still remains: will the retrieval of Katchatheevu solve the fisherfolk’s grievances? Most likely not. The island is not resource-rich. The demand for retrieval is actually a proxy for the demand for the right to fish in Sri Lankan waters using trawlers. The issue is clearly not about fishing rights around Katchatheevu or about access to the island. Fisherfolk from India are allowed to fish and dry their nets there and to visit during the St Antony’s Church festival. But deep sea trawling, far beyond Katchatheevu, leads Indian fishermen into conflicts with Sri Lankan Navy. Their boats are often seized and they are often detained for days together. Moreover, trawling is banned by Sri Lanka in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Straits region.

Sri Lanka's claim of sovereignty over Kachatheevu dates back to the period of Portuguese colonisation during 1505-1658 CE. India’s counter had been that it was a part of the zamin of the erstwhile Raja of Ramnad, which is now Ramanathapuram. However, an accord was signed between the two countries granting the island to Sri Lanka as part of a wider agreement on repatriation of Indian-origin workers and on the Wadge Bank as falling within India's exclusive economic zone.

Also tangled with this issue is the Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic conflict. Although opposition to Indian trawlers in Sri Lankan waters comes mainly from Sri Lankan Tamil fisherfolk, in Tamil Nadu, the fishing rights issue is artificially linked to the Tamil-Sinhalese ethnic conflict. Katchatheevu, as an India-Sri Lanka territory dispute, is a convenient tool for those in Tamil Nadu seeking to pressure Sri Lanka on the fishing rights issue and on the Tamil ethnic conflict.

So, what seemed like a settled question keeps cropping up every now and then. Election periods are especially likely to see this being whipped up as a poll issue by all parties. They differ only on who is to blame for all the ills that have befallen Indian fishermen and Sri Lankan Tamils.