from-modi-to-stalin-why-is-everyone-playing-ping-pong-with-katchatheevu

Though the Prime Minister Modi and the opposition parties have been playing ping-pong for a few days with matters linked to Katchatheevu  - an uninhabited island located between India and Sri Lanka that was formed from a 14th century volcanic eruption and boasts of nothing but a little church – there's more to the story than mere ownership of a piece of land that’s suddenly popping in news headlines everywhere.

It’s a story dating back to 1955, if one goes by documents obtained by Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai through an RTI application.

 PM Modi mentioned Katchatheevu  in an August 2023 speech in Lok Sabha, hitting out at the Congress, especially the Indira Gandhi government, for virtually giving it away to Sri Lanka in 1974, thereby “weakening India's unity, integrity and interests."

 

Months later, in a tweet on X, formerly Twitter, on March 31, PM Modi tagged a Times of India article on the documents obtained through the RTI.

 

The issue is significant as the BJP wants to make ‘ceding’ of the island an election plank with an eye on the Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha seats as India goes to polls from April 19.

 

However, what cannot be ignored is another issue historically linked to Katchatheevu – that of Indian fishermen and their harassment by  Sri Lanka in the Palk Strait that's teeming with rich marine life. It was highlighted in February this year when associations of fishermen from Ramanathapuram district, which is close to the island, boycotted an annual two-day festival to protest against the arrests of Indian fishermen on charges of poaching.

 

Consider this. Nineteen Indian men were held for illegally fishing in Lankan waters near Delft Island in northern Jaffna province early in February. Before that, the Lankan Navy arrested 88 others. Then, in March 16, 21 fishermen from Tamil Nadu were arrested by the Lankans for crossing the International maritime borders.

The Times of India, quoting from documents released with the RTI, reports that Sri Lanka had begun asserting its rights on  Katchatheevu right after India’s Independence, getting its air force to conduct exercises there even as it said the Royal Indian Navy (now Indian Navy) could not do so.

An argument for India’s sovereignty could have been made, but wasn’t. In 1960, a “well regarded” law officer, then attorney general MC Setalvad, had referred to zamindari rights given by the East India Company to the Raja of Ramnad or Ramnathpuram in Tamil Nadu over Katchateevu .

The Raja independently exercised the rights vested in the state of Madras after the abolition of the zamindari rights. He did not pay any taxes to Colombo.

 

The matter was again raised in 1961 in India, but the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru dismissed it as inconsequential.

 

In stark contrast to PM Modi who has refused to let go of the matter, Nehru “did not like it pending definitely and being raised again in Parliament.”

 

Nehru’s opinion was added to notes prepared by then Commonwealth secretary YD Gundevia and shared by the ministry of external affairs with a Consultative Committee of Parliament in 1968. “I would have no hesitation in giving up claims to the island,” Nehru had said.

 

MEA could not come to any clear conclusions on India or Ceylon’s (as Sri Lanka was called then) claim to sovereignty, despite Setalvad’s opinion, though they argued that India had a strong case and it could help the country’s fishermen secure fishing rights in the area and not be detained by the Sri Lankan Navy.

 

The matter had come up in Parliament in 1968 with the opposition demanding to know why India had not confronted Sri Lanka to resolve the matter.

 

It was also whispered in the corridors of power that Indira Gandhi had struck a secret deal with her then Ceylon counterpart during his visit to India to hand over the island.

 

India gave up all claims to the island in 1974 as part of the India-Sri Lanka Maritime Agreement.

 

However, the matter cropped up again during Emergency in 1976 as an agreement was signed to regulate maritime boundaries between India and Sri Lanka in the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal, delineating areas where fishing was prohibited for Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen.         

 

After Modi, the other BJP minster to hop onto the Katchatheevu bandwagon was external affairs minister S Jaishankar, who in a press conference insisted that the island issue had been discussed during questions, debates in Parliament and in the consultative committee.

He also said that former Tamil Nadu chief minister, the late M Karunanidhi, had written to the Centre a number of times and that he (Jaishankar) had responded to queries related to the issue from his son and current CM, MK Stalin.

 

On his part, Stalin has accused the ruling government of waking up to “rake up” the Katchatheevu island row just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections after a "10-year-slumber."

 

He was responding another tweet by PM Modi on X, saying the DMK had done nothing to safeguard Tamil Nadu’s interests, following more revelations on K Annamalai’s RTI that K Karunanidhi might have known about Indira Gandhi’s “deal” with Sri Lanka and accepted it.

 

Tweeting back in Tamil on X, Stalin accused the PM of “staging a sudden fisherman's love drama for the election,” after sleeping on the matter for 10 years.

 

He also asked Modi why Tamil Nadu was not given flood relief during “two back-to-back calamities" and why no schemes had been announced for the state.

 

Then it was the turn of Congress leader P Chidambaram to speak. Criticising Jaishankar for his remarks on Nehru’s disinterest in the island he said the “suave liberal foreign service officer” had now become a “mouthpiece” of the BJP and RSS.

 

A number of experts might want to weigh in on the Katchatheevu controversy over the next couple of days or weeks, but how that translates to votes for BJP  remains to be seen.