New Delhi, India– Fifty years after India and Sri Lanka settled a long-simmering disagreement over a small island, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has actually implicated a previous federal government of the now-in-opposition Congress Party of gifting Indian area to its southern neighbour.
The accusation by Modi and his judgment Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the eve of nationwide elections has actually triggered a heated dispute in India over a crucial diplomatic relationship.
At the centre of the debate is Katchatheevu Island, for long an emotive problem in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which votes on April 19 in the very first stage of India’s seven-stage elections.
What’s the debate about?
Ahead of the Tamil Nadu vote, on March 31, Modi shared a report on social networks with the heading, “RTI reply demonstrates how Indira Gandhi delivered island to Sri Lanka”. Modi asserted that Congress “callously” offered Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka.
The problem stemmed from a Right to info (RTI) demand by Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai, who recommended that in the 1970s, the Congress Party under the management of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in assessment with Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), moved ownership of Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka. The DMK was ruling Tamil Nadu at the time and is likewise in power there now.
“Eye-opening and stunning! Brand-new truths expose how Congress callously distributed #Katchatheevu. This has actually outraged every Indian and declared in individuals’s minds– we can’t ever trust Congress! (sic),” Modi published on X, sharing the report. “Weakening India’s unity, stability and interests has actually been Congress’ method of working for 75 years and counting,” he included.
Right after, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar reshared Modi’s tweet with the caption: “It is necessary that individuals understand the complete fact about our past. The realities highlighted … ought to worry every person.” The foreign minister later on echoed Modi’s accusations throughout 2 interview.
Modi has actually considering that duplicated the claims, consisting of in a project speech in West Bengal on April 7 where he declared that for the Congress Party, both Katchatheevu and the area of Kashmir, which is objected to by India and Pakistan, do not matter.
Numerous experts think the BJP’s choice to raise Katchatheevu is intended just at assisting it in Tamil Nadu throughout the election. It is a state where the BJP has just a little existence and won no seats in the 2019 vote. There are 39 nationwide constituencies in Tamil Nadu, with approximately 1.51 million citizens in each.
“The reality the concern has actually been raised in the middle of the elections plainly reveals it has actually been performed in the hope of acquiring some assistance in Tamil Nadu where the BJP up until now has actually stopped working to get any grip,” stated Sudheendra Kulkarni, a previous BJP political leader and present writer, who acted as a director of operations in the Prime Minister’s Office under the previous BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in between 1999 and 2004.
Kulkarni stated the BJP relocation was “neither excellent politics nor excellent diplomacy and definitely bad area policy”.
He questioned how Modi and Jaishankar might declare to have actually discovered the “complete reality” about Kathatheevu in 2024, when they were in power for the previous years and had access to all the documents on the topic.
“All the realities that have actually shown up have actually broken the ruling celebration itself. Modi has been the prime minister for the last ten years and for him to tweet that these are some brand-new realities that have turned up– how can the federal government be uninformed of the truths when it has all resources at its disposal?” Kulkarni asked.
What and where is Katchatheevu?
Katchatheevu is a little, barren island covering 115 hectares (285 acres) within Sri Lanka’s maritime border, situated 33km (20 miles) off the northeast coast of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka’s Delft Island.
Katchatheevu was governed by the kingdom of Ramanad Raja from 1795 to 1803 throughout British guideline. The island is likewise home to the 120-year-old St Anthony’s Church, which hosts a yearly celebration, drawing fans from India and Sri Lanka.
Control of Katchatheevu has actually been a substantial point of contention in between India and Sri Lanka, especially concerning fishing rights in the surrounding waters. In a press conference recently, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated that Sri Lanka had actually apprehended more than 6,000 Indian anglers and 1,175 fishing vessels in the previous 20 years.
Pradip Chatterjee, the convener of India’s National Platform for Small Scale Fish Workers, informed Al Jazeera that what anglers required was for India and Sri Lanka to prevent embracing nationalist positions and rather “agreeably solve this matter”.
Late last month, the Sri Lankan Navy validated in a declaration that they had actually apprehended 23 Indian trawlers and 178 Indian anglers in 2024 for presumably fishing in the island country’s waters. On April 4, 19 Indian anglers were launched by the Sri Lanka Navy and repatriated to India.
When did Katchatheevu end up being a part of Sri Lanka?
The spat in between India and Sri Lanka goes back a minimum of to 1921 and a study that positioned it within the maritime area of what was then called Ceylon, now Sri Lanka– a position that British India countered, mentioning the erstwhile guideline of the Ramanad kingdom. The conflict continued after the self-reliance of both nations.
In 1974, India acknowledged Katchatheevu as part of Sri Lanka’s area in a maritime border arrangement signed by Indian Prime Minister Gandhi and her equivalent Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
According to a copy of the arrangement acquired by Al Jazeera, the pact permitted Indian anglers and pilgrims to check out Katchatheevu without requiring a travel file or a visa. The contract did not define the fishing rights of Indian anglers in the waters around Katchatheevu.
Ashok Kantha, a previous Indian ambassador to Sri Lanka, stated that the 1974 contract resulted in more contracts clarifying the maritime border with Sri Lanka. One such arrangement in March 1976 acknowledged India’s sovereign rights over the Wadge Bank– a 10,300 sq km (4,000 sq mile) trawl fishery website– and its abundant resources.
In contrast with Katchatheevu island, the Wadge Bank is thought about among the world’s wealthiest fishing premises, situated in a far more tactically fundamental part of the sea. The contract likewise gave India the right to check out the Wadge Bank for petroleum and other mineral resources.
“The 1974 arrangement put Katchatheevu on the Sri Lankan side of the IMBL (global maritime border line) however it likewise led the way for the understanding of 1976, which identified India’s sovereign rights over the Wadge Bank and its abundant resources,” Kantha stated.
The 1976 arrangement limited both the nations’ anglers from fishing in the other’s waters.
What do Tamil Nadu celebrations state on Katchatheevu?
The 2 biggest celebrations in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), have actually long promoted for the retrieval of the Katchatheevu Island from Sri Lanka.
In 1974, after India delivered Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka, M Karunanidhi, the then primary minister of Tamil Nadu, composed to Gandhi on how the land was traditionally a part of the Ramnad kingdom’s area.
The BJP today blames the DMK federal government for being complicit with Congress in handing over the Island to Sri Lanka.
In 1991, the Tamil Nadu assembly embraced a resolution requiring the retrieval of Katchatheevu Island. In 2008, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa from the AIADMK approached the Supreme Court to nullify the arrangements of 1974 and 1976.
In the middle of the existing debate, both the AIADMK and DMK have actually criticised the BJP for raising the Katchatheevu problem ahead of the basic elections.
What have Modi and the BJP formerly stated?
In the wake of the debate, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi declared disparities in the Modi federal government’s position on Katchatheevu, pointing out a 2015 RTI reply from the Ministry of External Affairs. Jaishankar, now foreign minister, was then the leading profession diplomat in the foreign workplace.
“This [1974 agreement] didn’t include either getting or delivering of area coming from India because the location in concern had actually never ever been demarcated,” Jaishankar’s ministry had actually stated in 2015. “Under the arrangements, the island of Katchatheevu pushes the Sri Lankan side of the India-Sri Lanka International Maritime Boundary Line.”
In 2014, after Modi concerned power, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi informed the Supreme Court that Katchatheevu was provided to Sri Lanka based upon a bilateral contract in 1974 and “to obtain it now, we need to go to war”.
What are the ramifications for India’s relations with Sri Lanka?
Severe V Pant, the vice president for research studies and diplomacy at the Observer Research Foundation, stated that while the debate would not hurt the India-Sri Lanka relationship, reviewing settled concerns like Katchatheevu would not remain in the interests of either side.
“Tamil Nadu is a crucial state now being objected to by the BJP. It is extremely natural for the BJP to attempt to discover area in a state where it has no existence, utilizing all offered problems that come its method and this problem is one of them,” Pant stated.
“The BJP management appears to be highlighting the opposition’s previous mishandling of the concern however I do not believe there is intent to alter the method the disagreement was settled years earlier. I believe this is not likely to continue beyond the elections,” Pant included.
Other federal governments, he stated, “comprehend the obsession of electoral democracy and [that] numerous things are stated throughout elections that are forgotten later on. That’s why I believe we have actually seen the Sri Lankan federal government not actually intervening in the matter”.
On April 4, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry informed a regional tv channel that Colombo did not see any “requirement to have additional conversations on” what he referred to as a settled matter.
Previous Indian diplomat Kalarickal Pranchu Fabian stated that as long as India does not attempt to renegotiate the Katchatheevu handle Sri Lanka, the domestic politics surrounding the island would not impact bilateral ties.