Knowledge Nugget: India-Sri Lanka ties — Why Katchatheevu Island is important for UPSC

Why in the news?

A resolution was passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly urging the Centre to retrieve Katchatheevu Island, ceded to Sri Lanka, as a permanent solution to protect the traditional fishing rights of the state’s fishermen.

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister M K Stalin said on average two fishermen were being arrested daily by the Sri Lankan navy if one went by the statistics presented by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on March 27 in the Rajya Sabha that 97 Indian fishermen were in the Lankan prison.

Key Takeaways:

1. Katchatheevu is a 285-acre patch in the sea within the maritime boundary line of Sri Lanka. It lies northeast of Rameswaram, about 33 km from the Indian coast. It is about 62 km southwest of Jaffna, at the northern tip of Sri Lanka, and 24 km away from the inhabited Delft Island, belonging to Sri Lanka.

Katchatheevu Island

2. In the early medieval period, it was controlled by the Jaffna kingdom of Sri Lanka. In the 17th century, control passed to the Ramnad, a zamindari from 1795 to 1803 in Ramanathapuram in the Madras Presidency during British rule. In 1767, the Dutch East India Company signed an agreement with Muthuramalinga Sethupathi to lease the island, and, later, in 1822, the British East India Company leased the island from Ramaswami Sethupathi.

4. A 1922 report from the Imperial Records Department on the question of the ‘Ownership of the Island of Kachitivu [sic]’ supports India’s historic claim to the island by virtue of the island’s ownership by the Raja of Ramnad. The British government’s lease was extended up to 1936, obviating Sri Lanka’s possession of the island until 1947-48 when both India and Ceylon became independent. Then, in 1947-48, there was a lease in favour of the Dewan of Ramanathapuram, V Ponnuswamy Pillai, by Mohammed Meerasa Maraickar in respect of Katchatheevu alone.

5. But the seeds of the Katchatheevu dispute seem to lie in incidents from October 24, 1921, when delegations from colonial India and Ceylon tried negotiating on a ‘Fisheries Line’ to curb overexploitation of marine resources and find a suitable solution to Katchatheevu. The dispute could not be settled, and continued in the years after Independence.

Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement

1. In 1974, when Indira was Prime Minister, the two governments signed — on June 26 in Colombo and June 28 in New Delhi — an agreement by which the island went to Sri Lanka. This settlement is known as ‘Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement’.

2. “Indian fishermen and pilgrims will enjoy access to visit Katchatheevu as hitherto, and will not be required by Sri Lanka to obtain travel documents or visas for these purposes,” the agreement said. The agreement did not specify the fishing rights of Indian fishermen.

3. Moreover, as per the agreement, Indian fishermen were still allowed to access Katchatheevu “hitherto”. Unfortunately, the issue of fishing rights was not ironed out by the agreement. Sri Lanka interpreted Indian fishermens’ right to access Katchatheevu to be limited to “rest, drying nets and for visit to the Catholic shrine without visa”.

4. Another agreement in 1976, during the period of Emergency in India, barred either country from fishing in the other’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Again, Katchatheevu lay right at the edge of the EEZs of either country, retaining a degree of uncertainty with regard to fishing rights.

BEYOND THE NUGGET: Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987

1. Another issue between India and Sri Lanka is the implementing the 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution — which flows from the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. In a reply to a starred question in Rajya Sabha, the response follows that the Indian PM has expressed hope that the Sri Lankan government would fulfill the aspirations of the Tamil people as well as their commitment towards fully implementing the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

2. The 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution was made after the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President J R Jayewardene, on July 29, 1987, in Colombo. It deals with the devolution of land and police powers to the provinces in Sri Lanka. India has been pressing Sri Lanka to fully implement the 13th Amendment as the answer to the Tamil demand for political autonomy for the Northern and Eastern regions.

3. Apart from the devolution of power, the Accord had other clauses, such as Tamil and English being adopted as official languages along with Sinhala. It provided for a system of elected provincial councils across Sri Lanka. Thus, it was not just the Northern-Eastern province that would get a provincial council but provinces in the rest of Sri Lanka too. The Accord also says that “The Government of India will underwrite and guarantee the resolutions, and co-operate in the implementation of these proposals”.

4. The crucial Amendment has not yet been given a fair trial, especially in the Tamil-speaking areas of Sri Lanka. Successive governments in India have urged their counterpart to fully and effectively implement the 13th Amendment of the Sri Lankan constitution. It needs to be seen if the recent visit of PM Modi will raise this question or not.

Post read question

(1) Katchatheevu Island is located

(a) Close to Palk Strait

(b) Northeast of Jaffna

(c) South of Rameswaram

(d) Part of Delft Island

(2) Elephant Pass, sometimes seen in the news, is mentioned in the context of the affairs of which one of the following? (UPSC CSE 2009)

(a) Bangladesh

(b) India

(c) Nepal

(d) Sri Lanka

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