New Delhi, India – Fifty years after India and Sri Lanka settled a long-simmering dispute over a tiny island, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accused a former authorities of the now-in-opposition Congress Event of gifting Indian territory to its southern neighbour.
The allegation by Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Event (BJP) on the eve of nationwide elections has sparked a heated debate in India over a key diplomatic relationship.
On the centre of the controversy is Katchatheevu Island, for prolonged an emotive concern throughout the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which votes on April 19 throughout the first part of India’s seven-stage elections.
What’s the controversy about?
Ahead of the Tamil Nadu vote, on March 31, Modi shared a data report on social media with the headline, “RTI reply reveals how Indira Gandhi ceded island to Sri Lanka”. Modi asserted that Congress “callously” gave Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka.
The issue originated from a Correct to information (RTI) request by Tamil Nadu BJP President Okay Annamalai, who immediate that throughout the Seventies, the Congress Event beneath the administration of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in session with Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), transferred possession of Katchatheevu Island to Sri Lanka. The DMK was ruling Tamil Nadu on the time and will be in power there now.
“Eye-opening and startling! New data reveal how Congress callously gave away #Katchatheevu. This has angered every Indian and reaffirmed in people’s minds—we’re capable of’t ever perception Congress! (sic),” Modi posted on X, sharing the report. “Weakening India’s unity, integrity and pursuits has been Congress’ method of working for 75 years and counting,” he added.
Rapidly after, Exterior Affairs Minister S Jaishankar reshared Modi’s tweet with the caption: “It’s essential that people know the entire actuality about our earlier. The knowledge launched out… should concern every citizen.” The abroad minister later echoed Modi’s allegations all through two press conferences.
Modi has since repeated the allegations, along with in a advertising and marketing marketing campaign speech in West Bengal on April 7 the place he alleged that for the Congress Event, every Katchatheevu and the territory of Kashmir, which is contested by India and Pakistan, don’t matter.
Many analysts think about the BJP’s willpower to hold up Katchatheevu is aimed solely at serving to it in Tamil Nadu by the election. It’s a state the place the BJP has solely a small presence and gained no seats throughout the 2019 vote. There are 39 nationwide constituencies in Tamil Nadu, with a median of 1.51 million voters in each.
“The precise reality the issue has been raised throughout the midst of the elections clearly reveals it has been executed throughout the hope of gaining some assist in Tamil Nadu the place the BJP to date has failed to attain any foothold,” said Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former BJP politician and current columnist, who served as a director of operations throughout the Prime Minister’s Office beneath the sooner BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, between 1999 and 2004.
Kulkarni said the BJP switch was “neither good politics nor good diplomacy and undoubtedly not good neighbourhood protection”.
He questioned how Modi and Jaishankar might declare to have unearthed the “full actuality” about Kathatheevu in 2024, as soon as that they had been in power for the earlier decade and had entry to all the papers on the subject.
“The entire data which have come up have gone in opposition to the ruling event itself. Modi has been the prime minister for the ultimate 10 years and for him to tweet that these are some new data which have come up – how can the federal authorities be unaware of the knowledge when it has all belongings at its disposal?” Kulkarni requested.
What and the place is Katchatheevu?
Katchatheevu is a small, barren island spanning 115 hectares (285 acres) inside Sri Lanka’s maritime boundary, positioned 33km (20 miles) off the northeast coast of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka’s Delft Island.
Katchatheevu was dominated by the dominion of Ramanad Raja from 1795 to 1803 all through British rule. The island will be dwelling to the 120-year-old St Anthony’s Church, which hosts an annual pageant, drawing devotees from India and Sri Lanka.
Administration of Katchatheevu has been a significant degree of rivalry between India and Sri Lanka, notably regarding fishing rights throughout the surrounding waters. In a data conference closing week, Indian Worldwide Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that Sri Lanka had detained better than 6,000 Indian fishermen and 1,175 fishing vessels to date 20 years.
Pradip Chatterjee, the convener of India’s Nationwide Platform for Small Scale Fish Workers, suggested Al Jazeera that what fishermen needed was for India and Sri Lanka to stay away from adopting nationalist positions and as an alternative “amicably resolve this matter”.
Late closing month, the Sri Lankan Navy confirmed in a press launch that they’d detained 23 Indian trawlers and 178 Indian fishermen in 2024 for allegedly fishing throughout the island nation’s waters. On April 4, 19 Indian fishermen had been launched by the Sri Lanka Navy and repatriated to India.
When did Katchatheevu turn into a part of Sri Lanka?
The spat between India and Sri Lanka dates once more a minimal of to 1921 and a survey that positioned it contained in the maritime territory of what was then typically referred to as Ceylon, now Sri Lanka – a spot that British India countered, citing the erstwhile rule of the Ramanad kingdom. The dispute continued after the independence of every nations.
In 1974, India acknowledged Katchatheevu as part of Sri Lanka’s territory in a maritime boundary settlement signed by Indian Prime Minister Gandhi and her counterpart Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
In line with a reproduction of the settlement obtained by Al Jazeera, the pact allowed Indian fishermen and pilgrims to go to Katchatheevu without having a journey doc or a visa. Nonetheless, the settlement didn’t specify the fishing rights of Indian fishermen throughout the waters spherical Katchatheevu.
Ashok Kantha, a former Indian ambassador to Sri Lanka, said that the 1974 settlement led to further agreements clarifying the maritime boundary with Sri Lanka. One such settlement in March 1976 recognised India’s sovereign rights over the Wadge Monetary establishment – a ten,300 sq km (4,000 sq mile) trawl fishery web site – and its rich belongings.
In contrast with Katchatheevu island, the Wadge Monetary establishment is taken under consideration one in all many world’s richest fishing grounds, positioned in a far more strategically needed part of the ocean. The settlement moreover granted India the exact to find the Wadge Monetary establishment for petroleum and completely different mineral belongings.
“The 1974 settlement positioned Katchatheevu on the Sri Lankan side of the IMBL (worldwide maritime boundary line) nonetheless it moreover paved the way in which during which for the understanding of 1976, which recognised India’s sovereign rights over the Wadge Monetary establishment and its rich belongings,” Kantha said.
Nonetheless, the 1976 settlement restricted every the nations’ fishermen from fishing throughout the completely different’s waters.
What do Tamil Nadu occasions say on Katchatheevu?
The two largest occasions in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), have prolonged advocated for the retrieval of the Katchatheevu Island from Sri Lanka.
In 1974, after India ceded Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka, M Karunanidhi, the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, wrote to Gandhi on how the land was historically a part of the Ramnad kingdom’s territory.
Nonetheless, the BJP at current blames the DMK authorities for being complicit with Congress in handing over the Island to Sri Lanka.
In 1991, the Tamil Nadu assembly adopted a choice demanding the retrieval of Katchatheevu Island. In 2008, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa from the AIADMK approached the Supreme Courtroom to nullify the agreements of 1974 and 1976.
Nonetheless amid the current controversy, every the AIADMK and DMK have criticised the BJP for elevating the Katchatheevu concern ahead of the general elections.
What have Modi and the BJP beforehand said?
Throughout the wake of the controversy, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi alleged inconsistencies throughout the Modi authorities’s place on Katchatheevu, citing a 2015 RTI reply from the Ministry of Exterior Affairs. Jaishankar, now abroad minister, was then the very best occupation diplomat throughout the abroad office.
“This [1974 agreement] didn’t comprise each shopping for or ceding of territory belonging to India given that area in question had certainly not been demarcated,” Jaishankar’s ministry had said in 2015. “Beneath the agreements, the island of Katchatheevu lies on the Sri Lankan side of the India-Sri Lanka Worldwide Maritime Boundary Line.”
In 2014, after Modi bought right here to power, Lawyer Widespread Mukul Rohatgi suggested the Supreme Courtroom that Katchatheevu was given to Sri Lanka based totally on a bilateral settlement in 1974 and “to retrieve it now, we’ve to go to battle”.
What are the implications for India’s relations with Sri Lanka?
Harsh V Pant, the vice chairman for analysis and abroad protection on the Observer Evaluation Foundation, said that whereas the controversy wouldn’t harm the India-Sri Lanka relationship, revisiting settled factors like Katchatheevu wouldn’t be throughout the pursuits of each side.
“Tamil Nadu is a vital state now being contested by the BJP. So, it’s reasonably pure for the BJP to try to find home in a state the place it has no presence, using all on the market factors that come its method and this concern is taken into account one in all them,” Pant said.
“The BJP administration seems to be highlighting the opposition’s earlier mishandling of the issue nonetheless I don’t assume there’s intent to change the way in which during which the dispute was settled a few years up to now. As a consequence of this reality, I really feel that’s unlikely to proceed previous the elections,” Pant added.
Completely different governments, he said, “understand the compulsion of electoral democracy and [that] many points are said all through elections which will be forgotten later. That’s why I really feel we’ve seen the Sri Lankan authorities most likely not intervening throughout the matter”.
On April 4, Sri Lankan Worldwide Minister Ali Sabry suggested a neighborhood television channel that Colombo didn’t see any “necessity to have further discussions on” what he described as a settled matter.
Former Indian diplomat Kalarickal Pranchu Fabian said that as long as India doesn’t try to renegotiate the Katchatheevu handle Sri Lanka, the house politics surrounding the island wouldn’t affect bilateral ties.
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