Why a Sri Lankan island is sparking an Indian election controversy | India Election 2024

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 Occasion of gifting Indian territory to its southern neighbour.

The allegation by Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (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 lengthy an emotive concern within the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which votes on April 19 within the first section of India’s seven-stage elections.

What’s the controversy about?

Forward of the Tamil Nadu vote, on March 31, Modi shared a information 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 difficulty originated from a Proper to data (RTI) request by Tamil Nadu BJP President Ok Annamalai, who prompt that within the Seventies, the Congress Occasion underneath the management 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 can be in energy there now.

“Eye-opening and startling! New information reveal how Congress callously gave away #Katchatheevu. This has angered each Indian and reaffirmed in individuals’s minds—we are able to’t ever belief Congress! (sic),” Modi posted on X, sharing the report. “Weakening India’s unity, integrity and pursuits has been Congress’ manner of working for 75 years and counting,” he added.

Quickly after, Exterior Affairs Minister S Jaishankar reshared Modi’s tweet with the caption: “It’s important that individuals know the complete reality about our previous. The information introduced out… ought to concern each citizen.” The overseas minister later echoed Modi’s allegations throughout two press conferences.

Modi has since repeated the allegations, together with in a marketing campaign speech in West Bengal on April 7 the place he alleged that for the Congress Occasion, each Katchatheevu and the territory of Kashmir, which is contested by India and Pakistan, don’t matter.

Many analysts imagine the BJP’s determination to carry up Katchatheevu is aimed solely at serving to it in Tamil Nadu through the election. It’s a state the place the BJP has solely a small presence and gained no seats within the 2019 vote. There are 39 nationwide constituencies in Tamil Nadu, with a median of 1.51 million voters in every.

“The actual fact the problem has been raised within the midst of the elections clearly reveals it has been executed within the hope of gaining some help in Tamil Nadu the place the BJP thus far has failed to achieve any foothold,” stated Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former BJP politician and present columnist, who served as a director of operations within the Prime Minister’s Workplace underneath the earlier BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, between 1999 and 2004.

Kulkarni stated the BJP transfer was “neither good politics nor good diplomacy and definitely not good neighbourhood coverage”.

He questioned how Modi and Jaishankar may declare to have unearthed the “full reality” about Kathatheevu in 2024, once they had been in energy for the previous decade and had entry to all of the papers on the topic.

“All of the information which have come up have gone in opposition to the ruling occasion itself. Modi has been the prime minister for the final 10 years and for him to tweet that these are some new information which have come up – how can the federal government be unaware of the information when it has all assets 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 ruled by the dominion of Ramanad Raja from 1795 to 1803 throughout British rule. The island can be dwelling to the 120-year-old St Anthony’s Church, which hosts an annual pageant, drawing devotees from India and Sri Lanka.

Management of Katchatheevu has been a major level of rivalry between India and Sri Lanka, notably concerning fishing rights within the surrounding waters. In a information convention final week, Indian International Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated that Sri Lanka had detained greater than 6,000 Indian fishermen and 1,175 fishing vessels up to now 20 years.

Pradip Chatterjee, the convener of India’s Nationwide Platform for Small Scale Fish Employees, advised Al Jazeera that what fishermen wanted was for India and Sri Lanka to keep away from adopting nationalist positions and as a substitute “amicably resolve this matter”.

Late final month, the Sri Lankan Navy confirmed in a press release that they’d detained 23 Indian trawlers and 178 Indian fishermen in 2024 for allegedly fishing within 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 change into part of Sri Lanka?

The spat between India and Sri Lanka dates again a minimum of to 1921 and a survey that positioned it inside the maritime territory of what was then often known as Ceylon, now Sri Lanka – a place that British India countered, citing the erstwhile rule of the Ramanad kingdom. The dispute continued after the independence of each nations.

In 1974, India acknowledged Katchatheevu as a part of Sri Lanka’s territory in a maritime boundary settlement signed by Indian Prime Minister Gandhi and her counterpart Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

In keeping with a replica of the settlement obtained by Al Jazeera, the pact allowed Indian fishermen and pilgrims to go to Katchatheevu with no need a journey doc or a visa. Nonetheless, the settlement didn’t specify the fishing rights of Indian fishermen within the waters round Katchatheevu.

Ashok Kantha, a former Indian ambassador to Sri Lanka, stated that the 1974 settlement led to additional agreements clarifying the maritime boundary with Sri Lanka. One such settlement in March 1976 recognised India’s sovereign rights over the Wadge Financial institution – a ten,300 sq km (4,000 sq mile) trawl fishery website – and its wealthy assets.

Compared with Katchatheevu island, the Wadge Financial institution is taken into account one of many world’s richest fishing grounds, positioned in a way more strategically necessary a part of the ocean. The settlement additionally granted India the precise to discover the Wadge Financial institution for petroleum and different mineral assets.

“The 1974 settlement positioned Katchatheevu on the Sri Lankan aspect of the IMBL (worldwide maritime boundary line) however it additionally paved the way in which for the understanding of 1976, which recognised India’s sovereign rights over the Wadge Financial institution and its wealthy assets,” Kantha stated.

Nonetheless, the 1976 settlement restricted each the nations’ fishermen from fishing within the different’s waters.

What do Tamil Nadu events say on Katchatheevu?

The 2 largest events in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), have lengthy 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 traditionally part of the Ramnad kingdom’s territory.

Nonetheless, the BJP at present blames the DMK authorities for being complicit with Congress in handing over the Island to Sri Lanka.

In 1991, the Tamil Nadu meeting adopted a decision 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.

However amid the present controversy, each the AIADMK and DMK have criticised the BJP for elevating the Katchatheevu concern forward of the overall elections.

What have Modi and the BJP beforehand stated?

Within the wake of the controversy, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi alleged inconsistencies within the Modi authorities’s place on Katchatheevu, citing a 2015 RTI reply from the Ministry of Exterior Affairs. Jaishankar, now overseas minister, was then the highest profession diplomat within the overseas workplace.

“This [1974 agreement] didn’t contain both buying or ceding of territory belonging to India for the reason that space in query had by no means been demarcated,” Jaishankar’s ministry had stated in 2015. “Beneath the agreements, the island of Katchatheevu lies on the Sri Lankan aspect of the India-Sri Lanka Worldwide Maritime Boundary Line.”

In 2014, after Modi got here to energy, Lawyer Common Mukul Rohatgi advised the Supreme Courtroom that Katchatheevu was given to Sri Lanka primarily based on a bilateral settlement in 1974 and “to retrieve it now, we’ve to go to conflict”.

What are the implications for India’s relations with Sri Lanka?

Harsh V Pant, the vice chairman for research and overseas coverage on the Observer Analysis Basis, stated that whereas the controversy wouldn’t hurt the India-Sri Lanka relationship, revisiting settled points like Katchatheevu wouldn’t be within the pursuits of both aspect.

“Tamil Nadu is a crucial state now being contested by the BJP. So, it is rather pure for the BJP to attempt to discover house in a state the place it has no presence, utilizing all out there points that come its manner and this concern is considered one of them,” Pant stated.

“The BJP management appears to be highlighting the opposition’s previous mishandling of the problem however I don’t assume there’s intent to alter the way in which the dispute was settled many years in the past. Due to this fact, I feel that is unlikely to proceed past the elections,” Pant added.

Different governments, he stated, “perceive the compulsion of electoral democracy and [that] many issues are stated throughout elections which can be forgotten later. That’s why I feel we’ve seen the Sri Lankan authorities probably not intervening within the matter”.

On April 4, Sri Lankan International Minister Ali Sabry advised a neighborhood tv channel that Colombo didn’t see any “necessity to have additional discussions on” what he described as a settled matter.

Former Indian diplomat Kalarickal Pranchu Fabian stated that so long as India doesn’t attempt to renegotiate the Katchatheevu take care of Sri Lanka, the home politics surrounding the island wouldn’t have an effect on bilateral ties.