Tamil Nadu ‘betrayed’ after India rules out return of tiny island from Sri Lanka

NEW DELHI // Everywhere you look, it seems, there is a dispute over tiny islands.
Japan and China are wrangling over the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. The Philippines, Taiwan and China are tussling over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
Now add to the list the island of Katchatheevu, a 115-hectare speck of land with no permanent residents, lying off the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
India ceded the island to Sri Lanka in bilateral agreements signed in 1974 and 1976.
But in 2008, J Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu's chief minister, filed a petition in India's supreme court arguing that since the agreements were never ratified by parliament, the island still belongs to Tamil Nadu.
The slow-moving case finally reached a turning point last month when the Indian government filed an affidavit stating the agreements were valid and there was no question of retrieving the island from Sri Lanka.
In parliament last week, V Maitreyan, a politician from Ms Jayalalithaa's party, described the government's attempt to draw a line under the dispute as "the greatest betrayal to Tamil Nadu".
Other political groups, including the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have urged the government to recall its affidavit and reconsider the maritime agreements.
Katchatheevu, which lies about halfway between Rameshwaram – a spit of land in south-east Tamil Nadu – and the Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka, has become increasingly important to Tamil Nadu's fishermen.
As waters closer to the Indian coast have become depleted of fish, fisherman have moved closer to the island.
Since 2009 this has led to an increase in the number of Indian fishermen arrested by Sri Lanka's navy, raising tensions between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.
In late August, 35 Indian fishermen were arrested and taken to Sri Lanka to be prosecuted. Another 21 were arrested in June.
A total of 146 Indian fishermen are in various prisons across Sri Lanka, statistics compiled by the Indian government show.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, has been scathing about these intrusions into his country's waters.
Referring to the civil war in the north and east of Sri Lanka, which ended in May 2009, Mr Rajapaksa said in July: "Our people … could not go fishing for a long time due to the conflict.
"Now when they try to resume their livelihood they have to face this new problem."
Peer Mohamed, a political analyst in Chennai, said opposition parties were using the island issue to generate support ahead of national elections next year.
"They're trying to appeal to the large constituency of Tamil Nadu fishermen in this way," he said.
Mr Mohamed pointed out that, according to the 1974 pact, Tamil Nadu's fishermen are allowed to dry their nets on Katchatheevu but not fish around the island.
P Rajan, a member of the Alliance for the Release of Innocent Fishermen, a Tamil Nadu NGO that campaigns for the freedom of fishermen in Sri Lankan jails, said the Katchatheevu issue was "an important demand for Tamil Nadu's fishermen".
"The fishermen from this state have been working around Katchatheevu for centuries," he said.
The distance to the island, only 20 kilometres, is so small, Mr Rajan said, "that it is at least necessary to implement some sort of open-waters concept in this area".
V Suryanarayan, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Asia Studies, also in Chennai, said Tamil Nadu's fishermen were guilty of "regular poaching", trawling so excessively in Sri Lankan waters that they "rob Sri Lankan fishermen of their livelihood".
He said it was true the 1974 agreement, signed by then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, ignored parliamentary ratification and the traditional ownership claims of Tamil Nadu over the island.
But however misguided it was at the time, Mr Suryanarayan said, as an international agreement "it still has sanctity and cannot be rolled back as per the whims of politicians".
ssubramanian@thenational.ae