Explainer: What is the Katchatheevu Island row; will getting it back help Indian fishermen?

The Katchatheevu island issue, which had been on the backburner for a while now, has resurfaced as a major political flashpoint ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha elections. This, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the then Congress government of ceding the island to Sri Lanka and the M Karunanidhi-led DMK government in Tamil Nadu of tacitly supporting the deal.

The Congress and the DMK have vehemently protested the allegations, sparking a verbal duel with the BJP.

Here’s what the issue is all about:

What has Modi alleged?

Sharing a newspaper article on the issue on social media, Modi on Sunday (March 31) accused the Congress government led by then prime minister Indira Gandhi of “callously” giving away Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka.

“Eye opening and startling! New facts reveal how Congress callously gave away #Katchatheevu. This has angered every Indian and reaffirmed in people’s minds- we can’t ever trust Congress!” he said in a post on X. “Weakening India’s unity, integrity and interests has been Congress’ way of working for 75 years and counting,” he said.

The report by The Times of India is based on an RTI reply received by Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai to his queries on the 1974 agreement between India and Lanka when Indira was prime minister.

On Monday (April 1), Modi shared another report which claimed that then Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi had given his consent to the agreement despite the DMK’s public posturing against it.

Accusing the DMK of “double standards,” he said the party has done nothing to “to safeguard Tamil Nadu’s interests”.

“Rhetoric aside, DMK has done NOTHING to safeguard Tamil Nadu’s interests. New details emerging on #Katchatheevu have UNMASKED the DMK’s double standards totally. Congress and DMK are family units. They only care that their own sons and daughters rise. They don’t care for anyone else. Their callousness on Katchatheevu has harmed the interests of our poor fishermen and fisherwomen in particular,” Modi said sharing another report on the issue,” he said.

Modi’s claims were backed by several BJP leaders including External Affairs S Jaishankar.

In a post on X on Monday, Jaishankar alleged that while former Congress prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi were indifferent about the island, the DMK connived with the Congress government in ceding it to Sri Lanka.

Why is Katchatheevu a contentious issue?

Located in the Palk Strait, the 285-acre Katchatheevu or Kachchativu is an uninhabited island which was shared by India and Sri Lanka during British rule. It was claimed by Tamil Nadu fishermen, who enjoyed traditional fishing rights in and around the island. Historical evidence shows that the island was once controlled by the Raja of Ramnad.

From the 1920s, Sri Lanka started claiming complete ownership of the island and it continued till 1974, when India ceded the island to the former under the Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime pact. The agreement barred Tamil Nadu from claiming ownership over the island. Fishermen, however, were allowed to continue fishing activities and participate in the St Anthony’s church festival (St Anthony is considered the guardian angel of fishermen) held every March.

Following the agreement, the then DMK government passed a resolution in the state assembly against the pact. However, the resolution had no legal validity and didn’t restrain the Centre from sticking to the agreement.

In 1976, another agreement was signed between the two countries while determining the boundaries of the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal. At that point of time, the Emergency was in place and subsequently the Tamil Nadu government got dismissed. Since there was no state government, there was no one to oppose the Centre’s ceding of full rights over the island.

The island currently comes under the Jaffna district of Sri Lanka.

Case in Supreme Court

The legality of the deal, however, was challenged in the Supreme Court as it was done without the nod of the Indian Parliament. In 2011, the AIADMK government led by J Jayalalithaa in had filed a petition with the Supreme Court calling the 1974 and 1976 deals unconstitutional, the top court in the Berubari case had ruled that the cession of Indian territory to another country needs to assent of the Parliament through a Constitutional amendment. The case is still sub-judice in the top court.

In 2014, the Modi government said India has not relinquished its sovereignty over the area and thus any such deal does not require any Constitutional amendment.

“No territory belonging to India was ceded nor sovereignty relinquished since the area was in dispute and had never been demarcated,” the government said.

Issues faced by Indian fishermen

While the waters of Palk Strait were traditionally used both by Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen, the 1976 agreement barred fishermen from both countries from fishing in each other’s exclusive economic zones.

While the agreement spared protests from fishermen from Tamil Nadu, over the years, many of them who have inadvertently strayed into Lankan waters have been detained and harassed at the hands of Sri Lankan authorities.

In his social media post on Monday, Jaishankar said that at least 6,184 Indian fishermen have been detained in the last 20 years while Sri Lanka authorities have seized 1,175 Indian fishing vessels during the same period.

How has the Congress countered Modi’s allegations?

With Modi’s diatribes coming in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge questioned the timing of the allegations.

“Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi ji, You have suddenly woken up to the issues of territorial integrity and national security in your 10th year of misrule. Perhaps elections are the trigger. Your desperation is palpable,” Kharge posted on X.

In a long post on, Kharge said the island was given to Sri Lanka as part of a friendly agreement in 1974, asserting that Modi himself took a leaf out of the camaraderie while signing the Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh.

“The Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh is not just about realignment of land, it is about a meeting of hearts. This is your own statement in 2015 lauding your own government’s realisation of Smt. Indira Gandhi’s initiative in 1974,” Kharge said.

"Under your Government, in a friendly gesture, 111 enclaves from India were transferred to Bangladesh, and 55 enclaves came to India," he added.

Kharge said while Modi was raking up the sensitive issue on the eve of elections in Tamil Nadu, his government’s attorney Mukul Rohtagi in 2014 had told the Supreme Court that the island has already been given away and can be taken back by India only by war.

“On the eve of elections in Tamil Nadu, you are rasing this sensitive issue, but your own Govt's Attorney General, Shri Mukul Rohtagi in 2014 told the following to the Supreme Court. ‘Katchatheevu went to Sri Lanka by an agreement in 1974… How can it be taken back today? If you want Katchatheevu back, you will have to go to war to get it back’,” Kharge said quoting Rohtagi.

Chidambaram’s dig at Jaishankar

Congress leader Chidambaram asked Jaishankar why he and ministry were “doing a somersault” when an old RTI reply justifies the circumstances under which the island was ceded to Sri Lanka.

“I believe that Mr Jaishankar was the FM on 27-1-2015. The Reply justified the circumstances under which India acknowledged that a small island belonged to Sri Lanka. Why is the Foreign Minister and his ministry doing a somersault now? How quickly can people change colours. From a suave liberal Foreign Service officer to a smart Foreign Secretary to a mouthpiece of the RSS-BJP, life and times of Mr Jaishankar will be recorded in the annals of acrobatic sports,” he said.

In another post, Chidambaram countered Jaishankar’s claims about the capture of fishermen by Sri Lankan authorities. He asserted that not just Sri Lanka, but India has also detained many Sri Lankan fishermen.

Besides, every government, be it Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s or Modi’s have negotiated with the neighbouring country to free Indian fishermen, he said.

“Were not Fishermen detained by Sri Lanka when Mr Vajpayee was PM and BJP was in power and in alliance with different political parties of TN? Were not fishermen detained by Sri Lanka when Mr Modi was in power since 2014?” he asked.

What the DMK said

In a sharp rebuttal, the DMK asked why the prime minister woke up to the issue after 10 years in government and if it had little achievements to fall back on for its poll campaigns.

“Startling that the Prime Minister's eyes have been opened by a news article based on an RTI query filed by his party person and information provided by his government on an issue that is nearly 50 years old,” DMK spokesperson S Manuraj said on X.

“Either way, it is a woeful and outdated campaign issue,” he said.

Will it help fishermen if island is reclaimed?

Representatives of the fishermen community in Tamil Nadu say that reclaiming the island from Sri Lanka alone would not help resolve their problems.

“Reclaiming Katchatheevu would certainly benefit our fishermen. However, it alone would not solve the problems of our fishermen because it has various other dimensions such as rampant use of trawlers in the Pak Strait,” M Ilango, chairperson, National Fisherfolk Forum, told The Federal.

One might think that it would be the right time for India to stake claim on the island, with Sri Lanka reeling under a severe economic crisis and political upheaval. But geopolitical experts say it is easier said than done.

Talking to The Federal, Dr V Suryanarayan, founder, Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras, said reclaiming the island involves a constitutional amendment which is near impossible. “When the maritime boundary line is drawn, the median line is taken into account. But in the case of Katchatheevu, there was a deviation while drawing the boundary line and hence it under Sri Lanka’s limits. However, Articles 4 and 5 of the 1974 agreement ensured that Tamil Nadu fishermen were given the continuous traditional right of fishing,” he said.

The Preamble of the 1976 agreement said that the fishermen from both the countries should not enter each other’s waters. The implication was that the traditional right of fishing ensured in the 1974 agreement was abolished, Suryanarayan said.

“Another provision was that Sri Lankan fishermen were given permission to fish near Kanyakumari for three more years. At that time, Karunanidhi should have filed a case in the Supreme Court. According to our Constitution, if Indian territory has to be given to another country, an amendment should be made. There is a precedent for such a move. When former prime minister Nehru decided to give away Berubari of West Bengal to Pakistan, then chief minister BC Roy went to the Supreme Court to prevent the ceding, and the court ruled in favour of West Bengal,” he added.

An international agreement, however wrong it may be, has some sanctity. India has an agreement with Pakistan on sharing the Indus water. After the agreement, both the countries have waged war against each other. But the truce to share Indus’ water has not been broken, Suryanarayan pointed out.

“If we scrap the international agreement now, the country’s image on the global platform will take a nosedive,” he added.

What is the solution?

Experts say reclaiming the island wouldn’t help Tamil Nadu’s fishermen to a large extent.

“The usage of the word retrieval is itself quite wrong. It is not lost because there is an agreement. India can revoke the agreement and go for a fresh agreement,” said Dr N Manoharan, director, Centre for East Asian Studies, Christ University, Bengaluru.

“People in Tamil Nadu think that Katchatheevu is a sell-off. But the truth is, under the agreement, we gained more territory than Sri Lanka. The island was once used by the Tamil Nadu fishermen to dry their nets since those days the nets were made of cotton,” told The Federal.

Manoharan added that the problems faced by Tamil Nadu fishermen are different and unlinked to the Katchatheevu issue. “Even if we reclaim rights over Katchatheevu, the traditional fishermen who use country boats cannot benefit from it, since the trawler boats fully exploit the marine resources in the area,” he said.

The only solution India could think about is to push the island nation to lease out the fishing blocks to Tamil Nadu fishermen; the profit from the same can be shared between the two countries, Manoharan added.

“But that would take efforts both from the Centre and the state, and Sri Lanka should also come on board for dialogue on the matter,” he said.