Lok Sabha Elections 2024: All You Need To Know About The Katchatheevu Island
As the 2024 Lok Sabha election battle heats up, an unlikely topic has become the center of attention in the state of Tamil Nadu. Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island that is now part of Sri Lanka has become a focus point in the state.
Where is?Katchatheevu
That is because Katchatheevu was not always a part of Sri Lanka. The island that lies between Neduntheevu in Sri Lanka and Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu had been controlled by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British during the Colonial era.
During the British, Katchatheevu came under the Madras Presidency, but in the 1920s it was recognised as a part of Sri Lanka.
How Katchatheevu became a part of Sri Lanka?
Post-Independence too the ownership of Katchatheevu had remained a flash-point between the two countries until 1974, when India handed over the island to Sri Lanka, on the condition that Tamil fishermen still had access to it.
Opposition in Tamil Nadu
The move was met with widespread resentment in Tamil Nadu, which has only been exacerbated over the years by the Sri Lankan Navy's repeated attacks and capture of Indian fishermen from near Katchatheevu.
In 2011 the then Tamil Nadu government had filed a petition in the Supreme Court arguing that the agreements were unconstitutional.
Government trying to take Katchatheevu back: BJP
The issue was reignited by Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai who on Monday said that the Union government is trying everything possible to retrieve Katchatheevu. He also alleged that the island was ceded to Sri Lanka by the then-Indira Gandhi government with the consent of the late Tamil Nadu former Chief Minister and DMK patriarch Karunanidhi.
What Foreign Minister said
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar further claimed that prime ministers from the Congress displayed indifference about Katchatheevu island as if they did not care and gave away Indian fishermen's rights despite legal views to the contrary.
Prime ministers such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi dubbed Katchatheevu, given to Sri Lanka in 1974 as part of a maritime boundary agreement, as a "little island" and "little rock", he said, asserting that the issue has not cropped up abruptly but was always a live matter.
MEA's RTI response in 2015
However, the opposition hit back with an RTI reply from 2015, when Jaishankar was the Foreign Secretary, which stated that the agreements in 1974 and 1976 did not involve either acquiring or ceding of territory belonging to India.
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