PMs of the day simply didn’t care: EAM Jaishankar on India giving up Katchatheevu claim

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, April 1

Escalating BJP’s offensive against the Congress and Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK on the Katchatheevu island issue, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said Prime Ministers of the day “simply did not care about giving up claims on the territorial boundaries of India”.

This abdication, Jaishankar said, “could not have happened without the connivance of the Union and state governments of the time.” 

He shared relevant records to show how then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Karunanidhi of the DMK accepted the suggested solution on the matter which the Congress ruled Centre brought up for his consent as early as 1973, much before the actual 1974 maritime boundary agreement with Sri Lanka that abandoned the Indian claim over Katchatheevu.

“The truth is the party that is today saying how the island was given away and that the state government was not consulted, they were actually kept fully informed...The same people who connived (read Congress and DMK) to give away Katchatheevu are now politically posturing as if they are champions of the cause and have nothing to do with it,” Jaishankar said questioning the role of former PMs JL Nehru, Indira Gandhi and then CM Karunanidhi in the matter.

Jaishankar quoted Parliament records to recall what Nehru and Indira thought of Katchatheevu.

“There were parties (read the Jana Sangh) for whom every mm of Indian land mattered and some for whom large tracts as in Aksai Chin also did not matter, “ Jaishankar said citing Nehru’s description of Katchatheevu as a “small island of no importance over which he would have no hesitation giving up claim” and Indira’s description of the island as a “small rock”.

Jaishankar also traced the history of the issue which he said “was alive even today as Indian fishermen and fishing vessels continue to be detained in Sri Lankan waters with PM Narendra Modi led government making efforts to release those.”

Reading the 1974 maritime boundary agreement between India and Sri Lanka, Jaishankar cited three clauses which safeguarded the sovereignty of both nations over the waters as well as the access of Indian fishermen and vessels into the waters.

The Foreign Minister also quoted his predecessor of the time, Swaram Singh, who, while presenting the agreement to the Parliament on July 23 1974, assured MPs of protection of the rights of Indian fishermen, saying, “I feel confident that the agreement demarcating the maritime boundary in the Palk Bay will be considered as fair just and equitable to both countries. I wish to remind MPs that in concluding this agreement the rights of fishing pilgrimage and navigation which both sides have enjoyed in the past have been fully safeguarded for the future.”

The minister then cited another agreement between India and Sri Lanka through a 1976 exchange of letters which took away the 1974 concessions Swaran Singh had assured.

In this 1976 agreement India proposed, “With the establishment of exclusive economic zones by the two countries, India and SL will exercise sovereign rights over living and non-living resources of their respective sovereigns. The fishermen and fishing vessels of India shall not engage in fishing in historic waters, the territorial sea and the exclusive zones of Sri Lanka.”

As a consequence of this, Jaishankar said in 20 years 6,184 Indian fishermen have been detained by Sri Lanka and 1,175 Indian fishing vessels apprehended. The issue that continues to undermine livelihoods of Tamil Nadu fishermen is highly emotive in the southern state which polls in the first phase of Lok Sabha election on April 19. 

Jaishankar said legal opinions of the time—in 1958 and 1960—said India should insist on a minimum for fishing rights in Katchatheevu but that was not done. He also said the matter was being raised today because “while we know who did it, it is time to know who hid it.” He said he had replied to current Tamil Nadu CM and Karunanidhi’s son MK Stalin on the Katchatheevu issue and the infringement of rights of Indian fishermen on 21 occasions in five years and the ruling DMK continues to “approach the issue as it they have no historical responsibility in it; the people of Tamil Nadu have the right to know what happened.”

Jaishankar read out Nehru’s May 1961 observations on the issue in Parliament as follows “I attach no importance at all to this little island and I have no hesitation in giving up my claim on it. I don’t like to see such matters kept pending and raised again and again in Parliament.”

“For JL Nehru this matter was a nuisance. For him sooner you gave away the island the better,” Jaishankar said, further sharing a June 19, 1974 conversation between Foreign Secretary and then Tamil Nadu CM Karunanidhi who was presented with the maritime boundary proposal India had suggested before taking up the same with Sri Lanka.

“At the end of the conversation CM Karunanidhi indicated that he was inclined to accept the suggested solution and said that for obvious political reasons he could not be expected to take a public stand in favour of it. He assured the Foreign Secretary to help keep the reaction low key,” Jaishankar quoted MEA records of the time.

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