The Hindu : Fishing and troubled waters

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Monday, Mar 10, 2003

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Fishing and troubled waters

By V. Suryanarayan

Sri Lanka's sovereignty over Kachchativu could be upheld; at the same time, `lease in perpetuity' would enable Tamil Nadu fishermen to carry on their vocation as they have done for generations.

THE MID-SEA incidents in the Palk Bay region, involving Tamil Nadu fishermen, their Sri Lankan counterparts and the Sri Lankan Navy have become regular occurrences. Recently, boats belonging to Tamil Nadu fishermen were attacked by Sri Lankan fishermen who came to Kachchativu in fibreglass boats. The Sri Lankan authorities detained over 100 Indian fishermen. The Mannar District Court ordered the immediate release of 96 fishermen. At the time of writing this essay, nearly 50 Indian fishermen remain in Sri Lankan custody; in addition, several boats have been impounded.

Understandably, there is tension in Ramanathapuram district. As a mark of protest, the fishermen did not venture into the sea for two days. The State and the Central Governments, assisted by the Indian High Commission in Colombo, immediately made attempts to defuse the situation. I have often characterised these efforts as examples of a fire-fighting exercise. What is required today is not extinguishing of the fire, as and when it breaks out, but to remove the cause of that fire once and for all. A fair, just and permanent solution to the travails of Tamil Nadu fishermen is the need of the hour. In her letter to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, reiterated the necessity to safeguard the "traditional rights and privileges of Indian fishermen to carry on their normal occupation of fishing in the waters around Kachchativu".

The root cause of the tension is a conflict of interests. On the one side are the Indian and the Sri Lankan Governments, which in the name of good neighbourly relations, concluded the maritime agreements of 1974 and 1976. The 1974 Agreement ceded the island of Kachchativu to Sri Lanka. On the opposite side are the fishermen of Tamil Nadu who will not easily give up a means of livelihood they have enjoyed for several centuries. The situation has been rendered complex by recent events. With the declaration of a ceasefire and the lifting of restrictions on fishing, Sri Lankan fishermen have resumed their vocation. And they do not want their Indian counterparts to poach in Sri Lankan waters. Encouraged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan fishermen are taking the law into their hands.

A few inter-related points need to be underlined in order to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Fishermen throughout the world are no respecters of maritime boundaries. They move to any area where fish are available in plenty. Sri Lankan fishermen frequently enter the Arabian Sea; some of them move further west, enter the Maldivian waters to catch tuna.

The island of Kachchativu formed part of the Zamindari (territory) of the Raja of Ramnad. I can cite several sources which vouchsafe the ownership claims of the Raja of Ramnad and the recognition of the same by the British, who ruled India and Ceylon. Equally interesting, there is no documentary evidence to show that the island formed part of Ceylon at any point in history. Significantly, Kachchativu was included in the Kayts parliamentary constituency only after the conclusion of the 1974 maritime agreement.

Despite strong ownership claims to the island, New Delhi was willing to concede its claim to Kachchativu, a "minor irritant", in order to attain the greater objective of mending fences with its southern neighbour. Indira Gandhi referred to the island as a "sheer rock with no strategic significance". What is more intriguing is that while delimiting the boundary near Kachchativu, New Delhi did not insist upon the principle of median line. According to S.P. Jagota, then Secretary, Legal and Treaties Division, the boundary line was "adjusted in the Palk Bay in relation to the settlement on the question of the island of Kachchativu".

A careful analysis of the then External Affairs Minister, Swaran Singh's speech and subsequent explanation in the Lok Sabha indicates that irrespective of the change of ownership of the island, the traditional rights of the Indian fishermen would continue as "hitherto". In other words, Sri Lanka's sovereignty over the island of Kachchativu was subject to the specific caveat that Indian fishermen and pilgrims would continue to enjoy the traditional rights. The Government of Sri Lanka, however, does not subscribe to this point of view. Colombo maintains that the agreement did not confer any fishing rights, but only the right to dry the fishing nets and the right of the pilgrims to visit the island for religious purposes without obtaining visa. There is a fallacy in this line of reasoning. Drying of nets presupposes that the nets would become wet and this can happen only if Indian fishermen fish in and around Kachchativu.

The 1976 Maritime Agreement, which delimited the boundaries in the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal, represented a further setback to Tamil Nadu. Paragraph I of the agreement clearly stated that the Indian fishermen should not engage in fishing in Sri Lankan waters. In other words, the fishermen's traditional rights, as guaranteed in the 1974 Agreement, were bartered away by the 1976 Agreement. Pranab Mukherjee, then External Affairs Minister, in a letter to the Tamil Nadu MP, S. Madhavan, on January 5, 1996, let the cat out of the bag. According to Mr. Mukherjee, "the Maritime Agreements... provide for continued exercise of traditional rights of our fishermen by way of access of Kachchativu for resting, drying of nets and attending the annual festival of St. Anthony. These rights do not include any fishing activities in the Sri Lankan waters."

Despite the barrage of letters written by successive Chief Ministers urging immediate action to protect the interests of Tamil Nadu fishermen, a permanent solution appears nowhere in sight. It is high time the Government of Tamil Nadu exercised sufficient pressure so that New Delhi wakes up. What is required today is a functional and pragmatic approach. As far as Kachchativu is concerned, the best possible solution is to get the island and the adjacent seas on `lease in perpetuity' solely for fishing, drying of nets and pilgrimage. Sri Lanka's sovereignty over Kachchativu could be upheld; at the same time, `lease in perpetuity' would enable Tamil Nadu fishermen to carry on their vocation as they have done for generations. The Tin Bigha Agreement of May 16, 1974, between India and Bangladesh could be a precedent.

A peaceful solution to Kachchativu would solve the problems of the fishermen in Ramanathapuram, but what about fishermen in other coastal areas of the Palk Bay? Here again, there is a precedent that could be emulated. According to the 1976 Agreement, the Government of India, as a gesture of goodwill to Sri Lanka, permitted its fishermen to fish in the Wadge Bank for three years. The Tamil Nadu Government should persuade New Delhi to ensure that duly licensed Tamil Nadu fishermen are permitted to fish in Sri Lankan waters up to five nautical miles. If this principle is accepted, detailed procedures could be worked out between the two Governments to regulate not only fishing, but also ensure that the facilities are not misused for other purposes. On the other hand, if the situation is allowed to drift, it will have adverse consequences on not only India-Sri Lanka relations, but also the Centre-State relations within India.

(The writer is former Director, Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras, Chennai.)

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