New Delhi: The island of Katchatheevu in the Palk Strait between Sri Lanka and India's Tamil Nadu state has garnered national attention after four decades. During his response to Opposition bloc INDIA’s no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminded the House how the strategic island was given away as a gift to Sri Lanka by the Indira Gandhi government in 1974.

Hitting out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his ‘Bharata Mata ki Hatya’ jab over the Manipur violence, Modi accused Congress of ceding Katchatheevu, an island in the Palk Strait that had been historically a part of India.

“These people, who just walked out of the House,… someone should ask them what Katchatheevu is. And the DMK party, which is in power in Tamil Nadu, and their chief minister wrote to me, urging to retrieve Katchatheevu. It is an island just between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. Somebody gave it to another country. When was it given? It happened under the leadership of Indira Gandhi. Was it not a part of India? Did Maa Bharati not exist there? It was yet another instance when India was fragmented. Congress’s history is full of such incidents,” he said.

Katchatheevu is a small, uninhabited island spanning 285 acres located in the Palk Strait, situated between India and Sri Lanka. Its length is not more than 1.6 km, and its width at the widest point is just over 300 meters.

The sole structure present on the island is a Catholic shrine known as St. Anthony's Church, which dates back to the early 20th century. Every year, an annual festival takes place at the church, during which Christian priests from both India and Sri Lanka participate in conducting the religious service.

Devotees from both countries also undertake the pilgrimage to the island for this festival. In the most recent festival, around 2,500 Indian pilgrims travelled from Rameswaram to Katchatheevu to participate in the event.

Background

Until the 17th century, the island was controlled by the Jaffna kingdom of Sri Lanka. After that, its authority passed to the Ramnad Zamindari based out of Ramanathapuram, about 55 km northwest of Rameswaram.

In the British Raj, Katchatheevu was part of the Madras Presidency. In 1921, a dispute arose after a survey marked Katchatheevu in Sri Lanka. This was done to find a solution to the claims of India and Sri Lanka on the island as both countries, British colonies at the time, wanted to set fishing boundaries.

However, a British delegation from India disputed this claim and asserted ownership of the island by the Ramnad kingdom.

In 1974, Indira Gandhi made efforts to resolve the maritime border dispute between India and Sri Lanka permanently.

As part of this resolution, which came to be known as the 'Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime Agreement', Indira Gandhi 'ceded' Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka. During that period, she believed that the island held minimal strategic significance and that relinquishing India's claim over it would strengthen diplomatic relations with its southern neighbour.

To this day, the Sri Lankan navy frequently detains Indian fishermen, leading to numerous accusations of torture and even fatalities while in custody. The call to reclaim Katchatheevu is resurrected whenever such incidents occur, emphasising its significance in the ongoing disputes between the two nations.

Tamil Nadu has repeatedly urged the Central governments under various leaderships to retrieve the island from Sri Lanka’s control.

Indira Gandhi’s decision to cede the island to Sri Lanka had met with massive protests in the state.

Following India's tumultuous involvement in the Sri Lankan Civil War in 1991, the Tamil Nadu Assembly once again pushed for the retrieval of Katchatheevu and the restoration of fishing rights for Tamil fishermen. This issue has consistently resurfaced in Tamil politics since then.

In 2008, J Jayalalitha, the then-leader of AIADMK, filed a petition asserting that Katchatheevu couldn't be transferred to another country without a constitutional amendment. The petition argued that the 1974 agreement had adversely impacted traditional fishing rights and the livelihoods of Indian fishermen.

In 2011, when Jayalalitha became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, she introduced a resolution in the State Assembly and later, in 2012, approached the Supreme Court to expedite her petition due to the escalating arrests of Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka.

China angle

Apart from fishing rights, Katchatheevu has been a cause of concern due to China’s growing presence in cash-strapped Sri Lanka. According to experts, the island can allow China a strategic location to influence maritime movement in the area and set up a naval base as part of its aggressive geopolitical ambitions.