External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar criticized the historic attitude of the Congress party towards the Katchatheevu island and said that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru saw it as a ‘nuisance’.
“This is an observation by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in May of 1961. He says, he writes, I attach no importance at all to this little island and I would have no hesitation in giving up our claim to it. I do not like matters like this pending. Indefinitely and being raised again and again in parliament. So to Pandit Nehru, this was a little island. It had no importance. He saw it as a nuisance,” EAM Jaishankar said in a press conference.
“Why are people bringing it up again and again in parliament? So for him, the sooner you give it away the better. Now you can say, okay, this was Pandit Nehru’s view. Now I want to read to you. Actually, this was not just Pandit Nehru’s view. This view continued on to Indira Gandhi ji as well,” he added.
Addressing the issue, Jaishankar highlighted the indifference shown by past Prime Ministers, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, towards the strategic significance of Katchatheevu.
“We are talking about 1958 and 1960. The main people in the case wanted to make sure that at least we should get the fishing rights. The island was given away in 1974 and the fishing rights were given away in 1976… One, the most basic recurring (aspect) is the indifference shown by the then central government and the PMs about the territory of India… That fact is they simply did not care… In an observation given by the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1961, he wrote, ‘I attach no importance at all to this little island and I would have no hesitation in giving up our claim to it,” he said.
Drawing parallels to contemporary concerns over territorial integrity, Jaishankar highlighted the remarks made by Member of Parliament G. Viswanathan from Tamil Nadu, who expressed apprehension over the prioritisation of distant territories like Diego Garcia over Katchatheevu.
He recounted Viswanathan’s criticism of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s characterisation of Katchatheevu as a “little rock,” likening it to Nehru’s infamous statement regarding India’s northern boundary.
“I am fast forwarding it to the time when Katchatheevu agreement is done. There is a member of parliament called G. Vishwanathan from Tamil Nadu and he says, this is in from quoting from parliament records. We are worried about Diego Garcia, thousands of miles away from Indian territory, but we are not worried about this small island when we speak of it. The prime minister, he is talking about Indira Gandhiji,” he said.
The minister also went on to mention the significance of the issue and said that the Indian fishermen have been continuously detained by the Sri Lankan Navy.
“In the last 20 years, 6184 Indian fishermen have been detained by Sri Lanka and 1175 Indian fishing boats have been seized by Sri Lanka. In the last five years, the Katchatheevu issue and the issue of fishermen have been raised in various Parliaments. It has been raised repeatedly by the parties. It has come up in Parliament questions, debates and in the advisory committee. The then CM Tamil Nadu government has written to me several times. And my record shows that I have responded to the present CM 21 times on this issue,” he said.
“The fishermen are still being detained today, boats still being apprehended & the issue is still being raised in Parliament. It is being raised in Parliament by two parties who did it…Whenever there was an arrest, how do you think they were released? It is very good to give statements from Chennai, but the people who do the work are us,” he added.
It is pertinent to mention that the island, located between Rameswaram (India) and Sri Lanka, was traditionally used by both Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen.
In 1974, then prime minister Indira Gandhi accepted Katchatheevu as Sri Lankan territory under the “Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement”.
The 1974 Agreement regarding historic waters between Sri Lanka and India in the Palk Strait and the Palk Bay formally confirmed Sri Lanka’s sovereignty over the Island.
