Fishermen's issue mired in Tamil Nadu politics

by Stanley Mathews

With the Tamil Nadu State Assembly elections due in April 2016, the billowing issue of Tamil Nadu trawlers poaching in North Sri Lankan waters and damaging the marine resources of the Northern Province is unlikely to be solved any time soon.

It’s been a tug’o war between Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen over fishing rights flywheel.netdna-ssl

Politicians on the Indian side of the Palk Strait know that the issue cannot be solved in a hurry given the fact that coastal fishermen are a huge and organized community, a vote bank eyed by every political party in the South Indian state.

Any well-meant suggestion to the fishermen to exercise restraint in fishing is bound to result in a substantial loss of votes, in the context of the fact that the fishermen really have no alternative to fishing in the narrow strait almost up to the Mannar and Jaffna coastline.

The marine resources on the Tamil Nadu side of the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) have been exhausted through over fishing by the burgeoning population of fishermen and the growing international trade in shrimp and other fish found in this shallow sea.

The Tamil Nadu Government has been pleading with successive Central governments in New Delhi to fund a switch over to deep sea fishing, but these pleas have fallen on deaf ears, giving the fishermen no option other than to go further east and poach in Sri Lankan waters.

Frequent arrests

This is why, despite frequent arrests and seizure of their vessels by the Sri Lankan Navy, fishermen from Nagappatinam to Rameswaram keep coming in. Currently, there are 126 fishermen in Sri Lankan custody at Point Pedro and Mannar. There is pressure from Jayalalithaa on Indian Premier Narendra Modi to use all diplomatic means to get the Sri Lankan Government to release the fishermen. The Modi government is doing its best, but the Sri Lankan authorities have their own problems to address - problems arising from poaching and the use of illegal methods of fishing.

As on date, there are serious attempts to get the existing detainees released by Deepavali (November 10).

Hope of release

But there also legal issues which New Delhi and Colombo cannot tackle overnight. The matter is further complicated by the fact that both India and Sri Lanka are insisting on the simultaneous release of each other's fishermen. At present, there are 126 Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan custody and 34 Sri Lankan fishermen in Indian custody. According to The New Indian Express, 11 of the 126 Tamil Nadu fishermen have cases of assault against them, and 29 of the 34 Sri Lankan fishermen have cases of illegal fishing.

The Tamil Nadu fishermen had assaulted Sri Lankan Navy personnel while being apprehended, and the Sri Lankan fishermen were catching sea cucumbers, banned in Indian territorial waters.

The Sri Lankan Defense Ministry is reportedly against the release of the 11 men involved. On their part, the Indians will not release the 29 Sri Lankans with illegal fishing cases against them, unless Colombo agrees to a wholesale reciprocal release. However, considering the political and humanitarian angle, India and Sri Lanka will continue to make efforts to set the fishermen free at the earliest.

Retrieval of Kachchativu

Meanwhile, to keep the issue politically alive for continuous exploitation, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa raked up the 'transfer of Kachchativu to Sri Lanka' issue, which she has been highlighting since 1992.

In her view, the poaching issue will be solved if Kachchativu is 'retrieved' from Sri Lanka through negotiations. According to her (and also Tamil Nadu fishermen), the fishermen do not go beyond Kachchativu as alleged by Sri Lanka. They claim that they fish around Kachchcativu, an area which falls under their 'traditional waters' where they have a natural right to fish. They argue that as per the 1974 agreement with Sri Lanka, this 'traditional' right exists.

Jayalalithaa knows that this right had been taken away under a subsequent agreement in 1976, but she insists that that agreement be renegotiated. The 1974 agreement was concluded when the then Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu was weak as a result of a split in the party over corruption charges against the party chief and Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi. By 1976, the Central government, led by Indira Gandhi, had sacked the Karunanidhi government and imposed direct rule by New Delhi. Tamil Nadu politicians' argument is that the 1974 and 1976 agreements were concluded without consulting its political class. The agreements were not based on a popular mandate.

When the Sri Lankan Navy started shooting intruding Tamil Nadu fishermen in the early 1990s, Jayalalithaa began to demand the retrieval of Kachchativu saying that its retrieval will mitigate the problem. She not only argued that Kachchativu was historically part of Tamil Nadu but also said that the 'transfer' to Sri Lanka did not go through parliament as it should have. But the Indian Government's stand was that Kachchativu was a 'disputed' territory with both India and Sri Lanka making strong claims over it. It was not something which was decidedly India's, a family heirloom which was 'handed over' to Sri Lanka. Therefore, it did not have to get parliamentary sanction.

Additionally, it would not be realistic to expect Sri Lanka to give it back to India as the 1974 and 1976 pacts were signed after very hard negotiations.

As for the Tamil Nadu fishermen's view on the matter, they are backing Jayalalithaa's demand on the grounds that retrieval of Kachchativu will enable them to legitimately fish a further seven to ten nautical miles east of the island, which they are not allowed to do now. All parties in Tamil Nadu back the claim over Kachchativu and the list includes the Congress as well as the BJP.

Jayalalithaa took the matter to the Supreme Court and the matter is lying there, though successive Central governments have stuck to the view that Kachchativu is now part of Sri Lanka and cannot be retrieved.

What the Central government is prepared to do is to discuss with Sri Lanka joint fishing in the Palk Strait and joint development of its marine resources, while pleading with Colombo to keep releasing arrested fishermen on humanitarian grounds.

Rising anger in North

But this may become more and more difficult in the days to come because of rising anger among the fishermen of Sri Lanka' north. Brazen Indian poaching has eaten into their income. While the Indian trawler owners and the fish trade are making good money through overseas sales, the fishermen of Jaffna and Mannar (also fellow Tamils) do not know where their next meal is going to come from.

At the last meeting the Northern fishermen had with the Sri Lankan Minister of Fisheries, Mahinda Amaraweera, the fishermen had threatened to attack the intruding Tamil Nadu fishermen, and destroy their nets. They also demanded that the Minister impose 'stiff fines' on the intruders and the seizure of their vessels.

They told the Minister that they do not believe in talks with the Tamil fishermen as the latter's demands are unreasonable besides being against international law. Indian fishermen also never implement agreements solemnly entered into the three sessions held so far.

While Minister Amaraweera is keen not to rock India-Sri Lanka bilateral relations, he has told local newspersons that he will seek compensation from India for the damage wrought by intruding Tamil Nadu fishermen. But officials denied that the government has any intention of seeking compensation. The government is yet to set up a committee to study the marine resources in the sea between the two countries.

The government of India and Sri Lanka think that the matter can be settled through talks, and agreements could be reached to share the resources of the contentious sea for the time being at least.

But the fishermen of the two countries feel that the governments of the two countries must come to an agreement and back it on the ground as in the case of other international treaties.

Slippery ground

But neither New Delhi nor Colombo want to step on this slippery ground, fraught with dangerous political consequences. Even the Tamil National Alliance is soft pedaling the issue because it does not want to jeopardize its relations with the Tamil Nadu politicians and the Tamil Nadu government even as it voices the grievances of the North Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen.

While in all likelihood, the 126 Indian fishermen and the 34 Sri Lankans will be released soon, the issue will remain unsolved and arrests and protests will continue for the foreseeable future.