BILATERAL – INDIA-ASIA
7 SEPTEMBER 2025
- Half a century since India gave up its claim to the barren island and recognised Sri Lanka’s sovereignty over it, politicians in India periodically rake up the issue, triggering tensions in ties between the friendly countries.
- St. Anthony’s Catholic Shrine is the only permanent structure there.
- Katchatheevu is a barren island, with no drinking water or sanitation.
- Every March, Sri Lanka waives visa controls to allow fishermen from India to worship along with their Sri Lankan counterparts at the St. Anthony’s festival.
- Around the annual two-day event, mobile toilets and drinking water booths are put up for pilgrims.
- Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent visit to Katchatheevu, said to be the first by a head of state, drew attention on both sides of the Palk Strait.
- He pledged to safeguard Sri Lankan territory, resisting any “external force”.
- Tamil actor-politician Vijay recently demanded in a political rally that India must retrieve Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka.
- The competing claims made from India [Madras Presidency, specifically] and Ceylon to Katchatheevu date back to the 1920s, during British colonial times.
- The neighbours settled the matter some five decades later, through two bilateral agreements signed in 1974 and 1976, delineating an International Maritime Boundary Line, whereby Katchatheevu is firmly on the Sri Lankan side.
- In return, New Delhi got sovereign rights over Wadge Bank, located near Kanniyakumari, known for its rich resources.
- In 2013, the Union government informed the Supreme Court that the question of gaining Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka did not arise, as “no territory belonging to India was ceded nor sovereignty relinquished since the area in question was in dispute and had never been demarcated”.
- Fishermen of south India and northern Sri Lanka rely heavily on the resource-rich Palk Strait.
- However, with Tamil Nadu fishermen relentlessly resorting to bottom-trawling, a destructive fishing method that scoops out the seabed to maximise the catch and profits, this has severely affected the marine ecosystem.
- With the catch on the Indian side of the International Maritime Boundary Line diminishing over time, the Tamil Nadu fishing boats ventured into the Sri Lankan side, targeting a heavier net.
- Daily wage fishermen, working for wealthy boat owners in Tamil Nadu, periodically court arrest by the Sri Lankan Navy — over 230 arrests so far this year— a risk they take to secure their day’s earnings.
- Tamil fishermen in northern Sri Lanka, still reeling from the impact of the civil war that ended 16 years ago, contend they have no real chance of rebuilding their destroyed livelihoods, unless their counterparts across the Palk Strait give up bottom-trawling — a practice banned in Sri Lanka.
