TN fishermen provoking conflict by entering Lankan waters

Dharmalingam’s pursuit of livelihood abruptly came to a pause on June 15, when he was arrested by Sri Lankan navy for allegedly crossing the international maritime boundary line in Palk Strait and illegally fishing in the island nation’s waters. The fisherman from Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu had to spend eight weeks in a jail in Sri Lanka before he was set free on August 16 to come back home — penniless and, of course, without a catch.

He was just one among many Indian fishermen who go through such ordeals. The number of Tamil Nadu fishermen in Sri Lanka’s custody went up to 114 by early August. Chief minister J Jayalalitha has writen to prime minister Manmohan Singh, calling upon the Centre to lodge a strong protest against “unlawful abduction and arrest” of fishermen by the Sri Lankan navy.

Colombo, however, says that the fishermen were arrested only after they illegally entered the Lankan waters – a claim, which New Delhi too quietly endorses. The demarche the Sri Lankan envoy to India, Prasad Kariyawasam, was served when he was called in to the ministry of external affairs on August 7 conveyed Delhi’s protest to Colombo over the delay in release of the incarcerated fishermen, but did not question the legitimacy of the arrests. For, many fishermen of Tamil Nadu do cross the maritime boundary and only a few of them do it inadvertently. This is a fact well acknowledged by both sides, yet it often gets drowned in the cacophony of competitive Sri Lanka bashing in Tamil Nadu. “Fishermen from both sides must learn to respect the IMBL and not tread on the fishing grounds owned by the fishermen of the other country,” says Kariyawasam.

Colombo claims that as many as 29,039 fishing boats from Tamil Nadu were spotted on the Sri Lankan waters in the last seven months, with the highest – 8369 – being recorded in July. “Indians come in droves to fish in Sri Lankan waters because the resources on the other side have depleted fast over the past few years, particularly after the Tamil Nadu fishermen started using motorised bottom-trawlers, giving up traditional boats and sustainable fishing methods,” says S P Anthonymuttu, an advisor to the ministry of fisheries and aquatic resources of Sri Lankan government.

Two agreements

Asked about the root of the problem, the fisher-folk, politicians and intelligentsia of Tamil Nadu will all point to the two agreements, which India and Sri Lanka inked in 1974 and 1976 to settle the maritime boundary. They allege that India not only ‘ceded’ Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974, but also gave away the Tamil Nadu fishermen’s rights on the resource-rich fishing area around the 285.2 acre island. The Articles 5 and 6 of the 1974 agreement do protect the ‘traditional rights’ of Indian pilgrims and fishermen on and around Kachchatheevu.

Sri Lankan government, however, says that the ‘traditional rights’ for Indian pilgrims were limited to attending the annual festival at the church on Kachchatheevu, while those of Indian fishermen were restricted to going to the islet only to dry their nets. The 1976 pact and subsequent Exchange of Letters between New Delhi and Colombo, however, categorically ruled out the Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen’s rights to fish in each other’s historic waters, continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone.

 “The 1974 and 1976 agreements put in peril livelihood of thousands of fishermen in India and are at the root of all the problems we are experiencing today,” says N Devadas, an advisor to the Tamil Nadu Fishermen’s Federation. 

As the ethnic conflict erupted in Sri Lanka in 1983, the fishermen of its northern and eastern provinces were barred from fishing, amid fears that they might be used by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to smuggle in weapons. A large number of Tamil Nadu fishermen were also killed in the crossfire between Sri Lankan soldiers and the LTTE guerrillas. Since late 1990s, however, Sri Lankan navy generally looked the other way, when fishers from Tamil Nadu went to fish in the island nation’s waters, barring, of course, some militarily sensitive areas.

Lankan fishermen returned to the seas only after the government eased restrictions on fishing following the 2002 truce with the LTTE. “Since the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, the nature of the conflict in Palk Bay has changed from the one between Indian fishermen and Sri Lankan navy to the one that set technologically less advantaged Sri Lankan fishers against their Tamil Nadu counterparts, who use high-yielding mechanised bottom trawlers,” says A S Soosai, an associate professor in Jaffna University.

The ‘Tamil cause’ in Sri Lanka often raised passion and influenced politics in Tamil Nadu. The fishing conflict in Palk Strait, however, has Tamils on both sides and it does turn violent at times. Five Tamil Nadu fishermen were injured in an attack by their Sri Lankan counterparts off the coast of Kodiakarai on July 30. The two governments have been encouraging their fishermen to meet and try to resolve the conflict. Devadas and Anthonymuttu are coordinating efforts in India and Sri Lanka for dialogues between leaders of fishermen from both sides.

As over-exploitation resulted in rapid depletion of fish stocks in Indian waters, DMK chief M Karunanidhi recently demanded that New Delhi should ask Colombo to allow Tamil Nadu fishers to fish in Sri Lankan waters for at least a few months every year. Sri Lanka earlier rejected a proposal from India to issue licenses to some Tamil Nadu fishermen to fish across the IMBL.

A possible way to resolve the issue is to encourage fishermen of both sides to go beyond the narrow strait between the two nations for deep sea fishing in resource-rich international waters in the vicinity. A Sri Lankan business delegation was in New Delhi recently to explore tie-ups with fishers of Andhra Pradesh for a joint venture for deep sea fishing in Bay of Bengal. More such initiatives will possibly avert future flashpoints in the fishing conflicts in the Palk Strait.