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DMK takes cover under Kachchativu amid corruption allegations ahead of elections
View(s):By Kumar Chellappan in Chennai
“If everything fails, try Kalan Nellai” is an age-old saying in Kerala. Kalan Nellai is an ayurvedic hospital belonging to a family of physicians in Kerala, the southernmost state in India. The belief is that physicians in this clinic are capable of curing any kind of ailment with herbs and medicines they manufacture in their own pharma company.
The DMK politicians, especially of the Dravidian stock in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, strongly follow the Kalan Nellai dictum when everything else fails. When they do not have any issues to fight with the Centre, they turn towards Kachchativu, a 285-acre islet in the Palk Strait, and pass resolution after resolution in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly demanding that it be returned to India. But very little has happened. The resolutions, copies of which were sent to the Prime Minister’s Office and Rashtrapathi Bhavan (Presidential Palace), end up in not-to-be-opened dossiers.
The final word about Kachchativu has been said in the international agreement signed between the then-Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and her Sri Lankan counterpart, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, in 1975. The agreement bestows Sri Lanka with the full ownership of the islet. Remember, Sri Lanka is a sovereign republic like India. It has also been specified in the agreement that Indian fishers could take rest and dry their nets at Kachchativu, though they are not allowed to fish in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
Tamil Nadu had a government led by the DMK when the Kachcativu accord was signed in 1975. Muthuvel Karunanidhi, father of the present chief minister, M. K. Stalin, was the chief minister during the period. Barring J. Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK supremo, no politicians in Tamil Nadu questioned the propriety of the Kachchativu accord till 2011. Only after Mr. Karunanidhi and the DMK were thrown out of power in the 2011 legislative assembly elections did they make Kachchativu an issue for their political survival. The DMK was a crucial constituent of all the governments that ruled India from 1996 to 2013, except for a brief period from 1998 to 1999. They were in power as the second biggest constituent of the Congress-led UPA government from 2004 to 2014 but were silent on the issue while the AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa filed suits in the apex court challenging the 1975 agreement.
Mukul Rohatgi, the then Attorney General of India, had told the Supreme Court that Kachchativu could be retrieved only by waging a war against Sri Lanka. The country’s highest court dismissed the case outright.
Mr. Stalin came to power in Tamil Nadu in 2019, and his government is enmeshed in allegations of corruption. The opposition alleges that Mr. Stalin is good at corruption, financial embezzlement, and nepotism, while the state has gone backward in all aspects of development. In the face of mounting corruption allegations, Mr. Stalin appears to be relying on the Kachchativu issue to revive his image and that of the DMK and to stave off defeat in next year’s assembly elections.
Moreover, the DMK has “emerged” as a fiefdom of the Karunanidhi clan. While Mr. Stalin is the overall chief of the party, his son, Udhayanidhi Stalin, a political novice, is second in command as deputy chief minister. Kanimozhi, step-sister of Stalin (Karunanidhi’s daughter by Rajathi, his third wife), is also in the running for the top post, while two nephews, Kalanidhi and Dayanidhi, are also breathing down his neck for their share of the booty.
Although the BJP government at the centre of late has been stirring up the Kachchativu issue for political reasons, it is aware of the legal implications. Though External Affairs Minister S. Jayashankar hails from Tamil Nadu, he is a diplomat par excellence and aware of the seriousness of an accord signed between two nations. If he has mentioned the retrieval of Kachchativu, it is only because of political expediency. The BJP wants to break the Dravidian barrier and enter Tamil Nadu politics in a big way. Though the Congress had ruled the state uninterrupted from 1947 to 1967, it is alleged that the party is being used as a doormat by the DMK. No national party has succeeded in breaking ground in the Dravidian land, and the BJP is eager to end this jinx.
There are many facts that hitherto remain covered from public eyes regarding the trespass by Tamil Nadu fishermen into Sri Lankan territorial waters. The Tamil Nadu sea has been depleted of its marine wealth due to bottom trawling practised by the state’s fishermen. Since they do not have much fish on their side, the easiest way is to steal from the neighbours property.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), the Hyderabad-based elite laboratory specialising in ocean forecasts, had developed a GPS-based system that warns the fishermen whenever they are near the international maritime boundary line between Sri Lanka and India. A mobile phone-like contraption installed in fishing boats and trawlers emits alarms to warn the fishers that they are about to cross the forbidden line. INCOIS Director Dr. T. M. Balakrishnan Nair told this writer that though the foolproof technology had been developed, there were no takers from Tamil Nadu for the same. “They want to make fast bucks, and the easiest way is to trespass into the neighbour’s compound,” said Kallingal Benny, a veteran fisherman from Cherai in Kerala.
Tamil Nadu fishers, especially those from the districts of Ramanathapuram, Nagapattinam, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari, and Tirunelveli, are notorious for their avariciousness. “You yield an inch and they take a mile” is their motto. These fishermen are habitual trespassers and have no qualms about violating the fishing zones of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and some of the other Indian coastal states.
Tamil Nadu fishermen have also been taken into custody by British Naval Guards for violating the maritime borders of Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean island used as a military base by the United States. The island is 1800 km southwest of India, and fishers need extra bravery and boldness to sail into this region. In January 2025, Benedicta, a fishing boat belonging to a fisherman in the Kanyakumari district, was detained by British authorities for breaching the international maritime boundary and fishing in the region. There were nine Tamil Nadu fishers in the boat.
This is not a rare incident, as Tamil Nadu fishers had been detained many times by coast guards of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and some other West Asian nations for trespassing. Sri Lanka, which is at wit’s end over this menace from Tamil Nadu fishermen, should talk turkey with the Indian government. What we see is that the fishers trespassing into Sri Lankan waters are arrested only to be sent back to India when the latter laments over the sufferings of the families of the fishers detained.
The Indian Coast Guard has given a clean chit to the Sri Lankan Navy for the dignity maintained by the latter. In an affidavit filed in the Madras High Court, the Coast Guard had said that Tamil Nadu fishermen were habitual offenders, while there were no instances of their Sri Lankan counterparts engaging in any such illegal activities.
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