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The recent killing of an Indian fisherman hailing from Tamil Nadu allegedly by the Sri Lankan Navy brings the limelight back on the issue of maritime boundaries and fishing rights in the Palk Strait.
India and Sri Lanka have been closely connected from more than 7 millennia. Close proximity has allowed the two states to evolve continuously culturally, spiritually, economically and politically. However the past 4 decades have not gone as per the script for the bilateral ties. Starting in 1981, Sri Lanka was embroiled in a deadly civil war with the Tamil terrorist group LTTE fighting against the state for an independent Eelam land. India itself having a sizeable Tamil population was forced to intervene purely on humanitarian grounds by sending its peacekeeping forces (IPKF). However, very quickly the IPKF became an unwanted player in the conflict suspected by both the parties. IPKF had to return back humiliated not only because it was unable to succeed in its mission to establish peace but because it was accused of playing one against the other.
The civil war has long since ended and the Sri Lankan government is now keen on rebuilding the country by taking along people of all the ethnicities. Ethnic Tamil political parties have now returned back to the mainstream and hold the reins of power in the two Tamil-majority provinces of Northern Province and Eastern Province. Colombo too has been working on reducing the gap between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority across the island nation.
Long festering wounds of fishermen
In the midst of all this rises the ugly issue of arrests and killings of fishermen in the Palk Strait. The Strait is approximately 53 to 82 km wide divided by the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL). The western edge of the Strait has 5 districts of the state of Tamil Nadu while the eastern edge has 3 Sri Lankan districts of the Northern Province. While the Strait provides rich fishing grounds for the fishermen of both the countries, the conflict in Sri Lanka has had a direct impact on the way both the nations view the Strait. After the culmination of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the Strait has led to multiple disagreements on both the sides. Issues like poaching by Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan territorial waters, ecological damage caused by mindless trawling and the lingering dispute over the territorial rights to the island of Katchatheevu have often taken the two countries close to a crisis point.
During the civil war period, the Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen had either been displaced or were forced by the Sri Lankan Navy not to indulge in fishing in the Palk Strait. By this time the Indian fishermen had begun employing trawlers to indulge in seabed fishing and had nearly succeeded in emptying of the fish catch from the Indian side of the IMBL. With little or no resistance, the Indian fishermen were soon found fishing extensively up to the Sri Lankan coast. Once the civil war ended, the Sri Lankan Coast Guard and the Navy started excessive patrolling. The Sri Lankan Tamils too returned and found to their horror that whatever little catch was available were being poached by the Indian fishermen. A conflict ensued and the Sri Lankan Navy was soon apprehending Indian fishermen and their boats. While in some cases, the fishermen were allowed to return with their boats, in other cases, the fishermen were forced to return without their boats and had no other ways to employ themselves. In some other cases, the fishermen sadly returned as dead bodies.
With successive central governments in New Delhi being supported by Tamil regional parties up until 2014, the issue of ill treatment of Tamil fishermen became a serious bilateral issue between the two nations. The central governments were arm-twisted by the Tamil alliance partners to provide knee jerk reactions about promises to take up the issue with the Sri Lankan government. In reality though, such promises delivered nothing.
Earlier this year, the two governments announced a whole host of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) to amicably resolve the fishermen issue. These were a direct consequence of the first meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) between Secretary (Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries), India and Secretary (Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development), Sri Lanka. As a result of these meetings, both sides had agreed to a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Here’s a list of steps agreed upon by both the parties:
- Both sides to expedite handing over of fishermen in each other’s custody on completion of respective legal and procedural formalities.
- JWG to operationalize a ‘hotline’ between Indian and Sri Lankan Coast Guard which would ensure quick decision making and response.
- Both sides to intensify cooperation on patrolling and to institute periodic interaction between the Coast Guard of the two countries.
- Upon India’s request to immediately release Indian fishing vessels, Sri Lankan side agreed to consider the request in view of the progress being made by the JWG
- Upon Sri Lanka’s demand that the practice of bottom trawling needs to end at the earliest, Indian side assured that bottom trawling would be phased out in a graded time-bound manner within a practicable timeframe keeping in mind the capacity building of the fishermen who have to be diversified into deep sea fishing as well as other coastal fisheries activities including mariculture, pearl farming, seaweed culture, etc.
The announcement also said that the next JWG meeting will be held in April 2017 to review the progress made in addressing the fishermen issues in a comprehensive manner.
Despite such a positive step taken by both the sides, a 22-year old Indian fisherman was shot dead on March 6 while he was fishing in a mechanized boat a short distance off Katchatheevu islet. Local fishermen alleged that he was killed by the Sri Lankan navy and this led to a prompt protest by the officials from the Ministry of External Affairs demanding that Sri Lanka conduct a thorough investigation. The Sri Lankan government on its part has said that an initial investigation that it carried out ruled out its Navy’s involvement in the incident. All along, this issue gathered a lot of steam in Tamil Nadu forcing all the political parties to take a stand.
As much as it looks and sounds as a trivial issue, it is these sorts of hindrances that are pulling both the countries away from a meaningful and trustworthy relationship. It will be foolhardy to accuse Sri Lankan Navy of having committed this particular murder without concrete proof. However, valid questions emerge about the context in which this killing has taken place. If the JWG had agreed for joint patrolling, how did the Indian fishermen cross over to the other side of the IMBL? If the fishermen were indeed on their side of the IMBL, how did the Sri Lankan Coast Guard gain access to this side of the line without the knowledge of the Indian Coast Guard. If the Sri Lankan Navy was indeed not involved, will the Indian government conduct its own enquiry in a fair and transparent manner? All these questions show the lackadaisical response to the decisions taken at the top by both the governments. Any and all good intentions have the risk of coming undone if the bureaucracies are not on the same page.
India and Sri Lanka need to realize that both of them can benefit immensely based on mutually agreeable terms and that the ties are not essentially a zero-sum game. Constant irritation does immeasurable harm to the vast potential that the bilateral relationship has in the long run. It is the low-hanging fruits like these which need to be resolved first to enhance the trust and set the process of normalization up and running.
With such a progress achieved, both countries can set their sights on more ambitious targets. Sri Lanka has long wanted to have a Free Trade Agreement with India but India has preferred the entire SAARC region to unify as a single Free Trade
Region. With SAARC’s run almost coming to an end and India looking at other avenues like BIMSTEC to maintain regional cooperation with like minded countries, it makes sense for India to set up this FTA with Sri Lanka at the earliest. Sri Lanka might want to balance out an FTA with India by having a similar agreement with China immediately thereafter (since China has been actively proposing the same) but that should not worry India as Sri Lankan growth story will have a substantial impact on Indian trade.
Another ambitious target for both the countries can be a food security agreement. Sri Lanka is impacted the same way as South India by the monsoons. A bad monsoon hurts both the regions alike. With global warming on the rise and changed weather patterns wreaking havoc across the world, it makes sense for India to propose to insure Sri Lanka against any crop loss that it might incur due to bad monsoon or untimely rains by earmarking a specified area outside of South India to grow agricultural produce meant specifically for Sri Lanka. This can and will be another confidence building measure and will go a long way in assuring Sri Lanka of the best intentions of India in being a trustworthy regional partner.
Strategically too, India and Sri Lanka have a lot to cooperate. Indian Ocean is fast turning out to be the next major playground for geopolitical one-upmanship by global players. With freedom of navigation being of utmost concern, it helps both the nations to keep the waterways of the Indian Ocean free from any territorial claims of any nature. The Coast Guards of both the countries can resolve to work together to patrol the larger Indian Ocean waters to keep it safe from piracy.
In addition, Sri Lanka is learning the lesson the hard way of cozying up to China for economic benefits. China’s checkbook diplomacy has left the island nation’s economy in a deep recess that it is finding difficult to get out of. India should use this opportunity to provide assistance to Sri Lanka either as a one-time aid or a line of credit to offset the deep credit that it finds itself in.
When the Brexit referendum results shocked the whole world, European leaders and administrators were categorical in stating that they will be extremely cutthroat with Britain when negotiating the exit process. However 6 months down the line, Great Britain is slowly but steadily managing to influence the narrative. The European nations have now started asking in public why can’t they have a rosy deal with Britain since they feel that the post-exit relationships will be beneficial for both the entities. This reversal in narratives wouldn’t have been possible without the contribution of London based think tanks. Indian think tanks have a similar task cut out in front of them. Sri Lanka under the previous administration might have felt the need to diversify its economic footprint away from India by cozying up to China. If the Indian think tanks are indeed successful, the changed narrative will make Colombo take a second look at the cross-Palk Strait relations and wonder why did we have to walk away from India in the first place since it could have been a win-win situation for both of us.
2017 will determine which way the Indo-SL ties are headed. Will both the countries win each other’s trust by making incremental gains? The answer to this lies on how the Tamil Nadu fishermen are treated in the Palk Strait.
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