The island of Kachchatheevu remains an intractable issue in India-Srilanka relations. Comment. (2026, 15 Marks)
Kachchatheevu is an uninhabited islet of about 285 acres in the Palk Strait whose only structure is St Anthony’s Church. Settled half a century ago, it keeps returning to the agenda. The statement is true of the sovereignty demand, but not of the livelihood problem that keeps that demand alive.
How the island was settled
- June 1974 agreement (Indira Gandhi–Sirimavo Bandaranaike): fixed the boundary in the historic waters of the Palk Bay and placed the islet on the Sri Lankan side. Article 5 kept visa-free access for Indian fishermen and pilgrims; Article 6 kept vessels’ “traditional” rights.
- 1976 agreement and letters: extended the line into the Gulf of Mannar and barred each side’s fishermen from the other’s waters and EEZ. This, more than 1974, ended Indian fishing near the islet; India gained the Wadge Bank.
Why it stays intractable
- Constitutional dispute: Tamil Nadu argues that ceding territory needed an amendment under the Berubari opinion (1960). The Union has told the Supreme Court that no territory was ceded because title was disputed and undemarcated; petitions of 2008 and 2011 remain undecided.
- Two-level game, in Robert D. Putnam’s sense: Delhi negotiates with Colombo while domestic ratifiers in Chennai demand retrieval. The Assembly resolved unanimously on 2 April 2025; C. Joseph Vijay, who demanded retrieval in August 2025, became Chief Minister in May 2026; on 2 September 2026 his ministers and the DMK traded blame over 1974 in the Assembly.
- Livelihood pressure: the External Affairs Minister said on 1 April 2024 that 6,184 Indian fishermen had been detained and 1,175 boats seized in twenty years.
- Sri Lankan nationalism: President Anura Kumara Dissanayake landed on the islet on 1 September 2025, and Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said its status would never change.
Why it is less intractable than it looks
- Legally closed: under the customary rule codified in Article 46 of the Vienna Convention (1969), a state cannot invoke internal law to escape a treaty unless the violation was manifest. A fifty-year-old settlement does not qualify; the Attorney General told the Supreme Court in 2014 that retrieval would require war.
- A fisheries problem: Sri Lanka’s real grievance is bottom trawling by Indian mechanised boats, which it banned for its own fleet in 2017. The losers are northern Tamil fishermen rebuilding after the war: Tamil against Tamil. V. Suryanarayan (2005) framed it as a resource conflict decades ago.
- Remedies exist: the Joint Working Group on Fisheries (2016), conversion of trawlers to deep-sea fishing under the PM Matsya Sampada Yojana, licensed seasonal access, and joint management of the Palk Bay. Narendra Modi and Dissanayake agreed on a humanitarian approach in Colombo in April 2025.
Conclusion
Kachchatheevu is intractable as a symbol and tractable as a resource. Owning the islet would not restore fishing: the 1976 bar excludes Indian boats either way. India should treat sovereignty as settled, keep Tamil Nadu inside the talks, and fund a phased end to trawling. Under Neighbourhood First, a resolved fishery is worth far more than a reopened map.