Foreign secretary-level talks took place in Colombo about the disputed island in 1973.....
Digital desk: Regarding the contentious Katchatheevu island, which previous Prime Minister Indira Gandhi gave to Sri Lanka in 1974, Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticized the Congress on Sunday. Ahead of the Lok Sabha Election, the Katchatheevu Island controversy is presently fueling political controversy in Tamil Nadu and beyond.
On social media platform X, Prime Minister Modi said that the Congress had "callously" given the island Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka, which "angered every Indian and reaffirmed in people's minds – we cannot ever trust Congress." He cited an article from The Times of India that explains the Congress's choice.
According to the report, Sri Lanka's lack of size was managed by the country's "tenacious pursuit of 1.9 square km of land about 20 km from Indian shore based on claims which New Delhi contested for decades," as revealed by records obtained by K Annamalai, the chief of the Tamil Nadu BJP, through an RTI application.
Following its independence, Sri Lanka upheld its rights and banned the Indian Navy from holding exercises there without its permission.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister at the time, dismissed the problem as insignificant. Nehru stated on May 10, 1961, "I attach no importance to all to this little island and I would have no hesitation in giving up our claims to it," according to a Times of India statement.
The opposition attacked the Indira Gandhi government in 1968 after she met with the prime minister of Sri Lanka, Dudley Senanayake, who asserted that their country's maps included the island.
The opposition suspected that Senanayake and Indira Gandhi were negotiating a major deal. The Congress denied the accusations regarding the agreement and maintained that "good bilateral ties" and "India's claim had to be balanced."
Foreign secretary-level talks took place in Colombo about the disputed island in 1973. Subsequently, in June, Foreign Secretary Kewal Singh sent a note to M. Karunanidhi, the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, reaffirming India's claim.
According to the foreign secretary, "records" indicating the island was a part of the Jaffnapatnam region on Dutch and British maps demonstrated that "Sri Lanka had taken a very strong determined position."
He added a second view from 1970, cited by The Times of India, in which the then-attorney general declared that "the sovereignty over Katchatheevu was and is with Ceylon and not with India." He said that Sri Lanka had been asserting its sovereignty since 1925 without protest from India. The Indian government turned the island over to Sri Lanka in 1974 intending to preserve their bilateral relationship.
Katchatheevu is an uninhabited off-shore island situated in the Palk Strait. In the fourteenth century, volcanic explosions sculpted it. During British administration, the 285 acres of land were jointly administered by India and Sri Lanka. The Ramnad zamindari of Ramanathapuram, which is located roughly 55 km northwest of Rameswaram, seized authority during the 17th century. Both India and Sri Lanka made fishing claims on the territory in 1921, but the matter was never resolved. After India’s Independence, the country began to solve the territorial dispute between Ceylon and the British.
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