Otherwise smooth-sailing India-Sri Lanka ties have been rocked by Sri Lanka's treatment of Indian fishermen straying into its sea territory, with around 136 fishermen from the southern state of Tamil Nadu taken into custody last week for alleged poaching. The fishermen were released over the weekend, calming tensions, but the underlying conflict remains and India claims that last month at least two fishermen were shot dead by the Sri Lankan Navy.
While the Sri Lankan navy denies those allegations, an autopsy report appears has confirmed that the bullets in the dead fishermen's bodies and those recovered from the scene were Sri Lankan navy standard issue.
The killings have triggered angry protests across Tamil Nadu, and a diplomatic row that prompted India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao to visit Colombo in January. At a meeting in Thimphu, in Bhutan in February the countries foreign ministers agreed that no force by security forces on fishermen would be used "under any circumstances". Barely a week later, the 136 fishermen were taken into custody.
Relations between India and Sri Lanka had been warming, hence India's annoyance with what it sees as an excessive response by Colombo to fishermen entering its waters. India feels it has gone out of its way to accommodate Sri Lanka, even ceding the disputed Kachchativu Island in the 1970s to its small neighbor.
The killing and arrest of Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka is not a new trend. During the Sri Lankan civil war (1983-2009), fighters of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would cross the narrow strip of water between the Jaffna peninsula and Tamil Nadu seeking sanctuary. Hundreds of Indian fishermen were caught in the crossfire or killed by the Sri Lankan navy on suspicion of being Tigers or for smuggling goods for them.
While some Indian fishermen did have links to the LTTE, most of those killed by the navy did not.
There are no Sea Tigers roaming the seas any longer. "Yet the killing of Indian fishermen by the Lankan Navy continues," Palanisamy Sekar of the Coastal People's Federation, a network of civil society activists and fisherfolk from the districts of Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari, told Asia Times Online.
"The vengeance with which they would kill Tamil fishermen has increased," he said. This is borne out by statistics.
Over the past year, an average of one fisherman from Tamil Nadu was killed every fortnight. "And in the past six months, the violence has been accelerating - 72 men have been killed," reports Rohini Mohan in Tehelka. Over the years, around 400 fishermen have lost their lives, over 2,000 have been injured and about 90 have gone missing. In Ramanathapuram, Tuticorin, Pudukottai and Nagapattinam - coastal districts of Tamil Nadu bordering the Palk Bay - "every fisherman seemed to have a gruesome story. And more often than not, a scar to prove it," she writes.
But the roots of the conflict precede even the Sri Lankan civil war and the navy's aggression towards Tamils, whether Sri Lankan or Indian.
Back in the 1960s, as part of an Indo-Norwegian project that emphasized use of capital-intensive technology in fishing, the Indian government extended support and subsidies to encourage the use of trawlers.
This shift from traditional fishing to a capital-intensive fishing industry that focused on exports resulted in over-exploitation and speedy depletion of marine resources, Sekar said. Trawlers use heavy-bottomed nets which are dragged through the sea bed, trapping all marine life in their way, including fish eggs. "The catch is many times that possible with traditional boats and fishing gear but the impact on marine life is devastating," he points out.
The destructive impact on marine resources was visible within a few years of the introduction of trawlers in south India. "Up to the mid-1970s, there was an increase in fish landings; then a steady decline in prawn landings and fluctuations in overall fish catches. Artisanal fisherfolk experienced an almost 50% drop in productivity in the period 1969-70 to 1979-80," N P Chekkutty writes in the online Infochange News and Features.
The use of deep trawling nets in fishing was banned in the mid-1980s but many trawlers have continued to use them. The situation has worsened with foreign trawlers entering Indian waters. Overfishing has not only resulted in depletion of fish but also, bottom trawling has destroyed the ecology and affected species regeneration. The problem has assumed crisis proportions over the past decade.
It is the depletion of catch along the Indian coast that drives its fishermen further out into the sea. This often results in them crossing the maritime border line and entering Sri Lankan waters.
"Sri Lanka has enforced the ban on deep trawling more effectively than India, which means that fish are more plentiful in its waters," Sekar says. Since the movement of fishermen is determined by the availability of fish and is rarely determined or deterred by maritime borders, Indian fishermen go deep into Sri Lankan waters, even if it involves the risk of encountering the Sri Lankan navy on the way. Indian trawlers are known to venture near Delft Island, Karainagar, Point Pedro and Pesalai among other places on Sri Lanka's northern coast.
In Sri Lanka's Jaffna Peninsula, fishermen are angry with the entry of Indian trawlers into their waters. The Indian boats are bigger than theirs, with better equipment, and they come in large numbers, leaving little catch for local fishermen. During the civil war, government restrictions on fishing and harassment by the Sri Lankan navy prevented Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen in the Jaffna Peninsula from fishing. With the end of the war, they are now able to cast their nets, only to find that they are now up against formidable competition from Indian trawlers. Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen say they are not opposed to traditional fishermen from Tamil Nadu entering their waters; their problem is with the trawlers.
Resentment over this has been building for a while. It erupted last week when the fishermen seized control of around 18 Indian trawlers that had entered their waters. They handed over the 136 fishermen on board to the Sri Lankan authorities.
The roots of the ongoing diplomatic row between India and Sri Lanka over the treatment of Indian fishermen can be traced back to the conflict generated by introduction of cash-intensive, export-oriented fishing. It caused conflict between traditional fishermen and the new fishing business entrepreneurs in India's coastal districts, even assuming a violent form. The earliest violent clashes in the mid-1970s occurred in the Mandapam-Tuticorin area of Tamil Nadu, when 110 trawlers were burnt and 16 fishermen killed. Mandapam is just a few nautical miles from the Sri Lankan coast. The ongoing row is an extension of that conflict across maritime borders. The Indian government has done little to address the problems of fishermen, often preferring to bow to the powerful trawler lobby.
The plight of fishermen in Tamil Nadu, whether because of overfishing by trawlers or treatment meted out by Sri Lankan Navy, has been largely ignored by the government for years. Now with Tamil Nadu going to the polls in a few months, the issue is in the spotlight.
The All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the main opposition party in Tamil Nadu, has considerable support among the fishermen, according to Sekar. With the AIADMK raising the issue to win votes and embarrass the ruling parties, the government was forced to act. Hence, the recent tough talk with Colombo.
Observers say the Sri Lankan navy has dealt with the Indian fishermen brutally, as violators of maritime boundaries are civilian offenders and killing them is an excessive response. The core of the conflict appears to be issues of livelihood security for traditional fi shermen in India and Sri Lanka, and these concerns will likely need to be addressed to avoid more bloody encounters at sea.
While the Sri Lankan navy denies those allegations, an autopsy report appears has confirmed that the bullets in the dead fishermen's bodies and those recovered from the scene were Sri Lankan navy standard issue.
The killings have triggered angry protests across Tamil Nadu, and a diplomatic row that prompted India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao to visit Colombo in January. At a meeting in Thimphu, in Bhutan in February the countries foreign ministers agreed that no force by security forces on fishermen would be used "under any circumstances". Barely a week later, the 136 fishermen were taken into custody.
Relations between India and Sri Lanka had been warming, hence India's annoyance with what it sees as an excessive response by Colombo to fishermen entering its waters. India feels it has gone out of its way to accommodate Sri Lanka, even ceding the disputed Kachchativu Island in the 1970s to its small neighbor.
The killing and arrest of Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka is not a new trend. During the Sri Lankan civil war (1983-2009), fighters of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would cross the narrow strip of water between the Jaffna peninsula and Tamil Nadu seeking sanctuary. Hundreds of Indian fishermen were caught in the crossfire or killed by the Sri Lankan navy on suspicion of being Tigers or for smuggling goods for them.
While some Indian fishermen did have links to the LTTE, most of those killed by the navy did not.
There are no Sea Tigers roaming the seas any longer. "Yet the killing of Indian fishermen by the Lankan Navy continues," Palanisamy Sekar of the Coastal People's Federation, a network of civil society activists and fisherfolk from the districts of Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari, told Asia Times Online.
"The vengeance with which they would kill Tamil fishermen has increased," he said. This is borne out by statistics.
Over the past year, an average of one fisherman from Tamil Nadu was killed every fortnight. "And in the past six months, the violence has been accelerating - 72 men have been killed," reports Rohini Mohan in Tehelka. Over the years, around 400 fishermen have lost their lives, over 2,000 have been injured and about 90 have gone missing. In Ramanathapuram, Tuticorin, Pudukottai and Nagapattinam - coastal districts of Tamil Nadu bordering the Palk Bay - "every fisherman seemed to have a gruesome story. And more often than not, a scar to prove it," she writes.
But the roots of the conflict precede even the Sri Lankan civil war and the navy's aggression towards Tamils, whether Sri Lankan or Indian.
Back in the 1960s, as part of an Indo-Norwegian project that emphasized use of capital-intensive technology in fishing, the Indian government extended support and subsidies to encourage the use of trawlers.
This shift from traditional fishing to a capital-intensive fishing industry that focused on exports resulted in over-exploitation and speedy depletion of marine resources, Sekar said. Trawlers use heavy-bottomed nets which are dragged through the sea bed, trapping all marine life in their way, including fish eggs. "The catch is many times that possible with traditional boats and fishing gear but the impact on marine life is devastating," he points out.
The destructive impact on marine resources was visible within a few years of the introduction of trawlers in south India. "Up to the mid-1970s, there was an increase in fish landings; then a steady decline in prawn landings and fluctuations in overall fish catches. Artisanal fisherfolk experienced an almost 50% drop in productivity in the period 1969-70 to 1979-80," N P Chekkutty writes in the online Infochange News and Features.
The use of deep trawling nets in fishing was banned in the mid-1980s but many trawlers have continued to use them. The situation has worsened with foreign trawlers entering Indian waters. Overfishing has not only resulted in depletion of fish but also, bottom trawling has destroyed the ecology and affected species regeneration. The problem has assumed crisis proportions over the past decade.
It is the depletion of catch along the Indian coast that drives its fishermen further out into the sea. This often results in them crossing the maritime border line and entering Sri Lankan waters.
"Sri Lanka has enforced the ban on deep trawling more effectively than India, which means that fish are more plentiful in its waters," Sekar says. Since the movement of fishermen is determined by the availability of fish and is rarely determined or deterred by maritime borders, Indian fishermen go deep into Sri Lankan waters, even if it involves the risk of encountering the Sri Lankan navy on the way. Indian trawlers are known to venture near Delft Island, Karainagar, Point Pedro and Pesalai among other places on Sri Lanka's northern coast.
In Sri Lanka's Jaffna Peninsula, fishermen are angry with the entry of Indian trawlers into their waters. The Indian boats are bigger than theirs, with better equipment, and they come in large numbers, leaving little catch for local fishermen. During the civil war, government restrictions on fishing and harassment by the Sri Lankan navy prevented Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen in the Jaffna Peninsula from fishing. With the end of the war, they are now able to cast their nets, only to find that they are now up against formidable competition from Indian trawlers. Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen say they are not opposed to traditional fishermen from Tamil Nadu entering their waters; their problem is with the trawlers.
Resentment over this has been building for a while. It erupted last week when the fishermen seized control of around 18 Indian trawlers that had entered their waters. They handed over the 136 fishermen on board to the Sri Lankan authorities.
The roots of the ongoing diplomatic row between India and Sri Lanka over the treatment of Indian fishermen can be traced back to the conflict generated by introduction of cash-intensive, export-oriented fishing. It caused conflict between traditional fishermen and the new fishing business entrepreneurs in India's coastal districts, even assuming a violent form. The earliest violent clashes in the mid-1970s occurred in the Mandapam-Tuticorin area of Tamil Nadu, when 110 trawlers were burnt and 16 fishermen killed. Mandapam is just a few nautical miles from the Sri Lankan coast. The ongoing row is an extension of that conflict across maritime borders. The Indian government has done little to address the problems of fishermen, often preferring to bow to the powerful trawler lobby.
The plight of fishermen in Tamil Nadu, whether because of overfishing by trawlers or treatment meted out by Sri Lankan Navy, has been largely ignored by the government for years. Now with Tamil Nadu going to the polls in a few months, the issue is in the spotlight.
The All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the main opposition party in Tamil Nadu, has considerable support among the fishermen, according to Sekar. With the AIADMK raising the issue to win votes and embarrass the ruling parties, the government was forced to act. Hence, the recent tough talk with Colombo.
Observers say the Sri Lankan navy has dealt with the Indian fishermen brutally, as violators of maritime boundaries are civilian offenders and killing them is an excessive response. The core of the conflict appears to be issues of livelihood security for traditional fi shermen in India and Sri Lanka, and these concerns will likely need to be addressed to avoid more bloody encounters at sea.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
