Foreign minister S. Jaishankar on Monday accused the Nehru-Gandhis and the DMK of giving away the Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka, seeking to amplify Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s southern outreach this election season.
He alleged that Congress Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi had a “dismissive attitude” to the island -- subject of the 1974 India-Sri Lanka Maritime Boundary Agreement --- and saw it as a “nuisance” and a “little rock”.
The diplomat turned politician had been fielded for his first-ever media address at the BJP headquarters a day after Modi raised the Katchatheevu issue and appeared for an interview with a Tamil news channel wearing the traditional Tamil veshti.
Claiming to cite government and parliamentary records, Jaishankar accused Nehru and Indira of indifference to India’s territorial entitlements. He said Indira had given away Indian fishermen’s rights over the island despite contrary opinion from the government’s own legal officers.
“So, to Pandit Nehru, this was a little island, he saw it as a nuisance. For him, the sooner you give it away, the better,” Jaishankar said, claiming his interpretation was based on remarks made in Parliament by Nehru in 1961.
Jaishankar claimed that this view of the island continued during Indira’s time too and that she had called the island a “little rock”.
“This dismissive attitude was the historic(al) Congress attitude towards Katchatheevu,” he said.
He went on to accuse the then Tamil Nadu chief minister, DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, of hiding the agreement with Sri Lanka from the people. “We know who did this, how the situation arose. What we do not know is who hid this, what has been concealed from the public,” Jaishankar said.
He said that records suggest the Indira government had taken Karunanidhi into confidence over the agreement with Sri Lanka. “The Congress and the DMK have approached the issue as though they have no responsibility. We believe that the public has a right to know how this situation came about,” Jaishankar said.
He added that as a consequence of the agreement, Sri Lanka had detained 6,184 Indian fishermen in the last 20 years and seized 1,175 Indian fishing vessels.
Modi and his party, who have launched an all-out effort to woo the southern states’ voters, have raised Katchatheevu just weeks before Tamil Nadu votes on April 19.
Coinciding with Jaishankar’s media address, Modi too targeted the southern state’s ruling party. “Rhetoric aside, DMK has done NOTHING to safeguard Tamil Nadu’s interests. New details emerging on #Katchatheevu have UNMASKED the DMK’s double standards totally,” he posted on X.
He wrote: “Congress and DMK are family units. They only care that their own sons and daughters rise. Their callousness on Katchatheevu has harmed the interests of our poor fishermen and fisherwomen in particular.”
In an interview with the Tamil news channel Thanthi TV on Sunday, Modi had committed to promoting the Tamil language and culture while slamming the DMK-Congress alliance in the state.
“It is my love and craze for Tamil Nadu and its culture that takes me repeatedly to the state,” Modi had said.
To a question, he denied that he had launched his Tamil Nadu outreach for electoral gain.
He claimed to have taken multiple measures to promote the Tamil language and culture in the last 10 years, from installing the sengol (a Chola-style royal sceptre) in the new Parliament to holding the Kashi Tamil Sangamam. He asserted there was a mood in favour of the BJP-NDA in the state this time.
He sought to downplay the breakup of the alliance with the AIADMK, which has posed a challenge for the BJP in its quest for a toehold in the state.
“The BJP has no reason to regret that the AIADMK is not a part of the NDA. They (AIADMK) should regret it, not the BJP, as they’ve betrayed (former chief minister) Jayalalithaa’s dreams,” Modi told the channel in reply to a question.
“Tamil Nadu has decided that this time it will be the BJP-NDA…. The BJP-NDA is a robust alliance that connects with all the sections.”
