- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
WITH Sri Lanka struggling to survive another day because of an intense financial crisis, maritime neighbour India has beefed up surveillance along its waters by deploying more patrol boats and jets, India Today reported.
Officials in New Delhi have told India Today that the surveillance has been intensified to prevent possible movement of illegal immigrants or anti-India elements from the island-nation into India.
India’s surveillance was increased soon after its government received new inputs about the ongoing crisis in Lanka where the barrier of the common man’s patience broke on Saturday (9) and they stormed the official residence of both the country’s president and prime minister and even putting the latter’s house on fire.
But apart from the immigration issue, there is another area where interests of India and Sri Lanka could clash amid the crisis in the island.
According to a report by Nikkei Asia, extreme shortage of fuel has hit Sri Lanka’s fishing industry with the fishermen unable to venture out for their sea catches. And while the situation has left them worried over running their households, the Sri Lankan fishermen are also in a spot thinking that their absence in the waters would give their rivals from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to exploit the resources. Conflicts over water boundary is a common issue in Indo-Lankan relations and the fishermen’s latest fears became acute when the Sri Lankan Navy on Sunday (10) arrested 12 Indians and seized their boats for allegedly fishing illegally in Lankan waters.
Sri Lanka’s fisheries industry contributes around 2.7 per cent to its gross domestic product and employs more than 575,000 people. In four northern districts of Mullaitivu, Jaffna, Mannar and Kilinochchi, there are 50,000 fishing families with around 15,000 operating boats, Nikkei Asia said. Each boat requires at least 20 litres of kerosene for a day-long venture in the sea. But the current situation saw the cost of one litre of kerosene soaring from 88 Sri Lankan rupees to 400-500 Sri Lankan rupees on the black market.
Many of the Sri Lankan fishermen suspect of manuevering in this situation to regain rights to Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island that New Delhi had ceded to Colombo in 1974 under an agreement, the Nikkei Asia report said. The waters around that island are rich in seafood resources.
MK Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, had urged Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in May to reclaim the island so that Indian fishermen could fish without any hindrance, media reports said. While Modi has not said anything on that, many Sri Lankans believe that India could apply pressure to meet that end, in lieu of providing Sri Lanka with economic assistance.
While India has cited its massive economic and financial aid to Sri Lanka (worth around $3.5 billion or £2.9 billion) and promised that more would follow, Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremasinghe appreciated New Delhi’s support but there are also several voices that think that New Delhi is planning to take advantage of the crisis to make strategic claims like reclaiming Katchatheevu.
