A general view of the Colombo main port is seen beyond the main wholesale market. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting with Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Photo: PMO via PTI Photo

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent visit to Katchatheevu, said to be the first by a head of state, drew attention on both sides of the Palk Strait.

Attired in smart casuals — his trademark double-pocket shirt — the 56-year-old leftist leader, elected to office a year ago, is seen on a naval boat, flanked by Fisheries Minister and Jaffna MP Ramalingam Chandrasekar and other officials. He smiles gently before setting foot on the tiny, uninhabited island, 33 nautical miles off the Jaffna peninsula, on September 1. Seated in the shade of palm trees, Mr. Dissanayakelistens intently while a Naval officer describes the 1.15 sq. km outcrop, pointing to a map.

Also read | Katchatheevu demands thinking outside the box

Walking around briskly with officials in tow, Mr. Dissanayake pays respects at the St. Anthony’s Catholic Shrine, the only permanent structure there, before returning to Jaffna, where at a public meeting earlier that day he pledged to safeguard Sri Lankan territory, resisting any “external force”. The symbolism of the visit, with the accompanying visuals and messaging played well in Sri Lanka, comes days after Tamil actor-politician Vijay’s demand in a political rally that India must retrieve Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka. The government subsequently announced it is also exploring the tourism potential of Katchatheevu, by making it more accessible from nearby Delft island, one of Jaffna’s off-track tourist destinations.

The competing claims made from India [Madras Presidency, specifically] and Ceylon to Katchatheevu date back to the 1920s, during British colonial times. The neighbours settled the matter some five decades later, through two bilateral agreements signed in 1974 and 1976, delineating an International Maritime Boundary Line, whereby Katchatheevu is firmly on the Sri Lankan side. In return, New Delhi got sovereign rights over Wadge Bank, located near Kanniyakumari, known for its rich resources.

Katchatheevu is a barren island, with no drinking water or sanitation. Every March, Sri Lanka waives visa controls to allow fishermen from India to worship along with their Sri Lankan counterparts at the St. Anthony’s festival. Around the annual two-day event, mobile toilets and drinking water booths are put up for pilgrims.

Political calculation

Bizarrely, though, half a century since India gave up its claim to Katchatheevu and recognised Sri Lanka’s sovereignty over it, politicians in India periodically rake up the issue. The political calculation driving the frequent call is the assumption that it could boost voter support if pitched as a solution to the enduring fisheries conflict affecting Tamil Nadu’s fishermen, a sizeable electoral constituency.

The fact that the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) were in power, respectively at the Centre and in Tamil Nadu, in the 1970s has offered political ammunition to their rivals, especially on the eve of State polls next year. Ahead of general elections last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress of “callously giving away” the island to Sri Lanka. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar swiftly amplified this by blaming the two BJP rivals for compromising Indian fishermen’s rights in the Palk Strait.

Both Dravidian parties [DMK and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, or AIADMK], have demanded its retrieval. In 2008, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa, as General Secretary of the AIADMK, petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the 1974 and 1976 agreements were unconstitutional. Ahead of Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka in April 2025, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution, urging the Union government to take steps to retrieve the Katchatheevu island. Subsequently, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said the island’s retrieval was “the only permanent solution” to the issues faced by the fishermen in the State.

Everyone calling for the island’s retrieval in India must know well that it is a far-fetched ask from a mostly friendly neighbour. In 2013, the Union government informed the Supreme Court that the question of gaining Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka did not arise, as “no territory belonging to India was ceded nor sovereignty relinquished since the area in question was in dispute and had never been demarcated”. In 2014, then Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi submitted before the Supreme Court that if India had to retrieve an island belonging to Sri Lanka, “we have to go to war”. The factors that keep the issue alive, despite diplomatic and legal resolution, are chiefly political, and in fact to do with the political economy of a depleting catch in a narrow stretch of water.

Fishermen of south India and northern Sri Lanka rely heavily on the resource-rich Palk Strait. However, with Tamil Nadu fishermen relentlessly resorting to bottom-trawling, a destructive fishing method that scoops out the seabed to maximise the catch and profits, this has severely affected the marine ecosystem. With the catch on the Indian side of the International Maritime Boundary Line diminishing over time, the Tamil Nadu fishing boats ventured into the Sri Lankan side, targeting a heavier net. Daily wage fishermen, working for wealthy boat owners in Tamil Nadu, periodically court arrest by the Sri Lankan Navy — over 230 arrests so far this year— a risk they take to secure their day’s earnings.

Bottom-trawling

Tamil fishermen in northern Sri Lanka, still reeling from the impact of the civil war that ended 16 years ago, contend they have no real chance of rebuilding their destroyed livelihoods, unless their counterparts across the Palk Strait give up bottom-trawling — a practice banned in Sri Lanka.

In bilateral talks with fisher leaders through the years, or petitions to politicians in India and Sri Lanka, all they have been asking their fellow, Tamil-speaking brothers is that they stop the practice. In ministerial level talks between India and Sri Lanka in 2016, New Delhi acknowledged this and agreed to expedite the transition towards ending the practice of bottom trawling “at the earliest”. But the practice continues.

Decades ago, fishermen from both sides used Katchatheevu as a resting point and a spot to dry out their nets. But in recent history, most arrests of Indian fishermen are made well past Katchatheevu, very close to Sri Lanka’s northern shores. Policymakers on the Indian side know where the problem lies. And politicians know that Katchatheevu offers no real solution to it. But unwilling to confront a key electorate with a difficult question, they habitually invoke it to divert attention from their own failure to resolve the festering fisheries conflict.

Published – September 07, 2025 01:41 am IST

K.T.M. Udayanga Hemapala, Secretary to the Ministry of Energy, Sri Lanka.
| Photo Credit: Meera Srinivasan

Colombo is not seeking to renegotiate the contentious renewable energy project with Adani Green, a top Sri Lankan official said, a week after the company abruptly pulled out of a wind farm initiative in the island’s Northern Province.

Adani Green — which had pledged an investment of $ 442 million in wind power plants in Mannar and Pooneryn — informed Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment [BOI] in a letter dated February 12,2025, that it would “respectfully withdraw” from the project, even as the government sought a lower tariff for power purchase. In a media statement on the decision, a spokesperson of the Adani Group said: “We remain committed to Sri Lanka and are open to future collaboration if the Government of Sri Lanka so desires.”

Also read: Cannot justify Adani’s ‘excessive tariff’, Sri Lanka’s President Dissanayake tells Parliament

However, indicating that the outreach on such a future investment must come from the company’s side, and not Sri Lanka’s, K.T.M. Udayanga Hemapala, Secretary to the Ministry of Energy, told The Hindu on Thursday: “The company has decided to withdraw from the project, it is their call. We are now in the process of addressing the legal requirements after they decided to close the project. But if the company wishes to return, and commits an investment through the BOI, we are open to talking to them based on our position that the tariff must be lower,” he said. While the government is keen to bring in foreign investments to Sri Lanka, it would not lobby any specific investor, he added. “We welcome all investors through proper channels, they must follow due process. We will ensure that the investments are beneficial to our people.”

Citing ongoing cases at Sri Lankan courts challenging the Adani power project, Secretary Hemapala said the petitions were based on three main concerns: whether the project was to be considered “Government-to-Government”, the validity of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) undertaken, and the power-purchasing tariff.

Adani Green’s recent decision to withdraw from the project came weeks after President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s Cabinet revoked a 2024 power purchasing agreement — signed by the predecessor President Ranil Wickremesinghe administration — according to which Sri Lanka was to purchase power at $0.0826, or 8.26 cents, per kWh from Adani Green Energy. The Cabinet decision was in line with President Dissanayake’s view that Adani Green’s tariff for the project was high , and went against his government’s stated aim of bringing down the electricity tariff by 30 % in the next five years.  Further, the Cabinet had appointed a committee to reevaluate the project. In response, a spokesman of the Adani Group told the media on January 24, 2024, that the Sri Lankan government’s decision to reevaluate the tariff was part of a “standard review process”, and categorically denied the project was cancelled as had been reported by some media. But, in just over a fortnight, Adani Green withdrew its investment.

Sampur solar plant

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has cleared a proposal to set up solar power plants in Sampur, in the eastern Trincomalee district, in a joint venture of the governments of Sri Lanka and India, through the Ceylon Electricity Board and National Thermal Power Corporation of India.  The plants, of 50 MW and 70 MW capacity, would come up in two stages, according to a statement issued by the Department of Government Information on Thursday. The decision appears to revisit an old project envisaged during the time of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration. In March 2022, the NTPC signed an agreement with CEB to jointly set up a 100 MW solar power plant in Sampur, a decade after a joint coal power project deal at the same location was signed and subsequently scrapped.

Many in Sri Lanka closely tracked their President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent visit to India. The ceremonial red carpet welcome he received from Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his various engagements, and, importantly, the joint statement issued by the two governments, drew much notice in the local media.

It was Mr. Dissanayake’s first state visit abroad, after he won the presidency in September this year, and the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) won a spectacular two-thirds majority in the general election in November. India was hosting not just one of Sri Lanka’s most powerful Presidents but also a leftist leader from a party (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna – JVP or the People’s Liberation Front) that once furiously opposed India and its perceived “interventionist” role in Sri Lanka.

Much has indeed changed in India, Sri Lanka, and in India-Sri Lanka relations. The JVP is not the same today, as the story of its rise to state power reveals. Neither is Sri Lanka, whose political landscape stands radically altered in ways few imagined possible two years ago. Analysts are yet to fully decipher the astounding victory of the JVP-led NPP, especially in the island nation’s north, east, and the hill country that are home to the country’s Tamil, Muslim and Malaiyaha Tamil minorities. India’s priorities, too, have seen a marked shift, as New Delhi remains preoccupied with countering Chinese influence in the neighbourhood.

Changing Indian interests

While everything else changes, Sri Lanka’s long-pending national question remains, with all past governments in Colombo failing to deliver a definitive political settlement. India’s past involvement as an arbiter of Tamil rights, for many in Sri Lanka, set high expectations for its influence in more recent decades, including the post-war years since 2009. In an interview to this daily in 2022, late Tamil leader R. Sampanthan said “India has a special duty” in ensuring that the spirit of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, and the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution born out of it, are fully implemented. Except, Indian interests today are evidently different.

The joint statement issued by New Delhi and Colombo on December 16, 2024, offers a reality check. The 34-point document, titled ‘Fostering partnerships for a shared future’, and spanning political, economic, and strategic cooperation, makes no reference to the pending political solution, or post-war reconciliation, or Tamil aspirations. The only power sharing that finds mention is in a proposal for a high-capacity grid interconnection between India and Sri Lanka.

However, in his remarks at the joint press conference, Mr. Modi said, “We hope that the Sri Lankan government shall fulfil the aspirations of the Tamil people. And that they shall fulfil their commitment towards fully implementing the Constitution of Sri Lanka and conducting the Provincial Council Elections.” He did not reference the 13th Amendment.

Mr. Dissanayake framed the issue differently. He said, “People from all the Provinces — North, South, East, and West — representing diverse communities and various walks of life contributed to this mandate. As a leader entrusted with such an important responsibility by my people, I clearly understand that the essence of democracy lies in the coexistence of diverse political views and groups.”

The NPP’s poll manifesto includes an assurance to hold elections to the provincial councils, now defunct for over five years, and enact a new Constitution based on wide public consultations. President Dissanayake, too, has made the pledge more than once. But his government is yet to spell out its own vision for a durable political solution.

The NPP has consistently avoided the language of the “13th Amendment” that till date carries the baggage of “Indian imposition” for the country’s Sinhala-Buddhist majority, and likely triggers discomfort for the JVP party base. In a recent column, ‘NPP in Power: Possibilities for Post-War Reconciliation through Civic Nationalism’, Sri Lankan political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda observed that the NPP shuns both the “devolution discourse” introduced by India, and the “liberal peace discourse” of conflict resolution, reconciliation, and peacebuilding, promoted by agencies of the United Nations, global and local rights groups. He wrote, “The NPP does not seem to want its agenda for inter-ethnic peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka to be seen as a continuation of what it sees as ‘failed’ past attempts.”

Contentious amendment

The controversial 13th Amendment continues to evoke mixed, and often strong, reactions among Sri Lankans. Even the Tamils are divided over whether it is a necessary but insufficient measure of power devolution, or a problematic legislation that tamed historic demands for federalism. The last time that the 13th Amendment went out of focus was when the Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe administration (2015-19) attempted drafting a new constitution. The effort failed, but Mr. Dissanayake has said his government would build on the draft.

It is true that two main formulations of the past have not proved successful for the Tamil people. It is also not hard to see why the JVP may be wary of using either discourse. But the Tamils who contributed significantly to the NPP’s big win are justified in seeking greater clarity on what the government has in mind for them. Fifteen years after the end of the civil war, they are still doggedly chasing the truth about their forcibly disappeared loved ones. They are still fighting to reclaim their land held by the military. They are still struggling to rebuild their livelihoods shattered in those years of bloodshed and mass destruction. They still do not have a say in how their provinces, setback by a devastating war, should be reconstructed.

The government’s promise of national integration or a unified “Sri Lankan identity” can be evaluated only based on its specific policies to address war-time accountability, political agency, and meaningful development in the north and east. A new political order may now be at the country’s helm, but old questions will not go away.

The recent elections have given Mr. Dissanayake and the NPP rare national momentum and unprecedented legislative influence. The government now has a real chance to reimagine the political solution through people’s post-war realities.

State of the Tamil polity

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Tamil polity, too, faces a big challenge. After the electorate delivered a clear message to the regional Tamil parties in the recent polls — the NPP beat them in all but one district in the north and east — the Tamil polity is struggling to regain its voice.

After habitually looking to the international community to push for Tamil rights, the Tamil political leadership is now forced to confront its own failure. Those counting on India would do well to understand that the Tamil question is no more an issue that serves a domestic political compulsion or provides diplomatic leverage to New Delhi. It is time they recognised India’s waning interest and influence on the Tamil question. Besides, they must ask if India has any moral standing to ask another country to treat minorities better.

The Tamil polity’s core strategy of engaging western powers dominating UN bodies, India, and the Tamil diaspora has clearly not yielded substantive progress on the ground. To remain relevant and rebuild credibility, the Tamil polity appears to have little choice but to reorient itself to the people it seeks to represent. The Tamil people in Sri Lanka have reminded their leaders, who were busy talking to actors elsewhere for years, to listen to them now.

meera.srinivasan@thehindu.co.in

High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka Santosh Jha meets Eastern Province Governor Senthil Thondaman during his visit to Eastern Province, on May 5.
| Photo Credit: ANI

The Eastern Province holds special significance in connectivity initiatives between India and Sri Lanka, Indian envoy Santosh Jha has said, as he visited the three districts in the province to take stock of several India-assisted projects.

During the visit last week, Mr. Jha, India’s High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, highlighted the multi-sectoral grant assistance package consisting of 33 different projects throughout the province in diverse areas as well as ongoing discussions between the two governments to collaborate for the comprehensive development of Trincomalee, an official statement said.

He took stock of several projects being implemented by the Government of India for the people of the province and visited various sites of historical, cultural and commercial significance.

He also highlighted the various connectivity and energy projects being pursued between India and Sri Lanka, which will bring significant benefits to the Eastern Province.

The Eastern Province occupies a pre-eminent position in connectivity initiatives between India and Sri Lanka and the High Commissioner underlined that India stands ready to work arduously with the concerned authorities in Sri Lanka on this front, the statement said.

Jha reviewed the progress in the construction of the Surgical Unit in Teaching Hospital Batticaloa, being built through grant assistance from India. This facility is expected to be completed soon. He also visited the Model Village Housing Projects in Batticaloa and Trincomalee, which are part of a comprehensive project, under which a total of 600 houses are being built across the 25 districts of Sri Lanka by India for vulnerable and homeless families.

Separately, he met and encouraged concerned stakeholders to actively work towards the expeditious completion of the 5,000 MT temperature-controlled warehouse in Dambulla. The first-of-its-kind facility in the country will help the farmers in the region to reduce their post-harvest losses considerably. During the site visit to the proposed solar facility in Sampur, he expressed confidence that work would commence at the earliest.

The High Commissioner visited several facilities of Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) in Trincomalee. He recalled the unparalleled role the company played in limiting the adverse effects of the energy crisis in 2022 during these engagements.