Delhi & Colombo in sync; but Chennai view differs

The Prime Minister could not have asked for more from his visit to Colombo. Modi’s Colombo outreach after the Sri Lankan president had visited Beijing may have helped Sri Lanka keep its pragmatic balance between the two powers. Even so, the view from New Delhi that has positively restored the Sri Lankan relationship after being a true friend in need and Chennai where certain forces not only dream of an end to the Tamil fishermen crisis of arrests and ill treatment at the hands of the Sri Lankan Navy but also believe it is possible to ask for retransfer of the Katchatheevu islet that Mrs Indira Gandhi gifted away in the 1970s. What tends to spoil the view from Chennai is that there is no end in sight to the fishermen’s issue — to which ownership of the largely uninhabited Katchatheevu territory is inextricably woven — because the Indian fishermen refuse to give up poaching or bottom fishing in Sri Lankan waters and too often get caught to be hauled up before northern Sri Lankan courts. Getting them back is owed to Delhi’s diplomacy, even so, the festering problem lends a distinct south-north perspective on the issue of Sri Lanka as viewed from Chennai and New Delhi.