​Fishing troubles: On India, Sri Lanka, the Palk Bay fishing issue Politics & News

The arrest of 14 Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy on November 9, 2025 for allegedly crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) and entering Sri Lankan waters could be viewed by some as yet another event statistically. However, the incident forms part of the painful legacy of the Palk Bay dispute, which India and Sri Lanka have still not been able to resolve despite the livelihood of fishing communities on either side being at stake. So far, 128 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, including those apprehended in 2024, and their boats, remain under Sri Lankan custody, as stated in Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s recent letter to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. This is a complex and chronic problem. As far as the fishermen of Tamil Nadu are concerned, they struggle to access traditional fishing waters, even if this means going beyond the IMBL. The duration and cost of each voyage are of not much concern to the fishermen and their employers, who own fishing vessels, as this is a rapid operation. Leaving aside the high possibility of action by Sri Lanka, the swiftness with which each voyage is carried out is what drives fishermen in the name of “tradition”. This involves bottom trawling which damages coral beds, shrimp habitats, and depletes fish stocks. The fishermen of the Northern Province, who have still to overcome the trauma of the civil war, would not have a problem even if the Tamil Nadu fishermen cross the IMBL, but follow traditional fishing methods and use small boats. What hurts them more is the use of trawlers which destroy their marine resources.

The Joint Working Group on Fisheries met in Colombo on October 29, 2024. In March this year, fishermen leaders from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu visited Sri Lanka to hold discussion with their counterparts but there was no official sanction for the initiative of the two fishing communities. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-led National People’s Power regime, which has been in office for about a year, has not yet shown any urgency in resolving the dispute, except taking a strident position. Experts have suggested a number of measures to resolve the issue. Apart from learning from the experience of the EU Baltic countries and equitable quotas to conserve the living resources, India and Sri Lanka can set up a research station in the Palk Bay region for experiments to increase living resources and safeguard the marine environment. To boost the confidence of the fishermen of the Northern Province, New Delhi should go the extra mile by launching a liberal assistance scheme to prepare them to move out of bottom trawling and take to deep sea fishing, apart from imposing a ban on the pernicious practice eventually.