KATCHATHEEVU: The two-day festival of Katchatheevu St Anthony’s Church, in which as many as 2000 pilgrims from India and 4000 pilgrims from Sri Lanka participated, concluded here on Saturday. In a first, a mass was conducted in the Sinhala language, apart from Tamil.While the Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils reached this small distant island of 1.15 square kilometres with no human habitation on the first day of the festival, most of Sinhalese came to attend the second day of the festival. Thirusiluvai Aarathanai, Thirusiluvai Pathai, Thiruppali and car-festival were organised by the Roman Catholic Dioceses of both the countries. Indian fishermen had brought the flagpole to the church.
Since Britjo, an Indian fisherman, was killed by the Sri Lankan Navy last year, no pilgrim from India had participated in the festival. While there was an expectation that about 6000 pilgrims from Tamil Nadu would participate in the festival this year, only about 2000 eventually did. Permission for only 62 mechanized boats, denial of permission for country boats to transport pilgrims, and introduction of strict rules for the pilgrimage are being perceived as a barrier for pilgrims from India.
Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils appeared concerned with the mass being conducted in Sinhala since they believe it might lead to doing away with the mass in Tamil in the future. “The Sri Lankan government is gradually intervening in our traditional rights. While the church belongs to the Tamils who have been conducting mass in Tamil for years, the Sri Lankan government is unnecessarily introducing a mass in Sinhalese. We fear that the mass in Tamil may be removed in the future. Our past experiences after the killing of Prabhakaran, the leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, is making us think like this,” said K Stella of Neduntheevu.
Indian High Commission Consulate Natarajan, Bishop of Jaffna Gnanapragasam, Bishop of Galle Raymond Wickramasinghe, and the parish priest of Neduntheevu Emil Paul, were present at the event.
Bottom trawling kills aquatic resources, says Navy officerAfter attending a mass at the St Antony’s Church here on Saturday, Jayantha De Silva, Commander, Northern Naval Area, told media persons that the Indian fishermen’s use of bottom-trawlers, which kills rare sea animals and other aquatic resources, was the biggest concern for Sri Lankan government.
However, the pilgrims said they could see some of the Sri Lankan fishermen using bottom-trawlers around Katchatheevu. When Express asked De Silva about this, he replied that he was not the concerned authority to answer this query. He also refused to comment on the bill to be enacted in the island country to increase the penalty for foreign fishing vessels entering Sri Lankan waters.De Silva said the Sri Lankan Navy was not crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line to attack Indian fishermen and that the attacks were not intentional. He further said that the Sri Lankan Navy had been making all the arrangements for pilgrims at Katchatheevu for the past three months.
‘Lankan intrusion’
Both Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils fear the mass in Sinhala could eventually result in scrapping of the mass in Tamil altogether. The also see this as a form of intrusion by the Sri Lankan government. “The Sri Lankan government is gradually intervening in our traditional rights. The church belongs to the Tamils who have been conducting mass in Tamil for years,” said a devotee