Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar has publicly called on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay to act against Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan waters, framing the appeal around the Chief Minister’s own film career.
Chandrasekar said he conveyed the message through a media delegation from Tamil Nadu that met him, telling Daily Mirror that Vijay should “walk the talk” as a former actor who fought for justice on screen.
“Sri Lanka’s fishermen in the north suffered a lot during the 30-year war. Now they are trying to rebuild their lives. In such a context, Tamil Nadu fishermen poach in our waters, denying a livelihood to our fishermen. It is virtually similar to slitting their throats when they struggle for their livelihood. I asked the Chief Minister, as an actor who played his cinematic role for social justice, to be fair in his role now.”
The Minister argued that Tamil Nadu boats could not fish this way in other Indian states, naming Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, and asked what would happen if they attempted it in Pakistani waters.
The process he outlined
Asked for a practical solution, Chandrasekar said an official-level delegation would travel to India, with ministerial-level discussions to follow. He gave no date for either.
That is the conventional sequence for the dispute, and it is a notably more procedural answer than the rhetoric that preceded it — the appeal to Vijay is being made in public, through the Tamil Nadu press, while the negotiating track stays at official level.
Why the appeal is aimed at Vijay
Vijay’s move from cinema to the Tamil Nadu chief ministership has already put him in the middle of the fisheries file. He wrote to Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar over six fishermen from Mandapam detained by the Sri Lankan Navy, and raised fishermen’s arrests at his first meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
Chandrasekar’s message inverts that advocacy: where the Chief Minister has pressed Delhi over Tamil Nadu fishermen held in Sri Lanka, the Minister is asking him to act on why they are being detained in the first place.
Context and caveats
Bottom trawling by Tamil Nadu vessels in the Palk Bay is banned under Sri Lankan law and is the core of the dispute, because the gear scrapes the seabed and damages the grounds northern fishermen depend on. Sri Lankan Navy arrests of Indian fishermen have been a recurring feature of the year.
The report is a Daily Mirror exclusive — the Minister spoke to the paper directly, and no other verified newsroom carried the remarks. There is no response from Vijay, the Tamil Nadu government or the Indian High Commission, and the Minister did not identify the media delegation or say when it met him. Nor did he give any figure for poaching incidents or arrests this year.
