By Jehan Perera –

Jehan Perera

The government did everything in its power to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the three days in April 4-6 he was in Sri Lanka. The country is known for its hospitality and the government exceeded expectations in its hospitality. There were children to greet the prime minister at the airport along with six cabinet ministers. There was a large banner that described the prime minister in glowing terms. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake also conferred the Sri Lanka Mitra Vibhushana Award, the country’s highest award, to Prime Minister Modi in appreciation of friendship and cooperation. The role that the Indian government under him played in saving Sri Lanka from economic disaster three years ago would merit him nothing less. The gesture was not merely humanitarian; it was also an astute expression of regional leadership rooted in a philosophy of “neighbourhood first,” a cornerstone of Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy.

India has a key role to play as a stabilising actor in South Asia, especially when regional neighbours falter under economic or political pressure. It has yet to reach its full potential in this regard as seen in its relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh. But with regard to Sri Lanka, India has truly excelled. Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka at this time carried symbolic weight beyond the economic and political. President Dissanayake, in his welcome speech, noted that Prime Minister Modi was the first foreign leader to visit after the new government came to power. By being the first to visit he conferred international importance to the newly elected Sri Lankan leaders. This early gesture conveyed India’s tacit endorsement of President Dissanayake’s government, an endorsement that can be especially valuable for a leader without a traditional elite background. The president also remarked on their shared political origins as both originally came into politics as outsiders to the traditional ruling establishments, creating a bridge between them that hinted at a broader ideological compatibility.

President Dissanayake showed his human touch when he first showed the Mitra Vibushana medal to Prime Minister Modi in its box, then took it out and placed it around the neck of the Indian leader. When the two leaders clasped their hands together and raised them, they sent a message of camaraderie and solidarity, an elder statesman with a long track record with a younger one who has just started on his journey of national leadership. Interestingly, April 5 the date on which the award was conferred was also the 54th anniversary of the commencement of the JVP Insurrection of 1971 (and again in 1987), in which anti-India ideology was a main feature. In making this award, President Dissanayake made the point that he was a truly Sri Lankan leader who had transcended his political roots and going beyond the national to the international.

Finding Trust 

Six of the seven agreements signed during the visit focused on economic cooperation. These ranged from renewable energy initiatives and digital governance platforms to infrastructure investments in the plantation sector. Particularly noteworthy were agreements on the construction of homes for the descendants of Indian-origin Tamils and the installation of solar units at 5000 religious sites. Both these projects blend development assistance with a careful sensitivity to identity politics. These initiatives align with India’s strategic use of development diplomacy. Unlike China’s approach to aid and infrastructure which has been frequently critiqued for creating debt dependencies India’s model emphasises partnership, cultural affinity, and long-term capacity building.

The seventh agreement has to do with defence and national security issues which has been a longstanding area of concern for both countries. None of the agreements, including the seventh, have been discussed outside of the government-to-government level, though texts of the other six agreements were released during Prime Minister Modi’s visit. Several of the issues concerning economic agreements have been in the public domain eliciting concerns such as the possibility of personal information on Sri Lankan citizens being accessible to India through the digitization project. However, little is known of the defense agreement. To the extent it meets the needs of the two countries it will serve to build trust between them which is the foundation on which dialogue for mutually beneficial change can take place.

In the past there has been a trust deficit between the two countries. Sri Lankans would be mindful of the perilous security situation the country faced during the time of the war with the LTTE and other Tamil militant organisations, when parts of the country were taken over and governed by the LTTE and the country’s territorial integrity was at stake. This was also a time when Indian military aircraft were deployed in Sri Lankan airspace without the Sri Lankan government’s consent in June 1987, which the Indian government justified as a humanitarian measure, and there were concerns about possible Indian military intervention on a larger scale. This was followed by the signing of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord the next month in July 1987 which led to the induction of the Indian army as a peacekeeping force into Sri Lanka with government consent.

Unrestricted Friends 

The history of Indian intervention in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict has given an impetus to Sri Lanka to look to other big powers to act as a counterbalance to India. In more recent years India has expressed its concern at naval vessels from China coming into Sri Lankan waters on the grounds of doing research which could be used against India. Sri Lanka’s engagement with China has strained ties with India, particularly when Chinese infrastructure investments, such as the Hambantota Port, appears to have the potential to serve dual civilian-military purposes. Given China’s growing global reach and its ambition to project influence through the Belt and Road Initiative, Sri Lanka’s geography makes it a critical hub in the Indian Ocean. Hopefully, with the signing of the defence agreement between India and Sri Lanka, these fears and suspicions of the past will be alleviated and soon come to an end.

The position that the government headed by President Dissanayake has taken is to be friends with all. The principle of “friendship with all, enmity with none” is not new, but the stakes are higher today, as global competition between major powers intensifies. India, by virtue of geography and history, will always be Sri Lanka’s first and most important partner. It was India, and not China, not the West, that provided an emergency economic lifeline when Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves evaporated in 2022. That support, amounting to over $4 billion in credit lines and direct aid, was delivered quickly and with minimal conditionality. It also demonstrated how regional proximity can enable faster, more context-aware responses than those offered by multilateral institutions and more distant big powers.

The world has become a harsher and more openly self-interested one for countries, even ones that were thought to have indissoluble bonds. Sri Lanka’s biggest export markets are in the United States and European Union and it has received large amounts of economic assistance from Japan and China, though unfortunately some of the loans from China were used inappropriately by former Sri Lankan governments to create white elephant infrastructure projects. Burdened now with enormous debt repayments that bankrupted it in 2022, Sri Lanka continues to need economic resources and markets from around the world. President Dissanayake’s government will understand that closeness to India need not mean an exclusive relationship with it alone. In a multipolar world, friendship (and doing business) with all is both a virtue and a necessity. But among friends, there must always be a first —and for reasons of history, culture, religion, geography and strategic logic, that will be India.