Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake during a joint press meet after delegation level talks, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Credit: PM India via PTI Photo
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka on April 5, the first by a foreign head of government since the JVP led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the election last year, is a landmark event, including in South Asian diplomacy. The symbolic and substantive notes struck by the leaders during their talks were upbeat. This was in sharp contrast to the atmosphere at the BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok, where Modi met leaders of Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan, before landing in Colombo. India’s relations with at least three of these countries are at a difficult juncture and conversations though correct are strained. Whereas the reception Modi received in Sri Lanka was marked by a warmth that had eluded the relationships with the Rajapaksa brothers as well as Ranil Wickremesinghe during their times in office. The leader of the once-revolutionary JVP has shown himself to be adept at parliamentary politics as well as winsome diplomacy. Soon after he took office, Dissanayake made it a point to visit India in December before heading to Beijing in January.
Modi must have been won over by the red carpet and Sri Lanka’s highest civilian award. Such honours attest to the importance Colombo places on ties with New Delhi even as Dissanayake is striving to balance the competing interests of China and India in Sri Lanka’s development. India has been concerned about China’s rising influence in the island republic. China is Sri Lanka’s biggest creditor and was the first to restructure loans during the 2022 financial crisis. India was also quick to recast its debt agreement and extend immediate assistance as well as loans to help Sri Lanka recover from its unprecedented economic meltdown. Although the Dragon was the elephant in the room, there were no references to that challenge. Dissanayake’s assurance that Colombo will not let its land be used against India was more than sufficient to address India’s concerns. Modi matched this by reiterating India’s commitment to stand with the people of Sri Lanka as the two “have shared security interests” that are “interconnected and co-dependent”.
While Modi referred to the rights of Tamils, there were no prescriptive or big-brotherly suggestions. All of these cleared the decks for the agreements. The five-year defence cooperation agreement, for the training of Sri Lankan military personnel in India as well as information and technology sharing, is perhaps the most significant of the slew of MOUs signed. The India-UAE pact to build an energy hub in Sri Lanka’s strategically important Trincomalee is a ground-breaking tri-nation stride. The agreements signed on power grid connectivity, digitisation, security and healthcare underscore a new resolve to strengthen bilateral relations that explicitly respect the sensitivities of each other.