Lanka’s Rajapaksas must walk the talk

Ever since Gotabaya Rajapaksa swept to power in November 2019, the Sri Lankan government has repeatedly said that it would follow an ‘India First’ approach and ensure that India’s strategic interests are safeguarded. Yet, despite its declarations about being mindful of India’s security interests and its desire to follow a “non-aligned” foreign policy, Colombo has done precious little to actually assuage New Delhi’s concerns about its tightening clinch with China.

Anxiety about its strategically-located southern neighbour’s continuing embrace of China was clearly weighing heavily on New Delhi’s mind when Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla made a four-day visit to Sri Lanka in early October. Days later, Army Chief General M M Naravane travelled to the island-nation, security matters again topping the agenda.

With a “reset” in ties underway, India also recently hosted a huge Sri Lankan delegation, led by its youth and sports minister Namal Rajapaksa, the son of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who came for the inauguration of the Kushinagar airport.

Several ministers and a hundred Buddhist monks were part of the delegation as India redoubles its efforts to use its ‘soft power’ to counter China's growing influence in Sri Lanka and other countries where Buddhism holds sway. Indeed, Sri Lanka’s China tilt under the ruling Rajapaksa clan has been a cause of concern for New Delhi.

Shringla’s visit to Sri Lanka earlier this month had set the ball rolling for relations to get back on track after the frostiness that had set in following the abrupt cancellation of the tripartite East Container Terminal (ECT) deal by Colombo in February.

Notably, the visit saw Shringla urging Colombo to get going on India-funded projects, progress on which has been excruciatingly slow. This is perceived as Sri Lanka’s cold-shouldering of Indian interests while welcoming Chinese funding with open arms.

While India and Japan have been booted out of the ECT project, ostensibly under pressure by ports unions and “nationalist” elements opposed to foreign investments in a “strategic asset”, there has been no similar backing off from the China-funded Colombo Port City project.

Work on the $1.4 billion Port City project, launched when Mahinda Rajapaksa was President, continues apace despite concerns in Sri Lanka that the project will reduce the nation to a Chinese colony and compromise its sovereignty. Clearly, the Rajapaksas have learnt little from the Hambantota experience that left Sri Lanka in a huge debt to the Chinese.

The project, seen as aiding China’s hegemonic ambitions in the Indian Ocean region, will allow a huge Chinese presence virtually at India’s doorstep. Unfazed by criticism, the Rajapaksa government has got the Lankan parliament to pass a controversial law allowing the setting up of a Colombo Port City Economic Commission which can even have foreigners on it. There are apprehensions that this would enable Chinese nationals to be a part of the panel.

China is also the elephant in the room for India in its bid to retain control over oil tank farms in Trincomalee in Sri Lanka’s north-east. India fears that if it were to let go of these tanks, China may step in, thus gaining a strategic foothold not far from the Indian coastline.

By making noises about taking back ownership of these oil tanks, the Rajapaksa government has only fuelled New Delhi’s anxieties. Signalling to Colombo its vital strategic stakes in Trincomalee, New Delhi made sure to include a visit to the oil farms in Shringla’s itinerary and pointedly noted that they were “a symbol of the potential and strong energy partnership between India and Sri Lanka.”

Sri Lanka isn’t the only country in our periphery where India has been working hard to counter growing Chinese footprints. Be it the Maldives, Nepal or Bangladesh, China is aggressively wooing these nations with its resources and infrastructure-building might.

This has made Delhi’s engagement with its immediate neighbours tricky as it seeks to fend off the Chinese challenge in countries once under the Indian sphere of influence. It also has to walk the tight-rope between protecting its own strategic interests while not being seen as the neighbourhood bully.

What has queered the pitch further for India is the fact that the leadership of its neighbourhood is not at all averse to pitting Delhi against Beijing. Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have intermittently seen China-leaning governments smitten by Beijing’s charms even at the risk of accumulating huge debts.

While things appear to be looking up on the India-Sri Lanka bilateral front, for now, Delhi cannot afford to let its guard down. The Lankan government had said that it would keep India’s security interests in mind soon after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President. He repeated this assurance when Shringla called on him. But the Rajapaksas will need to walk the talk. Else, efforts to bridge the “trust deficit” and reset ties will go in vain.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)