Round The World
New Delhi, 14 February 2020
The Sri
Lankan Prime Minister Comes Calling – Reassuring India
By Dr.
D.K. Giri
Prof.
International Politics, JMI
Mahinda Rajapaksa, The Prime Minister of Sri
Lanka who is perhaps the de facto President of Sri Lanka, was in India from 7th
February for 5 days. The visit was a mix of spiritual, personal and official
engagements. Having done the official meetings with the Foreign Minister, Prime
Minister, and the President, and others in the Opposition, he dashed off to
other parts on a temple tour. It was Mahinda’s maiden visit abroad after he
became the Prime Minister last November. The new President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya
Rajapaksa, the youngest brother of Mahinda made New Delhi his first port of
call. Does this signify any special importance Sri Lanka attaches to India? How
are the relations between New Delhi and Colombo vis-a-vis Colombo, Islamabad
and Beijing?
Considering
the assertions made by both Prime Ministers, the relations between Sri Lanka
and India appear to be on a sound footing. Mahinda said, “Our relations with
India are much strong and very important for us”. He added even greater
emphasis as he said, “The other neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka friends but
Indians are relations? After the meeting Narendra Modi warmly reciprocating
said, “The stability, security, and prosperity in Sri Lanka is in India’s
interest, but also in the interest of the entire Indian Ocean region. India is
a Trusted Partner”.
If we were
to discard some of the diplomatic platitudes, and focus on the relations as
they stand today, we may reach a logical conclusion on India-Sri Lanka
bilateralism. Goes without saying that people of Indian origin located in two
neighbours, Sri Lanka and Nepal make the relation with these two countries tenuous.
Besides, the predominant religion and culture in both countries have Indian
origin. However, even though cultural diplomacy helps smoothen relations, the
hard realities of trade, aid and security-alliances constituting the National
interest become the major determinant of one’s foreign policy.
In view of
the foregoing premise, the deliberations between Narendra Modi, the Indian
Prime Minister and his counterpart percy Mahendra Rajapaksa (Mahinda) consisted
of trade, commerce, investment, security, terrorism and so on. The meeting with
Indian PM was preceded by the meeting with Foreign Minister that discussed
defence, security, and trade.
The major
demand-qua-request hinted by Mahinda was about debt repayment of. Sri Lanka
owes upto $60 billion in foreign debt. Mahinda’s plea was if India were to give
a moratorium for 3 years on loan repayment, other countries might follow giving
Sri Lanka a breathing space. New Delhi is yet to respond to that.
Mahinda
expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister for neighbourhood first policy,
and setting up BIMSTEC. He acknowledged the financial assistance of $450
including $50 million to fight terrorism. He was inviting Indian investment
housing and community related projects. India has helped in rebuilding the
Jafna area that was ravaged by war. Sri Lankan Government plans to extend
similar housing projects across the country, and invited India to give a hand.
He underlined that the East Container Terminal (ECT) project in Colombo Port
was being developed with India-Japan collaborative investment. The LNG terminal
also has India-Japan joint contribution.
The Sri
Lankan Prime Minister asserted that Sri Lanka intends to benefit from many
economic sectors where India is in strong position. This is backed by close
historical-cultural links that provide a solid foundation for building on the
ties.
Between
India and Sri Lanka there is always a host of issues in addition to or
accompanied with the economic relations. The front-runner is that of fishermen.
There are persistent irritants on fishing between Sri Lanka and India. The
Indian fishermen are alleged by Sri Lankans to be indulging in bottom trawling
which Sri Lankan Government objected to. Sri Lankan police has impounded Indian
fishing boats and arrested the fishermen. After the meeting, Modi said it was
agreed to deal with the fisherman issue with a humanitarian approach. To
assuage Sri Lanka’s concerns, Modi announced that Rs.700 crore has been
allocated to train fishermen to go for deep-sea fishing. Both sides assured
that the matter would be settled sooner than later.
The second
issue that figured is usual Tamil question. Government of India urged the Sri
Lankan Prime Minister to speed up the process of restoration of Tamils,
displaced by the Civil War. Mahinda assured that Tamil refugees in India could
go anytime back to Sri Lanka. When, his attention was drawn to the much-talked
about Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which ignores Hindus (Tamil) migrants
from Sri Lanka. Mahinda, to the relief of Government of India said, “CAA is an
internal matter of India”, and Sri Lankan Tamils are welcome back in their
country.
On ethnic
conflict between Sri Lankan Tamils and majority Sinhalese, the Minister
accompanying Mahinda, Arumugam Thomann debunked the suggestion that Sri Lankan
National Anthem could be sung only in Sinhalese. Although Mahinda argued that
National Anthem of any country is in one language, there are no several
renditions of it, Sri Lankan Tamils could sing it in Tamil, as the music and
lyrics are similar. In fact, on 72nd Independence Day of Sri Lanka
the Tamils sang in their mother tongue.
Terrorism
in both countries came up for discussion. Narendra Modi demurred, “Both Sri
Lanka and India have faced the scourge of terrorism”. While India has had
recurrent terrorist attack emanating from across Pakistan, Sri Lanka, in April
last year had a dastardly bomb attack killing more than 250 people. Mahinda, of
course, turned this tragedy onto his predecessor.
Despite
early warnings provided by Indian intelligence, Sri Lankan Government did not
act promptly and foiled the attack. It was their incompetence. Mahinda
reiterated that they would continue to work with India to enhance their
competences, capabilities and intelligence in counter-terrorism operations.
Mahinda urged to revive the pre-2015 trilateral terror and security cooperation
between Maldives, India, and Sri Lanka.
Questioned
on Sri Lankan collaboration with Pakistan, the hub of terrorism in South Asia,
and Pakistan, Navy, Air Force and Army Chiefs air dashing to Colombo to nudge
it to condemn the abrogation of Article 370, Mahinda, an astute diplomat,
longest serving leader in South-Asia said, “Quite often your domestic
compulsions also drive you to formulate foreign policy decisions”. He qualified
his premise by acknowledging that in 30 year long Civil War, Pakistan gave us
weapons and planes. “We have a relationship with them, but that will not
influence our relation with India”. He added, we would like SAARC to work, but
since India refused to let it go forward, we are working in BIMSTEC.
On China,
Mahinda argued that it is the previous Government that leased out the port of
Hambantota to China. We have made a promise to the electorate that we will get
it back. He admitted, it may be difficult. He dismissed the Chinese Foreign
Minister Wang Yi’s bold declaration that there will be no outside interference
in Sri Lanka in an oblique reference to India and USA. Mahinda said they did
not understand what he meant.
The ball
is in New Delhi’s court really. It made a mistake in Nepal by siding with
Madhesis, the people of Indian origin, not the whole country as an ally and a
friend. It need not repeat the mistake of speaking for Tamils only, and not the
country. India has had historical links with Sri Lanka predating Tamil entry
into the country. The earliest contact came from Odisha when King Ashoka sent
his son Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra to spread Buddhism. So to build or
rebuild relations, let it not be ethnic foreign policy, but a national policy
dealing with countries. ----INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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