In 2007, as Sri Lanka stepped up its military campaign against the Tamil Tigers, then President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave an undertaking to his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh. Rajapaksa promised to pursue a political solution to Tamil grievances, based on extensive devolution of power that goes beyond the India-brokered 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution.
He appointed a troika of powerful state officials, including his influential siblings, Basil and Gotabhaya, to periodically brief their Indian counterparts on the Sri Lankan government policy. Rajapaksa’s primary objective was to pacify potential Indian intervention in the military operation that was underway in northern Sri Lanka.
But, two years later, it would pay off with an extra dividend: During the last leg of the military offensive, when Western leaders, outraged by alleged civilian suffering, demanded an end to war, Sri Lanka would rely on the tacit Indian approval to fight it to an end. Colombo defeated the terrorist group in May 2009.
However, since the end of war, Rajapaksa had been backtracking on his word. His duplicity clearly drew a wedge between Sri Lanka and its large neighbour. Meanwhile, he found a receptive ally in the People’s Republic of China, which, due to India’s reluctance to sell weapons to Colombo, was the main defence supplier during the war.
The China Factor
Beijing invested on large scale infrastructure projects, financed by Chinese loans, building a port in Hambantota, an international airport in Mattala, a port city in Colombo, a power plant, several highways and express-ways.
He paid lip service to India’s sensitivities, but he had other strategic calculations. However, when his government allowed Chinese submarines to dock in the Colombo port twice last year despite India’s protests (one such naval visit happened on the eve of Japanese Prime Minister ShinzoAbe’s visit to Colombo), he clearly tested Indian patience. His growing rapport with Beijing was also a snub at New Delhi for its failure to stand by Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council, where India voted with the West for an adverse resolution on the island nation.
New Regime, Better Ties With India
Less than five months since Rajapaksa’s defeat in the January presidential elections to Maitripala Sirisena, Indo-Lanka relations have seen a turnaround. Sirisena, like many of his predecessors, chose New Delhi for his first official overseas visit. During his meeting with Modi, among other things, he sought India’s assistance to trace billions of rupees of Sri Lankan public money allegedly siphoned off by the associates of the former regime in Colombo.
The Reserve Bank of India is now sharing its expertise with its Sri Lankan counterparts, who are now tracing an estimated $7 billion of public money allegedly stashed away in foreign banks.
In March, Modi became the first Indian PM to visit Colombo on a bilateral visit in 28 years. Unlike the 1987 visit by then Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi, Modi arrived to a rousing welcome. Travelling in Jaffna, the cultural capital of Sri Lankan Tamils, he told Tamil parliamentarians to work together with their Sinhala counterparts to find a political solution.
Time To Build on Growing India-Lanka Ties
China is now losing out: a number of Chinese-funded projects are currently being reviewed for allegations of corruption and inflated cost. A landmark Port City project, which was touted as a lynch pin of China’s maritime Silk Road has been suspended, pending a review.
The new administration in Colombo is tilting towards India and the US. US Secretary of State John Kerry, who visited Colombo early May, called on Sri Lanka to integrate itself better with the emerging Indo-Asian economic zone.
The challenge before both Colombo and New Delhi is to build on this new momentum. Given the new government’s foreign policy realignment, the Chinese factor in Sri Lanka, which was a contentious issue in Indo-Lanka relations in the past, is likely to fade away. The other key issue, a durable political solution to Tamil grievances would take time.
However, Sirisena, whose election victory owes so much to the overwhelming majority he polled in Tamil areas, has begun addressing old wounds of the war. Land occupied by the military in the north is being released to their civilian owners.
However, it is not a rosy picture. In retrospect, it is clear that one man had hamstrung bilateral relations. That man, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is vying to make a political comeback, possibly as a prime ministerial candidate. If he succeeds, that may not augur well for relations across the Palk Strait.
(The writer is a Colombo-based journalist)
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