By P.K.Balachandran
Colombo, January 28: India has let it be known, albeit obliquely, that Sri Lanka’s relations with India should not be influenced by geopolitical rival China. New Delhi feels that Colombo is giving in to pressure from Beijing not to accommodate or allow China’s moves and development projects in Sri Lanka.
Speaking at the reception to mark India’s Republic Day, Acting High Commissioner Dr. Satyanjal Pandey said that stories of India and Sri Lanka are intertwined, their futures are interlinked and geographical proximity makes them natural partners.
“Proximity demands a mutual sensitivity to each other’s interests. It also requires each of us to support the other with an unmatched spontaneity, unencumbered by third party pulls and pressures,” Pandey said.
Clearly, the reference was to China which is competing with India in Sri Lanka in pushing geopolitical and geo-economic interests in the island. India complains that Sri Lanka is not sufficiently accommodative to its geo-strategic and geo-economic interests and is enabling China to operate in geographical and economic spaces inimical to India’s interests especially security.
China, on the other hand, complains to Sri Lankan leaders that they are allowing themselves to be pressured by India to cancel or block China’s moves forgetting that they are leading a sovereign country which ought to be free to take decisions in its interest not in any other’s interest.
India has objected to visits by Chinese research vessels saying that these are meant to spy on India or map the ocean for military use. But Sri Lanka has contended that these are not spy vessels but are meant to do research in collaboration with Sri Lankan institutions. And that is China’s argument too.
Anyway, giving into Indian pressure, Sri Lanka imposed a ban on visits by research vessels of all countries for one year. The moratorium ended at the end of 2024. But till date, Colombo has not formulated a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to assess visits by these controversial ships.
The Sri Lankan government’s latest decision to re-examine the contract given to the Indian business group, the Adanis, to build wind power plants in Mannar and Pooneryn considered to be strategic locations by India, could also be a source of bilateral friction. The Adanis have a close relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the project agreement is a government-to-government one.
India had also objected to an earlier wind power project in the islands of Jaffna that was given to the Chinese.The islands were Neduntheevu, Nainativu and Analaitivu islands off Jaffna peninsula, the closes to India. That project was subsequently taken away from the Chinese and given to the Indians. In March 2024, three years after objecting to the solar and wind power project, India began to implement the project with a US$ 11 million grant.
Tightrope Walk
Sri Lanka is desperately trying to balance its relations with India and China with two objectives: first to prevent India, its only neighbour and the regional hegemon, from punishing it for non-compliace, and second to secure countervailing support from India’s rival China and also to get big finance for infrastructure projects.
As part of the balancing act, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake visited India in December 2024 and a month later in January 2025, he visited China. In both he signed MoUs. In both New Delhi and Beijing, he was told to be cooperative. Dissanayake assured New Delhi that Sri Lanka would not allow its territory to be used by anybody against India. But there is no knowing as to what assurances he gave to Beijing. Apparently, the Chinese were pleased enough to announce major investments in Sri Lanka.
India’s Case
Making a strong pitch for a more cooperative ties between India and Sri Lanka, Acting High Commissioner Pandey said: “Sri Lanka, just as India, has remained a steadfast democracy and a republic through its independent years. India and Sri Lanka not only are fellow democracies, sharing in our diversity and dynamism, we are civilizational partners, sharing our history, language, religion and ethos.”
Emphasising the deep-rooted ties between India and Sri Lanka, he described the two nations as “civilizational partners” and said: “Our stories have intertwined — and our futures are interlinked. Our geographical proximity makes us natural partners and the same proximity demands a mutual sensitivity to each other’s interests. It also requires each of us to support the other with an unmatched spontaneity, unencumbered by third-party pulls and pressures.”
Roots of India’s Democracy
On the deep roots of India’s democracy and the significance of India’s Republic Day, Dr.Pandey said: “This day marks the completion of 75 years since the Constitution of India commenced. It is an occasion to celebrate the edifice of the Indian democracy. This a landmark achievement, for when Bharat gained independence, there were numerous hesitations, several sceptics of having the longest written Constitution govern a country that had been impoverished over the years by its colonial masters. However, the Indian Constitution defied and nullified all such doubts, guiding us to where we stand today, as the fifth largest economy in the world and on our way to soon becoming the third largest with a 5 trillion dollar GDP.”
“Democracy is not a mere political construct. It is a tradition in India. India is the Mother of Democracy. Evidence has it that the ethos of a limited government and countervailing institutions prevailed in ancient India, in the age of the Buddha.”
“A quote from the Chinese traveller and Buddhist Monk Xuanzang has stayed with me. Xuanzang said: ‘People of distant places, with diverse customs, generally designate the land they most admire as India’. This is from the account of Xuanzang’s travels in the ‘Indosphere’ in about 6th century CE. India was then an exporter of its civilisation – from religion, art, philosophy, to textiles, technology, even mathematics, medicine, literature, India was the cradle of it all.”
“Today, the nation is in the early years of Amrit Kaal, the period leading to the centenary of Independence. This is the time of an epochal transformation. India is ‘happening’ at a pace and scale that is unprecedented. Let me give you a readout of highlights from my country from just these last couple of weeks.”
“ISRO successfully demonstrated space-docking, or the joining of two fast moving satellites in space, making India the fourth country in the world — after the United States, Russia, and China — to have this capability . On this success rests ISRO’s vision for the future of Indian space exploration, which includes building a space station and putting a person on the Moon.”
“We also marked 150th Foundation Day of India Meteorological Department. IMD has enabled today that the Early Warning for All facility is reaching more than 90% of the country’s population. Weather forecasts reach directly on WhatsApp. Services like the Meghdoot mobile app make this information available in all the local languages of the country. Till a decade ago, only 10 percent of the farmers were able to use any weather related advice – Today this number has increased to more than 50%”.
“Rural Land Digitisation has achieved 92% coverage, giving legal property ownership to over 20 million rural families.”
Dependable Partner
The envoy said that India has “time and again demonstrated that it is a dependable partner and a reliable friend for Sri Lanka. Whether it is natural disasters, mishaps at sea, the COVID pandemic or the recent economic crisis, India has come to Sri Lanka’s assistance always as the first responder. Our support has been timely, quick and unconditional.”
“India as the co-chair of the Official Creditors Committee remains involved in financial stabilization effort for Sri Lanka through its engagement with the IMF. In addition to the ongoing debt restructuring, India has created additional fiscal headroom for Sri Lanka by converting USD 100 million in developmental debt assistance to grants. This takes India’s grant assistance to Sri Lanka to USD 780 million, making India the principal development partner for Sri Lanka. India’s development assistance projects exist in each of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka. Completed projects amount to USD 390 million, ongoing projects are approx. USD 211 million and committed grant projects in the pipeline stand at nearly USD180 million.”
Investments not Loans
The accent now days is not on loans but investments, Pandey said.
“As Sri Lanka turns a corner from economic recovery to growth, our leadership has indicated a strategic shift from debt-driven models towards investment-led partnerships across different sectors. This is a major highlight of the Joint Statement agreed upon by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake during the latter’s visit to India in December 2024. These investment projects are focused on enhancing physical, digital and energy connectivity – the key pillars of our partnership.”
“The energy projects include establishing electricity-grid connectivity and multi-product petroleum pipelines between both the nations.”
“On the digital connectivity front, we are working to implement the Sri Lanka Unique Digital Identity project in mission mode. In keeping with the promise of the Sri Lankan government for people-centric digitisation, SL UDI will be the foundational DPI to unlock benefits of the Digital Stack. A Joint Working Group has been established to explore the implementation of DPI stack in Sri Lanka.”
Pali Language
Referring to India’s recognizing Pali as a classical Indian language, Pandey said: “When India declared the Pali language as a Classical Language, Sri Lanka joined us in this celebration. We have recently supported the reprinting of the Pali Grammar book Namamala.”
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