How India has revamped its approach to engage with Sri Lanka amid China's growing presence in the Indo-Pacific Region

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to India on 20-21 July came at a time when the ties between the two neighbours have been in flux for the past few years. This visit could be considered one of the many attempts at resetting bilateral relations. During Wickremesinghe’s visit both the countries focused on enhancing economic ties. The two South Asian neighbours agreed to start a discussion on the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). India and Sri Lanka agreed to operationalize India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to facilitate digital payments across borders. Sri Lanka also notified Indian Rupee as a designated foreign currency. Not only would this enable trade settlement between the two countries, but it would also enable Indian tourists to make transactions in Indian Rupee in Sri Lanka. The two countries also discussed port development and renewable energy projects. These are important developments from the Indian perspective since India has been making efforts to enhance ties with its neighbour as China has made inroads in Sri Lanka over the past decade. The Tamil issue as an irritant in the India-Sri Lanka relations has also facilitated Sri Lanka’s tilt towards China to a certain extent. Even during Wickremesinghe’s visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for upholding the dignity of the Tamils in Sri Lanka by implementing the 13th Amendment. This amendment would allow devolution of power to the Tamil-majority areas in Sri Lanka, as per the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. However, a major part of the visit remained focused on developing bilateral economic relations. In the past few years, India has engaged with Sri Lanka in a manner similar to its approach to the current global order. Most of India’s interactions on the global stage are centred on the geostrategic construct of the Indo-Pacific Region. Indo-Pacific-centrism has increasingly been reflected in India’s Neighbourhood First policy as well. Focus on strategic cooperation, particularly with the maritime neighbours, has become an integral part of India’s interactions with its neighbours, as countering China is imperative for India from the perspective of national security. As India has integrated its Neigbourhood First Policy with the Indo-Pacific Policy, Sri Lanka has emerged as a hotspot for competition between India and China. China’s growing economic and strategic engagement in Sri Lanka has been a cause of concern for India for some time. China’s debt-trap diplomacy through the Belt and Road Initiative caused Sri Lanka to lease its Hambantota Port to China for 99 years in 2017. Chinese base in close proximity is a constant strategic challenge to India. To counter Chinese influence, India has initiated strategic cooperation with Sri Lanka. India’s strategic engagements with Sri Lanka gained traction in 2021 when there was a series of exchanges between the military establishments of the two countries. It included a visit of the then Army Chief General MM Naravane to Sri Lanka, a joint military exercise (Mitra Shakti) and a visit of six ships of the Indian Navy’s Training Squadron to Sri Lanka to participate in a training programme with the Sri Lankan Navy. Besides, India is a part of the India-Sri Lanka-Maldives trilateral cooperation. The three countries have come together to cooperate in the area of maritime security. The first trilateral exercise of this grouping was held in 2021 under the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) Focused Operation. This is concomitant to India’s approach towards the Indo-Pacific Region where India is building ties through such mechanisms. Some examples include the Quad (India, United States, Japan, Australia), the I2U2 (India, Israel, United States, the UAE), India-France-Australia, India-France-UAE and recent India, Saudi Arabia, United States and the UAE cooperation. While reshaping its approach towards Sri Lanka as a country in the Indo-Pacific, India has seamlessly integrated its duty as a neighbour. India has been the first responder to Sri Lanka in crisis. This was evident back in 2004 during the tsunami as well as in recent times. As Sri Lanka faced an economic crisis in 2022 India extended assistance to Sri Lanka of over $3 billion through loans, lines of credit and credit swaps. During this crisis, India also supplied food, fuel, and medicines to Sri Lanka. The economic crisis has been one of the major opportunities for India to reset its ties with Sri Lanka. For Sri Lanka, enhanced engagements with India allow diversification thereby reducing dependence on China to some extent. For decades, the India-Sri Lanka relations have had a strong undercurrent of trust deficit arising out of the Tamil issue. While India reaffirmed its stand on the implementation of the 13th Amendment during Wickremesinghe’s recent visit, the two countries are choosing to focus more on connectivity and economic cooperation. For his part Wickremesinghe stated that India’s growth is beneficial to the Indian Ocean Region, implying that Sri Lanka is also preferring to engage with India as a power in the Indian Ocean component of the Indo-Pacific Region rather than just as a South Asian neighbour. India’s accelerated overtures to Sri Lanka in the past few years are emblematic of its engagements in the wider Indo-Pacific Region. India has similarly diversified its ties with the Southeast Asian countries and the Middle Eastern countries which form part of India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific Region. While China would continue to be a major challenge, India is presenting its own alternative model of engagement to Sri Lanka by way of economic and strategic cooperation which is mutually beneficial. The author is a political analyst and researcher based in Vadodara. His areas of specialisation include international relations, foreign policy and geopolitics. He tweets @NiranjanMarjani. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.