Wickremesinghe's visit to India: How New Delhi's loyal friendship cannot go unnoticed in Colombo

If anything, the intervening economic crisis had delayed the process. Yet, visiting the Indian capital a full year after taking over at the peak of the unprecedented and unacceptable situation, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe would not have found anything amiss. India picked up the threads from where the two nations had left them under the predecessor regime of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The latter had to quit unceremoniously and unsung, in the face of the ‘Aragalaya’ protests, again unprecedented, for relatively peaceful mass participation. At the height of the economic crisis, India had rushed help and assistance of every kind – from food to fuel, medicines and all that Sri Lanka had sought, either as gift or credit, or as per Colombo’s demand and expectations. At the end of it all, New Delhi had extended assistance totalling $ 4 billion, a huge sum by any reckoning and more so, considering the island-nation’s predicament. The irony of the situation was that Sri Lanka’s other friends, from the geo-political right and left, looked the other way when the nation was sinking and was wailing an SOS for instant help. At the time India extended that assistance, it was not expecting any ‘return on investments’ in political or strategic terms, say, against China. India proved that it was a responsible neighbour and the regional power that had its duties to the neighbourhood as a whole. After the Covid era aid and assistance across the world, starting with the immediate neighbourhood, New Delhi proved that its large-heartedness went beyond a pandemic, where stopping the assistance might have had a selfish angle, if someone wanted to find fault. No motive of the kind could be attributed to India’s economic assistance at the height of the dollar crisis, which mutually fed the economic crisis, in turn. India was there, it had a heart larger than its purse, and that was it. Better or worse still, professional critics of New Delhi in Sri Lanka were stunned beyond silence that they could not pick any holes in India’s altruism, a tradition from the distant past. It was more so when compared to their own overseas friends and masters, namely, the US on the one side and China on the other, who either complained on issues that were outside of the immediate national concerns, or caused those concerns, through what some call as ‘debt diplomacy’ or as ‘white elephant’ funding. Economic and energy security On the face of it in the modern global context, economy and energy security have become synonymous, or at least close to that. Yet, when Sri Lanka faced it all, the nation discovered that there were multiple components to the economic crisis. It was a lesson for other Third World nations especially to learn from. The economic crisis has components like food, fuel and dollar security, among others. Fuel is the food that energises the economy, but then, no economy could live on food shortage either. If India supplied food grains when Sri Lanka needed them the most, it also sent petroleum products, again at short notice or no-notice. It also showed how India as a regional power had the capacity to rush aid to the need on a war-footing. This, New Delhi had done with just an hour’s notice, at the height of the ‘Asian tsunami’ of end-2004. It was repeated on the health front especially when Covid hit the world as none else in the modern era. The agreements signed between India and Sri Lanka at the end of President Wickremesinghe’s talks with host Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to give permanency especially on two fronts – namely, fuel and forex. Sri Lanka has the means to produce enough food grains, which however suffered under Gota’s foolhardy decision for overnight switch-over to ‘organic fertiliser’, all of which, yes, came from China.   Forgotten ideas It was thus that the agreements signed during Wickremesinghe’s visit sought to revive some of the ‘forgotten ideas’ that had sought to ensure energy security for Sri Lanka and reduce dollar-dependence, which became a major hurdle for importing goods at will during the economic crisis. However, making it work on the ground still remains in the hands of the host-government, as it had vacillated whenever such topics of shared concerns and interests had come up for discussions and decisions. The pending projects on ‘energy security’ that are now sought to be taken forward include public sector IOC refurbishing the storage capacity in the two ‘oil tanks farms’ in Sri Lanka’s eastern Trincomalee, a natural harbour. The tanks date back to the Second World War and had remained unutilised until IOC got to use them for retailing across the island-nation through a joint venture, Lanka-IOC. The decision in January 2022, ahead of the economic crisis, involved the two sides jointly refurbishing 61 of the 99 tanks at the farms, leaving 24 more to be developed by Sri Lanka’s public sector Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and 14 separately by IOC. It involved an estimated investment of INR 1,500 crore at the time, and was to be effective for 50 years. Thus, the current agreement in the matter is a confirmation and reiteration of the accepted position by both. The Indian hope is that hawks in the Sri Lankan political and bureaucratic system that had scuttled such schemes all along, would have seen reason and also the light after last year’s fuel crisis, when the nation was forced to beg for every drop of oil, from wherever it came – even as India was supplying the utmost without conditionality. The idea seemingly is for India and Sri Lanka to develop ‘strategic storage’ of petroleum products in Trincomalee, for their shared usage, especially in times of global price and supply crises. This would require under-sea fuel pipelines between the two countries, which have found a mention in the agreements now signed in New Delhi. The idea even without the storage component has been in the news at least since the turn of the century, but did not take off, owing to the LTTE war, as the ‘Sea Tigers’ dominated the shared seas. Even without it, talks were on for Sri Lanka to join India’s energy security regional initiative involving Bangladesh and Nepal. The Delhi summit witnessed positives on this front, too. As the joint statement said, ‘Promoting Connectivity, Catalysing Prosperity’ was the joint vision for the next 25 years. Naturally, in the contemporary context, especially in which Sri Lanka finds itself, energy security is a way to economic prosperity. The same applies to the January 2022 decision to develop renewable energy sources and supplies in Trincomalee, by India’s NTPC, and by private sector Adani Group in northern Sri Lanka.   Less dollar-dependent In the overall context of helping Sri Lanka become less dollar-dependent in the face of last year’s crisis, the two sides had begun actively considering the use of Indian rupee as a tenderable currency in Sri Lanka. Though the initial hopes were bright, the response has been lukewarm, but is expected to shoot up as the idea catches up. Now, agreements have been signed also to cover select credit/debit cards under the scheme. Even without it all, India has been the top-source for tourism in Sri Lanka, which is heavily dependent on the same for national revenues and family incomes. To help increase the tourist inflow from India, new cultural tourism linkages, especially connecting identifiable tourist sites in the two countries, are being taken up – rather, they are being either expanded or fast-tracked, or both. Otherwise, the two leaders discussed two other issues that are sensitive especially to India. PM Modi referred to the vexatious ethnic issue in Sri Lanka and hoped that the Wickremesinghe Government would fully implement the India-initiated Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which aimed at power-sharing with the Tamils in particular. If the two had discussed the contours, if any, based on the multiple letters sent by different Tamil groups to PM Modi – they differed in details from one another – it did not find any mention at their joint news conference. Otherwise, too, the ethnic issue, along with another vexatious concern between the two, namely, the ‘fishers’ dispute’ did not find a place in the joint statement released at the end of the summit talks. Not all about China If someone thought that it was all about China, and the agreements signed between the two could keep China at bay, prima facie, that is not the case. Specific issues, past, present and future, were discussed when India’s National Security Advisor (NSA), A K Doval, called on President Wickremesinghe. Details, if any, flowing out of the talks would flow out in the form of future initiatives, the contours of which may not be fully understood for a longer time to come. Yet, for someone to jump to the conclusion that the aim was to keep China out of Sri Lanka, may not happen as fast as they may imagine. Sri Lanka is bound by past debt to China. Even without it their political and cultural linkages have existed for long, though not as much as involving India. In the international arena, India’s support may purchase sympathy among fellow Third World nations when it comes to votes in UNHRC and other fora. However, it is no substitute for the ‘veto’ vote that China and Russia possess and are ready to exercise in Sri Lanka’s favour at the UNSC, if ever it came to that, without second thoughts. Sri Lankan strategic thinking has since revolved around it, in terms of the US-backed UNHRC-initiated probes into allegations of war crimes and other human rights violations. Unless India is able to talk down its new-found US ally and other western partners to go easy on Sri Lanka, and also confer permanency on such a course, the China predicament would continue to hang in the backdrop of Sri Lanka’s bilateral relations with India, whatever the area, whatever the agreements. The alternative would be for India to be able to talk Russia into doing Sri Lanka bidding, now and always, and be seen as being the catalyst on that score. That is not the score just now, as Moscow would be doing for Colombo, anyway, as the allegations are coming from the US and the rest of the West. The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst & political commentator. 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 .