Ceylon Today Editorial

Indo-Lanka relations

07 October 2016

During the post-World War II and prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the November 1989 period, the world was divided into two camps. They were those supporting the USSR and the USA, respectively.

Those two countries were the world's two superpowers. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR), regional power blocks, divorced from either the USA or Russia (the former USSR sans the trappings of its previous 'satellite' States, now, broadly identified as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) came into being.

There were however exceptions even prior to November 1989. Two such examples were China and India in the Asian region. When Vietnam started persecuting ethnic Chinese in Vietnam in 1978, the Chinese who share a common border with Vietnam invaded the latter country. China stopped its advance when there were signs that the USSR, Vietnam's ally, threatened to get involved in the conflict.
Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, after the re-advent of Indira Gandhi as India's Premier in January 1980, Tamil terrorists who were active at that time, used to commit murders and robberies and flee to South India for refuge.

Gandhi, in a muscle flexing move, didn't extradite these terrorists wanted by Colombo for criminal acts, but instead afforded them protection in India.

Indo-Sri Lanka ties took a turn to the worse after the July 1983 Sinhala-Tamil riots. Tamil terrorists were not only provided with refuge in India afterwards, but they were also armed and trained to fight the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the Police.

President J.R. Jayewardene turned to the USA for help, only to be told that Colombo must solve its problems with Delhi. Jayewardene, unwilling to bow to India, launched a successful military operation called 'Operation Liberation' against the Tamil terrorists in May 1987, to recapture the 1,025 square kilometre Jaffna Peninsula. Within weeks after launching the operation, troops were on the verge of capturing Jaffna Town. But then the Indians militarily intervened, forcing Jayewardene to call off the campaign.

Since then Sri Lanka has been virtually bending over backwards to please India.The only exception was President Mahinda Rajapaksa and that too, after obtaining India's overt and covert help to successfully eradicate Tamil terrorism in the country, culminated in their defeat at the Nandikadal Lagoon, Mullaitivu on 17 May 2009.

Rajapaksa's bait in this instance was China. China accepted this 'gambit' gladly. It was able to successfully sell commercial loans with no tender calls, more often than not for dubious infrastructure projects, while at the same time employing Chinese labour, thereby ensuring that at least part of the loan money returned to China.

The fallout of Rajapaksa's foreign policy was not only the alienation of India, but also the alienation of governments of the island's major export and export services markets, USA, UK and the EU. The net effect of these developments was Sri Lanka being mired in a virtual debt trap, culminating in a balance of payments crisis.

Ironically, to get over this morass, the new government, which was elected to power after Maithripala Sirisena's presidential poll win of 8 January 2015, is seeking to reactivate the suspended US$ 1.4 billion Colombo Port City Project, suspended soon after the advent of the Sirisena Government, due to alleged controversial clauses in the original agreement which Beijing had signed up when the previous Rajapaksa regime was in power.

And, at the other end of the spectrum, Colombo, since the election of the new regime, has gone out of its way to mend broken fences with those economies with which Rajapaksa had distanced himself, not least with India.

Currently Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, a nephew of Jayewardene's, is touring Delhi. In an article published by the Indian Financial Express yesterday, it quoted Wickremesinghe of having said, 'Sri Lanka expects the Economic and Technology Co-operation Agreement (ETCA) with India to be signed by the end of this year, which will help strengthen economic ties and the importance of the pact for Sri Lanka and South Indian States Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana having a population of 250 million and a combined GDP of nearly $450 billion and with the addition of Sri Lanka of 22 million people and USD 80 billion economy, the GDP in the sub-region will be $500 billion.

Just imagine if we work together. ETCA has the potential to promote growth of a $500 billion sub-regional economy. ETCA is expected to help Sri Lanka gain better access to India's rapidly growing market. The economic asymmetry between the countries is going to increase in future when India emerges as the major global player in an increasingly multi-polar world.

Indo-Sri Lanka FTA will be expanded and deepened to go beyond trading in goods to cover trade in services, investments and technology co-operation.

'Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.'
- Cardinal Suenens