India – Sri Lanka Foreign Affairs: New Chapter in Defence Cooperation Beyond Commerce
Separated by the narrow Palk Strait, India and Sri Lanka have a rich history of ethnic, religious cultural and economic collaboration. Furthermore, a shared maritime boundary has also made these neighbors realise their strategic maritime ambitions as a key influence in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) geopolitical union. Over the course of the last seventy years, both South Asian neighbours have experienced noteworthy changes in their foreign policies. Through looking at the ties recognising its current power and potential, India has established a strong mission to advance its diplomacy with Sri Lanka. When we carefully review the two way relations, regular high-level visits in both directions served to cement this diplomacy. If one were to analyse India’s ties with its southern neighbour Sri Lanka the ongoing collaboration saw a growth in the areas of economic and defence in the recent years. The current ascending trajectory of reciprocal ties is a result of alignment of government of India's "Neighbourhood First policy" with the aspiration of the Indian establishment to engage with its neighbours more closely. The two South Asian neighbourly nations are also signatories to the free trade agreement, namely the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISFTA), giving Sri Lanka preferential access to India's 1.3 billion consumer market. For small island states like Sri Lanka gaining access to Indian consumer market is a huge advantage economically.
With Indian foreign policy playing an increasingly important role in the world the ongoing collaboration and close cooperation between these two nations will further intensify the economic and diplomatic opportunities for India and Sri Lanka beyond the South Asian region and the Indian Ocean realm . Similarly, India being a regional superpower and slowly moving towards being a global power requires its foreign and defence policy to be transformed to a higher level concerning to a responsible behaviour towards its neighbour to bring about stability in this region. This transformation requires a collective approach not only from the big nations like India but also from small island states like Sri Lanka.
India’s foreign and defence policy with its southern neighbour Sri Lanka is intact and it needs to get its southern neighbours on its side to create an environment of collective security and for enhancing the connectivity of the Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ) between India, Sri Lanka and Maldives to approximately 3.7 million sq.km. For India, Sri Lanka is a vital strategic partner in the Indian Ocean realm to maintain a strong balance of power in this region. On the hand, for India, Sri Lanka an island nation positioned to its South, links West Asia to East Asia through important sea-lanes where an estimated 60,000 ships, passes through this maritime route each year. It is in the interest of both India and Sri Lanka to seek for a stable Indian Ocean Region and have strong and capable naval forces working in coordination to deal with the menace of piracy as well protect the Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCs) through which cargo worth trillions of dollars is traded.
Moreover, to curtail China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) initiative and the ‘String of Pearls’ strategy, India has to reinforce its air, naval, land and nuclear defence abilities. In this manner, safeguarding the territorial integrity of these small island states should be the prime importance of India. Perhaps the most significant modernising chapter of the Sri Lankan Navy was the mode in which it had paved the way for the creation of fast attack crafts, special arrow boat squadron, amphibious vessels, high frequency surface wave radar system, and the commissioning of several Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV). The Government of Sri Lanka ( GoSL) had also ordered two advanced OPV’s worth $150 million from India. For that reason, for a small island state like Sri Lanka to allocate twelve percent of its annual budget estimated to be around $2 billion is much higher than the big nations like China and India. Since Sri Lanka is having a huge national security budget, big nations like India can directly profit by selling the defence capacities to Sri Lanka. However, India has also been sensitive to the issue of post-civil war nation building efforts in Sri Lanka. Therefore, these initiatives can lead towards developing interdependence policies between India and Sri Lanka.
Like all other South Asian nations, there are many opinions regarding the foreign and defence cooperation strategies pursued by India and Sri Lanka. The Presidential elections of 2019 undeniably opened a new window of opportunity for both nations to strengthen this long standing association. Viewing through the prism of two-way diplomacy it is evidently worthwhile to say that both neighbourly nations share common interests, values and beliefs from generation to generation. Despite these promising signs, in years ahead India together with Sri Lanka needs to fashion out a new policy strategy.
Srimal Fernando is a Doctoral Fellow at Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA),O P Jindal University, India and a Global Editor of Diplomatic Society for South Africa. He is the winner of the 2018/2019 ‘Best Journalist of the Year’ award in South Africa, and has been the recipient of GCA Media Award for 2016
Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Security & Strategic Studies.
