International Stakes Continue To Rise With Changes Next Door

By Jehan Perera -May 19, 2014

Jehan Perera

The election of a new government in India opens up new vistas for Sri Lanka’s relationship with its closest neigbour.  With his congratulatory phone call to the Indian Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi,President Mahinda Rajapaksa took the initiative to rebuild ties with India.  Relations with India have grown strained due to the Indian stance on issues relating to the country’s Tamil problem and the government’s prevarication regarding promises of devolution of power made to the Indian government. The President’s ability to get a phone call through a very busy Narendra Modi just after his party’s victory at the election was being announced shows the special nature of the relationship that Sri Lanka can enjoy with India.  This is an opportunity that comes from both geography and history and needs to be carefully built upon so that it is an asset and not a liability.

The fact that Sri Lanka’s estranged Tamil community is bound by kinship and close cultural ties with the Tamils who inhabit southern India links the two countries together with bonds that are permanent.  This is a reality that any Sri Lankan government will have to both acknowledge and cope with. For the past three decades, and coinciding with the period of the war, the major feature of Sri Lanka’s relationship with India has been its ethnic conflict. Since the end of the war, relations with the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu have plunged, with even visitors from Sri Lanka liable on occasion to be subjected to attack on its streets. It has been to the Sri Lankan government’s advantage that the BJP won the election decisively and does not need the support of regional parties, including the dominant party in Tamil Nadu.                                         Read More