Columns

As tradition would have it, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will make his way to New Delhi, perhaps bearing kavun, kokis and kiributh instead of love cake and other delicacies as more recent presidents and other leaders might have done in appeasement of our Big Brother to the north.

If Dissanayake sahodaraya is carrying delicious goodies he is accustomed to from his childhood when his family would swap “avurudu kema” with the neighbours in those happy days when they tried to climb the greasy pole—and must now do with even more effort and acumen—it is understandable.

After all, when External Affairs Minister Jaishankar came carrying an invitation to our new president, he could not have brought much more than chapathi and paneer curry, as the President sahodaraya is said to be rather cautious with his dietary habits.

But the Indian hierarchy knows him well enough. Not too long ago, when the presidential pot was beginning to stir and the Colombo-based foreign missions had begun to open their eyes and ears, Brother India had already made its move that took some by surprise.

AKD and a handful of his sahodarayas were invited for a visit to India for a stroll here and there and a chit-chat about the weather and climate change, not to mention dear old Adani, who seemed keen to stretch his wings and wealth into our little isle.

As many of us have known from history, and Mahinda mama came to realise a little too late, there is quite an inquisitive bird called RAW that has an interest in happenings near and far.

Anyway, there is the NPP sahodara contingent now sitting at the top of the heap, causing interest, concern and even consternation among neighbours, friends and not-too-friendly ones, stirred by a media that is good, bad and ugly.

Those who have followed headlines and reportage in some of the Indian media, not to mention western troublemakers with little knowledge of the subject, Sri Lanka has fallen into the hands of another North Korean Kim Jong-un, who would not be averse to eliminating his half-brother to keep the other half in power.

In the typically mixed-up Trumpian approach to denigrating others, the right-wing media—and that does not exclude sections of the northern brothers—finds that Sri Lanka has gone to the political doghouse under the new dispensation that wanted to wipe out the IMF-inspired pro-Western policy programme and the comprador capitalism perpetuated by the leading traditional parties.

So, is it to be Marx, Mao or Modi? Take your pick. Don’t leave out Modi just because he is not Marx or Mao. But he is right next door.

And there are our own political leaders, who, though being wiped out from their dictatorial positions of power, have not stopped pushing Sri Lanka more into the grip of India than is good for an island nation struggling to hold on to its sovereignty and keep clear of major power conflicts in the Indian Ocean.

Weeks before President AKD’s official visit to India, former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, on a visit there, had this to say, according to the media.

“Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday said his successor, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, should fully implement the “vision document” adopted with India last year.

“During his India trip in July 2023, then-President Wickremesinghe had signed a vision document with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, outlining areas of cooperation between the two countries, especially economic partnership. In the vision document signed by me and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, we have set out the areas of bilateral cooperation between the two countries. I am of the opinion he (Dissanayake) should move forward, and we should implement this vision document in its entirety,’ he told PTI.”

The Press Trust of India report was carried in several media outlets, showing the importance they attached to Wickremesinghe’s comment.

The question is what right a former president whose policies were unceremoniously rejected by the people at the November parliamentary election has to dictate to the new president what he should do and be doing in Sri Lanka’s relations with India.

Surely the new president with a people’s mandate behind him has the right to make his own policy decisions, especially when it comes to dealing with a giant neighbour with whom this country does not always see eye to eye.

Wickremesinghe’s agreements reached with Modi are not bilateral treaties. In such cases, he would not be signing it, but another, as protocol would have it, and approved by parliament.

But it is called nothing more than a “vision statement”.  And just because Wickremesinghe and Modi have visions does not mean that the defeated president could continue to dictate terms to his successor. It reads as though President AKD’s mission is to pursue Wickremesinghe’s vision.

This too after Wickremesinghe had been pushing some Adani projects for Sri Lanka when only a few days before his statement the Adani group is said to have run afoul of some deals resulting in indictments in the US.

This caused Kenya to cancel two major projects expected to cost nearly $2 bn—power lines and airport expansion.

But that is not all. It might be recalled that during the Indian elections not too long ago, Prime Minister Modi castigated the then Indira Gandhi-led Congress Party government for ceding Kachchativu Island to Sri Lanka under a 1974 agreement.

This agreement has never been contested by any Indian central government since then until Narendra Modi started playing politics during the Tamil Nadu election campaign, raising an issue that impacted bilateral relations.

His intervention, which Jaishankar appears to have supported later, has now raised a bilateral matter—one of territorial ownership—that was settled 50 years ago.

One might remember the issue of fishing rights and the incursion of Indian fishermen into Sri Lankan territorial waters that figured in NPP election campaigns and NPP’s determination to stop such violations.

But there are deeper and more critical questions that could develop into serious disputes in the future. One concerns the exploitation of vital seabed cobalt-rich mineral resources in Afanasy Nikitin Seamount in Indian Ocean waters to which Sri Lanka has a legitimate claim but India just a hope.

Space limitations do not permit setting out this issue in full. But the time will come soon enough when we should. NPP priorities right now are to pursue its negotiations with the IMF and to see how much of its promises on reviving the economy and meeting the aspirations of the voters could be settled in the 2025 budget.

Foreign policy does not appear to be a pressing priority. But it will come before long. While India flexes its muscles and missiles to make Sri Lanka open up its space both on land and in the waters to meet Indian interests, there is more to its claim for the mineral-rich Seamount.

That is China and China’s interest in exploring the Indian Ocean waters south of us. That is what New Delhi wants to prevent because of the rich ocean resources close to us and the visit of Chinese ships to our ports.

President Dissanayake’s next foreign visit, possibly early next year, will be to China, where the Indian and foreign media will holler that another Marx brother pays homage.

We are right in the middle of an escalating Sino-Indian conflict, external signs of appeasement notwithstanding. But we are too small to play referee as Sirima Bandaranaike did in the early 1960s. So we must play carefully. Well certainly not like our cricket team, some would add.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran
Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later,
he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission
in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)