SriLanka - India Relations - An Exercise in the Management of Structural Contradiction and Change
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SriLanka – India Relations
- An Exercise in the Management of Structural Contradiction
and Change -
Keynote Address
presented by
Sunimal Fernando
at the Plenary Session of the International Conference
on
‘Changing Social Dynamics in South Asia: Prospects and Challenges for India and Sri Lanka’
organized by
The Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS)
and
The Observer Research Foundation (ORF)
on Friday 17th August 2012 at the BCIS Auditorium, Colombo
``
I thank the Chairman and Director of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies for inducting
me back to my former role of a social science academic and for affording me an opportunity of
speaking to you in my academic rather than in my administrative capacity. As I had to make myself
relevant to your conference, I selected the theme, “Sri Lanka – India Relations – An Exercise in the
Management of Structural Contradiction and Change” as the subject of my presentation.
I am by no means a specialist in foreign relations. Less so do I have any specialist knowledge in the
field of bilateral relations in respect to Sri Lanka and India. My only qualification for undertaking the
task that has been entrusted to me is that while on the one side I am a great lover of Indian culture
and civilization, on the other side I am so much attached to Sri Lankan thought and lifestyle that I will
never be comfortable, happy or contented outside the shores of my own country.
Thus, with the combination of a deep compassion for both countries and the analytical ability of a
social scientist of once upon a time, a skill now weathered and transformed with age and
experience, I shall try and extract what I consider to be some of the fundamental factors that shape
the dynamic between the two countries and suggest the manner in which they find expression and
also get re-interpreted from time to time in response to social structural changes that occur in these
two countries.
The most basic of these fundamental factors stems from the geo-political location of the two
countries in relation to each other. India is a big country. Whenever the country has been united
and strong, it finds itself compelled by its national security interests to be concerned with the
relationship its neighbours are having with other countries. This is natural and inevitable. What
sometimes happens in her neighbourhood is perceived by India to affect her own security. Sri Lanka,
India’s southern neighbor, is a country small in extent but very jealous and protective of her
independence and sovereignty from the very beginnings of its recorded history. The structural
potential for tension is thus entrenched in the very geo-political location of the two countries in
relation to each other.
1The structural tension entrenched in the bilateral relationship finds symbolic expression in both
legend and history. At one level, the Ramayana story of King Ravana or better known in India as
Ravan, so widespread in both countries, reminds us in symbolic terms of the challenge and
embarrassment that Sri Lanka can possibly project on the great Indian order.
Within Sri Lanka itself the historical figures with whom the vast majority of Sri Lankan people
consciously and emotionally identify are those great kings of the past such as King Dutugemunu and
King Vijayabahu among others, who were able to successfully mobilize the people to drive away
various foreign invaders who had come from some part of India, re-unify the country under a single
monarch and restore its lost sovereignty and freedom. In short, the concept of independence,
sovereignty and freedom from interventions from across the seas is deeply embedded in the very
psyche of the Sri Lankan people.
In contrast, pre-colonial India was never a single political entity. Chandragupta Maurya, in the 4th
Century BC brought the whole of present day India and more under his rule with the exception of
present day Orissa or Kalinga as it was then called and a good part of present day Tamilnadu then
ruled by the Cheras, the Pandyans and the early Cholas. His grandson Emperor Asoka after
consolidating Maurya rule over Central India was able to annex Kalinga while a good part of
Tamilnadu always continued to remain outside his great empire. After the death of Asoka, the unity
of India rapidly fell apart and remained so until the mid nineteenth century when the consolidation
of India as a single political entity began to take shape and form under British rule.
While the mainstream Sri Lankan psyche is vigorously focused on the great kings of the past who
unified the country as a single political entity, the mainstream Indian psyche does not identify to the
same degree with those ancient emperors like Chandragupta Maurya and Asoka who came quite
near to uniting India as a single entity. In the mainstream Indian psyche the political unity of the
country – the concept of India as one political entity with one overriding Indian identity, a reality
lacking anything like the historical depth of the parallel reality of Sri Lanka – finds symbolic and
emotional expression around personages of a much more recent vintage such as the independence
movement leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar
Valabhai Patel among others, and in more recent times around new institutions such as Indian
Cricket.
The structural tension embedded in the Sri Lanka – India relationship stemming from a possible
contradiction between India’s necessary concern with developments in Sri Lanka on the one side, as
these could possibly impact on India’s national security, and Sri Lanka’s concern with protecting its
sovereignty and political autonomy from outside interference on the other, is itself contradicted by
another factor, namely the interlocking nature of the security interests of both countries, thereby
making it structurally impossible and hence mutually destructive for the two countries to drift away
from each other.
Historically speaking, the security threat to India has always come from the north, making it
imperative for the country to have its southern borders totally secured. And, in terms of its southern
security, Sri Lanka is critically located and this makes India all the more sensitive to the scope and
nature of Sri Lanka’s relations with other countries. Sri Lanka too has only one neighbor, namely
India, just across its northern boundary, while large stretches of the ocean surround it on the other
three sides. Sri Lanka’s security too cannot be even conceived other than in terms of its association
with the security of India.
There is thus an inbuilt structural tension in the Sri Lanka - India relationship stemming from the geo-
political location of the two countries, and within that structural tension is a great potential deriving
2from another aspect of that same reality, namely the indispensability of mutual understanding and
cooperation to ensure the security of both countries. Structural tensions or structural contradictions
cannot be wished away. They have to be understood, lived with and managed in the mutual interest
of the two countries. At a very fundamental level, the challenge of the Sri Lanka – India dynamic is
the challenge of sensitively understanding, appreciating and managing this entrenched structural
contradiction and the great potential that lies within that contradiction, to the mutual benefit and
security of both countries. This was probably what Mahatma Gandhi meant when he said that India
and Sri Lanka cannot but be friends.
History is replete with instances where big countries with big interests have followed a strategy of
managing their relationship with their smaller neighbours by economically looking after them
through the deployment of a liberal volume of material resources. USA in relation to the Americas
and the former Soviet Union in relation to Eastern Europe provide examples of such arrangements.
The historical experience reflects a mix of both success and failure, but the important point is that
even to embark on such a strategy the big country needs to have some big material resource that it
can liberally dispense to its smaller neighbours. Since it does not have any such resource at its
disposal in the volume required by the situation, this strategy has never been an option for India.
And in its absence, the big country has necessarily to sympathetically understand, appreciate and
accept the need for its smaller neighbors to make friends with and receive assistance from other
countries to respond to the development needs of their people.
The smaller neighbor in turn has to build and manage its relationship with other countries not only
in such a manner that it does not present a threat in any way to the security of the big neighbor, but
also in a way that it is perceived in fact to be sensitive to its big neighbour’s security concerns. The
short and crisp statement of President Rajapaksa that “other countries are Sri Lanka’s friends but
India is Sri Lanka’s relative” gives apt expression to the manner in which Sri Lanka seeks to manage
its relationship with India in the context of its friendship with other countries that are not necessarily
the dearest friends of India.
History too provides us with important lessons and insights into the management of this bilateral
relationship. Sri Lankan history prior to the introduction of Buddhism in the 3rd Century BC is
shrouded in the mysteries of time. South Indian invasions in all probability posed a threat to the
security of this country. As pointed out to me by a fellow social scientist in a personal conversation,
It is not implausible that in the context of a multiplicity of kingdoms in what is present day India, Sri
Lanka at times may have forged an alliance with some powerful East Indian political entity such as
Kalinga to offset the challenge posed by the different South Indian dynasties of that period which
also perhaps posed similar challenges to the Indian kingdoms of the North.
Maritime communication across the Bay of Bengal was very much a reality in those times. In terms
of culture and language, the Sinhala people of Sri Lanka and the people of present day Orissa and
Bengal display affinities that need to be investigated by students of ancient history. My colleague
further suggested that once Asoka had annexed Kalinga to his empire, he probably felt that the
security of his Mauryan Empire, which comprised almost the totality of present day India and more,
required the forging of a strong bond of trust and friendship with Sri Lanka to offset any possible
threat to Mauryan rule from either the independent part of South India or even from a resurgent
Kalinga. Strategic political alliances between various kingdoms of North India and Sri Lanka against
specific political entities of Peninsula India were perhaps a feature of ancient times. In such a
context, the introduction of Buddhism was possibly but the icing on a politico – strategic cake. Until
confirmed or rejected through academic research, this will necessarily have to remain at the level of
speculation. However in the documented history of the world, large scale religious proselytization,
be it Christian, Islamic or of some other religion, has never been devoid of a strategic or political
3dimension. There is little reason to believe that Sri Lanka’s conversion to Buddhism was an exception
to the rule.
Coming to a more recent period of history, scraps of evidence lodged more in local myth and legend
than in documented history indicate that during the Vijayanagar Empire that lasted from around the
mid 13th to the early 16th century, various kinds of alliances were forged between Sinhala rulers on
the one side and political sub - entities in present day Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka on the
other, sometimes for protection against invaders coming from outside and at other times for
economic activities relating to commerce, fishing and the cinnamon industry.
In the context of a recurring security threat from political entities located in present day Tamilnadu,
historical research if undertaken could reveal if, in the environment of an un-united India, these bear
the features of strategic, social, economic and cultural alliances designed to balance and offset the
recurring security threat from that other part of Peninsula India. Such insights could help Sri Lanka
revive and strategize a meaningful relationship with Peninsula India in the contemporary context of
individual Indian States demanding and increasingly enjoying a greater say in India’s foreign affairs.
Since the days of the Mauryan Empire, it is only after the European colonial powers receded from
South Asia in the 1940’s that the two countries really faced the challenge to conduct the bilateral
relationship through a sympathetic understanding, appreciation and acceptance of the need to
manage the interplay of three unchanging factors – already defined - that are basic and fundamental
to the situation. One, the structural tension entrenched in the geo-political location of the two
countries: Two, the axiomatic need for close cooperation between the two countries stemming from
the irrevocable inter-linking of the national security of the two countries: And three, in the context
of India’s inability to deploy large volumes of material resources to look after the development
needs of its neighbours, the inevitable need for them to cultivate other friends among other
countries to help respond to the urgent development needs of their people.
The foreign policy of the immediate post independence UNP government in Sri Lanka was built on a
strong alliance with the West while maintaining a fairly cordial relationship with India despite a clash
of political positions during the Bandung Conference of Non-aligned countries in 1954. The concept
of ‘Indian Expansionism’ was very much a part of the political discourse of that period as much as it
continues to surface quite frequently from time to time in the country. It stems from the country’s
historical memory of past invasions from different political entities within that which constitutes
present day India at a time when India was not united, - from the local kingdoms of the Cheras, the
Pandyans, the Cholas and even from Kalinga. It is buttressed by the living memory of the migration
of large hordes of South Indian labour and the penetration of crudely exploitative Indian commerce
going right down to village level in British times, and the more recent provision of arms and training
to Sri Lanka’s northern insurgents, - realities which we as neutral scholars should weigh
dispassionately and objectively, without emotion, to gauge and evaluate their impact on the Sri
Lankan mind. The UNP government which continued from 1948 – 1956 invited the British to keep
two military bases in Trincomalee and Katunayaka, and when Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike
dismantled these bases in 1956 the former UNP Prime Minister Sir John Kotalawala is reported to
have cried out in astonishment, “Is Banda Mad”, meaning that by doing so, in his view, he has
rendered the country defenseless in a possible future event of Indian expansion.
The SWRD Bandarnaike government brought a radical shift in foreign policy towards non-alignment
which resulted in the forging of close ties of trust, friendship and understanding with India. The two
Sirimawo Bandaranaike governments of 1960 – 1965 and 1970 – 1977 which witnessed the signing
of the Sirima – Shastri Pact in 1964, the Sirimawo – Indira Pact in 1975 amicably resolving the issue
of the nearly one million stateless plantation workers of recent Indian origin as well as the
4determination of the maritime boundary between the two countries and the ceding of the
uninhabited but controversial Kachchativu island to Sri Lanka and even a courageous attempt by
Mrs. Bandaranaike to mediate in the Sino – Indian war of 1962, is perceived in both countries as
constituting the high water mark in post independence Sri Lanka – India relations.
Mrs. Bandaranaike developed a strong rapport with India, strengthened by the deep personal ties
bonding the Bandaranaike and Nehru families, two aristocratic families of British period origin of a
similar social background, while jealously protecting the sovereign right of Sri Lanka to forge similar
ties of friendship with other countries including Pakistan and China which may not always qualify as
good friends of India.
In April 1971, India was the first country to deliver assistance to Mrs. Bandaranaike to quell the JVP
insurgency of 1971. In December of the same year, in pursuance of her policy of friendship with all
countries, Mrs. Bandaranaike allowed Pakistan aircraft to re-fuel at Katunayaka airport on their way
to what was then East Pakistan during the Bangladesh war of independence. I have heard it on good
authority from persons who were very close to the centres of Indian decision making at the time
that Mrs. Gandhi was livid and furious with her friend Mrs. Bandaranaike.
Though the personal relations between the two ladies remained just as warm as before as did the
relations between the two countries as displayed by the friendship associated with the signing of the
Sirimawo - Indira Pact of 1975, we do not know if India would have then debated embarking on a
new strategy that would make Sri Lanka’s perceived autonomy and sovereignty a little more pliable
for India. What Sri Lanka saw as a proud affirmation of her own sovereignty was possibly seen by
India as a rude reminder of what could someday possibly constitute a potential threat to her
security. By 1974, insurgent groups in Northern Sri Lanka had apparently started to receive arms and
training. From where these were sourced at that early stage of the conflict one does not know. And
in the absence of hard data, it is not for me to speculate.
Where bilateral relations are concerned, the Jayawardena – Premadasa UNP era, 1977 – 1994, was
one big disaster for both countries. Unable or unwilling to recognize the geo-politically determined
fundamental, unalterable structural underpinnings of the Sri Lanka – India dynamic, Jayawardena
embarked on a confrontational course in relation to India. Within the context of a cold war
environment where India was allied with the then Soviet Union, Jayawardena turned his wagon in
the opposite direction, hitched it to the United States and followed through by taking a series of
measures that could clearly provide a platform in Sri Lanka for the US to be able to dangerously
threaten the national security of India.
Adopting a strategy of destabilizing the country by arming and training the northern insurgents,
India was able to weaken the security of her neighbor to such an extent as to leave no option for
President Jayawardena but to accept the Indo – Sri Lankan Accord of 1987 despite the strong
opposition from both within and outside his government. Memories of that period abound with the
perceived excesses of Ambassador Dixit, the inexplicable stupidity of President Jayawardena, the
common man’s fears of a possible Indian invasion, the helplessness of Mrs. Bandaranaike and the
general feeling of hopelessness that pervaded the country. And finally, and in a way paradoxically,
India’s once Prime Minister and then Prime Minister in waiting, Rajiv Gandhi, the author of the Indo
– Sri Lanka Accord was brutally assassinated by the LTTE, the very people his mother and he had
once supported.
None of this would have happened during this period had President Jayawardena stopped to
understand and appreciate the basic fundamentals of the Sri Lanka – India relationship, sensitively
build on the fund of friendship and goodwill accumulated by his predecessor Mrs. Bandaranaike, and
5move towards achieving a dynamic harmony between the freedom and sovereignty of Sri Lanka on
the one side and the national security interests of India on the other, in the specific context of the
circumstances of his time.
The Sri Lanka – India problematique after 1994 and especially after the turn of the century can best
be understood and appreciated in terms of the unfolding of the impact of a major social structural
watershed in Indian history - namely, the rise of capitalism and of its associate Indian middle class
inclusive of the very rich Indian corporate class, estimated to be already over 20% of the population
or around 250,000,000 in absolute terms, spread across the country. This has been the major social
structural change that has taken place in India in the last several centuries – a function of recent
capitalist economic growth in almost all the States of the Indian Union, following the liberalization of
the economy in the last decade of the last century. Its threefold impact on Sri Lanka – India relations
provides the contours of the unfolding of an altogether new context in which the fundamental
parameters of the Sri Lanka – India problematique need to be understood and applied.
One: The rich Indian economy on which Indian middle class affluence is based is to a certain extent a
satellite economy rather than an independent one. A not insignificant part of it, deploying relatively
lesser paid Indian knowledge workers, supplies knowledge based products and services at relatively
lower cost to principals in the West from whom the products or services have been outsourced.
With rising wages in India and the increasing offers of lower cost infrastructure and lower priced
knowledge labour in other Asian countries and sooner or later in Africa as well, - and this applies to
other types of labour and other types of industry too, - the longer term sustainability of the Indian
economy and its associated Indian middle class affluence requires India to move into capital goods
production in large units with middle to upper middle level technology and very high levels of capital
investment.
Seeing that the levels of capital and technology required for the long term sustenance of Indian
affluence could be sourced from the United States which is willing to transfer these enterprises to
India in their own economic interest while keeping the very high level cutting edge technology for
themselves, the Indian middle class and in particular the rich Indian corporate class has recently
pushed the Indian polity towards a strong political – economic alliance with the US. India’s relations
with Sri Lanka will, to that extent, be influenced by India’s increasingly important relationship with
the United States.
Two: As a result of the rapid rise of capitalism, the integration of India is no longer primarily political
in nature but economic in character. Today the goods produced in each State in large enterprises are
marketed in the other States of India. As the Indian States are now economically inter-dependent
one on the other, it is not in the economic interests of any State, anymore, to even dream of
seceding from the Indian Union. Veiled threats of secession may however continue to be
occasionally heard from specific political formations in States such as Tamilnadu among others, but
no longer as a serious political goal but now as a weapon with which to bargain with the Centre.
With the economic factor replacing the political as the basis of integration of the Indian Union, and
strengthened by the rise of new affluent regional middle class elites and regional political parties
articulating regional interests, and the concomitant weakening of the all India parties like the
Congress and the BJP at State level, individual States are increasingly asserting their right to
participate in matters that were earlier the preserve of the Centre, such as India’s relations with
countries that neighbor these specific States and particularly so in the context of shared ethnic
affinities. The very nature of the Indian State seems to be evolving in the direction of a looser
federation of States economically integrated into a single Union but enjoying a greater say even in
external relations which was till only a few years back the jealously guarded preserve of Delhi. The
6nature of the Indian Union seems to be now moving in the direction of the European Union. Should
this process of re-definition of the Indian State proceed unabated, the involvement of Tamilnadu in
India’s relations with Sri Lanka will further increase with time.
Three: The new Indian middle class with the force of the very rich new corporate class of India
behind it constitutes a highly self confident class of people with a strong sense of determination,
giving leadership and direction today to a New India which is no longer afraid of any challenge it may
have to encounter. For instance the paranoia concerning China, a distinct reality of only a few years
ago, is rapidly receding into the past. To counter China’s so-called string of pearls around her
country, India has forged a chain of alliances with the countries around China such as the ASEAN
countries that entertain historical fears of Chinese expansion. Parallel to the Chinese presence in the
Indian Ocean, India is now present in the South China Sea. Today the Indian navy, as never before, is
supremely confident of its ability to meet any possible challenge from its Chinese counterpart if ever
the need arises.
It is true that China’s activities in the neighbourhood of India are being watched and assessed, but
China is no longer a bottom line in the definition of Indian policy. By the same stretch of argument,
China is not the bottom line of the US – India alliance. But nevertheless it remains an important
concern. The fear of China is increasingly giving way to an Indian desire to be richer, more influential,
more powerful and more important than China in the affairs of the world.
In conclusion, relations between countries must periodically be reviewed and reinvented in the
context of a rapidly changing world. Certain factors guiding the relationship are pre-ordained by the
geo-political placement of the countries concerned. Other aspects are a function of change and
circumstance. The challenge before the social scientist is to see how the interplay between the
factors that are constant and the circumstances that change present new opportunities, new options
and new challenges for the countries concerned.
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