India Overhauls Policy Towards Sri Lanka

Tamil Nadu politics no longer determines New Delhi’s ties with Colombo and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has highlighted the common Buddhist linkage to woo the majority Sinhalese,

- Apratim Mukarji

Rebuffed time and again by its neighbours for a seemingly hostile neighbourhood policy, India has lately overhauled its Sri Lanka policy, one of its most important neighbours, as part of its rechristened ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.

At the core of this policy change lies New Delhi’s exhausted patience with the ethnic Tamils of the North-East Sri Lanka. Over the years the External Affairs Ministry has lived through a kind of racial and religious obligation to rush to the rescue of north-eastern Tamils at times of crisis. But this obligation, in essence, did not derive from an exclusively humanitarian concern. On the contrary, the standard Indian policy towards the island-nation was dictated by an out-and-out political consideration of keeping public opinion in Tamil Nadu solidly in favour of New Delhi. This could be achieved only by siding with whatever ethnic Tamils demanded from Colombo. The driving force behind this policy formulation was a solidly unified political opinion in the southern state led and dictated by the two Dravida parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All-India DMK, and faithfully followed by sidetracked parties like the Indian National Congress. Exploiting its clout of a regional power,

New Delhi often succeeded in making Colombo succumb to ethnic Tamils’ demands. But each time this happened, Colombo’s resentment against India only intensified.

India has struggled to wriggle out of this uncomfortable trap thrice: first, after the fiasco over the Indian Peace Keeping Force; second, in the aftermath of the May 21, 1991 assassination of its former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (helped considerably by the entire Tamil Nadu public turning against Sri Lankan Tamil militants); and, thirdly, after the National Democratic Alliance government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party was formed (May, 2014).