Modi’s Clever Tactics-A Diplomatic War with Sri Lanka

By Sajjad Shaukat

As part of his clever tactics, the leader of the BJP party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started a diplomatic war with Sri Lanka to win the general elections which will start on April 19, 2024.

Modi has flagged the issue of Indian fishermen discontented after a 1976 pact between the neighbours barred them from the waters around the island.

Now, he is putting pressure on Sri Lanka to hand over Katchatheevu Island to India. In return, New Delhi is offering financial assistance to Sri Lanka.

However, according to the 1974 mutual agreement signed during the Indira Gandhi regime, the island is owned by Sri Lanka. But in a rally, Modi also took a dig at the late Indira Gandhi.

As a matter of fact, Modi can go to any low to make his election campaign successful. Before the election, he has invented a new story of Desh Rakhwali (Negligence).

In this regard, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry told the domestic Hiru television channel on April 3, 2024: “Sri Lanka does not see any need to re-open talks on a contentious island ceded to it by New Delhi 50 years ago…the low-key territorial squabble turned into a hot-button election issue in India. This is a problem discussed and resolved 50 years ago and there is no necessity to have further discussions on this…I don’t think it will come up”, adding that “no one had yet raised the question of a change in the status of the island, located 33 km (21 miles) off India’s coast in the Palk Strait that divides the neighbours”.

According to the Reuters, “His comments came after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party made the 285-acre (115-hectare) island an election campaign issue by accusing the opposition Congress party of having callously given it away. The BJP seeks to make election inroads in the coastal state of Tamil Nadu facing the island after failing to win any of the southern state’s 39 seats in India’s 545-member parliament in the last election”.

It said: “Tamil Nadu goes to the polls on April 19 in the first of seven rounds of voting set to end on June 1, India ceded the island to Sri Lanka in 1974, followed by the pact on the fishermen in 1976, but unhappiness over the transfer and the abridged rights spurred two as yet unresolved Supreme Court challenges in the last 20 years”.

Reuters added: “On Monday, [April 1, 2024] Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Sri Lanka had detained more than 6,000 Indian fishermen and 1,175 fishing vessels over the last 20 years, following the no-fishing pact”.

In this respect, Foreign Policy.Com reported in an article on April 3, this year: “Sri Lanka showcases its own brand of strategic autonomy, recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan underscore the threat to Chinese workers and infrastructure in the country, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to sway voters in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu”.

It elaborated: “Most South Asian governments tend to have nonaligned foreign policies, including Sri Lanka balancing their relations with major powers. This maximizes their diplomatic flexibility and ability to operate independently on the world stage, also known as strategic autonomy”.

It further wrote: “Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has strengthened economic ties with China and already hosts many large Chinese infrastructure projects. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has also embraced Beijing’s position on key issues, including the AUKUS security alliance between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom…Sri Lanka’s actions may be driven by a commitment to strategic autonomy, but its motivations are as much about practicality as principle. The country is emerging from an acute economic crisis, and it needs as much financial assistance as it can get. It’s easier to achieve that goal when it works with all the major powers”.

Foreign Policy. Com maintained: “South Asia has become a battleground for geopolitical rivalry, which puts pressure on the region’s nonaligned governments to take sides. But to this point, Sri Lanka has navigated this state of affairs successfully, demonstrating the capacity of states in the global south to reinforce multipolarity in the current world order”.

In this context, under the title: India and China’s Tug of War Over Sri Lanka-India sets out to check China’s efforts to turn the island into a maritime hub on its “Belt and Road, The Diplomat. Com indicated: “In recent years, Beijing has invested heavily in Sri Lanka’s infrastructure as part of its string of pearls policy aimed at establishing a naval presence across South Asia by building ports and other facilities in friendly countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. The expansion is part of its “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project, a new trade route linking China with the West, underpinned by billions of dollars of infrastructure investment. India has been looking on nervously, concerned that China is encroaching on its sphere of influence and eroding its commercial and cultural links with the island, some of whose Tamil minority are descendants of colonial-era indentured workers from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Sri Lanka’s current President Maithripala Sirisena has sought to rebalance relations with the competing regional powers, reaching out to New Delhi with Modi keen to reciprocate”.

It further pointed out: “Under Sirisena’s predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka looked to China for economic and diplomatic backing at a time when the West was threatening to sanction Colombo for crimes committed in its conflict with Tamil separatists. China is the largest investor in Sri Lanka, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars repairing war-damaged infrastructure and developing new projects following the end of the civil war in 2009”.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka’s strengthened relations with Beijing irritated New Delhi. That is way; Colombo has become target of the Modi-led regime.

In fact, the aim of Modi’s campaign is to establish hegemony in the region. In this connection, the false flag operation of Pulwama in Pakistan’s side of Kashmir—under the shadow of Modi and the continued atrocities on the Kashmiris in the Indian illegitimate occupation of Kashmir are in front of the world.

And no South Asian country can accept India’s monopoly under any circumstances. But extremist PM Modi continues sinister designs to keep Indian influence in the region.

Undoubtedly, we can conclude that Narendra Modi has started using clever tactics to increase his popularity as the election approaches. Hence, Sri Lanka has become target of Modi’s unjustified shrewd diplomacy.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com