Continuing the ‘India First’ policy of most of his predecessors, the new Marxist President of Sri Lanka will embark on his first overseas visit on December 15 to New Delhi. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stressing his ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, sent his trusted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Colombo with an invitation extended to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake within days after his assumption of office, a solid base for good neighbourly ties and economic cooperation is likely to cemented during the visit this month.

Bilateral economic cooperation between the crisis-ridden Sri Lanka and its powerful neighbor will be the hallmark of President Dissanayake’s visit to India. On December 16, Dissanayake will have a day full of engagements in New Delhi including talks with PM Modi. He will be accompanied by a small delegation including Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath.

Visit of great significance

The Sri Lankan leader’s first state visit to New Delhi assumes great significance for many reasons. India realized after the 2022 Aragalaya protest against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa that Dissanayake’s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led new popular alliance National People’s Power (NPP) could be a power to reckon with, and months ahead of the presidential election campaign JVP leader Dissanayake, together with his shadow foreign minister Vijitha Herath, were invited to New Delhi. Realizing the imperative of getting into New Delhi’s good books, Dissnayake visited India and held discussions with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval among others. As Dissanayake was only a leader of a minor party with only three Members of Parliament then, he did not get an audience with PM Modi.

Things changed overnight and within hours after the presidential election results were announced, India’s High Commissioner in Colombo Santosh Jha turned up at the JVP office in capital Sri Jayawardenepura with a bouquet of red roses. Interestingly, Dissanayake in his brief conversation with the Indian envoy, had recalled his visit to India and said that too was a contributory factor in his victory. Perhaps what he had in mind was the overwhelming support he received in the Tamil-majority North as well as in the Central hill country where a sizable Indian-origin Tamils voted in his favour.

India’s interest in forging close cooperation with the new regime became further evident when High Commissioner Jha called on Dissanayake once again after he was sworn in as executive president after the presidential election. This was followed by the visit of Jaishankar to Colombo with an invitation to President Disssanayake  from PM Modi to visit New Delhi. Although he accepted the invitation, Dissanayake could not undertake the visit immediately because of the parliamentary elections that followed the presidential election.

According to highly placed officials, talks between Modi and Dissanayake will include grant assistance projects from India, continuation of debt restructuring concessions, a proposed Economic and Technological Co-operation Agreement (ECTA), which replaced the earlier proposal for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), people-centric digitisation programmes including digital identity cards, housing projects from India, solar electrification of religious places under a grant already announced in New Delhi, agricultural development, defence cooperation, infrastructure development in the north and collaboration in human resources development. The vexed question of Indian fishermen fishing in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters will also figure in the talks.

Adani Group's projects

India is likely to raise the Adani Group’s proposed investment in a wind power project in Mannar in the North. The proposal is currently faced with legal challenges as five fundamental rights cases against this project for environmental reasons have been filed in the Supreme Court. The Attorney General’s Department informed the Supreme Court that a group of cabinet ministers of the previous government had decided to reconsider the project. In addition to this 280 MW renewable energy project, there is also a 234 MW venture in which the Adani Group has invested in Pooneryn in the North.

Officials in Colombo are also studying the decision taken by Kenya to cancel a project of the Adani Group after a recent five-count criminal indictment unsealed in a Federal Court in Brooklyn, USA against Gautam Adani and few others of his renewable energy company.

Of particular concern to Sri Lanka is a feared delay of a commitment of $ 530 million by the International Development Finance Corporation for the development of a deepwater shipping container terminal at  Colombo Port. This was in collaboration between the Adani Group and John Keells, one of Sri Lanka’s leading corporate firms. A deal for the project was signed in November last year in Colombo by DFC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Scott Nathan to finance the project to be undertaken by the Colombo West Terminal Private Ltd.

Political commentators look at Dissanayake’s visit to New Delhi this month and his visit in January 2025 to China in the backdrop of their geopolitical rivalry and Colombo’s balancing act. Columnist Neville de Silva summarized it with a question, “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!"

(The author, a former Sri Lankan diplomat, is a political and strategic affairs commentator. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at sugeeswara@gmail.com)