When the tsunami wrought death and destruction to Sri Lanka in December 2004, then President Chandrika Kumaratunga was abroad. The burden of tackling the unprecedented calamity fell on the shoulders of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was then too prime minister. What did he do?

One of the first things a shaken Rajapaksa did was to telephone an Indian diplomat in Colombo he counted as a friend. The diplomat not only gave, confidentially, sound advice to Rajapaksa but urged him to prepare a list of immediate essentials required to tackle the crisis. Without wasting time, the diplomat alerted the Indian government and told them to get ready to dispatch various kinds of aid, military assistance included.

This was the reason Indian relief supplies began flying and sailing into Sri Lanka the moment Rajapaksa put in a formal request for Indian help.

Rajapaksa may have forgotten the 2004 tsunami and the Indian help when he spoke so glowingly about relations between Sri Lanka and China in a language he would have surely calculated India would not be happy with. The fact is China has been a long-standing friend of Sri Lanka; nobody disputes this. It is one thing to praise the China-Sri Lanka partnership; it is completely another story to say that China has never attacked any country. Claiming Beijing has helped Sri Lanka keep its independence is bordering on the humorous.

Can China be trusted?

Rajapaksa does not have to view China from India’s prism; that would be diplomatically, strategically and politically wrong. He only has to study China’s difficult ties with countries like Japan, Vietnam and – of late -- the Philippines to know what Beijing is capable of and how it brazenly disregards even international conventions.

Even if he were to ignore these countries’ see-saw relations with Beijing, a cursory reading of the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s story would tell him what the Communist Party of China is capable of. 

The Dalai Lama, like Rajapaksa, is a Buddhist but is, unlike the Sri Lankan leader, a man of peace. The Dalai Lama has written about the untold sufferings the Tibetan people have undergone at the hands of the Chinese simply because Mao Zedong wanted to expand his kingdom post 1949 and decided to annex a militarily weak Tibet after trapping then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the niceties of Panchsheel (five principles of peaceful co-existence).

India's faulty diplomacy 
 
At the same time, India has to reflect on its own conduct vis-à-vis smaller neighbors including Sri Lanka to have some idea of why country after country it had counted as friends are leaning towards China.

The Congress was in power when India helped Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and when it gave critical covert support to crush the Tamil Tigers in 2009. Sri Lanka began to slowly assert its independence once the LTTE became history and India’s role diminished in the island nation. India-Sri Lanka relations have mostly seen a downslide since Narendra Modi became Indian prime minister in 2014.

The Rajapaksas – President Gotabaya and his brother Prime Minister Mahinda – are convinced that India played a key behind the scene role in the political coup by Maithripala Sirisena, who went on to become the president and made Ranil Wickremesinghe the prime minister. Whatever advantage India may have gained in the then dispensation evaporated when the two squabbled famously, propelling the Rajapaksas back in the saddle.

Incidentally, it was during Sirisena’s reign that Sri Lanka began to lean towards China. The Rajapaksas have taken the love for China to greater heights, a development that is bound to lead to frictions with India beyond a point.

Besides the Sirisena affair, Sri Lankans resent that India armed, trained and harbored Tamil militants for long. That New Delhi eventually turned against the Tigers is no consolation because it did so only after the LTTE foolishly took on the Indian military and then assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Indian Army may have fought the LTTE but its deployment in the island’s northeast is still widely viewed as an occupation. Even today leaders of Tamil Nadu talk down to Sri Lanka without contributing a bit for the reconciliation that the country badly needs.

The Indian establishment can today count neither the Sinhalese nor the Tamils nor Muslims as allies. The Sinhalese have a grouse against India for reasons stated above; the Tamils (of all hues) feel that New Delhi let them down for larger geostrategic interests. The Muslims are not comfortable with the Modi government for obvious reasons.

India's diminishing standing

India for decades carried out megaphone diplomacy against Sri Lanka on the Tamil issue until changing tracks and began conveying what it wanted to say quietly into the ears of Colombo. As a Tamil politician in Colombo put it, there was a time when Sri Lanka would at least listen to Indian sermons because the Indian state, despite its faults, was seen largely as secular. The present Indian government, with an unmistakable Hindu tilt, it is felt, has no moral right to tell Colombo that it should treat all its citizens equally. The more India sermonizes, the more it riles.

In any case, India’s standing has diminished in the world in recent times. India’s failure to anticipate and prepare for the second wave of Covid-19 – while proclaiming otherwise – has reduced its international stature considerably as a benefactor. 

In contrast, China, even if it is proved that the pandemic originated there, has admirably controlled it within and is busy helping the smaller South Asian countries with its vaccine. The fact that US naval ships recently sailed through Indian waters and made it a point to publicly state that it did not and will not take permission from New Delhi was heard loudly and clearly in the Indian subcontinent and beyond. 

India’s real and perceived big-brother attitude vis-à-vis its smaller neighbors has invited distrust and suspicion. China has exploited the tenuous relationship India has in its immediate vicinity to its full advantage.

When Rajapaksa became the President of Sri Lanka, a senior Indian diplomat in Colombo told him to visit New Delhi first when he goes abroad. Rajapaksa may have done that on his own accord but he was certainly put off by the suggestion. No Indian diplomat will be able to speak like this to any president in Sri Lanka anymore. This is why Mahinda Rajapaksa has publicly highlighted his love for China. The message cannot be lost on India.
   
(The author is a veteran journalist, author and Sri Lanka watcher. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on ranjini17@hotmail.com)