Indian Council of World Affairs

Samatha Mallempatti: Good afternoon, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Sapru House for a Panel Discussion on Recent Developments in Sri Lanka: Significance and Implications. We are grateful to our esteemed panelists for their kind acceptance of our invitation. 

The panel discussion will be chaired by Ambassador Mohan Kumar, Dean, Strategic and International Initiatives, Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University. We have with us three eminent panelists to speak on today's topic, Professor S.D. Muni, Professor Emeritus, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Professor Ajay Darshan Behera, Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia. And we also have with us Dr. Nishan de Mel, Executive Director, Verite Research, Sri Lanka. He has joined the discussion virtually from Colombo. 

The panel discussion will be followed by a question and answer session moderated by the chair. May I now invite Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Additional Secretary, ICWA, to kindly give her welcome remarks. Thank you. 

Nutan Kapoor Mahawar: Distinguished experts, members of the diplomatic core, students, and friends, We have just had a successful visit of the new President of Sri Lanka, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, to India as his first foreign visit after assuming office. In the statement to the media after the talks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasized the importance of adopting a futuristic vision to this key relationship that the two countries share. 

India and Sri Lanka share a common South Asian identity, based on a millennia-old strong civilizational connect. Due to the binding pre-Buddhist Hindu and Buddhist heritage and our shared subcontinental geography, the imagery of this connect is very deep in popular mind and perception among both peoples. Modern day relations draw inspiration from this heritage and seek to build a co-periphery of enduring peace, stability, prosperity, and integrativeness. 

A country's geographic location must be harnessed for the security, prosperity, and welfare of its people and the region. Sri Lanka's strategic location in the Indian Ocean region, close to the sea lanes of communication has been important since ancient connectivity and colonial era trade routes. In modern times, it is the basis for Sri Lanka's vision to become an international maritime and commercial hub, a vision in which India, as a regional country, is ready to partner to mutual benefit. The current geopolitical turmoil and competition between great powers for hold on global supply chains and global trade and commerce is, however, adversely impacting the diplomatic space, especially of island nations of the Indo-Pacific, making them face choices which they should not feel compelled to make. 

Today, Sri Lanka is one of the closest neighbors to India and occupies a central place in India's ‘Neighborhood First’ policy and security and growth for all in the region, the SAGAR vision. Sri Lanka's emphasis on secure and prosperous Indian Ocean, freedom of navigation, rules-based order has commonalities with India's view and outlook. The present geopolitical situation necessitates cooperation at the regional and bilateral level to maintain peace and stability in the region. 

Sri Lanka and India are deepening maritime security cooperation, both at the traditional and non-traditional security front, bilaterally, through confidence-building military and naval exercises, and through regional mechanisms, such as BIMSTEC, IORA, Colombo Security Conclave, as also trilateral military exercises with neighbors like Maldives. Cooperation in hydrography is also important in this regard. 

Friends, it is also important to underline India's role as a first responder for Sri Lanka in times of crisis. Help extended by India to recover from the 2004 tsunami, flood relief in 2017, intelligence sharing to address non-traditional threats, such as during the April 2019 Eastern Sunday attacks in Colombo, help provided during COVID-19, cooperation extended by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard to its Sri Lankan counterparts in firefighting operations in 2020 and in 2021 on vessels to avert large-scale environmental damage in Sri Lankan waters are few examples that demonstrated India's commitment to act in times of crisis for the benefit of the friendly people of Sri Lanka. 

Prime Minister Modi has noted the need to further enhance bilateral cooperation in HADR. India has been the first responder to Sri Lanka's economic crisis, as is well known, and the first country it has been to provide financial help in the economic recovery process. India did not wait for action from other bilateral creditors of Sri Lanka. It provided nearly $4 billion financial aid, gave financial assurances to the IMF on Sri Lanka's debt restructuring process, and played an important role as co-chair of the Official Creditors Committee along with France and Japan to help Sri Lanka in its economic recovery process. 

Promoting all-encompassing connectivity between the two nations in key areas of maritime, air, energy, and power, people-to-people trade, economic, and financial connectivity is a shared commitment on either side, which was reaffirmed during the just-held visit by the leadership of both the countries, as also during EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar's visit to Sri Lanka in October 2024. 

Efforts at strengthening longstanding bilateral relations are not devoid of persistent challenges. India has supported an inclusive reconciliation process within Sri Lanka, especially since 2009, which takes into account the welfare and well-being of the Tamil minority in an equal, secular, and diverse Sri Lankan socioeconomic setup. 

The fisherman issue, fishing in each other's waters, certain fishing practices, and fisherman arrests is a persistent irritant in bilateral relations. India looks forward to a durable humanitarian solution to the issue based on understanding of each other's concerns. 

Combating organized crime and smuggling are also objectives that need to be elevated in the bilateral relationship. 

As I mentioned earlier, cultural cooperation and people-to-people ties are of key importance in the context of India-Sri Lanka relations. Efforts to revive cultural, religious interactions, restoration of religious places, spiritual and wellness tourism are important. India has granted assistance to restore the Thiruketheeswaram Temple in Mannar in north of Sri Lanka. The temple is one of the five sacred Ishwarams dedicated to Lord Shiva. Allocation of $15 million grant assistance by India to Sri Lanka in 2023 to bolster Buddhist linkages is another important endeavor, as part of which in July 2020, the government of India declared the Kushinagar Airport in India the place of Lord Buddha's Mahaparinirvana as an international airport, and the first inaugural flight to this airport was from Sri Lanka. Pilgrim tourism has the potential to strengthen people-to-people ties based on faith and the shared sacred geography of the subcontinent. Popularizing the Buddhist circuit, Ramayana Trail, as well as other places of worship of interest will contribute to this end. 

I must also mention that as a top trading partner, India is looking to expand the scope of the FTA with Sri Lanka. It may also be noted that India's $5 billion worth development cooperation in Sri Lanka extends to all 25 districts of Sri Lanka and we look forward to strengthening this development partnership. 

Friends, in the last two years, Sri Lanka has faced enormous economic and political difficulties and tried to find a way out of the crisis with the help of bilateral and national partners. Sri Lanka's recent political shift, witnessed through presidential and parliamentary elections, is the direct result of people's desire for a change that can steer Sri Lanka to move towards sustainable economic recovery and political stability. The present leadership at the helm of Sri Lanka, therefore, has a huge responsibility to steer Sri Lanka out of the present uncertainties and make way for a government that is inclusive as expected by the people of Sri Lanka. 

We are eager to hear from the panel about the implications of recent developments at the domestic front for Sri Lanka's economic recovery and for the overall political landscape of Sri Lanka. How will India-Sri Lanka relations pan out in the future and what are the implications for regional security and prosperity? I look forward to an engaging discussion and I wish the panelists all the best. 

Samatha Mallempatti: May I now request Ambassador Mohan Kumar to chair the panel discussion and conduct the proceedings. 

Mohan Kumar: Thank you. Can you hear me? Yeah. So, I just want to thank ICWA for this opportunity. I also want to thank Ambassador Nutan Kapoor Mahawar for that elaborate statement. It makes my job easier, actually. She's pretty much given you a tour d’ horizon of the bilateral relations between India and Sri Lanka. So, I'll stick to just raising a few provocative questions for my panelists. I want to recognize in particular the presence of Professor S.D. Muni. I cannot imagine a better person to be on the panel than him and the others present and we will have our Sri Lankan colleague join us online. 

So, I want to make a couple of points, first of all, on the emerging situation in Sri Lanka. One is Sri Lanka's spectacular democratic comeback. That's, I think, something that South Asia should notice. We can be very, very proud of what has happened in Sri Lanka. I don't want to comment on other countries in the South Asian region, but you know exactly what I have in mind. But basically, 2022, the Aragalia protest in Sri Lanka, if you had told me in 2022 that Sri Lanka would be well on its feet in two years' time, we would have a new President and the rest of it, I would have just laughed it off. 

I said, listen, this could take five years, this could take more. But I think what has happened in Sri Lanka, therefore, is extremely positive for the region. I want to say that, because it really tells you that democracy can function, can provide an outlet, and can provide a way out of domestic difficulties. And Sri Lanka has proved it beyond anybody's imagination and expectation. So that's the first point I want to make. 

The second point I want to make is, those of you who understand Sri Lanka, I was there posted a long time ago, I think much before some of you were born, when I look at the young people. So I dare not say when it was. But basically, the party to which the new President belongs, JVP, is actually a party with the past. And that is also something that we should recognize, that democracy provides an opportunity for parties to actually change, and then join the electoral process. Because if you had told me, again, in the 70s and 80s, that JVP would be happy to join the democratic mainstream and construct this wonderful experiment, I would have, again, laughed it off, saying that, listen, here is a party which actually carried out an armed insurrection against the government of Sri Lanka twice in the past. 

So that, again, is another remarkable story from Sri Lanka. On the President, and no disrespect man, but I shall refer to him as AKD, only because it's easier. But he's, of course, His Excellency, the President of Sri Lanka. Please understand that as given. So AKD is nothing if not a pragmatist. And I think what he has been able to do in terms of build a coalition, which is called the National People's Power, is quite an amazing thing, actually. Again, JVP is central, but there are a number of other parties. And I think two things noteworthy about both the presidential, but in particular, the parliamentary elections. 

One is that Tamils voted in large numbers to the National People's Power Coalition. And for those of you who know the island's ethnic politics, this is an important development. And you could ask a few questions. And I would like my panel to address this. What do they make of it? Is it that now Tamils have started saying, listen, we are sick and tired of this ethnic background, ethnic parties, maybe the bread and butter issues are the same, what happens to the 13th Amendment, what happens to devolution, are questions that I think we must pose. Because a number of Tamils have voted for both AKD and his coalition. That's the first. 

The second is a point that we must all recognize. The mainstream political parties have also been rejected in this election. We are talking SLFPP, and we are talking UNP, and so on. This is a new coalition. It's a new dawn. And I think it's a new precedent that we have. I think, Ambassador Nutan Kapoor Mahawar spelt it out in great detail about India having been the first responder and so on. I must tell you a small anecdote if you allow me. 

It was December 2004 and like a good person from the south of the country, I was having an oil bath in Colombo on a Sunday when I got a phone call. I was the Deputy High Commissioner. I was not the High Commissioner, but I was Acting High Commissioner. And I got a call saying, who is this? So I said, Mohan Kumar speaking, but who is this? And the lady said, I'm Chandrika speaking. I said, what Chandrika? She said, what do you mean what Chandrika? I'm the President of the country. Oh, I said, Presidents don't call the Deputy High Commissioner, but I was Acting High Commissioner. And she said, Mohan, there is something terrible happening in the eastern part of the country. 

At the time it was not known it was the tsunami. She merely said, tremendous rise in the sea levels, water everywhere, there's loss of life. We want help and we want it pretty immediately. So one of the things I did, and at that time the high commissioner was in India for consultation, so I was running the mission temporarily. We got hold of the Defense Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, and the very night of the same day in which she called me, we got an Indian Air Force plane which landed there for relief and help. So that is the first responder that I want to talk about, about which you, Nutanji, spoke so eloquently. India has been a first responder not just this time, right from that time onwards. 

But I think what I also want to say strategically speaking is that because the capital happens to be in Delhi, and don't get me wrong, it should be in Delhi, that's okay, despite the pollution and the rest of it, but because we are in Delhi, sometimes there is a tendency among all of us to ignore the southern flank of India. The southern flank of India is extremely important, and I put it to you for your consideration that Sri Lanka is the linchpin of stability, predictability, and safety for India's southern flank. 

So it's not just Sagar and maritime policy, of course, but ultimately there's nothing much you can do about the northwestern flank, if you know what I mean, nothing much you can do about the northeastern flank, if you know what I mean. So what can you do? At least keep your southern flank absolutely safe, predictable, and secure. I think Sri Lanka plays an incredibly important part in the southern flank and India's security thereof. 

So I also want to draw the attention, before I hand it over to the panelists, about the External Affairs Minister's visit to Sri Lanka within 15 days of the election of AKD. That visit, I believe, was important. He carried an invitation from Prime Minister Modi, more importantly some loans amounting to $20 million were converted as grants, and I'll have a chance to talk about that later when we have an interactive session. 

I invite the attention, especially I'm looking at the young people, I hope you have a better, shall I say, discipline of reading joint statements than my generation. I'm looking at young people. Please go through the joint statement after every visit. This is my first recommendation to anybody who is doing IR. Thanks to Nutanji, thanks to the fact that I am chair. I also read it, otherwise I wouldn't have. One has other things to do. But I have now gone through the joint statement with a fine-tooth comb, and it's an interesting joint statement. It's very substantive. The joint statement that has been issued after the visit of AKD to Delhi is a very, very substantive joint statement. I will just hit the major, major issues because it's a very long statement. I'm sure the panelists will cover it in some detail. 

So development cooperation is important, and I think the house-building projects that we have in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka, we have done a better job of implementing projects than in many other countries, actually. India's record is not very bright in the sense we take somewhat longer than people's expectations. But actually, in Sri Lanka, we've been able to do a good job of not just the housing project but also high-impact community development projects. Those are important. I think we're going to do capacity building for 1,500 Sri Lankan civil servants, which is good, and that is important, too. Debt restructuring, I said I'll mention it. 

Basically, some of the loans will be converted to grants so that Sri Lanka's debt burden doesn't increase. One of the things that we have as a problem is, thanks to climate change and other things, that developing countries' debt has actually grown exponentially in the last 10 years. That's not good news for the financial international architecture. You can't have so many countries really owing money to a small number of countries. Multilaterally, India, I'm sure, will try and help Sri Lanka in forum like the IMF and the World Bank and so on. 

Connectivity, there has been talk of Nagapattinam-Kankesanthurai and Rameshwaram-Talaimannar. Those are long-standing projects. We really should be doing that as quickly as possible so that people-to-people ties take place. I think the talk of a high-capacity power grid interconnection between India and Sri Lanka is excellent. See, my theory, and I think Professor Muni is better qualified to speak about it, SAARC has been a non-starter for a variety of reasons. I don't have to get into it. It's not constructive to even look at the reasons. Therefore, at least when I was chairman of RIS, we decided, forget fora like the SAARC and the BIMSTEC and the rest of it, and we will continue to do what we can in those fora. Let us look at sectors where we can build connectivity and cooperation in South Asia. 

And one immediate topic that suggests itself is energy. There's a lot of energy poverty in the South Asian region, and bear in mind that energy poverty is symbiotically linked to economic poverty. Most of economic poverty actually is energy poverty. You give a poor person energy, he or she will do something with their life. But if you don't give them energy, then there is no way of getting out of economic poverty. 

And finally, finally, because I don't want to take too much time, is talk of defense in the joint statement. That's pretty important, actually. And the three things that struck me, given my past background in Sri Lanka-India relations, one is the idea that now we have the comfort level to contemplate a framework defense agreement. And that is pretty big, actually, post-1987, there has really been no and there have been occasional things about training programs and giving a Dornier aircraft for surveillance, equipment. This will be an overarching umbrella defense framework agreement. So that's the first thing about defense cooperation. 

The second, I would say, is keeping the Indian Ocean safe, free, and security and predictable. That's pretty big, too. I'm not sure. I mean, there are people here who know Sri Lanka better than my knowledge is a little bit dated. But I don't think we've ever couched cooperation between India and Sri Lanka in these terms, saying specifically that we will keep the Indian Ocean safe and secure. And in the context of maritime security, again, Sri Lanka has undertaken to India that its territory will not be used for purposes, or not used in a way that is inimical to India's security interest. That is pretty big, too, in the context of the maritime sphere. 

So these are pretty important. Ambassador Nutan Mahawar spoke about fisheries. I will not speak about it, because she said that you have to deal with it from a humanitarian perspective. That is correct. But nevertheless, it's my honest view, and now I'm out of government so I can speak freely. I genuinely think the bottom trawling is the issue. And the Sri Lankan Fisheries Minister is right in pointing out that as a big issue. And that is something that we must take seriously. I think as Sri Lanka assumes the chair of IORA, Indian Ocean Rim Association, I think this is important too for India, what we do there. 

And finally the joint statement mentions about Sri Lanka's ambition to join BRICS, which is equally interesting for me in terms of Sri Lanka's positioning in terms of the international relations and the strategic landscape that is evolving. So with those comments, what I do request my eminent panelists, beginning with Professor Muni, is if they can take between 12 and 15 minutes, 15 minutes is what ICWA has given, so I can't take it back, but I think if it can be a little less it's good because we can have an interactive session. I have to leave at 5. So I think we have enough time to do what we have to do. 

So Professor Muni, can I please request you to share with us your perspective on AKD's visit to Delhi, the joint statement, where India-Sri Lanka relations are headed? Over to you. Thank you. 

S.D. Muni: Thank you very much. I'm grateful to ICWA to engage me with this distinguished gathering. I have General Mehta who has fought in Sri Lanka. We have Ambassador Mohan Kumar who has served in Sri Lanka. We have Dr. Ajay Behera who has done PhD on Sri Lanka. And I have done neither, nothing of this I have done. So I'm really feeling very elated that I am in the company of such distinguished people. 

A good panelist is the one who follows the chair. And therefore, I fully follow your very first point, which I also wanted to make in my own way. And that is about President Dissanayake, AKD, we all call him. It's a popular name. He is happy with that name. So there is no offense involved here. Underlines the robust democratic resilience of South Asia as a whole. He has detailed it. It started with India, and I would say both Punjab and Assam accords which were done, were bringing the armed rebellions into the mainstream democratic process. 

In Nepal, we saw the Maoists joining the democratic process. And Sri Lanka, the JVP now has transformed itself and joined the democratic process. I tell you, if any of such developments would have taken place in Europe, they would have given half a dozen Nobel Prizes all around. This is the kind of transformation that has been done. But since it is done in Asia and in South Asia, people have not taken enough note of it. Even in academics and media, this point is not emphasized of the robust democratic resilience of this region all said and done. 

These things have happened. There are two benchmarks in my mind. One, the rebellious groups have themselves transformed, moderated their ideology. And secondly, they have revisited their strategy and found that arms are not going to deliver to them what they wanted to deliver. So it is at that stage that they have all transformed, besides the social and democratic process. I would not dwell more on this point unless there are questions. 

AKD faces four challenges, to my mind, and I'll just flag them and leave the rest for the discussion. First is, of course, the economy. And the largest question, which was a campaign issue for him, that he would not like to continue with IMF. But he has accepted the IMF. The whole party has accepted the IMF. The problem is IMF conditionality versus the burden on ordinary Sri Lankan people, which continues to be there. There have already been protests on the streets of Colombo and other areas about the price issue, about the tax issue, about the electricity charges, so on and so forth. 

He has accepted IMF because I think there was no other alternative immediately. And he's trying to cope with the question of burden on ordinary Sri Lankan people. One thing which he has proposed is very interesting, somewhat debatable in Sri Lanka, but it's good. That is to curtail the governmental expenditure, particularly on the former Presidents and Prime Ministers. And also on the present Members of Parliament. He has put certain restrictions on that, which will generate some kind of a revenue in order to meet the IMF problems. 

He's seriously negotiating with the donors now, both bilaterally and in terms of multilateral fora. He's also inviting investments. And one of the points of his visit here is he met the business group business community and will try to mobilize as much of the sources which are there, assuring fixed prices on some of the essential items like rice, coconut, which are for the ordinary use. But there are still no proposals on the taxes, whether those who are having larger income would be taxed more or the taxes would be reduced. 

So this is a kind of a challenge which he's facing, that while going the IMF way, how to give relief to the ordinary citizens in Sri Lanka. And coming days I think will show how he really copes with it. And if he fails to cope with it, don't forget that people will come and become active on the streets, which would be very difficult for him, despite the majority which he has got. 

Second, and these are all problem areas for him, second is that he has promised to change the system. And there are two, three aspects of this changing system which are very critical. First he said he will weaken the presidency. The executive presidency would be removed. Now this is a kind of an objective which Sri Lankan leaders have been trying for last two decades, at least that I know, if not more. And they have not succeeded. The problem with him is that he wants to change the system and he says he wants to give up the power of the President. This is where the dilemma is. 

Though he has got two-third majority in the parliament, but parliamentary majorities are always undependable in many ways. Therefore, while keeping his powers, how he is going to reduce his powers is a big question. He can bring about constitutional amendments, but then he would not be able to do because the other thing besides changing the system he is saying is that fighting corruption, which has very powerful stakeholders in Sri Lanka, and once you start tackling or handling their resources and their benefits, they would revolt in many subtle and direct ways in one way or the other. This is where the presidential executive powers are useful to him if he uses them constructively. Many Presidents have used it not so constructively, but that's a different matter. 

Therefore this is also a major challenge for him and also related to in terms of system change is the ethnic solution, but in changing the system he is also bringing about some sort of a moral and ethical aspect of it. One example was evident yesterday and probably today also, is of resignation of the Speaker of Sri Lankan Parliament. Sri Lankan Parliament's Speaker elected from NPP was alleged that he had a foreign fraudulent PhD, which he is writing for his name, and there were a lot of opposition to that PhD, and now the Sri Lankan Parliament has adopted a resolution that none of the Members of Parliament would ever use either doctor or these titles would not be used, largely in relation to that. 

Now it came to, and the Speaker was personally very close to AKD, but he said you should go, he gave a message and the Speaker had to resign. They have now re-elected, today itself or yesterday, they have re-elected a new Speaker. So that is an indication of how he would like to pursue the ethical dimension of the corrupt elite in Sri Lanka. And let us see that how harshly, or how strongly, or how softly and intelligently he deals with corruption. 

The ethnic solution, Ambassador Kumar did not mention, I am glad that India has now softened on the 13th Amendment. And I personally find that 13th Amendment is not really viable in the changed circumstances. It was done in 1987. And you cannot unite the two. And the Tamil community itself is very badly divided, all said and done, how much you can have effect. Now, 13th Amendment has been given up by us, at least in terms of insistence. But what India would want, and not only India, what the Tamils want is justice and equality, so far as the constitutional and political system is concerned. And this is a big issue. 

I think Mahinda Rajapaksha could have done it after 2009 far more cleverly and far more smoothly. Then now AKD will have to face that kind of, but they did not. Mahinda Rajapaksha turned out to be more of a singular leader than a statesman who could take the community along. So this issue was left unresolved. And resolving this is one of which again is mentioned in the joint statement, or I think Prime Minister Modi's statement, that they should have provincial elections. So provincial elections should be held in north and eastern provinces as freely as possible. 

But besides that, you have to give two areas of power which are under contention, which is police and land. If you don't have the state with land uses and police powers, there's no point in this. We see the music in Delhi, that Delhi police is not under the Delhi government. So this is a kind of a problem which happens, and I think he will have to deal with it. The justice of human rights issues in 2009. And it is a big issue. It's an international issue, which I think is asking for a solution as far as possible. So these are the three issues, major challenges. 

The fourth one is balancing the crossroads of two very strong current of regional competition, which is on the one hand between US and China and on the other hand between India and China. China is one side, you have two sides here, this side India and the US. And Sri Lanka has been facing it and this is a kind of a competition which has precipitated regime changes in Sri Lanka because they could not manage the balance properly. We don't have time to go into, I can go into details to say that from the Rajapakshas to Ranil Wickremesinghe and now AKD, actually a regional competition of these two levels has played a critical and decisive role there in terms of regime changes and transformations which have taken place politically. It's not all domestic, nothing happens in South Asia which is 100% domestic. So we have to keep this in mind. 

Now the assurances, the chair has mentioned it is a great assurance which AKD has given us that Sri Lankan territory would not be used for any adversary purposes. This is an assurance which all Presidents have given all the time. See the issue in Sri Lanka is that Sri Lanka has long-standing traditional relations with China. Go back to 1952 when they violated, defied the US sanctions to have rice rubber trade deal with China which US did not want that to happen because rubber was called a strategic material at that time. 

And since then, and in India we should not forget that Mrs. Bandaranaike in 1962 wanted to play a neutral role in India-China issue. Mrs. Bandaranaike which was very friendly to Delhi, I am not disputing that, but I am talking of the balance. She allowed the Pakistanis to fly from Colombo in the Bangladesh crisis. Don't forget the Jayawardenes brought in international intelligence forces in Sri Lanka to see that India is balanced in one way or the other. Don't forget even Chandrika at one time and I have known her fairly closely. At one time she said, the SAARC was not proceeding properly and she said I am willing to mediate between India and Pakistan and she got a real good snuff from South Block. 

So these are the issues which are traditional issues and therefore to get assured that he has given this assurance to India is not enough. They have deep relations and jokingly if I say he has assured territory not the waters. And the problem today is more in the waters, the Chinese surveillance ships and whatever else it is. But this is on the lighter side. 

I think India has done well, and this is just one minute more, India has done well in terms of lowering the pressure on the 13th Amendment. We need to take the fishermen's issue also seriously. I have an article published yesterday in Daily Mirror in which there is a proposal that the Sri Lankans or AKD in Delhi should ask for reparations for the trawler taking fishery resources from Sri Lanka. And reparations would be, I don't know what is the amount they will deal. And secondly, they said Katchatheevu Agreement was signed only on the basis of human practices and traditions. It should be signed on the basis of international law, and if India does not accept it, we must go to International Court of Justice. This is a Sri Lankan view, I am telling you. 

There is also an Indian view that is of the previous Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. She asked that we should scrap the Katchatheevu Agreement. Now, I mean, the country of India's economy and size, why should we be so sticky about a small part of economy on the fishery issue? We cannot find an answer. Every time we say we will talk through negotiations, this has been going on for a decade. I don't understand why we cannot find a suitable answer which satisfies our international standing, the Katchatheevu sanctity and Sri Lankan interest. Thank you very much. 

Mohan Kumar: Thank you, Professor Muni. It's not for nothing that you are considered the doyen of all South Asian studies. So thank you very much. Just to put it in perspective, I am glad we think alike. So just as Professor Muni said about that assurance that it's territory and not waters, so I looked at it again and the sentence is, India being Sri Lanka's closest maritime neighbor, President AKD reiterated Sri Lanka’s stated position. So our South Block fellows are also not so bad, sir. I used to be one of them. So they have put it in the context of maritime, but anyway, he is right. 

S.D. Muni:I said this as joking. 

Mohan Kumar: Yes, yes, of course. Not only that, but more than joke, you make a substantive point is what I am saying. Assurance is one thing and I think you are right in saying a lot of others have given assurances as well. So we will have to see how it evolves. But thank you so much. Those are a series of remarks and I am sure there will be some questions posed to you. 

If I can request Professor Behera, you are at liberty to take 15 minutes. 

Ajay Darshan Behera: No, I will be shorter. 

Mohan Kumar: Okay, then 12 minutes, please. Is it okay if I remind you? Because he is right. If I was talking and if somebody tells me five minutes, I also get irritated. 

Ajay Darshan Behera: Please let me know. 

Mohan Kumar: Otherwise, I am happy to leave it in your hands. 

Ajay Darshan Behera: I will make few remarks only. Thank you, Chair, Sir, Ambassador Mohan Kumar. And thanks to Ambassador Nutan Kapoor Mahawar for inviting me here. First, I'd make a disclosure that I did my PhD in the early '90s on the JVP under the supervision of Professor Muni. So, there is something that I know about the JVP. I will keep my remarks confined to the domestic situation because I think so much has been already said about India-Sri Lanka. And with the kind of experts sitting here, foreign policy experts, there is not much that I can add to that. 

But let me focus on a few things on the domestic side. I agree with Ambassador Mohan Kumar that this change, I think, a transformation, that we have been noticing in Sri Lanka for, I would say, about a year or so. It is just not about the elections, but some changes which have come about since 2022. Very significant for South Asia also. There are lessons to be learned from that. But at the same time, I think, right now, the optics are very good. We have just had a very good visit by the Sri Lankan President. 

The optics are very good, but I think there are tremendous challenges which are going to come up soon. It is not going to be what seems right now about everything seems to be going very well. We can assume or we can take it for granted, yes, there has been a significant transition in Sri Lanka. This election shows the resilience of democracy. This government certainly is a much more inclusive government. It has, in a way, shifted the whole politics of Sri Lanka from elite control to much more inclusive participation. 

But what exactly the changes signify and is the new dispensation would be in a position to make certain changes in Sri Lanka which is very important and that is that while this seems some kind of a change, but has it really changed the character of the Sri Lankan state. Now I am speaking as a political scientist, that a lot of problems of the Sri Lankan state has been because of the nature of the state itself, a state which has been dominantly a Sinhala majoritarian state with of course elite control. 

But the nature of the Sri Lankan state which I would still say has not been kind of changed, we do not see any significant statements from the JVP leadership about that, that are we going to see any changes in the character of the Sri Lankan state, which is clearly national state, is it going to lead to the protection of the minorities, the Tamils, what is the relationship of the JVP leadership with the Buddhist Sangha, we know that traditionally the JVP had good relations with them, because the Sangha has always proved to be a deterrent to political changes in Sri Lanka at various points of time. 

So while the change has displaced the traditional Sinhala elite, but I think what we need to understand is, is this really going to lead to any kind of significant changes and this is where I would like to point out a few things about what has been promised or not been promised, but the challenges that President Dissanayake is going to face. The first is the Executive Presidency. The problems that Sri Lanka has had in the last, I would say decades actually, from 1978 onwards since the Executive Presidency was brought in. 

Most of Sri Lanka's problems have been as a result of this centralized authority through the Executive Presidency and many actually have pointed out that this had led to some kind of parliamentary authoritarianism and that is the reason why we could see the kind of leeway that Presidents like Jayawardene had, the policies that Jayawardene followed in relation to the ethnic conflict, the repression which was unleashed on the Tamils and subsequently we also saw how President Rajapakshe, both Mahinda and Gotabaya, that the kind of decisions they took, I do not know whether those decisions could have been taken if Sri Lanka still had a parliamentary system. 

And the second point is this, that the transitions that we see today, the transformation that we see today in Sri Lanka, critically link to the economic problems that the country had. I would put a counterfactual here that without the kind of economic problems that Sri Lanka had, whether the JVP would have done so well in the elections, whether the JVP would have done so well in the northern areas, in the parliamentary elections, I have my doubts. It's a counterfactual, we cannot kind of test it. But that suggests that in some senses, today, the issue of the economy has become central to everything else. 

I mean even if it's about its relationship, that's a point which I am not going to elaborate too much. Even if its relationship with India and the point at this point of time why the President needed to visit India and why it's looking up to India for economic relief, it's got to do with the economy. It's not got so much to do with geopolitics, the experiences that they had. 

So the economy is something which has led to this whole transformation and therefore we do not know whether there is a clarity about what the agenda of the government is going to be in terms of bringing in the changes, whether it's about the Executive Presidency which has promised to do it, but as pointed out by Prof. Muni, others have also mentioned about it but nothing has happened. So we have to see whether this is about a systemic change or just because President Dissanayake seems to be so different, he does not seem to be like any of the traditional politicians or political leaders in Sri Lanka and therefore Sri Lanka might simply be able to get out of it, get out of the situation. 

But what is important is the systemic changes, Executive Presidency, the Prevention of Terrorism Act which was actually utilized or used against the JVP also, would the current dispensation be in a position to remove that? And then of course the 13th Amendment is something which we still talk about and something which none of the political leadership in Sri Lanka bothered to implement, including the kind of position the JVP has on the 13th Amendment. 

So even in the statement yesterday, while Prime Minister Modi mentioned about devolution, I don't think he used the term 13th Amendment, but there was nothing that I have seen so far in the statement by President Dissanayake about the 13th Amendment. And in certain senses, I have also seen questions being raised about whether actual devolution can be done, whether there are questions about police powers and the land powers, which Professor Muni mentioned. There is very strong resistance that devolution without police powers or land powers, I don't know what kind of devolution, so maybe there will be creative ways in which they can think about. 

What is clear is probably that we are not going to go back to the 13th Amendment, it is 37 years since it was introduced, but hasn't been implemented so far. I don't think so the JVP has any qualms about the 13th Amendment. In fact, what is interesting to know and this is where I think many might make an argument that why is it that the JVP was able to get more votes in the North-East, much more than the Tamil Party, is it some kind of waning Tamil nationalism because of which the NPP got more votes even in the North-East. 

But I think the reason again for that as to why the NPP has got more votes in the North-East is again got to do with the economy. Since 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE, it is almost 15 years and the North-East has not transited from what I would call a war economy to a normal economy. In war economies, people find livelihoods, how to adjust to the war situation, which is still what has happened in the North-East. But after the war, there hasn't been that kind of transition in that region and there is a lot of poverty and very difficult economic conditions out there. 

So the NPP managed to get more seats even in the North-East. But there are many other issues about the North-East that is about justice and accountability, post-war issues, whether the investigations into the war crimes which were committed during the last stages of the war, the ethnic war, whether there will be investigations into it or they're going to be simply quiet about it. The NPP has not given any indication that it is going to vigorously pursue any of this. Rather, they have kept silent on it or have given statements which actually suggest that they're not going to pursue any of these issues. 

So I don't know whether the current, as I said in the beginning, the optics, that everything looks very nice at this point of time, that here is a democratic dispensation. But I think there are very serious issues which will need to be handled, tackled, whether the President will be able to deal with it given the past of the JVP or things might unravel at a certain point of time. We will have to wait and watch. 

I will stop there. Thank you very much.  

Mohan Kumar: Thank you very much, Professor Behera, for that. It's an alternative take, I think. He brings a dose of realism into the whole argument. But if I were to summarize his argumentation, it is essentially, it is the economy stupid. It is the economic situation which is responsible for the political outcome. And it may be the economic situation which is, of course, I'm putting words in his mouth, but it's something for the audience to think about. I want to thank Dr. Nishan de Mel for patiently waiting. We are very grateful to you, sir. And because you are joining us from Sri Lanka, I'm happy to give you 20 minutes. You please take as much time as you want, because that will bring a sense of balance to the panel. Otherwise, it will be an echo chamber, one Indian talking to the other Indian. So please take the mic and feel free to talk. At least I think I can spare 20 minutes. Thank you.

Nishan de Mel: Thank you, Chair, Ambassador Mohan Kumar. And also, I want to say thank you for Ambassador Nutan Kapoor Mahawar who introduced the session to ICWA for hosting this. I must say that your event is so well-known that there were some diplomats from India, foreign diplomats in Sri Lanka recently, and they were surprised to see me. They said, aren't you speaking in India? We expected you to be there rather than here. They didn't realize I was coming online. And also I really appreciated Professor S.D. Muni and Professor Ajay Darshan's comments, and really glad to be on this panel. And I look forward to actually the questions and discussions we have as well. So let me see if I can take less than the allotted time and make more room for our conversation also. 

I think we all understand that we are talking about a situation in which there has been a sea change brought in Sri Lanka, brought about by an election that is a unique upset in its democratic history. There were two blocs, two political blocs that have held power since independence, which was around the time of India. And it's the first time that in an election, a third party has broken through these two power blocs and won an election in the country. Even though these blocs, the UMP, SLFP, have changed their names, they remain pretty much an evolved version of two major blocs. 

And I think this was, in that sense, a historic event, or pretty much a democratic revolution. And to give you some basic understanding of the numbers around that revolution, the NPP won the highest number of votes, in absolute number, as well as the highest percentage of votes won at any general election in Sri Lanka. It won the highest number of district seats, districts. We got the majority or the plurality in the highest number of districts, as well as the highest number of electoral divisions in the country. And there are about 160 electoral divisions with 22 electoral districts. It won all but one district, actually, which has never happened in Sri Lanka's electoral history. 

It had the highest number of seats in parliament on the national list, as well as the district list. And it won the most seats in parliament ever won. And the first time a two-thirds majority was won at election, rather than through crossovers, since the current preferential voting system came into play after 1977. So this was a record-setting election. It was not just a third-party upset. It was one that swept away the existing power blocs of politics and replaced it with something new. And I've been really sort of interested to listen to how we are going to reflect about it. 

And I want to give out my own reflections which we've written out elsewhere. I think one of the ways of explaining such a big change and especially a left of center party coming into power, in global discourse, the general understanding is that the economic crisis, I think Ambassador Mohan just said it's the economy stupid, that economic crisis often leads to left-leaning governments advocating for radical reforms, typically as a counterpoint to the austerity measures associated with an IMF program. 

For instance, in Greece, the widespread public discontent, the economic hardship caused by the intervention of the IMF and European Central Bank led to the rise of the left-wing Syriza party, which campaigned on a platform of opposing austerity and advocating for radical economic reforms, protecting welfare and reducing inequality. 

I think what's interesting about Sri Lanka is that it does not follow that conventional logic in this particular instance, even though it would be easy or tempting to think so. We believe that this particular democratic revolution was mainly around reforming the principles of governance rather than reforming the principles of economics. It was a demand for a change in political culture, not in economic measures that really gave the NPP the kind of swing and wind beneath its wings to rise in this election. 

So I want to just explain very briefly why it is a departure from this typical trajectory of political revolutions during economic crisis, even though I, of course, agree with what's been said by Professor Ajay and Professor Mohan Kumar that the economic crisis played an important role in kind of pivoting the consciousness of a desire to change. And let me just explain briefly how that happened. 

Basically, what we saw was that people began to identify the economic crisis as a crisis that arose from corruptocratic governance. People say kleptocratic, but let me introduce a word, let's say, corruptocratic malgovernance, that they thought the economic crisis was not just a problem of right-wing economics, but a problem of corrupt politicians functioning in a way that is destructive for the country. And even in 2015, there was a huge concern about corruption and there was a bit of a democratic revolution, the Rajapaksas lost power, but corruption returned in different ways. But people were always somehow shielded from the real cost of corruption, even though they were angry about it, because debt covers over a multitude of sins, right? 

You can take debt, reduce taxes, increase government spending, increase welfare, and people don't worry too much about corruption. You can see this in the Middle East as well, as long as the government doesn't burden the people, corruption and malgovernance can continue and people think it's all right. But the problem with the debt is you couldn't continue to do this forever. You hit the debt sustainability problem and it came home to roost. 

The economic difficulties that people suffered, the long queues, the crisis, the shortages, was something we had not seen since the 1970s. But the response was, in the 1970s, it was a left-wing government in power that brought in lots of socialist policies. And the response to the crisis was to see it as a failure of that socialism. And to allow the Jayawardene President to swing the country enormously towards a liberal, capital, open economy, which Sri Lanka became and succeeded rather well and much earlier than India in doing so. 

But the converse didn't hold in this situation. The current economic crisis didn't lead to a rejection of the open economic capital approach in the same way. I mean, there is obviously some critique of it that's going on. But the response was to see this as a consequence of corruption in the way that the economy was managed rather than on the economic methods and systems. 

So in a way, which is also why when, I think you earlier mentioned that AKD is very pragmatic, he is not under enormous pressure to change the fundamental governance methods or with regard to following through with the IMF program, but he's under enormous pressure rather, much more, to demonstrate that he's really taking seriously the actions of corruption. That was the second element, of course other than corruption, that also led to the kind of huge change. 

So what the NPP did was they tapped into this anger with corrupt dominance. And actually, Mohan, we wrote an article, which I'll share with you later, a few weeks ago. It's a subscription, private circulation only, in which we gave the exact other title, that the revolution was not revolutionary, it was the governance stupid, was what we said. And I really appreciate what you said about economics as well. And we can't forget that the economic crisis really tipped people into consciousness about the governance crisis, how serious and consequential it was. 

The second one was actually a promise of a new political culture. And that's also important to understand, because in Sri Lanka, there is a very serious anger around what I call political chauvinism. That is the idea that the politician has become entitled, abusing of state resources, functioning above the law, controlling media, making hollow arguments to defend their bad behavior, focused on furthering their vested interests rather than the public interest. 

So the politician in Sri Lanka, in the West, we know when you say somebody is a politician or a member of Congress in the US, that is a sign of high respect. In Sri Lanka, being called a politician is not really a compliment. It's even an insult sometimes. I don't know whether that's how you feel in India too. Even though paradoxically it gives the person a lot of power and status, it doesn't really as an instrumental power and status, not intrinsic social capital. But because politicians are seen as a sort of abusive actor in the state system. 

And I think with the corruption, with the crisis, one of the slogans of the… you've heard the term Aragalai, the largest ever democratic protest that Sri Lanka had. People said, let's be rid of all 225. And 225 is the number of members in parliament. And that slogan was really not that people wanted to get rid of democracy or the parliamentary system, but they were basically saying these politicians have really been a curse to our country. And there was a demand for a change in the culture of being politics that had entrenched itself and kind of become comfortable for the politician over time. 

And I think that was another hugely popular part of the NPP and what gave it traction that they were the only party promising to deal with corruption seriously, and the only party promising to change this culture of a chauvinist politician, or the chauvinist political culture. And the things they said about pushing back on the IMF, etc., were more marginal to the political campaign. And in fact, the things on which they were critiqued and the people were worried, if at all, right? And they had to give assurances that we will still meet the targets, etc. 

So I just want to say that as a way of understanding the massive political or democratic revolution that Sri Lanka has been through, and a lot of other things to say, which I think I better keep for question time, but make a couple of comments on two things that you touched on, and the other speakers. One, of course, maybe on the fishing issue, because it came up quite a lot, and is related to India and Sri Lanka. I've been involved, and Verity has been involved in that issue for a long time in sort of advising government also. And we understand the sensitivities around what India thinks and feels, and the historical rights, etc. 

I think the way for India, perhaps, to think about it in relation to Sri Lanka is to think of it as a security concern in two ways. One is, it's a livelihood security concern for the fishermen in the north of Sri Lanka. They've been through war, they've been through difficulty, they haven't been able to fish. Once they're able to go out and fish, I think we do need to give them today the freedom to have that space, because Indian fishing boats tend to come very, very close to Sri Lankan coast as well. 

So the security to preserve their livelihoods, I think, is something we could think of seriously. But also, I think, equally important is the ecological security of the waters, because we know that the reason Indian fishermen come to the Sri Lankan side is that they have, with mechanized trawlers, overfished the Indian waters, and also upset the ecology, because bottom trawling is a very, very destructive method of fishing. 

So I think what we have argued, and Sri Lanka took, I think, our advice seriously, they passed a law banning bottom trawling even in the Sri Lankan side. So bottom trawling is illegal, even for Sri Lankan, mechanized bottom trawling, even for Sri Lankan fishermen. And I think there would be a much easier way to be neighborly, if you could agree that Indian fishermen that fished on Sri Lankan waters did not use mechanized bottom trawling as the method of fishing, but used any other method that's traditional, that is acceptable, but that is also legally acceptable for fishing in Sri Lanka. Because now they have a double advantage that they're using a method of fishing that is illegal in Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan fishermen can't use and shouldn't use if we are to be serious about ecological sustainability. 

And secondly, that I think that we have to think about really Sri Lankan fishermen having a chance also, I mean, the Northern Tamil fishermen, I think we should take their concerns seriously as well. And one of the reasons actually, that AKD and the NPP won in the North, and this comes to the second question, was it because they promised devolution or the 13th Amendment? If you listen to the President's speech just before the general election in Jaffna, he said, look, I'm going to tell you something. I'm not going to promise you the 13th Amendment and devolution the way it has been promised in the past. I can't tell you that we will implement the 13th Amendment fully or devolution. 

But I'll tell you what I will do for you. I will address the problems of your fishermen. And he mentioned the problems of fishing. He talked about the farmers and he said, I know your problems. These are the problems you have with land and farming. And he touched on this material problems of poverty, livelihood and security and said, these are things I can tell you I will do. And Tamil people in the North told us, we felt that we could trust him because if singular politicians come and promise us devolution and other things and so do Tamil politicians, they never deliver. 

But here's a guy who was honest enough to tell us that he will not do the things that he thought may get our votes, but actually do things that matter to us greatly. And we wanted to vote for him for this reason. I think it is important that AKD converted a substantial number of Tamil people on the basis of economic issues, including the fishing issue. And I think there is some interest for him and for, I think, India to deliver it. And I think the compromise is that, that we say, look, let's not try to arrest and impose the border in the toughest possible way, but let's agree that bottom trawling, which is ecologically destructive and not allowed in Sri Lanka, does not happen in these mechanized bottom trawling. Does not happen in these waters. 

The second thing I think is, I think, let me just stop with the question of devolution and what is it that we can expect. Now, I think Professor Ajay talked about the fact that the Sri Lankan state was still a singular majoritarian state and the nature of the Sri Lankan state is not changing. I think these things, these are serious issues and they're very correct to have been brought up. And under the previous governments, we found that it was possible for Sinhalese to organize pogroms in the 80s, very severe ones under the UMP government against Tamil people, post-2010 pogroms against Muslim people without real state pushback, with the state kind of being lenient on the people in the organization of this violence against either Muslim minorities or Tamil minorities in Sri Lanka. 

I think one of the positives, so the AKD, I think, and the NPP have not taken this head on, but I think there's a sense in Sri Lanka now that there is the political patronage that was available for that kind of activity is not available right now. So I think that's the difference, that it is not that the entire psyche of the country and the population have suddenly shifted away in another direction, but there's also a middle-class intolerance for that kind of violence in Sri Lanka and that's growing and the middle-class is growing. But of course, again, that's a qualified statement. 

There is always, just like the right wing in Europe, there's always going to be some political space for those who campaign on ethno-nationalist grounds. But I think what we do think is that the current government will not provide state cover or state patronage and the actors who are prone in that direction will not be able to act during this next five years, at least in a violent way. And that may be a sort of a respite and a safety in which we may need to think and negotiate how you change a national culture as well. 

Let me stop there and let us get down to questions. 

Mohan Kumar: No, I just want to thank Dr. Nishan de Mel. I think the panel and the seminar, the conference would have been incomplete without listening to him and the Sri Lankan point of view. I just want to recapitulate by saying, one, I think the emphasis on corruption, I think that's important to bear in mind, political culture, the change of political culture sought by the man in the street. Secondly, on fishermen, I found his arguments very, very interesting frankly, I didn't know some of those, but I think those also need to be kept in mind. 

And last but not least, he has taken pains to address also the point made by Professor Behera, which is, can the majoritarian state allegedly slip back into old habits? And he has, I think, made a good case to say that the mood maybe has shifted, and particularly interested in the remarks made by AKD in the northern part of the country in Jaffna. And I have no reason to disbelieve what Dr. Mel says, because if that is what, if that is the plank on which the Tamils have voted for him, not everybody, but a substantial majority, then I think there is a bit of a change in the situation. 

I just want to at least conclude my remarks before we have time for two or three questions. If you can keep the questions short and sweet, that'll be good. We can leave at five. But I just want to say the following. First, I think this has been an amazing election for a variety of reasons that you have heard, but also because foreign policy was not an issue. So I speak of it as a good development. So India should play with the card it has been dealt. In life also, you should play with the card you are dealt. I mean, there's no point looking. So I think we have a new government. It's an exciting period in the political landscape in Sri Lanka. 

So if I was wearing my old hat of Joint Secretary BSM, which I am not, I think a lot of exciting possibilities really of what we can do, the two countries together. And I will also conclude by reiterating that the southern flank is extremely important. This sometimes gets lost in the strategic community in Delhi, and we hyperventilate when something happens to Imran Khan and something happens to Sheikh Hasina, but we don't get the same amount of response when something else happens elsewhere. So full disclosure, I am from the south, but that's okay. It's still a weighty point for you to keep in mind. 

With those remarks, can I quickly get two or three questions, please? I cannot say no to General Ashok Mehta. You have the floor, sir. If somebody can give the mic, yeah. Thank you. 

Ashok Mehta: Thank you very much. You cannot say no to me because I think I am the old person in this hall. 

Mohan Kumar: I'm following straight sweet words. 

Ashok Mehta: Thank you for that. I just want a very small comment and then questions for Verite Research. This defense cooperation agreement on which the wording is that they will soon try to formulate this. The background to this is very interesting, because for the last many, many years, the Sri Lankan chiefs of defense staff, whom I had known personally, almost all of them, had been trying to get the defense cooperation agreement going. And there was a problem, because of a certain clause that the Sri Lankan government wanted included, and that related to doing a kind of assistance, first responder. Like what happened in 2000 in Jammu, come to the rescue of the government. And that was stuck. So I'm very happy that this is happening. 

Just for your information, highest number of military training course vacancies is provided to Sri Lanka. And Nepal comes next. My question is for Verite Research. And my question is that I understand you are doing an investigation on corruption, on the political, on the procurement processes. If that is not correct, then I won't ask the question. If that is correct, I will continue with my question. 

Nishan de Mel: We are building what you call a red flag system that can more easily detect corruption in procurement. 

Ashok Mehta: All right, so I can, because you've showed me the green flag. The question is with regard to Adani. And we know what happened, how the chairman of the electricity board resigned, and how Modi met Gotabaya in Glasgow, etc., etc. Is that on your radar? That is the question. And one other question, if I may ask you, why did the army not intervene to save Gotabaya Rajapaksa? I mean, they are so fiercely loyal to the Rajapaksas. And is it the end of the Rajapaksa clan? 

Mohan Kumar: Okay, thank you, sir. The lady from the last row. Yes, quickly, please, yeah. 

Unidentified Participant: Thank you, sir. My question is to Dr. Nishan de Mel. 

Mohan Kumar: All the questions are for him. Go ahead. 

Unidentified Participant: Sir, you made an interesting point regarding that lack of political patronage to political violence. I agree with you, and I believe that particularly when we talk about religious actors taking violent means in politics. Political patronage is there. But while I agree to that point, but I feel there's a difference between when we talk about Sangha and organizations like BBS or Sinhala Ravaya. So when probably BBS, Sinhala Ravaya, their role will decline, what about the role of Sangha? I mean, how much role you think Sangha will have under NPP government? Thank you. 

Mohan Kumar: Thank you. Last question. 

Yes, yeah. Sorry, sir, I'm trying to see if younger people can be. Last question, yeah. 

Unidentified Participant: First of all, thank you so much, sir, for this very insightful session. My question is for you, sir. Sir, as India is going for neighborhood first policy, and Sri Lanka is pursuing the China first policy. Like, we can see in the Hambantota port that there is very growing influence of China in that port, which could be a threat to India in maritime security. Sir, I would like to seek your insight on this issue. 

Mohan Kumar: You want me to get me into trouble? Okay, thank you. Okay, so I think I might as well get rid of this Hambantota thing first, frankly. I don't think it's a secret anymore. It happened in 2005. India was approached first. I can confirm that. I was in position of power at that time. We were the country approached first for developing Hambantota. We declined, and obviously Sri Lanka went elsewhere. That is the bottom line. 

Having said that, my own conversation with people in India leads me to believe we made the right decision, because our decision was that there is nothing much there, frankly, so it wasn't useful. Right or wrong, I don't know, but these were the decision made by our military intelligence, cabinet secretariat. It was a collective GOI decision, so I will stop there. 

The other thing, I think you must always remember what Professor Muni said. They have their own ties with China, which will stand on their own merit. So, Dr. Nishan de Mel, I'm going to now give you the mic. Please address the Defense Cooperation Agreement, the Adani factor, and when you have the red flag corruption system, please share it with us also. We also need it. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But there's a lady also at the back who talked about Sangha, the Sangha issue. If these questions can be handled by you, and then I'm going to request Professor Muni and Professor Behera, one minute each, and we will conclude the session. You have the floor, sir. Dr. Mel. 

Nishan de Mel: Thank you. I think the defense cooperation was a comment about the positions given to Sri Lanka, and I'm not sure if I understood what the question was, but let me just quickly say on the easy one, if you applied the red flag system. So we had a round table recently where we showed that if you had applied the red flag system it's not a way of confirming corruption but it is a fair way of showing procurement transactions that are high risk of corruption. And of course, there are many, many red flags that go off on the Adani procurement. And it's a global system that we are adopting. 

So it's not a system just designed for Sri Lanka. It's that we are doing the number crunching and the methodology around applying a globally developed system that was developed in the UK and is being used in many countries just to make it much quicker and more efficient in investigating highly probable corrupt transactions. It's not a judgment that the transaction is corrupt but one that says it should be investigated carefully and Adani would have got flagged. 

On the other slightly more speculative question on why did the army not interfere with Gotabaya Rajapaksa? I like to think that it is also the power of mass popular sentiment that even authoritarians or dictators rule with some level of consent. And we can see this in Pakistani coups all the time that you can have military takeovers but people must accept you at some level and give you some legitimacy. 

I think the difficulty for the military was that the mass lack of consent for what was happening was so very, very high. They feared that the military itself will lose credibility in absolute ways if they intervened at that time. They did not see a pathway outside of, really, really sort of tragic violence which would get the military into deep trouble and be rejected by society. They were afraid of the social consequences of an intervention because they sensed the public mood very strongly at that time. So that's perhaps the best way to understand what happened there. 

To the question asked, I think a very astute question on why the BBS and Singhala Ravaya may not be there but the Sangha. So I think the lady asking the question understands correctly that Sri Lanka Sangha are not very progressive in terms of an inclusive, diverse society but they also need to be organized to be effective in a national scale. Now, what I forgot to mention was we are not going to get rid of the kind of violence that you see against Christians which are localized violence against Christian churches. That is as the person asking the question rightly understood, led by local Sangha, Buddhist priests. 

But those kinds of things don't, some of those, there can be little skirmishes between mosques and temples, churches and temples, but what we've seen are mass organized attacks against Muslim shops or Tamil businesses, etc. So those things, I think, the oxygen for those is much reduced, but the small scale skirmishes and activities can continue. We do monitor actually religious violence on an annual basis and we publish a report with another organization that collects the data. So it will be very interesting to see actually what happens to those, the measures of religious violence in the country at the end of the year. 

And I think the importance of that question is it feeds into everything else I'm saying, that there is a huge positive shift, but we would be mistaken to think that everything is somehow in some new idyllic state and hunky-dory. We are going to struggle even with corruption. We are going to struggle with good decision-making. We are going to struggle on the ethno-national front, but I think we're going to struggle towards improving things, moving towards in the right direction, which even though we may not land, have claimed to land in sort of a good enough place very quickly. 

So I think the direction is positive. We should be hopeful and we should keep thinking of ways, I think, to handle the difficulties that emerge along the way. So I want to give that kind of slightly nuanced perspective on Sri Lanka's situation, because sometimes people shift from extreme pessimism to extreme optimism. And I think maybe we should take it from a dose of reality and practical difficulties should be taken seriously. 

Mohan Kumar: I really want to place on record my deep appreciation to ICWA to have chosen Dr. Nishan de Mel. He's an amazing choice. I'm sorry I'm saying it in front of you. It's a remarkably balanced assessment you have got on all the difficult questions posed to him. I thought his response was pretty balanced. So thank you very much, sir, for waiting patiently and for having joined us. It's my great pleasure to give Professor Muni the floor, sir, one or two minutes, and one or two minutes to Professor Behera. 

S.D. Muni: Can't say much in a couple of minutes, but just two points, I'll flag it. The ethnic issue in Sri Lanka is politically driven. It was not a single state, even during Bandaranaike, who raised the Buddhism issue for different reasons, but did not transform the state into a single state. It is Jayawardene, it is UNP, which made it a majoritarian. In fact, JVP had even accepted federalism under Chandrika. They were party to it, much before AKD came on the scene. Therefore, let us not blame the society. And the character of a state should be reflecting the character of the society. But politicians, and I am really sorry that this virus is almost in all of South Asia. It's not Sri Lanka's monopoly. I mean, this kind of a politically-driven social divisions for immediate electoral gains and all that is a terrible disease, which is going to tear us apart. 

Secondly, on your point, Ambassador Kumar, of the southern flank to be taken into account. Southern flank has always been taken into account in formulating India's policy towards Sri Lanka. As a result, you go to Sri Lanka, sit down in their drawing room, and talk to them. And they say, India is a Tamil friend. India has nothing to do with the Sinhalese. You have been doing all kinds of things against us. This is the mindset there. And somehow, most of our developmental projects were also concentrated in north and east earlier. 

For the last few years, I think seven or eight years, maybe 10 years, we have started changing it. I think even since Manmohan Singh's time, we have started changing it in terms of railways and others. And I think we keep to do more of it in order to appear to Sri Lanka as a friend of Sri Lankans, rather than of any single community. 

Mohan Kumar: No, I agree with it. As somebody who comes from that state, I think that those students of para-diplomacy should look at the role of Tamil Nadu. That's an interesting. 

S.D. Muni: One more minute. The fisherman issue. The fisherman issue is stuck in the corporate sectors of the fishing in Tamil Nadu. They have almost 500 millions of fishing export, which is going. And our poor fisherman is not responsible for that. They just go and sell their fish to these bigger guys. And they are the one who are allowing this trawling kind of an excess mechanized fishing. And no government wants to touch them. 

Mohan Kumar: That I will not comment, because I still have to go to Tamil Nadu from time to time. 

S.D. Muni: No, both central and the state government. The central government doesn't want to touch them either. 

Mohan Kumar: No, you're right. Thank you. Professor Behera, last word. 

Ajay Darshan Behera: A couple of quick sentences, actually. One, I think the economic issue is still very important. The debt Sri Lanka has right now, it has to repay about $6 billion every year till 2029. So we are going to see President Dissanayake going to China soon. It's already, I think, scheduled for January, because he will need a great degree of economic assistance. 

Second, on the questions that were raised, on the Adani issue, the power energy project, it's not so much about corruption as much as violation of environmental norms. And I think there's an injunction against it in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. I don't think so they will be very easily able to get away with it, because it's still in the court. So we'll have to wait and see what happens after that. 

Regarding the military not intervening, General Mehta's question about why the military did not intervene to support or help Gotabaya, I think Gotabaya lost complete legitimacy. I mean, by the time it was clear that the street power was sufficient to suggest that there is going to be a change, it's a different matter that Gotabaya had to flee. Regarding the Sangha, I think we are going to see, I mean, it's going to create difficulties for this government also, because any kind of concessions which are given, and this is where it relates to the Tamil national question, that so far, I think the statements are all very guarded by President Dissanayake. 

But if he wants actually to do justice, raises issues about accountability, about the war crimes, about human rights violations, the disappearances of the many Tamils in the Northeast, that is where I think there will be differences, where the Sangha might start resisting or protesting. We have to wait and watch. It would depend on how President Dissanayake handles some of these issues. Thank you. 

Mohan Kumar: Thank you very much. It's been a fascinating evening, and I thought I knew it all. The one thing that Indians will fall into what I call the arrogance trap is that because our neighbors are much smaller, we tend to think that we know it all, how difficult can Sri Lanka be to understand. After all, it's a small country. But actually, small countries can be complex. The politics of the small country can be complex. I think it's been most fascinating, at least for me. Thank you very much for your attendance. If I can request you to please give the vote of thanks. 

Samatha Mallempatti: Thank you, sir. 

Nishan de Mel: I want to say thank you to everyone also. 

Samatha Mallempatti: I take this opportunity to once again thank our esteemed panelists for their insightful remarks. I also take this opportunity to thank Ambassador Mohan Kumar for chairing this important session, discussion. I invite you all to join us for high tea in the foyer. Thank you.

*****

List of Participants

1. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Additional Secretary, ICWA 
2. Amb. Mohan Kumar, Former Ambassador of India to France & Dean, Strategic & International Initiatives, Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana 
3. S.D. Muni, Professor Emeritus, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 
4. Ajay Darshan Behera, Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), New Delhi 
5. Dr. Nishan de Mel, Executive Director, Verité Research, An independent Think-tank, Colombo (Sri Lanka)