Rajnath Singh begins three-day Sri Lanka visit as defence, maritime security and regional strategy move centre stage
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh arrives in Sri Lanka for a three-day official visit at an unusually sensitive moment for security in the Indian Ocean and the wider region.
Singh is expected to meet President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Prime Minister Dr Harini Amarasuriya and Defence Secretary Air Vice Marshal Sampath Thuyacontha during his September 8–10 visit.
India says discussions will cover defence cooperation, economic engagement, maritime affairs and regional security.
The visit comes as tensions involving Iran and the United States have once again put the security of energy supplies, tanker movements and some of the world’s most important shipping routes firmly on the international agenda.
For Sri Lanka, sitting astride the principal sea lanes of the Indian Ocean and immediately south of India, these are hardly distant geopolitical developments.
India and Sri Lanka have steadily expanded defence cooperation, including training, maritime surveillance, exercises and exchanges between their armed forces.
That relationship has obvious practical value for Sri Lanka, particularly in maritime security, disaster response, trafficking and the policing of its enormous maritime approaches.
But closer defence relations with India invariably raise a second question for Colombo: how does Sri Lanka obtain the benefits of cooperation with its nearest neighbour while preserving the strategic autonomy that has traditionally underpinned its foreign policy?
The question becomes still more important as India, China and the United States compete for strategic influence across the Indian Ocean.
Geography decided centuries ago that Sri Lanka and India must work with each other. Good diplomacy determines the terms on which they do so.
Singh’s visit therefore deserves to be watched for considerably more than the communiqués and handshakes.
What is agreed behind those handshakes may tell us rather more about where Sri Lanka intends to position itself in an increasingly complicated Indian Ocean.
