Sri
Lanka located at the southern tip of peninsular India is strategically
important for India in the most comprehensive sense. This island nation
lies astride the major sea lanes of communication from Europe to East
Asia and the oil tanker routes from the oil producing countries of the
Gulf to China, Japan and other Pacific countries. In the military sense
it is important to the United States as these same sea routes are used
for transference of naval power from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian
Ocean and the Gulf.
India too has a vital strategic stake in Sri Lanka for her own security
interests. An unfriendly Sri Lanka or a Sri Lanka under influence of a
power unfriendly to India would strategically discomfit India. Sri Lanka
is also strategically important to India in terms of her Indian Ocean
strategy and in terms of networking of partners for her aims of
establishing an Indian Ocean Rim Community. For the Indian Navy , it is
important as the switching of naval fleets from the Bay of Bengal to the
Arabian Sea and vice versa the fleets have to take a round of Sri Lanka.
The strategic importance of Sri Lanka was well realized by Britain for
the security of both British India and the Indian Ocean and they
developed a major naval base at Trincomolee on the eastern coast.
Sri Lanka has by and large been friendly disposed towards India despite
the complications caused by the minority Tamils of Northern Sri Lanka
involved in a long insurgency and terrorism demanding an independent
state of Eelam spearheaded by the LTTE. India too has in the past before
the IPKF operations of the 1980s had on a number of occasions extended
military assistance to ward off security challenges to the Government of
the day.
In the recent past ,Sri Lanka has been pressing India that both
countries should sign a Defence Co-operation Agreement and also that
India should extend assistance and her influence to control the
resurgence of violence and terrorism unleashed by the LTTE . India
however has been dithering, on account of India’s domestic politics in
Tamilnadu. Since the Tamilnadu elections were imminent the Congress
Government wanted to play it safe as LTTE enjoys support within a
section of Tamilnadu polity and the Congress’s coalition partner. This
is despite the fact that the LTTE was involved in the assassination of
Rajiv Gandhi, the husband of Congress Party President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.
This is a classic case where India’s foreign policy is being determined
by domestic politics compulsions at the cost of India’s national
security interests. National security interests demand that a stable Sri
Lanka can be ensured by India signing a comprehensive Defence
Co-operation Agreement with the island nation and committing herself to
its security. A civil war in Sri Lanka is not in India’s interests and
nor the division of Sri Lanka for forming an independent Tamil state.
The LTTE has already been listed as a terrorist organization by the
United States and after much reluctance recently by the European Union.
The next thing that the LTTE could be expected to demand is a Greater
Eelam comprising Northern Sri Lanka and the Indian state of Tamilnadu.
Besides the many military advantages that would flow in an India – Sri
Lanka Defence Co-operation Agreement, would be the likelihood of India
getting a lease of the Trincomolee Naval Base or access to it for the
Indian Navy. This base has a sizeable naval infrastructure and large oil
storage facilities which can be revived. It would be a big strategic
gain for India.
Strategic opportunities are always fleeting ones and so is the case of
India forging a strategic partnership with Sri Lanka. If India dithers
because of domestic politics compulsions, China is waiting in the wings
to fill the vacuum. The Chinese strategic encirclement of India would
then be fully complete and India will have no one to blame but itself.
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Sri
Lanka located at the southern tip of peninsular India is strategically
important for India in the most comprehensive sense. This island nation
lies astride the major sea lanes of communication from Europe to East
Asia and the oil tanker routes from the oil producing countries of the
Gulf to China, Japan and other Pacific countries. In the military sense
it is important to the United States as these same sea routes are used
for transference of naval power from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian
Ocean and the Gulf.
