• India’s approach to Sri Lanka’s Provincial Councils

On 5 August, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri made a one-day visit to Sri Lanka. While taking stock of the entire gamut of bilateral relations, he called on the Sri Lankan Government to hold Provincial Council (PC) Elections at the earliest opportunity and to fully implement the constitutional provisions needed to meet the aspirations of the Tamil people.  

The call comes against the backdrop of the latest stalemate and delays in conducting PC Elections, as well as the recent launch of a collective platform by Sri Lankan Tamil parties to address Tamil aspirations jointly. 

As a critical stakeholder, India has adopted a pragmatic approach to the devolution issue under the new Government and is cautiously monitoring developments, as the window for meaningful reform narrows.

Why SL’s devolution matters to India

For nearly a century, Sri Lanka has witnessed a governance debate between federalism and centralisation. The majority Sinhala-Buddhist population has preferred centralised governance, with primacy given to its religion and ethnicity, while the Tamils have called for federalism to secure political autonomy and guarantee their rights. 

The Sinhalese  majority have seen this demand as a threat to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and their own social status. Governments, too, succumbed to the majority, reinforcing a unitary, centralised state in which the Sinhala language and Buddhism were given preference under the 1972 and 1978 Constitutions. 

As the Sinhalese consolidated power, calls for regional autonomy escalated into secessionist demands and eventually culminated in a civil war that lasted nearly three decades (1983–2009).

The war had far-reaching implications for neighbouring India, motivating it to intervene actively and sign the 1987 accord, thereby making it a stakeholder in the Tamil issue. 

Apart from deploying the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to maintain peace, the accord provided for the merger of the Tamil-speaking Northern and Eastern Provinces, the conduct of PC Elections in the North Eastern Province, and the devolution of powers to the PCs. These provisions were formalised the same year through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The first PC Elections were held in 1988.

The Sinhalese majority saw the PC system as a symbol of Indian imposition. To avoid further backlash from the majority, the Government adopted the system nationwide. Fears of Tamil secessionism persisted, though. In fact, in 1990, the North Eastern Provincial Council was dissolved under the pretext of secession, after the Chief Minister converted the council into a constituent assembly and attempted to draft a new constitution. 

From then on, the North Eastern Province was largely controlled by the centre, the military, or centre-appointed governors. In 2007, the province was split into two – Northern and Eastern – after the Supreme Court declared the merger null and void. Elections followed in the Eastern Province in 2008; the Northern Province did not see elections until 2013 – four years after the civil war ended.

Little priority was given to PCs by successive Sri Lankan governments. No PC Elections have been held since they were last due from 2017 onwards, as the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government pushed for reforms and new delimitation exercises. Between 2017 and 2024, these elections were repeatedly delayed, owing to political instability, Parliament’s rejection of the delimitation proposal, a change in government, the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic crisis, and the 2024 Presidential Election. 

The president also enjoys considerable powers, including the ability to nominate governors and dissolve Provincial Councils, while the PCs themselves have lacked both fiscal and administrative autonomy.

For its part, India frequently urged successive governments to conduct PC Elections and implement the 13th Amendment. It refrained from extensively pressuring Colombo directly, fearing such pressure could prove counterproductive – particularly given the emboldening of Sinhalese nationalism following the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) military defeat and China’s growing influence in Sri Lanka.

JVP’s reform agenda and the deferral of PC Elections

In this regard, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) call for reforms and electoral victory gave much-needed hope to India. 

As the multifaceted crisis of 2021 exposed the drawbacks of centralised governance, the JVP-led National People’s Power (NPP) coalition seized the moment to advocate for systemic change. Departing from their traditional statist and nationalist rhetoric, they blamed unchecked presidential powers for the crisis and misgovernance. 

The coalition’s presidential candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD), promised to adopt a new constitution that would reduce presidential powers, devolve power to districts and provinces, and hold Provincial Council Elections within one year of coming to power. 

He also pledged reconciliation, a country free of racist politics, a fight against corruption, inclusive government, and accountability. This agenda drew support for him across ethnic lines, leading to his victory in September 2024.

However, the Government has continued to delay PC Elections for two reasons. 

First, the JVP has prioritised a new constitution over the PC Elections. They believe that PCs have not served their cause, and an alternative system will have to be in place through a new constitution. In other words, they see PCs merely as an interim mechanism. To complicate matters, no timelines are in place for drafting the new constitution or conducting elections. 

The PC Elections remain caught in a constitutional logjam, as the 2017 delimitation report was never approved by Parliament, leaving no legal mechanism to conduct the poll. The Government has now established a parliamentary committee to discuss and devise a new system, highlighting the constraints on conducting these elections on time. This apparent lack of urgency also reflects the Government’s reluctance to proceed, as it continues to postpone the elections and divert funds allocated for them.

Second, the Government’s reform agenda comes with political costs. In Tamil-dominated areas, military camps are being vacated, roads reopened, mass grave excavations continued, and commemoration of the fallen permitted. Senior Police leadership is also being held accountable for their alleged role in the Easter Sunday bombings. 

These developments are alienating the Government from its Sinhalese voter base, the Buddhist Sangha, the bureaucracy, and the military – all of whom have largely embraced a nationalist approach, opposing both federalism and any accountability for actions taken against a separatist movement that they believe was defeated through legitimate force. 

As a result, the Government has sought to appease these constituencies through religious ceremonies and a deliberately slow pace of reform. It is also wary that holding PC Elections could further erode its popularity, given that it is already implementing tough austerity measures.

India’s pragmatic shift and challenges ahead

India’s response to the JVP on devolution reflects pragmatism and flexibility. New Delhi has now shifted from its earlier stance, prioritising provincial elections over the complete implementation of the 13th Amendment; it understands the futility of pushing for the latter when the Government wants to introduce a new constitution. 

It has therefore asked the AKD Government to conduct PC Elections at the earliest opportunity, without exerting pressure on it, instead referring to the “full implementation of constitutional provisions” rather than the “implementation of the 13th Amendment”. This also reflects India’s cautious policy of matching the JVP’s reform aspirations and its expectation of a ‘friendly, mutually respectful relationship’. 

Furthermore, India does not want to disrupt ties with a Government that has respected Indian security concerns – particularly by avoiding Chinese spy ship dockings, even after the moratorium expired in December 2024.

That said, India continues to support a domestic settlement of the Tamil issue and expects Sri Lankan Tamil parties to play a proactive and unified role. These parties have remained deeply polarised and fragmented, with no alignment on the nature of Tamil aspirations or how they should be achieved. 

Until recently, their only strategy was to leverage India as a pressure point against the Government – a strategy that has continued to face limitations, given New Delhi’s pragmatic foreign policy. Furthermore, AKD’s performance in the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections only reinforced the Tamil parties’ declining credibility.

It was only in July this year that Tamil parties launched a common platform called Medai, jointly demanding that the Government introduce a new constitution, conduct long-pending PC Elections, and resolve Tamils’ land-related disputes. From an Indian standpoint, this could mark the beginning of more unified and effective negotiations on the issue.

However, India’s policy is not free of challenges. Primarily, India and Sri Lankan Tamil parties have viewed PC Elections as a critical means of advancing devolution and federalism, whereas the Sri Lankan Government appears to regard them as merely an interim mechanism pending a new constitution. There is also little clarity on how the JVP and the new constitution would address power-sharing, and whether federalism would indeed be at the heart of the devolution process. 

Similarly, the Government has clarified that it will not rush the new constitution, and will first focus on building consensus. This process could prove time-consuming, given the political costs of meaningful devolution for the Government, and the absence of consensus among Sinhalese and Tamil parties and constituencies alike. With ambitions running high, and the Government left with just three years, the window for meaningful reform is gradually closing.

While the new constitution could dilute India’s locus standi on the 13th Amendment and PC Elections, India will still retain a say, given its moral, political, and security stakes in the outcome. India will thus keep a keen eye on the implementation of PC Elections and the new constitution, as well as the broader consensus-building process. These developments will, in turn, shape its pragmatic policy vis-à-vis Sri Lanka, power devolution, and Tamil politics going forward.

(This article was first published by the Observer Research Foundation)

(Shivamurthy is an Associate Fellow and Khanduri was a Research Intern with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation)

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)