• Centre for Law and Security Studies (CLASS) Exec. Director Nilanthan Niruthan on SL taking advantage of Modi 3.0

Sri Lanka sits very close to one of the largest economies in the world, and besides India having been quite an influence on Sri Lanka from ancient times, the island nation is also vulnerable to any geopolitical decisions taken by India. When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out his ‘3.0’ strategy, Sri Lanka may not have focused too much on the implications of that plan on Sri Lanka – but, maybe we should.

Returning to ‘Kaleidoscope’ this week is the Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Security Studies (CLASS), Nilanthan Niruthan. He is a defence analyst and commentator on global and national security, and he adds some perspective on ‘Modi 3.0’ and other geopolitical implications. 

Following are excerpts from the interview:

Modi has been marching with confidence with his ‘Modi 3.0’ strategy. What are the salient points in this strategy?

There are three salient points here. The first is that Modi plans to continue with the geopolitical outreach that was already planned out earlier. The second is that, in terms of local economic factors, there seems to be a sharper intent to tackle all those problems head-on. The third is, similar to the first point, maintaining India’s role as a swing State, as a neutral party of sorts, that can perhaps even mediate in international conflicts. As far as the third Modi regime is concerned, from what we see so far, this seems to be the crux of what he plans to do. 

How will all this impact Sri Lanka, being the closest neighbour to India? 

There will obviously be a great geopolitical impact on Sri Lanka, because we are being pushed even further into needing to pick a side. For a long time, we have often tried to maintain an equal distance between different countries and it’s always backfired. But, we always keep repeating the same mistake. So, this pushes us into a position where we really need to decide where our alignment is. It doesn’t have to be India, but it has to be some kind of alignment. We also need to worry about the economic part of it. Are we going to be Canada or Mexico? As in, when India rises as an economic power, are we going to be a partner working with it hand-in-hand, benefiting from this economic growth? Or, are we going to be like Mexico or Ecuador, that try to keep them at an arm’s length and lose out?

Modi’s ‘Viksit Bharat at 2047’ – How can Sri Lanka take advantage of Modi’s plan of making India a developed nation by 2047? 

I would say that there’s a lot of synergy there. The ‘Viksit Bharat’ programme has four basic pillars. Prosperity for women, prosperity for farmers, prosperity for students, and just general economic tackling of poverty. If you look at women’s empowerment and agricultural empowerment, there’s much that India and Sri Lanka can collaborate on. One, they can study the way that Sri Lanka has done things, because our metrics in terms of those two areas tend to be higher than in India. Secondly, when many new opportunities come up, India typically tends to look for partners who share the same cultural synergy. They are not like the Chinese in that it’s all business. India looks for partners who think and have a cultural and socioeconomic mindset like it. So, we just need to be ready to take up whatever opportunities come and we can really prosper from that.

Once the strategy starts gaining traction, what challenges do you foresee for Sri Lanka? 

The major challenge is that our political environment is still totally divided. We don’t really have a foreign policy that is devoid of political parties. It’s not like the Americans, or the British, or Japan for example, who have an alignment. In Sri Lanka, based on who is in power, our foreign policy alignments change as well. So, that will be the biggest worry. The second is that as a smaller nation, there’s nothing we can do to prevent larger nations from exercising their power and influence here. And, we often expend all our energy being angry about this, rather than coming up with a strategy to counter it. So, those will be the big challenges. 

There’s a strong ‘Act East’ policy that Modi is pushing, wanting to create several Singapores under this umbrella. How does that impact Sri Lanka? 

It impacts Sri Lanka when India’s economic outreach starts having beneficiaries all over the world. Sri Lanka has a good opportunity to be one of those beneficiaries, from an economic perspective. But, the trickier thing is that the ‘Act East’ policy is itself an Indian geopolitical game with China, where India strikes. Modi’s visit to Brunei and Singapore, for example, was all a part of India’s ‘Act East and Look East’ policy. This is being done to counter China. Now, as to what extent Sri Lanka can be a part of that and face the Chinese when we need to ask the Chinese for some kind of help will be a challenge. But, economically, it’s something that we do need to embrace. It is diplomatically that we will start having to walk a tightrope. And, we have no choice, we just have to do it.

How can we create more geopolitical awareness to help us deal with this global challenge?

Firstly, there is almost no interaction between the private sector and the geopolitical expertise in Sri Lanka. In most other parts of the world, top businesses are willing to invest in geopolitical professionals and geopolitical analysts, for risk assessments and strategic reports for example. In Sri Lanka, that culture doesn’t exist. Unless this permeates the business sector, it is very difficult to get those below them on the hierarchical ladder to start accepting those things. The second would be to have a lot more public engagement via public lectures and public awareness programmes on Sri Lanka’s interests, what should we be worried about, and what we should look forward to. These are very basic things that can be done in terms of spreading awareness, which we currently don’t do.

There is a lot of turbulence geopolitically in the South Asian region, isn’t there?

The major reason for this turbulence and the major seed of this turbulence is that India is now worried about the state of its neighbourhood, whether it’s Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka, or Pakistan, or the Maldives, or Afghanistan. India has still not figured out the leadership of any of these countries and is still not too sure how to go ahead engaging with them. The old policies don’t seem to be working, and, if anything, they seem to be pushing these neighbouring countries away from India. And, that is what India is worried about. It is also worried about the lack of stability. Because, in many parts of this region, many of the regimes over the last five to six years, including some in Pakistan and Bangladesh at the moment, are not particularly democratically elected governments and there are other leaders who have far more popularity than the incumbent Governments. All these lead to a great deal of political instability in the region, which in turn leads to geopolitical turbulence.

What is China’s plan for Sri Lanka? Have it disengaged or is it continuing to engage?

On the surface, many feel that there has been a disengagement. But, look closer; China will never truly disengage from Sri Lanka, from the Indo-Pacific, and from the China-Sri Lanka relationship. However, China does want to play it safe and does not want Sri Lanka to become an unnecessary headache like we became to it a few years ago, where it thought that it was playing us, but ended up getting played instead. This is the same complaint with the Americans, Indians, and Chinese, and almost anybody who engages with us; they come here thinking that they are going to take advantage of us. We also play the part, saying ‘poor us, we are worried about all these countries taking over’, but then we arm twist them and take whatever we want from them. Then we say ‘sorry, regime change, we have new people coming in’. So, China is just waiting and watching.

The United States goes into an election in November. Will it have any impact on Sri Lanka and its region?

It certainly will, because there will be serious consequences for the South Asian and Asian regions at large. Even though there might not be Sri Lanka-specific consequences, there will be many economic, cultural, and diplomatic tussles that happen which we will also get swept up in.

It’s important for us to remember that we need not be worried about direct consequences, because that’s the job for countries like China, India, and Russia. What we need to worry about are the indirect consequences, as that’s where we will get swept up like a leaf in a hurricane. There will be economic repercussions of a Donald Trump or Kamala Harris Presidency – large indirect impacts on Sri Lanka definitely. 

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’, which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)