• Sovereignty is often weakened not by deliberate policy but by accumulated habits

The recent controversy surrounding the Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s refusal to meet Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri generated considerable debate across foreign policy circles. The episode was interpreted by some as carrying an anti-Indian undertone, shaped by earlier controversies surrounding Shah, including the display of a ‘Greater Nepal’ map and his temporary ban on Indian films. Whether symbolic or political, such actions had already reinforced perceptions of a more assertive nationalist posture in Nepal–India relations. Beyond its geopolitical overtones however, the episode highlighted a truth often overlooked in smaller states: protocol is neither ceremonial vanity nor subservience to powerful states, but a visible expression of sovereignty, institutional discipline, state hierarchy, and state self-respect.

The debate also offers a lesson for Sri Lanka, albeit from the opposite direction. If Nepal risks appearing rigid in its application of protocol, Sri Lanka appears vulnerable to the opposite tendency — excessive informality. In Colombo, access to Ministers, bureaucrats, political advisers, and even sensitive State institutions has, over several decades, remained casual by international standards. Foreign diplomats, non-governmental organisation representatives, lobbyists, intelligence-linked intermediaries, and international agency officials move through the State apparatus with ease, at times bypassing formal institutional channels altogether.

When access becomes disorderly

The issue is not openness itself. Diplomacy naturally requires engagement and accessibility. The problem emerges when access becomes disorderly, undocumented, personalised, and detached from the institutional process. At that point, diplomacy ceases to resemble statecraft and begins resembling informal networking.

This has produced several long-term consequences for Sri Lanka’s governance and foreign policy architecture.

The first is the gradual dilution of sovereign decision-making. Smaller states rarely surrender sovereignty overnight; it usually erodes silently through dependency, informal influence networks, fragmented policymaking, donor pressures, and growing subservience to stronger powers. When external actors gain unstructured access across multiple layers of Government, the distinction between consultation and influence becomes increasingly blurred, potentially allowing disproportionate external influence over national policy choices in ways that do not always align with Sri Lanka’s interests. In a polity as ideologically, racially, and religiously fragmented as Sri Lanka’s, such influence can operate with greater ease by exploiting existing political and social divisions.

In many mature diplomatic systems, meetings involving sensitive political or strategic matters are structured through Foreign Ministries, recorded institutionally, and coordinated through established chains of command. Such mechanisms protect accountability, continuity, and institutional memory. The protocol functions of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Affairs Ministry itself are designed around these principles.

In Sri Lanka however, the cumulative effect of such informal access is often the emergence of parallel communication channels outside formal institutional structures. The result is communication duplicity. Different branches of the state begin conveying different messages to different audiences. Political leaders may privately reassure external powers while publicly adopting contradictory positions. Bureaucrats pursue one course while political appointees pursue another. Foreign actors quickly learn to exploit such inconsistencies.

Consequently, Sri Lanka risks resembling less a coherent State speaking through institutions than a collection of competing centres speaking simultaneously.

This weakens diplomatic credibility. Foreign policy succeeds not merely through rhetoric, but through predictability, coordination, and strategic consistency. Countries dealing with Sri Lanka often struggle to identify who truly speaks for the State: The President’s Office, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Treasury, the defence institutions, political advisers, or informal intermediaries operating behind the scenes.

Such ambiguity weakens negotiating leverage and encourages external actors to bypass formal institutions in favour of personalised networks. Over time, policy risks becoming reactive, fragmented, and externally conditioned.

It also creates space for influence brokers and political fixers eager to cultivate access and project relevance. Where formal channels are weak or overlapping, rumour, selective information, and speculative narratives can gradually acquire the status of fact. Such informal ecosystems may not only shape political discourse and distort public perceptions of foreign policy priorities, but can also create opportunities for patronage, opaque dealings, and corruption, further complicating governance and diplomatic decision-making.

Another consequence is the erosion of institutional memory. Mature diplomatic systems preserve continuity through archives, procedures, and accumulated institutional knowledge. When diplomacy becomes excessively informal, critical discussions increasingly shift to private dinners, residences, hotel lobbies, unofficial consultations, and informal networks.

The state gradually loses memory of its own engagements

Successive administrations inherit incomplete records, inconsistent commitments, and fragmented understandings of previous negotiations. This creates vulnerabilities in areas such as debt restructuring, security cooperation, maritime arrangements, intelligence coordination, trade concessions, and strategic infrastructure agreements.

Equally concerning is the psychological dimension. Excessive accessibility by senior political and bureaucratic leadership gradually lowers the perceived authority of institutions. In diplomacy, symbolism matters. Hierarchy matters. Structured access matters. The highest offices of a state must project institutional gravity rather than social availability.

This does not require arrogance toward foreign diplomats. It requires calibrated professionalism.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka’s political culture often confuses informality with sophistication. Some political actors appear to view unrestricted diplomatic access as evidence of international relevance or personal prestige. Foreign engagement becomes personalised performance rather than disciplined State interaction.

The risks become particularly acute in geopolitically contested environments. Sri Lanka sits at the intersection of strategic competition involving India, China, the United States, and increasingly other middle powers. Weak protocol discipline creates opportunities for competing external actors to cultivate undue influence through fragmented domestic channels.

The issue therefore extends far beyond ceremonial etiquette. Protocol is fundamentally about protecting the institutional integrity and dignity of the state.

For decades, successive Governments contributed to this gradual drift. Across Governments of different political colours, diplomatic access increasingly became personalised. Engagement was often treated less as a structured State process and more as an extension of political relationships and individual influence. Over time, this weakened institutional discipline and normalised informal practices within the conduct of State affairs.

The result was the emergence of multiple unofficial gateways into the Sri Lankan State. External actors increasingly learned that access could often be secured not merely through formal diplomatic channels but through personal relationships and informal networks, creating competing avenues of influence outside established institutional frameworks.

This did not occur because Governments intentionally sought to dilute sovereignty. Rather, a political culture evolved in which immediate convenience, political expediency, and personalised engagement frequently overshadowed institutional process. Yet, sovereignty is often weakened not by deliberate policy but by accumulated habits.

Interestingly, the present administration itself appears to have recognised this problem. It introduced a new circular with revised guidelines aimed at strengthening discipline in interactions between State institutions and foreign actors and centralising communication through the Foreign Affairs Ministry. The circular explicitly reaffirmed the Foreign Affairs Ministry as the lead institution for managing international relations and discouraged direct engagement outside established formal structures.

The recognition itself was important. It reflected an understanding that sovereignty today is protected not merely through military capability or constitutional authority, but also through procedural discipline and coherent State behaviour. The greater challenge however, lies in implementation. Administrative cultures shaped by decades of personalised practices do not transform overnight.

Consequently, despite the existence of formal frameworks, elements of the earlier pattern often appear to persist beneath the surface. Multiple channels of engagement continue operating simultaneously, occasionally producing overlapping communication, inconsistent messaging, and institutional ambiguity. Ultimately, procedural reforms acquire meaning only when they evolve from written directives into the administrative culture.

This does not imply that Sri Lanka should embrace excessive rigidity. Diplomacy naturally requires flexibility, nuance, and political intelligence. Flexibility cannot become institutional disorder. A disciplined diplomatic culture must remain anchored in process rather than personalised access.

Several reforms therefore remain necessary.

First, substantive diplomatic engagements involving key stakeholders should be recorded and coordinated through the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Second, parallel informal communication channels should be minimised.

Third, Sri Lanka requires a stronger professional foreign service insulated from excessive political improvisation.

Fourth, protocol guidelines should be modernised and consistently enforced across Ministries.

Finally, the State must restore institutional discipline, hierarchy, and strategic coherence.

Sovereignty erodes through the weakening of diplomatic discipline

Ultimately, sovereignty in the modern world is rarely lost through invasion. More often, it erodes through the gradual weakening of diplomatic discipline, institutional fragility, fragmented governance, external dependency, and, most critically for smaller states, excessive strategic and economic dependence on one or two larger powers engaged in geopolitical competition. Such dependence can steadily narrow a country's room for independent decision-making, drawing smaller states into rivalries not of their own making and reducing their strategic autonomy, negotiating space, and policy flexibility. Protocol alone cannot protect a nation, but, without diplomatic discipline and institutional coherence, a state gradually ceases to behave like one.

The writer served as the Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in Madras, India, the Chargé d’Affaires of Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, the Consul General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai, India, and the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Sweden with concurrent accreditation to Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia

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The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication