The love triangle of Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan

RECENTLY at a reception on board Shahjahan, a Pakistani frigate that called at the Colombo Port, an official of the Pakistani embassy asked me why the media did not give much publicity to Pakistan’s help for Sri Lanka.

By Ameen Izzadeen

Published: Wed 5 Apr 2006, 10:41 AM

Last updated: Sat 4 Apr 2015, 5:31 PM

However much I tried to explain or rather defend the Sri Lankan media by pointing out instances where newspapers had carried articles on Pakistan’s tsunami relief and other assistance, the official was not convinced. For he was making a comparison with the exposure India got in the Sri Lankan media.

His complaint points to a factor that has come to shape the diplomatic relations involving India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. There has been an Indo-Pakistan cold war over Sri Lanka. The relations involving the three nations could even be likened to a love triangle. In this love triangle, Pakistan’s position is that of the lover who does everything he can to woo the girl but finds that the girl loves or is compelled to love his rival.

Pakistan probably understands Sri Lanka’s position, given the geo-strategic realities and domestic compulsion that have made Sri Lanka to maintain close ties with India. But it wants to be noticed more and score more points than India in Sri Lanka. This has put Sri Lanka in a diplomatically awkward position. Every time, the Sri Lanka-Pakistan relations go up few notches, India frowns. So we prepare in advance to console or reassure India whenever Sri Lanka moves closer to Pakistan.

This diplomatic game surfaced again last week when Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse made a three-day visit to Pakistan. A joint statement said the leaders of the two countries agreed to intensify cooperation in defence, science and technology, trade and tourism.

Obviously, the word ‘defence’ in the joint statement is not to the liking if India, although it is not unaware of Colombo’s defence cooperation with Pakistan which remains a key weapons supplier to Sri Lanka. Pakistan also provides advanced training for Sri Lankan soldiers. Besides, it is no secret that Rajapakse’s delegation to Pakistan included Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the President’s brother. Sri Lanka is aware that its courtship with Pakistan is subjected to India’s tolerance level.

So Sri Lankan policymakers, who are uncertain whether they had gone beyond India’s tolerance level, are sending a high-level delegation to New Delhi this week to reassure India. It is just like our allegorical girl reassuring her boyfriend that her date with the other boy was only a friendly chat and nothing untoward had happened. But Sri Lanka-Pakistan relations have always been on a solid footing with Sri Lankans generally viewing Pakistan as a friend in need and friend indeed. N Godage, a former Sri Lankan diplomat said in a recent newspaper article that he could boldly say that "Sri Lanka today remains an undivided country, thanks to the military support it received from Pakistan" — particularly in 2000 when the Tamil Tiger rebels were poised to take Jaffna and announce a unilateral declaration of independence.

It was Pakistan-supplied multi-barreled rocket launchers that tilted the military balance in Sri Lanka’s favour in that year when India showed reluctance to assist us militarily. Probably it was Pakistan’s way of doing something in return for our favour in 1971 during the Bangladesh war. Sri Lanka defied India and allowed Pakistan civilian aircraft to fly via Colombo to Dhaka though it was aware that Pakistan was using these aircraft to transport military personnel.

Since Independence, Sri Lanka’s foreign policy making has been influenced by not only the global balance of power but also the regional balance of power that involves India, Pakistan and China. Sri Lanka’s relationship with Pakistan, established soon after our Independence in 1948, began on an open and friendly note as opposed to that of India.

About India, our early leaders had entertained great suspicion. Sri Lanka’s first prime minister D S Senanayake felt that the most likely threat to our independence could come from India and this fear perception became the dominant strand in his foreign policy. Their fear was fuelled by utterances made by Indian leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramaya and K M Panikkar in the mid 1940s who suggested said that Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) would inevitably drawn into a closer union with India presumably as an autonomous unit within the Indian federation.

It was to counter the threat from our gigantic neighbour that Senanayake signed an important defence agreement with Great Britain in 1948, allowing our former colonial masters to maintain two military bases in Trincomalee and Katunayake.

This fear was the foundation, upon which are built Indo-Lanka relations marked by their ups and downs. But in a relationship between a small and weak country and a big and powerful country, prudence recommends collaboration rather than confrontation. So the small fish swim as close as possible to the big fish to avoid being swallowed.

Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo