Turmoil in Sri Lanka: Mahinda Rajapaksa's return poses challenges for India but it may not be a zero sum game

But Swamy is not known for his reticence and in any case, it is his personal opinion. From the looks of it, India seems to be wary about playing its cards and wants to wait out the volatility till a clearer picture emerges. The Washigton Post quoted an official from India’s external affairs ministry as saying New Delhi “is aware of the developments and watching the situation closely.” India’s caution is understandable. The situation is complex, and New Delhi has been sucked into the vortex of Sri Lanka’s domestic politics without wishing to play any role in it.

There is a distinct fear in New Delhi that it has inadvertently become the proverbial straw that finally broke the camel’s back, and India’s cautious response is likely a desperate effort to stay out of the controversy.

The dramatic developments unfolded on Friday when President Maithripala Sirisena finally called time on the unstable coalition by quitting the so-called ‘Unity government’ and ousting Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. The coalition was in ICU and its fall was inevitable. Yet the descent into volatility was caused by a few recent events where India plays an unintentional part.

The first event involves Wickremesinghe’s recent meeting with Narendra Modi in New Delhi, after which the Sri Lankan prime minister's office released a curious statement, where Modi was quoted as “unhappy” and disappointed with the delays that various Indian projects are facing in Sri Lanka.

The release from Wickremesinghe’s office, written in Sinhala, stated: “Mr. Narendra Modi has expressed his concern over the implementation of Indo-Sri Lanka joint development projects in accordance with the MoU signed between India and Sri Lanka in 2017…Mr. Modi said he was not satisfied with the response he had received from the Sri Lankan government to his overtures.”

The Statement Relesd By India was nondescript. “Both the Prime Ministers discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and ways to further deepen the historically close and friendly relations between the two countries. The leaders exchanged views on regional and global issues. They also reviewed the progress in implementation of various decisions taken during high level exchanges in the recent past, including the visit of Sri Lankan Prime Minister in April and November 2017, Prime Minister’s visit to Sri Lanka in May 2017 during the International Vesak Day Celebrations and the visit of Sri Lankan President for the International Solar Alliance Founding Conference in March 2018.”

According to a report in The Hindu , officials from India’s Ministry of External Affairs present at the meeting “said the delayed projects had indeed been the ‘main subject of discussion’, but characterised Modi’s reaction as ‘taking stock’ of progress on the projects rather than ‘disappointment'."

The public declaration seemed to be a thinly veiled attempt by Wickremesinghe to shift the blame for delayed projects on to Sirisena, with whom he ran into major differences over the East Container Terminal in Colombo port. Wickremesinghe was keen on the port to be run by an Indian company but “under directions, the terms of deal with the bidders were changed to keep the Indians investors away.”

Amid these differences, the controversy over an alleged assassination plot complicated the situation further. Sirisena was quoted as saying in a recent report by the hindu that Indian intelligence services had hatched a plot to kill the Sri Lankan president, keeping Modi in the dark.

Both Sirisena and the Indian government later denied the allegation and dismissed the report, and Sri Lankan police later held a news conference to declare that no evidence of such a conspiracy was found but Sirisena, while denying India’s role in the plot, nevertheless report felt that Wickremesinghe government wasn’t giving the matter its due importance.

Recent media reports also indicated that President Sirisena was  from a section of his Freedom Party members to pull out of the coalition with Wickremesinghe’s United National Party and appoint a “caretaker government” with Rajapaksa as the prime minister.

Sirisena’s actions in sacking his prime minister and giving the job to the former president, therefore, looks like an attempt to stave off popular discontent and mend the relationship with Rajapaksa, who is widely expected to win the presidential elections in 2020.

The problem, however, is that Sirisena’s move unilateral move has come under challenge from the incumbent prime minister. Wickremesinghe insists that he is still the prime minister and that Sirisena’s move is unconstitutional. He continues to occupy Temple Trees, the official residence of the prime minister, and in a letter to the president has demanded that Parliament be reconvened so that he can immediately prove his majority. Wickremesinghe has also vowed legal action and claimed that he can only be removed by the Parliament, which was due to meet on 5 November.

Wickremesinghe has reasons to be confident. The Rajapaksa-Sirisena combine has little less than 100 seats while Wickremesinghe’s UNP has 106, just seven short of majority. “As far as the prime ministership is concerned, the person who has the majority support in parliament has to be the prime minister, and I have that majority of support… When a motion of no confidence was moved (in the past), we defeated it, showing that the house has the confidence in me,” Wickremesinghe said news confreance.

Reacting to his move, Sirisena has suspended the parliament till 16 November in an apparent attempt to deny Wickremesinghe the chance to prove his majority on the floor of the House and also to help Rajapaksa buy some time. Sirisena would have noted that Tamil, Muslim parties and many lawmakers are still firmly behind Wickremesinghe.

This deepens the political crisis. However, under the Sri Lankan Constitution, the president has the power to remove the prime minister and it seems likely that the battle will move to the judicial arena. Sri Lankan courts have kowtowed before power earlier and it is possible that they may not be able to prevent Rajapaksa from returning to power.

Namal Rajapaksa, a lawmaker and the son of the former president, was quoted as saying in The New York Times that “we have more than 130 seats in Parliament, definitely.”

India therefore must proceed with the assumption that Wickremesinghe, with whom New Delhi had a good equation, may be ousted. This complicates the turf for New Delhi, which has been grappling with the swift changes in the Indo-Pacific strategic dynamic due to China’s aggressive courting of Indian neighbours. Rajapaksa, the strongman who served for 10 years as Sri Lanka’s president till 2015, had single-handedly pivoted the nation towards China.

He had engineered an economic run fueled by opaque Chinese investments and plunged Sri Lanka into a debt trap that led to, among other things, the island nation handing over the strategically located Hambantota port and nearly 15,000 acres of land around it to China on a 99-year lease. Though the lease was authored after Rajapaksa was voted out of office, the Sirisena government had little choice. The port gave China a toehold in a critical freight and military pathway.