Meeting India’s Concerns To Sustain New Relationship

By Jehan Perera -May 26, 2014 

Jehan Perera

The Sri Lankan government sees in the Indian Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi a new opportunity to win India over to its side. President Rajapaksa has made sure that he will be off to a flying start with his decision to be present at the swearing in of the new Indian Prime Minister, who had tweeted that it was a great pleasure to talk to the Sri Lankan President when he made his congratulatory call.  It is clear that the Sri Lankan government leadership senses, or believes there is, a resonance with the new Indian leadership.  Indeed, the change of government in India has opened up the possibility of a new dimension of personal warmth to enter into the relationship between the two leaders of Sri Lanka and India.  There is every possibility of the personal charisma of President Rajapaksa, and his closeness to the ethos of the masses of people, to find resonance in the new Indian Prime Minister.

However, there is a danger of reading too much into the personal relations between leaders.  Politicians and the general public have a tendency to prioritise the role of individuals in history. When Russia annexed Crimea, much of the debate in the international media revolved around the personal motivations of President Putin. In reality, however, individual leaders have a limited ability to affect international relations, which are primarily driven by geopolitical and socio-cultural forces. President Putin is important no doubt, but only insofar as he reflects the values and goals of his inner circle, a broader coalition of the elites that back him, and, no less importantly, the general population.  All parties represented in the Duma (Russian Parliament) were behind the annexation. In the Duma vote, 445 votes were for the annexation with only one against.  Not only did President Putin’s party, United Russia, support him, the other three parties, Just Russia, the Liberal Democrats and even the Communists, were also behind him.

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