New Delhi: It surprised many when Anura K. Dissanayake, leader of a party with a history of anti-India sentiment in the 1970s and 80s, announced in February that he had been invited by the Indian government. For a party seeking to shed its past image, this invitation was portrayed as a significant breakthrough, positioning him as a serious contender for the presidency.
In India, he was welcomed with a red carpet reception. He met national security adviser Ajit Doval and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, and visited the Indian prime minister’s home state of Gujarat, along with Left-ruled Kerala.
Given his steady rise since the 2022 Sri Lankan protests – commonly known as the Aragalaya movement – his election victory is no surprise to India. Therefore, there are no parallels to be drawn with Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s ‘India Out’ campaign or the sudden removal of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh by a student-led reform movement.
However, despite channels having been open with Dissanayake, also called ‘AKD’, for a while now, he remains something of an enigma to New Delhi, which continues to watch him with caution.
Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha became the first foreign diplomat to meet and congratulate Dissanayake following his victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Sunday night, where he led his Marxist-Leninist party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), and the leftist alliance, National People’s Power (NPP), to an unprecedented win.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed up with a congratulatory post on X, expressing his eagerness to “work closely” to “further strengthen [India and Sri Lanka’s] multifaceted cooperation for the benefit of our people and the entire region.”
In response, Dissanayake affirmed his “commitment to strengthening the ties between [the two] nations.”
Thank you, Prime Minister Modi, for your kind words and support. I share your commitment to strengthening the ties between our nations. Together, we can work towards enhancing cooperation for the benefit of our peoples and the entire region. https://t.co/rtQEXyiFUI
— Anura Kumara Dissanayake (@anuradisanayake) September 23, 2024
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Dissanayake secured 42.31% of the vote, outpacing opposition leader Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), who received 32.76%. The sitting president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, got 17.27%, while Namal Rajapaksa, scion of the once-dominant Rajapaksa family, managed just 2.57%.
An ‘unknown entity’
The 55-year-old Marxist leader has revitalised the JVP with the backing of predominantly young and urban voters who are disillusioned with establishment politics, critical of the austerity measures under Wickremesinghe’s government, and eager for comprehensive and systemic change.
This presidential election followed the 2022 economic collapse and the Aragalaya protests, which led to former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation. Unsurprisingly, the economy dominated voters’ concerns, and it will likely remain the top priority for Dissanayake’s presidency.
According to N. Sathiya Moorthy a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator, Dissanayake remains an “unknown entity” not only to India but also to Sri Lankan voters. Though involved in politics since his student days, his governance experience is limited to brief stints of a year and four months during the JVP’s coalition with Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party in the early 2000s.
“Foreign policy is likely to take a back seat for now,” Sathiya Moorthy says. “I don’t expect him to make any significant moves until after the parliamentary elections.”
Professor Daniel Bass, Manager of South Asia Professor and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Cornell’s Einaudi Center, where he focuses on Sri Lanka, agrees that there may not be “much drastic change” in the “initial few months.”
Number game
During his election campaign, Dissanayake had pledged to dissolve parliament immediately after a presidential victory. The goal was clearly to capitalise on his win and secure enough MPs to take decisive actions – something not quite feasible in the current parliament, where the NPP holds only three seats.
According to the Sri Lankan constitution, the president must “summon the new parliament to meet on a date not later than three months” after the proclamation of the parliament’s dissolution. Consequently, electoral politics is likely to remain active in Sri Lanka over the coming months.
“So that will provide some time and will likely bring some stability and continuation,” says Bass.
However, Omar Rajarathnam, adviser at Sri Lankan think tank Factum, does not think that Dissanayake would have any breathing space to ease into the presidency.
“I don’t think he’s going to have enough time looking into the local dynamics of governance alone. I think he will probably have not even a week to delay foreign policy priorities because of tall the international negotiations for debt restructuring that are not going to wait,” he tells The Wire.
Rajrathnam is also sceptical that NPP would win enough seats in the 225-member parliament, if elections were held early. If one projects the vote share of NPP to the parliament, then Dissanayake will be well short of minority.
“It is doubtful that he or his party will be able to muster enough viable candidates in such a short time, which means they probably will end up being in a minority government,” says Rajarathnam.
Land and sea
India’s need to keep an attentive eye on Sri Lanka is well understood. The island’s strategic significance arises from its geographical closeness to the Indian mainland and the Tamil groups across the Palk Strait, which shape political dynamics.
It was this significance that prompted India to open its purse strings during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, which was also offered a rare opportunity to New Delhi to surge ahead of China by actively offering currency swaps, lines of credit, and assurances, which contributed to the IMF approving a $3-billion loan to Colombo.
In contrast, China has been more cautious in its approach on debt restructuring – a move which reportedly even affected approval for the second tranche of the IMF loan to Sri Lanka.
Given security concerns, New Delhi is particularly focused on preventing any adversarial power from establishing influence in Sri Lanka.
After Ranil Wickremesinghe assumed the presidency in 2022, Sri Lankan waters started to attract visits by Chinese research vessels, which India viewed as potential spy ships. India’s frustration grew over the flip-flop over denying permission to these vessels. As a result, there was little appetite in New Delhi for any visit by Wickremesinghe to India till July 2023.
In January 2024, the Sri Lankan government declared a year-long moratorium on foreign research vessels – to draw up guidelines. But it remains to be whether the new government will continue to adhere to it. Indian sources are confident that it will not be long before Chinese ‘research’ vessels arrive in Sri Lanka, aiming to put the new president in a difficult position and test his resolve.
While a committee is supposed to examine requests on a case-by-case basis, the sensitivity of the region means that there could inevitably arise a requirement for executive intervention.
Sri Lankan analyst Rajarathnam hopes that China realises that it will not be in its long-term interest to send a research vessel to “muddy the waters” in the initial months of Dissanayake’s term.
The future of projects
In 2015, when Maithripala Sirisena defeated Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential election, it had appeared that India’s concerns over China’s expanding influence might finally gain some traction. Although India initially secured several high-profile development projects, the enthusiasm quickly faded. Sirisena’s indecisiveness and ongoing conflicts with former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe stalled any significant progress on these initiatives.
In contrast, India had been quite satisfied with the progress made during Wickremesinghe’s two years in the presidency.
However, the situation may not be as straightforward now. The JVP has strongly opposed the sale of “national assets” to foreign entities and had backed the trade union unrest which led Gotabaya Rajapaksa to cancel the East Container terminal project in February 2021.
The party leaders have been vocal about cancelling the Adani wind power project.
Even after Dissanayake visited India, JVP leaders did not change their position opposing the Adani wind power project, which they claimed did not go through the proper tender process.
“I believe that renegotiating agreements finalised by the previous government is out of the question,” says Rajarathnam. However, he noted that the JVP has not called for a complete overturn of agreements but is open to reviewing them if feasible.
The JVP has its roots in the China-aligned faction of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, but experts caution against linking their ideological history to a definitive pro-China stance under Dissanayake.
“I don’t think he (AKD) is as pro-China as the Rajapaksas. But, he is not as pro-India as Ranil,” says professor Bass.
Incidentally, JVP had been gone on the streets to protest the handing over of Hambantota project to Chinese firms.
He pointed out that Dissanayake’s Marxism was as “more in the sense of a democratic socialist”. “His socialism is no different than the socialism of many parties in India,” he adds.
Bass is “uncertain” as to whether “this makes him more sympathetic to China”, given that the party also has a well-established Sinhala nationalism strain.
“Due to the problematic loans of China, it might not lead to have close ties as expected. So, I don’t think that its automatic,” says Bass.
The role of Sinhala nationalism
Professor Manoharan similarly highlights Dissanayake’s background, noting his involvement in JVP student politics during the second insurrection and his origins in Anuradhapura. He observed how these factors reflect two key influences – Leftist politics and the roots of Sinhala nationalism.
An opposition to “Indian expansionism” had been an integral part of JVP’s ideology during the two insurrections it led in the 1960s and 1980s.
Lionel Bopage, who had been JVP’s General Secretary from 1971 to 1983, had written that the first contacts with Indian officials took place during his term. He had even met with then Indian foreign minister Narasimha Rao during a visit in early 1980s. “It was dropped in 1972 and was resurrected by the JVP post 1984,” he wrote.
The JVP’s second violent insurrection occurred against the backdrop of India’s growing involvement in Sri Lanka, as civil war threatened the island nation.
“Most from that generation are no longer around, and the current JVP generation is far more pragmatic,” says Manoharan. He suggested that AKD’s rhetoric may not necessarily translate into action now that they are in power, especially if the realities of governance reveal that such moves could strain relations with India or hinder investment.
The Marxist party had traditionally been opposed to the Indo-Lanka accord and the 13th amendment for devolution of powers to provinces.
There is also ambiguity regarding AKD’s actual position on the Tamil issue, as he has not been very clear about it – possibly by design. Professor Bass suggests that this strategy was adopted for the elections to appeal to a broader base without alienating any particular group.
“This is the first election where the ethnic conflict wasn’t the central issue…While the JVP hasn’t been overtly racist like many other parties, there’s uncertainty about their stance, as elements of Sinhala nationalism are still present,” he says.
After AKD’s India visit, JVP had said in February that they were still opposed to the 1987 India-Lanka agreement.
The NPP’s manifesto makes no mention of the 13th amendment, even as it talks about a new constitution that ensures equality “of all citizens” and speaks of “devolution of political and administrative power to every local government, district, and province so that all people can be involved in governance”.
Sathiya Moorthy notes that there was initial hope when Dissanayake stated in an interview that his government would work toward a new constitution by advancing a draft created during the Sirisena administration, which aimed to go beyond the 13th Amendment. “That was the best deal the Tamils had received so far,” he remarks.
However, Sathiya Moorthy pointed out that the NPP had gone back to its default position, as a JVP lawmaker stated at a recent meeting with the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC) that the unitary nature of the country would not change and that police and land powers would not be granted to provincial councils.
India continues to still call for the implementation for the 13th Amendment. During a session on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 9, an Indian diplomat stated, “Full and effective implementation of the 13th Amendment of its Constitution by the Government of Sri Lanka will facilitate the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka.”
According to Rajarathnam, India, which has not been able to persuade any Sri Lankan government to fully implement the 13th Amendment, should consider changing its approach.
“How do you plan to encourage the new government to implement the 13th Amendment, and what will be different from the strategies used with previous administrations?” he asks. “If I were Anura Dissanayake, I would be asking India about their new approach.”
Interestingly, while Sajith Premadasa secured over 40% of the votes in the Tamil-majority Northern and Eastern provinces – bolstered by the endorsement of the major Tamil party, Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) – the JVP also garnered a respectable number of votes in these areas. This shift is attributed to the younger generation of Tamils, who are disillusioned with the divisive nature of Tamil politics, despite the JVP’s historical reputation for antipathy toward Sri Lankan Tamils.
