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1 November 2024

India’s Island Neighbours: Assessing Ties with Maldives and Sri Lanka

Anushka Saxena

I. Introduction

India’s neighbourhood is marred with dynamically evolving politics and geopolitics. Its relations with its smaller neighbours often witness a crest and trough of cooperation and contestation. The latter is especially true considering that such countries adopt a policy of hedging and bandwagoning between two Asian major powers – India and China. Internally, too, India’s neighbours have complex political systems functioning on the spectrum between quiescence and upheaval, with each state having varied implications for their relations with India. Most recently, from the Indian perspective, this is demonstrated by the shift from a stable relationship with Bangladesh to an uncertain and queasy one, in the aftermath of Sheikh Hasina’s renunciation of power at the height of student protests in the country.

This brief paper assesses India’s contemporary ties with its two island neighbours – the Maldives and Sri Lanka. It looks at the China factor and its consistent implications for Malé-Delhi relations, and suggests a pathway for the two neighbours to revive relations, emphasising tourism, people-to-people ties, and India’s role as a ‘first responder’. With Sri Lanka, the paper assesses more historical issues central to tensions in the bilateral relationship, including fishery disputes, Kachchatheevu islet-related disputes, and the issue of how IOTs are treated in Sri Lanka. The paper makes a case for expanding economic and business cooperation with Colombo, and dealing with the abovementioned historical issues either through ground-actor negotiations or a hands-off approach.


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