As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi departed Sri Lanka earlier this month, New Delhi’s media was already hailing the visit as a diplomatic triumph. A raft of development projects had been announced and a significant new defence pact between the two governments signed. Images broadcast showed Modi beside a smiling Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, arms raised aloft in symbolic unity. But while Indian officials may celebrate deeper ties, in Sri Lanka, discomfort continues to simmer.
The key theme of Modi’s trip was ‘connectivity’, a euphemism for deeper economic and infrastructural integration with India. A landmark cross-border electricity grid physically linking Mannar to Tamil Nadu was unveiled, and a tripartite agreement between India, Sri Lanka, and the United Arab Emirates to transform Trincomalee into a regional energy hub was signed. It is no coincidence that India’s strategic and economic interests are concentrated in the Tamil North-East - the region geographically and historically closest to the Indian mainland, separated only by a narrow stretch of water. Alongside the flights and ferries that have already begun, the Indian premier himself raised directly the prospect of a land bridge in bilateral talks.
Indeed, even when Modi departed in an Indian Air Force helicopter, he chose to fly over the so-called ‘Ram Sethu’, a series of islets linking Mannar to Rameshwaram, to land directly in Tamil Nadu. The symbolism of the images, which were broadcast on Sri Lankan news outlets as he left, was striking. From Trincomalee to Mannar, the North-East is envisioned as the linchpin for New Delhi’s regional ambitions. It is here that India seeks to root its infrastructure projects, energy corridors, and long-term investments.
But there is an inherent contradiction at the heart of these ambitions. India seeks long-term stability and partnership with a state that rules over the North-East through a military occupation and, at its core, remains ideologically resistant to such integration.
Though Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) administration has pivoted decisively toward India, embracing closer ties more openly than almost any Sri Lankan government in history, this shift is built on shaky ground. The signing of a defence pact with India, details of which remain undisclosed, has provoked unease across the Sinhala South. Editorials and televised commentary have questioned the secrecy of the agreement and baulked at the idea of greater Indian connectivity, while there are grumblings within Dissanayake’s own ranks over how the once fervently anti-Indian Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has seemingly abandoned its ideological foundations.
The optics of closer Indian integration, particularly through the Tamil homeland, have triggered familiar anxieties. In Sinhala nationalist discourse, India remains an intrusive power, historically viewed with suspicion. For decades, the proximity to Tamil Nadu and its past support for Tamil liberation movements, have fuelled anti-Indian sentiment. Dissanayake has done little to challenge or change them. There has been no ideological reckoning. Instead, the state’s refusal to reveal details of the defence agreement has only fuelled anti-Indian suspicion.
The fragility of Colombo’s promises should give New Delhi pause. India has, on multiple occasions, witnessed Sri Lanka renege on agreements, delay implementation, or abandon deals altogether, often at the whims of Sinhala nationalist pressure. The scrapping of the East Container Terminal project, despite a prior agreement with India, or the long-stalled Indo-Lanka Accord and 13th Amendment, are cases in point.
In the short term, the Dissanayake administration will continue to court India’s favour. Sri Lanka remains economically fragile, and with Trump-era tariffs set to hammer exports to the US, New Delhi offers a desperately needed lifeline even while Colombo scrambles to salvage ties with Washington.
But this is not a foundation for a durable partnership. The island’s political climate remains unstable, and while the opposition is fractured for now, pressure on Dissanayake is mounting. With a lack of deeper structural reform or transformation of Sinhala political attitudes, adding to how India’s investments in the North-East are being laid atop an unresolved ethnic conflict, any “bridge” to Sri Lanka will remain one step away from collapse.