When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lands anywhere on an official visit, the script is often familiar – tight schedules, brief stopovers, and precision diplomacy. So, when Modi recently spent three days in Sri Lanka, his fourth visit to the island nation since 2019, it raised more than a few eyebrows. Why Sri Lanka, and why now?
To understand the significance, one must look beyond bilateral bonhomie and into the wider geopolitical chessboard, especially the rapidly intensifying great power competition in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), where China has been steadily tightening its grip.
A Visit Laden With Strategic Subtext
Modi’s extended stay was not merely ceremonial; it was deeply strategic. The visit culminated in a host of high-impact Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) across defense, energy, infrastructure, education, and maritime security. While the headlines focused on trade and cooperation, the subtext was unmistakable – India is reasserting its influence in its traditional backyard, and it’s doing so with clarity and purpose.
Among the most pivotal agreements was the inaugural defense pact between India and Sri Lanka. This agreement includes joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, and enhanced maritime security coordination, pillars of what many call “military diplomacy,” a critical tool in India’s Indo-Pacific doctrine.
These are not just friendly naval drills. In the Indian defense establishment, joint exercises are treated as an extension of real war strategy. Coordinated training with Sri Lankan forces enables New Delhi to keep a keener eye on Chinese movements in the Indian Ocean, where Beijing has already invested heavily in ports, logistics, and influence operations.
A Coded Message to Maldives?
The timing also aligns with India’s deteriorated relations with Maldives, a country that has increasingly pivoted towards China over the past two years. While diplomatic silence now prevails between Malé and New Delhi, Modi’s warm embrace of Colombo sends a subtle but unmistakable signal – India has options, and it is prepared to recalibrate its alliances in the region.
As Maldives flirts with Beijing’s orbit, Sri Lanka seems to be anchoring itself closer to India, not just militarily, but economically and energetically as well.
Energy Diplomacy: Powering Influence
India’s energy collaboration with Sri Lanka could become the foundation for a new era of regional energy diplomacy. A joint venture between India’s National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Electricity Board aims to establish a 120-megawatt solar power plant in Trincomalee—a strategically located area in eastern Sri Lanka where India has long-standing interests.
Additionally, India has committed to supplying LNG to Sri Lankan power plants, despite itself being a net importer, sourcing gas from Qatar, the Gulf, and the U.S.
So why subsidize Sri Lanka’s energy needs?
The answer lies in strategic utility – just as India bought electricity from Nepal and rerouted it to Bangladesh, these actions are geopolitical investments, not commercial transactions. They’re designed to bind regional partners into India’s influence network and reduce China’s strategic elbow room.
Furthermore, plans to establish an electricity grid connectivity system between the two nations will deepen this interdependence and bolster regional energy security – an area where China has also been making significant overtures, especially through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Infrastructure, Capacity Building, and Education: Winning Hearts and Minds
India’s support for rehabilitating Sri Lanka’s railway signaling systems and offering scholarships to 200 students from Jaffna and the Eastern Province are not just goodwill gestures. They are part of a long-term strategy to build people-to-people linkages and soft power. Similarly, training 1,500 Sri Lankan civil servants over five years enhances administrative interdependence and trust.
These may seem like developmental footnotes, but in geopolitics, capacity-building initiatives often yield the most enduring loyalties.
)
China Looms Large
Modi’s visit cannot be de-hyphenated from China’s expanding role in the region. With over 400 MoUs signed with Iran, Chinese access to ports in Gwadar (Pakistan) and potential ambitions in Chabahar (Iran) signal that the Indo-Pacific is becoming a crowded strategic theater. Moreover, with China underwriting Sri Lankan infrastructure – especially the Hambantota Port, now essentially leased to China for 99 years – India is making a calculated counter-move.
China’s increasing sway over Iran also has knock-on effects. Iran, in many ways, is becoming an economic satellite of China. Beijing’s money fuels Iranian projects, its oil supplies China’s growing demand, and its ports offer logistical alternatives to Pakistan. With the Russia–Ukraine war likely to wind down by 2025, and U.S. attention expected to pivot fully towards containing China, India’s moves in Sri Lanka are not just tactical – they are anticipatory.
A Region in Flux, and India’s Game of Chess
Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka was not about headlines. It was about red lines, and making them clear. With China tightening its strategic noose around South Asia and the Indian Ocean, India is shoring up its partnerships, offering not just trade, but trust, not just aid, but agency.
And in the Indian Ocean, where maritime routes are the arteries of global commerce and security, trust and agency might just be the most valuable currencies.
