India scales up vigil, fears refugee crisis may turn into local conflict

The Indian agencies are closely keeping a watch on the refugees from Sri Lanka and feel that it could turn into a local conflict

New Delhi, July 11: The crisis in Sri Lanka has blown out of proportion and over the past couple of months the island has been witness to violent protests. Last week protesters stormed the Presidential palace forcing Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and announce his resignation.

Sri Lanka does occupy a place in India's neighbourhood policy. However, over the years New Delhi and Colombo have not been able to foster closer trade and development ties. This eventually led to China's rise in the island nation.

Since 2015, China has been the largest lender to Colombo and also its bigger foreign direct investment.

The Chinese investments in Sri Lanka have time and again failed as it failed to generate the kind of local employment that Colombo may have wished for. This has led to Sri Lanka defaulting and surrendering strategic townships and ports such as the Hambantota in exchange.

Take the case of the Port City of Colombo where Beijing was given 100 hectares in exchange for a $1.4 billion investment. The worry now is that with the economic crisis worsening, Sri Lanka risks losing control of more strategically located port cities. India would worry about the current scenario since the Chinese would have control over some of the major shipping routes in South Asia.

The disruption in the Colombo Port due to the ongoing crisis would worry India as it handles 60 per cent of its trans-shipment and 30 per cent of the container traffic. Sri Lanka in terms of Indian exports receives nearly $ 4 billion worth of merchandise annually. India also has investments in real estate, refining, petroleum and manufacturing, all of which would be adversely hit due to the crisis.

India is also staring at a refugee crisis with many from the island nation fleeing to India. An official explains the immediate fall out of so many people coming from Sri Lanka would be related to security. The agencies are also worried that there could be a refugee crisis and conflict with the local population.

The Tamil-Sinhalese conflict is also something that the agencies are keeping a close watch on. There has been a history of this and if it erupts the situation could be quite dire.

These are factors that India would be weighing on and it would be in New Delhi's best interest to do all it can to help end the economic crisis in India.

India would need to ensure lesser dependency of Colombo on Beijing and try to integrate Sri Lanka into the world economy.

Sajith Premadasa, Sri Lanka's Opposition leader said that the country is extremely grateful to India and the government needs to ensure that Sri Lanka's sovereignty and political independence are not impacted by this situation. "We must work with everyone in the international society, irrespective of which power group or power bloc anybody belongs to," Premadasa also said.