By TN Ashok
There was something unusually warm — and strategically significant — about the message exchanged in Colombo this week between India and Sri Lanka.
India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh came carrying an assurance: India would not stand by and watch if Sri Lanka faced a serious emergency. New Delhi, he made clear, would be there as a first responder.
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake reciprocated with an assurance of his own: Sri Lankan territory would never be allowed to become a platform for activities inimical to India’s security interests.
It was neighbourliness expressed in the language of defence diplomacy.
Singh told Dissanayake that India regarded assistance to Sri Lanka not as charity but as a responsibility. India, he said, as Sri Lanka’s closest friend and neighbour, considered it “not a favour, but a responsibility to provide assistance as the first responder” and would continue doing so in the future.
Dissanayake, for his part, reiterated that Sri Lanka would never permit its territory to be used for activities inimical to India’s security interests.
Behind the diplomatic warmth lies the hard geography of the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka sits astride some of the world’s busiest sea lanes, barely a few hundred kilometres from India’s southern coastline. Colombo and Hambantota are strategically located near maritime routes carrying Middle Eastern oil, Asian manufactured goods and enormous volumes of container traffic between East and West.
For India, therefore, what happens in and around Sri Lanka is never entirely Sri Lanka’s business.
And for Sri Lanka, which has repeatedly sought to maintain relations with India, China, Japan, the United States and other powers, the challenge is to prevent its strategic geography from turning the island into a battlefield — or an advanced position — in a contest among larger powers.
That is why Dissanayake’s assurance matters.
It is not necessarily a promise to keep every foreign warship out of Sri Lankan ports. Nor would that be realistic for an island whose economy depends heavily on maritime trade and whose navy routinely engages in international exercises.
Indeed, the historical record demonstrates precisely the opposite.
Sri Lanka has hosted foreign military forces; Foreign naval vessels have repeatedly visited Sri Lankan ports. The United States is a particularly important recent example. In June 2026, the US Navy’s littoral combat ship USS Canberra called at Colombo for replenishment. The Sri Lankan Navy itself described the visit as being for replenishment purposes.
A month later, Sri Lanka and the United States conducted CARAT 2026, a maritime exercise at Trincomalee involving the Sri Lankan Navy, US Navy, US Coast Guard and Sri Lankan Air Force.
The exercise included maritime-security training, humanitarian assistance and disaster-response activities, as well as interoperability exercises. It was conducted both ashore and at sea in the Indian Ocean.
Japan, too, has been a regular participant in naval cooperation with Sri Lanka. Japanese and Sri Lankan vessels have conducted goodwill and bilateral exercises around Colombo and Trincomalee over several years. Japan’s defence ministry records exercises involving Japanese warships and Sri Lankan naval vessels in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
India itself, of course, conducts regular naval exercises with Sri Lanka. SLINEX, the India-Sri Lanka bilateral naval exercise, has become an established feature of their defence relationship. Its 2025 edition involved Indian Navy ships INS Jyoti and INS Rana and Sri Lankan vessels SLNS Sayura and SLNS Vijayabahu at Colombo.
So the issue is not whether foreign militaries can ever enter Sri Lankan waters. They can. The issue is what they are doing there and against whom.
And then there is China; China is where India’s strategic anxiety becomes sharper. Chinese naval vessels have visited Sri Lanka repeatedly. In August 2024, three PLA Navy vessels — the Type 071 landing ships Wuzhishan and Qilianshan, and the Type 052D guided-missile destroyer He Fei — arrived at Colombo.
China said the ships had participated in the Peace Unity-2024 exercise and made a technical stop in Sri Lanka on their return journey. During the Colombo visit, Chinese and Sri Lankan naval personnel conducted professional exchanges, joint exercises and training.
There is an even more sensitive historical precedent. In September 2014, a Chinese submarine, Changcheng 02, accompanied by another vessel, reached Colombo for refuelling and crew refreshment. Sri Lanka’s then navy chief defended the relationship with China, saying Colombo had no intention of pursuing a strategy hostile to India.
That episode set off alarm bells in New Delhi because a Chinese submarine appearing at Colombo was strategically different from an ordinary naval goodwill visit. It demonstrated what Sri Lanka’s geography could potentially offer a major extra-regional power.
The Chinese question has therefore never been simply about a port call; India has long worried that Chinese investment in Sri Lankan ports, particularly Hambantota, could eventually acquire military significance.
But Colombo has repeatedly resisted the argument that its relationship with China is directed against India. The Dissanayake government has now gone further by formally reiterating the principle that Sri Lankan territory must not be used in a manner inimical to India’s security.
That language is important because it leaves Sri Lanka considerable diplomatic space. It does not say: No Chinese ships. It says: No activity against India.
That is a very different proposition. It permits Sri Lanka to maintain relations with Beijing while giving New Delhi reassurance that the island will not become an operational platform for a hostile Chinese military deployment.
For India, that is probably the most useful formulation Colombo could offer.
The other half of the bargain; But Singh’s assurance is equally important. India is not merely asking Sri Lanka to protect Indian interests. New Delhi is offering a security relationship in return.
Singh has described India’s assistance to Sri Lanka as a responsibility. India has already demonstrated what that means in practice — particularly through humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
The two countries have also developed maritime-security cooperation, including India’s assistance with maritime surveillance, a Dornier aircraft and the establishment of a Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre. Dissanayake has previously acknowledged India’s role as a first responder.
The relationship is therefore becoming more institutional rather than merely sentimental. India and Sri Lanka are discussing defence cooperation, training, maritime surveillance, hydrography, intelligence sharing, joint exercises and disaster-response capabilities.
During Singh’s latest visit, the two sides also signed understandings concerning the upgrading of L70 air-defence guns and cooperation between India’s National Cadet Corps and Sri Lanka’s National Defence College.
Singh also placed the relationship in the larger context of India’s maritime strategy, saying Sri Lanka has a special place in India’s Vision MAHASAGAR. “Secure sea lanes, freedom of navigation, respect for international law and unhindered maritime trade are pivotal for collective security & prosperity of the Indian Ocean Region,” he said.
A friendship tested by geography. The irony is that Sri Lanka does not have the luxury of choosing only one great-power relationship.
It needs India. It needs China. It needs Japan. It needs the United States. And all of them need Sri Lanka because of where the island sits. That makes Dissanayake’s assurance particularly valuable to New Delhi.
India, meanwhile, cannot afford to treat Sri Lanka merely as another country in its neighbourhood. The island is effectively part of India’s wider maritime security environment. The promise exchanged in Colombo therefore amounts to a quiet strategic bargain:
Sri Lanka will not allow its land or surrounding waters to become a dagger pointed at India; India will not allow Sri Lanka to face a crisis alone.
It is an elegant formulation of good-neighbourliness. But it is also something more.
In an Indian Ocean increasingly crowded by Chinese, American, Japanese and Indian naval power, it is a declaration that Sri Lanka intends to remain a sovereign partner rather than somebody else’s military platform.
And India, by promising to be the first responder rather than merely the first observer, is signalling that its relationship with the island is no longer simply about shared history and cultural ties. It is about shared security.
The ocean between the two countries may be only a few hundred kilometres wide. Strategically, however, it has never been more important. (IPA Service)
