India And Sri Lanka Case Study

India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor and natural ally with its historic, cultural and linguistic similarities. Relationship between Indian and Sri Lanka is highly matured considering the asymmetric differences and India’s consistent commitment towards Sri Lankan policy. In this decade, India and Sri Lanka build a very strong relationship and came to close contacts at the highest level in terms of politics, growing trade and investment, cooperation in the fields of development, education, culture and defense, and understanding on major issues of international interest. Though there is some turbulence in Indo-Sri Lankan relations particularly with domestic politics playing a new dynamics in relationship between neighboring countries. In a vast

Ethnic Identity is more about the consciousness and communication of differences, than about the differences as such. Identity has been cause of dislike during various ethnic conflicts. The key factors underlying these conflicts are political and economic discrimination against minority by majority ethnic group. The Indo-Sri Lanka bilateral relationship is also shaped by an endless conflict between the two main ethnic groups of Sri Lanka. About 74 percent of Sri Lanka's population is Sinhalese who are mostly Buddhists and about 18 percent of Sri Lanka's population is Tamils who are mostly Hindus. Sri Lanka has “one of the most complex plural societies in the world” that includes three main ethnic group and four major religions (Silva, 1986). The conflict began as a demand for greater autonomy by the Tamils in the northern and eastern part of the country and grew into a struggle for a separate state, Tamil Eelam, by the mid-1970 (Anne Noronha, 2008). The minority Tamils was largely discriminated by Sinhalese majority in terms of political power and economic resources which in turn forced Tamils to form Tamil secessionist movement in Sri Lanka, however, the long civil war came to an end but the root cause of the conflict still

President Jayewardene signed Indo-Sri Lankan Peace accord with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987, by signing this bilateral Peace agreement, Sri Lanka acknowledged India’s role as the region’s preeminent power. According to the annexure mentioned in the Accord, India agreed to deploy an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) at President Jayewardene’s invitation to maintain peace and stability in Sri Lanka. The military intervention was largely unsuccessful, instead of laying down their arms, the Tamil militants fought guerrilla warfare against the IPKF, which cost the lives of many Indian soldiers between 1987 and 1989 (Rao, 1988). After three years of unsuccessful bitter war with Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, India finally pulled out its troops as requested by Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa. India’s failure in Sri Lanka raised serious of questions about India’s military capability to solve regional conflicts, but, the close emotional ties between Tamils in both sides of the Palk Strait, a pure military solution leading to disintegration of Sri Lanka is not in India’s own interest. Rather, India supports a policy of maximum devolution of power to Tamil minorities in Sri Lanka. This policy was strongly shaped by Indian concerns over division along ethnic lines would have a spillover effect on the separatist movement in northeastern states