Pew survey finding that 79 pc of Lankans view India favourably must goad New Delhi to allay misgivings, contribute to neighbour’s security and prosperity, particularly in view of crucial economic ties
Indian policymakers will be committing a blunder if they become smug after a survey by the Pew Research Center showed that an overwhelming 79 per cent of Sri Lankans – the highest among 36 countries – view India favourably.
There is no doubt that India’s generous help to Sri Lanka following natural and economic disasters since the 2004 tsunami has helped many in the island nation to modify their views about a giant neighbour which at one time faced tremendous criticism in that country for more reasons than one.
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Based on interviews with more than 42,000 people across 36 countries, 63 per cent of Sri Lankan respondents also named India as their country’s key ally – another high recorded in the survey.
Since 2024, Sri Lankans’ favourable view of India has gone up by 14 per cent.
Major turnaround since LTTE days
The Pew findings are a major turnaround for India, which was roundly denounced by a majority of Sri Lankans from the 1980s for hosting, training and arming Tamil militants.
The Indian help to Tamil militants, the airdropping of food in Jaffna in 1987, the India-Sri Lanka pact and the Indian military deployment on the island – all this only contributed to hardening the attitude towards New Delhi.
India may have made a U-turn by signing a peace pact in 1987 with Sri Lanka to end Tamil separatism, but most Sinhalese felt the accord was imposed on their country under immense pressure.
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The situation turned more complicated after India deployed its military as a peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka’s northeast, which later battled the Tamil Tigers.
Even after India turned hostile to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) following former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, large sections of the Sinhalese and many Tamils remained wary of New Delhi – for different reasons.
India had Lanka’s back in every crisis
The 2004 tsunami was the first major occasion after a long time when India provided massive and timely help to a battered Sri Lanka. Later, during Covid-19, India supplied life-saving medicines, medical equipment and large tranches of vaccines to Colombo.
But it was after the 2022 collapse of Sri Lanka’s economy that India’s mammoth economic assistance came to be genuinely appreciated across the spectrum. India again rose to the occasion after a cyclone devastated Sri Lanka in 2025.
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All these have clearly won plenty of friends for India in Sri Lanka, even among those who have traditionally viewed their northern neighbour with doubt and suspicion.
Deep-rooted anti-India feeling
But such is the brittle nature of their ties that misgivings have already been raised in the Sri Lankan media as to how so many people could have a favourable opinion of India.
The bitter truth is that anti-India sentiments run deep in Sri Lanka.
This is why, from the time it was founded in 1965, one of the five lessons the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, People’s Liberation Front), which governs Sri Lanka now, imparted to its cadres was on “Indian expansionism”.
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Although the JVP is no longer anti-India, not everyone in its leadership has fallen in love with India.
Sri Lanka’s close and warm ties with China since 1952 have also played a role in fostering subtle anti-India feelings, more so after the two Asian giants turned bitter foes in the 1960s.
The Indian help to Tamil militants, the airdropping of food in Jaffna in 1987, the India-Sri Lanka pact and the Indian military deployment on the island – all this only contributed to hardening the attitude towards New Delhi.
What painted India as ‘villain’?
Sri Lankans complain that India, along with the West, refused to provide much-needed weaponry to crush the LTTE at the height of the war and that the one country which came to their rescue was China.
India did extend invaluable covert assistance to Sri Lanka in the war against the Tigers, but it never took credit publicly due to the Tamil Nadu factor – and so lost a lot of goodwill which would have otherwise come its way.
The sheer asymmetry in geography – accompanied by routine anti-Colombo voices one hears in Tamil Nadu – between India and Sri Lanka itself comes in the way of a better understanding.
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India is a virtual continent with a population of 1.4 billion. In comparison, Sri Lanka has around 22 million people – the same number who live in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR).
Asymmetry does not necessarily mean domination, but many in Sri Lanka do feel vulnerable. Also, there are Sinhalese opinion-makers who propagate the myth that India’s Tamils could one day team with their Sri Lankan counterparts to carve out a greater Tamil Nadu.
India, Lanka have bigger fish to fry
In contrast to fancy tales, Sri Lanka has some genuine concerns vis-à-vis India.
One is the unending intrusions into Sri Lankan waters by bottom trawlers from Tamil Nadu, which not only steal aquatic wealth from the island’s northern coast but also cause irreparable damage to the seabed.
India’s failure to resolve this crisis, which impoverishes Tamil fishing communities in Sri Lanka more than anyone else, could come to a boil one day.
India-Sri Lanka relations, particularly on the economic front, are too important and valuable to be jeopardised over silly or sentimental reasons. India is today Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner.
Although Indians constitute the single largest group among foreign tourists visiting Sri Lanka, most people in the island’s tourism industry do not have a greatly positive opinion about Indian tourists.
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On their part, Tamil Nadu politicians do not realise the enormous harm they cause to bilateral relations by frequently raising issues related to the Tamil Tigers and its now slain chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
This is why whenever Indian leaders demand that Colombo must not allow its territory to be used against India, there are Sri Lankans who retort: When will Tamil Nadu and India stop speaking about Prabhakaran and the LTTE?
Lanka’s stability, prosperity is India’s business
All this does not negate the importance of the mass goodwill India has earned in recent years in Sri Lanka. But as long as bilateral ties have festering wounds, Indian policymakers should keep their fingers crossed.
As pointed out by Sri Lanka’s erudite envoy to India, Mahishini Colonne, strategic wisdom for India lies in understanding that its relationship with a smaller neighbour is not simply about what India can obtain from Sri Lanka.
It is also about what India can do to ensure that Sri Lanka remains stable, prosperous, secure and confident.
India-Sri Lanka relations, particularly on the economic front, are too important and valuable to be jeopardised over silly or sentimental reasons. India is today Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner. In the first four months of this year, it replaced the UK as Colombo’s second-largest export destination after the US. Few Indians know that Brandix, a leading Sri Lankan company, employs some 20,000 Indians today in Visakhapatnam.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)
