Did India cause a regime change in Sri Lanka?

Recently, Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned due to ongoing violence against his country
It is possible that after they realised that Mahinda is at fault, people automatically came up in arms against the administration
Even if India did cause regime change, it was meant for creating peace and harmony

Foreign relations are nothing but the slow actualisation of a country’s national interests. The sooner a new Diplomat takes the red pill of ‘nothing but national-interest works here’, the better his career turns out to be. Keeping that in mind, it becomes imperative to analyse the purification of Sri Lanka from an angle which is free from all morales prevailing in society.

Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns

Under intense scrutiny from his voters as well as the international community, Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned from his post as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. For the last few days, Sri Lanka has been in a state of mini civil war. The rising prices and unavailability of basic elements of life have resulted in clashes between various groups.

Even Colombo, the country’s power centre has not been able to save itself. Pro and anti governments groups have been violent against each other. In a special meeting, President Gaotabaya Rajapaksa suggested that efforts towards saving the country should kick off with Mahinda’s resignation. Mahinda obliged and rescinded his post, leaving the country in tatters.

People are frustrated with Mahinda

Even after his resignation, people’s anger with Mahinda did not end. They set one of Mahinda’s houses on fire. The house which has now been converted into ashes was based in the northern city of Kurunagala. Former Prime Minister left his official Colombo residence and is rumoured to be hiding in Trincomalee Naval Base. Reports of protesters gathering outside the base are also coming out.

While Mahinda’s resignation may be a natural outcome of the crisis, the kind of violence that has suddenly engulfed the country of Raavan was not foreseen by many. The struggle indicates that Lankas have finally got a sense to differentiate between actual friends and those who use friendship as a tool to further their profiteering agenda.

China’s debt-trap diplomacy in Sri Lanka

Post-war Sri Lanka needed more cash to resurrect itself from the devastation caused by the civil war. The war-torn country needed more investments and China needed geography to earn greater interests on its burgeoning cash reserve. Moreover, investing in Sri Lanka would provide a boost to its Belt and Road initiative.

The goals aligned and China started pouring money into the Sri Lankan economy. Soon, China was funding many infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka. Chinese debt and equity are estimated to fund more than 50 projects worth over $11 billion in the island country. China is building roads, ports, water treatment plants and power plants in the country. The most notable and controversial of these projects however are the Hambantota Port, the Colombo Port City and the Lakavijaya thermal power plant. All these three projects were funded by Chinese government-owned banks and built by Chinese contractors.

Soon, the repayment window started to get closer and the Sri Lankan government found itself in virtually no position to repay the loans. Higher interest rates charged by the Chinese made it doubly difficult for them. The island nation was now under the grip of debt-trap diplomacy. As usual, in times of crisis, it turned to India.

India’s role in Sri Lanka

Though India was busy quietly providing humanitarian assistance to the war-torn regions of Sri Lanka, it decided to take it to the next level. Through various financial instruments like currency swaps, soft loans, credit lines among others, India kept bailing out Sri Lanka from Chinese clutches. In fact, in 2022 alone, India has provided Sri Lanka with $3 billion. But, Sri Lankan regimes committed the worst form of treachery and kept running back to China.

However, the Modi government seemed to have a long term goal in mind. With relatively slow but steady humanitarian assistance, India’s soft power kept growing further which effectively culminated in unequivocal support for India during the recent crisis. Seemingly, Lankans realised that India is their true friend while China is just a venture capitalist trying to suck as much Lankan blood as it can.

Read more: Sri Lanka becoming Chinese colony is lesson for others; stay with India, or watch yourself crumble
Now that China became an established enemy, Mahinda Rajapaksa could not maintain his old legitimacy as he had been the most vocal Chinese stooge throughout the years. But, if your constituency demands you to change your stance you do not have many options. Rajapaksa had to listen to them and thus was forced to resign.

Did India cause a regime change in Sri Lanka?

Another possibility behind Rajapaksha’s ousting could be that India got frustrated by Lankan regimes backstabbing and decided to play a short role in changing the regime. Through continued financial assistance, India kept trying to nudge the Sri Lankan administration to change its mind, but in spite of continuously mounting Chinese debt it kept running towards the Communist nation.

Now, Sri Lanka holds different degrees of importance for both India and China. For China, Sri Lanka is simply a destination to park its money, but for India, it is much more than that. It is geographically so close to India that if it aligns with any of our enemies, then a grave security risk would be looking deep into our eyes. Any country which can get the desired piece of land in Sri Lanka can use it to target India. A missile placed at Hambantota can easily destroy nearly half of Indian cities. Moreover, none other than China posed the greatest threat to India.

So, it is entirely possible that India used this opportunity to permanently snatch Sri Lanka from China’s hands. Now, it was next to impossible to do it without removing Mahinda, therefore the Southeast Asian giant seemingly played its part in causing regime change by mounting pressures to remove him. It is entirely possible that the public did not automatically realise that Mahinda is not their hero, instead it was India which led them towards this factually correct realisation through various means. Moreover, India’s increasing clout in Colombo must have forced Mahinda to think that he is running out of friends in politics.

India has been facing such accusations in the past

In international politics, it’s not a new phenomenon. Other countries have been causing regime changes as well, albeit for their pecuniary gains. The whole existence of the USA is based on the fears that if its instructions are not properly followed by respective government, the US administration may topple them.

In the past, India has also been facing such charges. India constantly faces charges of intervening in internal politics of its neighbours like Nepal and Maldives. India is often accused by its detractors for ouster of pro-China K P Sharma Oli. Similarly, 3 and half years after Ibrahim Mohamed took solid charge of Maldives, the voices of him being an Indian stooge keeps reverberating from time to time.

Regime change in Lanka is a win-win for both countries

Countries in the Western world use regime change policy to fill the coffers of their arms industry, while Islamic nations engage in it as they want to expand Islamic footprints in order to kill ‘kafirs’. But, India’s purpose is to defend its territory, rather than anything else.

If India does not defend its territorial sovereignty, then the country will be balkanised and biggest catalysts will be the porous borders of its neighbours. So, if we have a friendly government in our neighbourhood then it is a win-win for people of both countries. Since, India fosters human development over anything else, it becomes an active partner in their development.

No one knows the reality. But, even if India did cause these regime changes, its actions need to be judged on a separate pedestal from that of other countries. No matter what moral hegemons tell you, it is the end which matters most in international politics. There is no moral action, only moral interpretation of actions.