By Ali Hassan
Sri Lanka's geo-strategic location and its importance is highlighted by the fact that it is virtually situated in the centre of Asia and most importantly the sea lanes between the Far East and the African and Arab worlds. This location gives the island a central position midway on the ancient maritime trade route between West and East Asia. Ships passing from Yangon and Calcutta going west to the Suez or the Cape or those sailing from Bombay or the Gulf and eastward to Singapore still use Sri Lanka's excellent harbours in Colombo and Trincomalee.
Moreover, the island nation occupies an important place in the critical sea lines of communication from where much of the trade and naval activity in the Indian Ocean can be monitored and controlled. Furthermore, Trincomalee is the base which has the capacity to serve as a major naval base in the region. As an extra regional naval force could well dominate the sea routes in the area so this naval base including those of India mainly become the cause to disrupt Indian oceanic shipping. However, if we talk about geography of the region, therefore, it has played a primary role in its security, as it occupies one of the most exposed and central positions of any country in the world.
Basically the concept of strategic unity of India and Sri Lanka emerged when British realized the strategic importance of the island nation, Sri Lanka. Whereby, the presence of India came to be regarded as a prerequisite to the defense and security of Sri Lanka. Britain, the major sea power of this period considered the Trincomalee harbor facing the Bay of Bengal in the island's east coast to be of strategic importance and considered it to become an important bastion in the British defense network. Sri Lanka and India were both part of the British Empire. However, Sri Lanka was not part of British India and was a separate crown colony. In this sense the two countries were both separate in terms of the British policy declaration and implementation. This geo-strategic significance of Sri Lanka was again highlighted during the last phase of the Second World War when Japanese bombs hit Colombo, Trincomalee and Madras. All this brought out clearly the vulnerabilities of the Indian coasts and thus Indian planners subsequently responded to these threats by giving out various proposals. They spelt out how since the sixteenth century, the future of India had been determined primarily by the oceans. As part of mechanisms to meet the threats arising from the ocean, proposals pleading for common defense links between Burma, Sri Lanka and India came up. The outcome which was mainly to create fears, were not about a threat from Sri Lanka, but that if anybody with inimical interests towards India gained a foothold in the island nation, then the security of both the states were under threat.
However, in Sri Lanka these views were being highlighted that Indians were looked upon as an expression of expansionism so that it was looked upon as a threat against which necessary measures had to be taken. Thus it is observed that a Defense Pact with United Kingdom was signed on November 11, 1947.
By the dawn of independence two aspects came out clearly for India. The realization that Sri Lankan coasts are vulnerable and secondly the close proximity of India and Sri Lanka being what it is, the island nation was bound to be part of India's coastal and naval defense. However, still Sri Lankans coasts are under the influence of Indian naval forces which is another maritime security challenge for the Sri Lanka.
Moreover, in contemporary era, the recent visit of Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to attend the 8th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) meeting in March in Colombo, India and Sri Lanka signed several agreements including a defense-related pact to expand maritime security. The government of India entered into this maritime security agreement with Sri Lanka to secure its strategic interests in the Southern Indian Ocean region amidst China’s increased activity. This effort will strengthen India’s interests, especially around the Trincomalee harbor, an approach considered a farsighted move by foreign policy experts.