Policy Update
Sudeshna Dutta
Background
India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor, with a civilizational relationship stretching back more than 2,500 years. Sri Lanka holds a central place in India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and its MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) vision. (High Commission of India, Colombo, n.d.).
On 28 November 2025, Cyclonic Storm Ditwah made landfall on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast, triggering what became the island’s worst natural disaster in two decades. More than 1.4 million people were affected across all 25 districts, with confirmed fatalities and hundreds still reported missing in the early days of the response, while nearly 233,000 people were displaced as homes and infrastructure suffered extensive damage. (World Health Organization, n.d.).
It is against this backdrop that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Colombo from 8–10 September 2026 acquires its significance. The visit marked the first bilateral trip by an Indian Defence Minister to Sri Lanka in nearly four decades, itself a signal that Colombo is being repositioned from a peripheral concern to a central pillar of India’s maritime outreach. Reaffirming Sri Lanka’s standing as one of India’s most important partners under both SAGAR and MAHASAGAR, Rajnath Singh argued that national security and economic growth cannot be viewed in isolation, being intrinsically linked to geography and security, and that neither country can afford indifference to regional developments.
What distinguishes this visit from routine defence engagement is the explicit attempt to operationalise MAHASAGAR’s twin pillars of “Mutual” and “Holistic” synergy rather than simply reaffirm them rhetorically. India and Sri Lanka have long upgraded capabilities through capacity building and joint exercises, but the discussions in Colombo pushed this further by proposing joint protocols for maritime cooperation and a continuous process of skill-sharpening geared specifically to emerging threats, a shift from episodic, exercise-based cooperation toward institutionalised, standing arrangements. This moves the relationship from bilateral capacity-building, where India supplies training and platforms, toward genuinely shared maritime governance, where protocols and threat assessments are co-developed rather than transferred one way. It is this shift, from partnership as assistance to partnership as shared architecture, that marks the visit’s distinct contribution to MAHASAGAR, rather than a mere continuation of existing India–Sri Lanka defence ties (Press Information Bureau, 2026).
Functioning
The India–Sri Lanka relationship under MAHASAGAR now functions across interlocking tracks such as humanitarian/reconstruction assistance, formal defence cooperation, sustained maritime engagement, and connectivity/development financing, set against a backdrop of Sri Lanka’s fragile fiscal recovery and a handful of unresolved frictions.
- Post-disaster reconstruction: India committed a USD 450 million post-Ditwah rehabilitation package, one that should be understood separately from the 2022 economic assistance package, even as it draws on the same underlying relationship of trust, building on emergency relief under Operation Sagar Bandhu that included an Indian Army field hospital near Kandy treating over 8,000 people. Indian Army engineers built three Bailey bridges, on the Pansiyagama–Kurunegala, Kebellawa–Kurunegala, and Palugamam–Batticaloa roads, restoring connectivity cut off since the cyclone. This extends India’s 2022 assistance package of USD 4 billion (credit lines, currency swaps, petroleum support) and continues a first-responder pattern seen during the 2021 MV X-Press Pearl disaster and Cyclone Roanu (2016). (The Hindu, 2025)
- The recovery backdrop remains fragile: Sri Lanka’s tentative fiscal stability under its post-2022-default IMF programme, was disrupted by the cyclone. The IMF approved roughly USD 206 million under its Rapid Financing Instrument, while the World Bank estimates total losses at USD 4.1 billion (~4% of GDP), with recovery seen as more difficult than after the 2004 tsunami. (World Bank, 2025)
- Defence institutionalisation: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s three-day visit to Colombo (8–10 September 2026) was the first by an Indian Defence Minister to Sri Lanka in thirty-eight years, the last being K.C. Pant’s visit in 1988. Singh met President Dissanayake and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya. Sri Lanka reiterated its territory would never be used against India’s security interests, while also affirming it would weigh regional security considerations in agreements with other nations. (Deccan Herald, 2026)
- Three defence MoUs were exchanged: An upgrade of six L70 air-defence guns of the Sri Lanka Air Force (equipment India had earlier supplied) under a Government of India grant, which would sustain Sri Lanka’s reliance on Indian-origin platforms, locking in interoperability and reducing space for alternative suppliers to enter through equipment modernisation; academic cooperation between the two countries’ National Defence Colleges, which would shape shared strategic outlook among future senior military leadership on both sides, embedding institutional ties at a level whose effects compound over decades; and the formalisation of a National Cadet Corps youth-exchange programme, which would seed familiarity and goodwill among younger cohorts well before they reach positions of command, building institutionalisation from the ground up. Spares were also supplied to the Sri Lankan Air Force and Navy, and INS Udaygiri made a port call in Colombo during the visit for an Operational Turnaround (Press Information Bureau, 2026).
- Naval and maritime engagement is sustained through recurring exercises and dialogues. On the bilateral front, the fourth edition of the IN-SLN DIVEX exercise was held in Colombo in April 2026, alongside annual SLINEX (navy) and MITRA SHAKTI (army) exercises. On the multilateral front, the Indian Navy periodically convenes the multilateral MAHASAGAR virtual interaction with IOR littoral navies, including Sri Lanka, on shared maritime-security training. This sits atop the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (built with a USD 6 million Indian grant), roughly 1,200 annual training vacancies for Sri Lankan forces, and the Colombo Security Conclave (founding documents signed 2024), which covers maritime safety, counter-terrorism, cyber security, and organised crime. (BW Security World, 2024)
- Connectivity and development diplomacy runs in parallel: Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s August 2026 visit to Colombo emphasised energy security, healthcare, housing, transport, and digital infrastructure, while India has continued converting past loans into grants (over USD 100 million in a six-month window, per PM Modi’s 2025 statement) and offering soft loans at roughly 1% interest with a three-year grace period, a model officials in Colombo explicitly contrast with China’s largely commercial lending. (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2026; ETV Bharat, 2026)
Performance
On the humanitarian front, India’s response is widely regarded in both capitals as having reinforced its self-description as Sri Lanka’s “first responder,” a status it earned during the 2022 economic crisis, when India extended emergency financing of nearly USD 4 billion through currency swaps, credit lines, and deferred payments at a scale and speed no other country or institution matched during the peak of Sri Lanka’s default, a role recognised in Sri Lanka’s subsequent IMF programme and debt-restructuring process. This status was repeated during Cyclone Ditwah through rapid naval, air, and NDRF deployment. (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2025; The Diplomat, 2023)
On the defence track, the tangible outcomes of the September 2026 visit, three signed MoUs, equipment upgrades, and virtual inauguration of the Bailey bridges, translate rhetorical convergence into concrete deliverables, a notable shift given how long high-level defence engagement had lapsed. Of these, the Bailey bridges, spares supplied to the Sri Lankan Air Force and Navy, and INS Udaygiri’s port call are already-completed deliverables, while the three MoUs mark commitments whose implementation is yet to unfold. The thirty-eight-year gap between defence-ministerial visits underscores how recent this institutionalisation is, and how much of it has been compressed into the aftermath of a single disaster.
Impact
The Ditwah response and the subsequent defence and connectivity push have visibly deepened Sri Lankan trust in India as a reliable neighbour, coming on the heels of India’s support during the 2022 sovereign debt crisis, backed Colombo’s IMF bailout application, and later restructured USD 1.4 billion of bilateral debt, converting over USD 100 million of loans into grants and lowering interest rates during Modi’s 2025 visit. (The Hindu, 2025)
Operationally, the Navy’s role in Ditwah illustrates how readiness compounded with proximity. INS Vikrant and INS Udaygiri were already in Colombo for the 75th Anniversary International Fleet Review of the Sri Lanka Navy when they were redirected at short notice to relief duties, deploying ship-borne helicopters for aerial reconnaissance and search-and-rescue and handing over provisions for affected communities, while INS Sukanya sailed additional relief material to Trincomalee.
This pre-positioning fed directly into the scale of the wider Op Sagar Bandhu effort, which India has held up as evidence of its “first responder” claim rather than just its stated ambition. India delivered 53 tons of relief material within the first three days, rising past 1,000 tons by early December; deployed BHISHM Modular Trauma Cubes, an Aarogya Maitri trauma team, and NDRF Urban Search and Rescue units with a K9 unit across Badulla, Kochchikade, Puttalam, Colombo, and Gampaha; and set up an Army field hospital in Mahiyanganaya that had treated 3,388 persons by 8 December. Over 450 people were rescued or assisted, and four Bailey Bridge systems were airlifted in to restore severed connectivity. (High Commission of India, Colombo (2025)
Strategically, this pattern maps directly onto MAHASAGAR’s own stated objectives. Announced by Modi in March 2025 as an explicit upgrade of the 2015 SAGAR doctrine, MAHASAGAR names energy security and infrastructure development, alongside disaster-response capacity, as core planks of its economic and security agenda and casts positioning India as a preferred “first responder,” rather than merely a “net security provider,” as a central aim in itself. Read against that framing, the combination of HADR credibility, defence-equipment cooperation, and development finance is not simply an alternative development and security partnership model that happens to compete with China; it is MAHASAGAR’s stated objectives being operationalised in real time, with the Ditwah response as one data point among several.
This is particularly visible in the energy sector, where MAHASAGAR’s infrastructure and energy-security goals converge most concretely with the India–China contest. Chinese infrastructure and port investments, alongside periodic Chinese research and satellite-tracking vessel visits to Sri Lankan ports, remain important factors in India’s strategic calculations (Indian Council of World Affairs, 2025). Against this backdrop, the seven MoUs exchanged during Modi’s April 2025 visit included an HVDC power interconnection agreement and a trilateral India–Sri Lanka–UAE framework for developing Trincomalee as an energy hub, including a proposed multi-product pipeline (High Commission of India, Colombo, 2025; Reuters, 2025), while Sinopec was pursuing a USD 3.2 billion refinery project at Hambantota (Reuters, 2025). Five development projects were also inaugurated or launched during the visit, including the upgraded Maho–Omanthai railway line, the Sampur Solar Power Project, and the temperature-controlled agricultural warehouse in Dambulla (President’s Office, Sri Lanka, 2025). Taken together, these initiatives suggest that any post-Ditwah Indian leverage builds on an already-active connectivity and energy footprint that MAHASAGAR was designed to produce, rather than emerging from a standing start.
Emerging Issues
- Fishermen and Palk Strait livelihoods: The long-running dispute over fishing rights, arrests and boat seizures in the Palk Strait remains unresolved despite repeated high-level engagement, continuing to create friction at the people-to-people level even as India–Sri Lanka government-to-government ties deepen. The issue carries domestic political weight on both sides of the Palk Strait.
- Project volatility and private-sector caution: India’s experience with major private-sector connectivity and energy investments in Sri Lanka also demonstrates the political vulnerability of large commercial projects. The proposed 484 MW Mannar–Pooneryn wind-power project, became politically contentious after the NPP campaigned on cancelling the project; Adani Green Energy subsequently withdrew from the project in February 2025, after the Sri Lankan government moved to renegotiate project costs and tariffs; the company characterised the revised terms as financially unviable. The episode illustrates how major Indian private-sector investments can be considerably more exposed to domestic political contestation, regulatory scrutiny and tariff disputes than government-to-government initiatives such as HADR and defence cooperation.
- Climate recurrence: Ditwah underscores Sri Lanka’s exposure to climate-amplified extreme rainfall, flooding and landslides associated with tropical cyclones and other severe weather events. While rapid HADR deployments can mitigate immediate humanitarian consequences, they cannot substitute for longer-term investment in anticipatory capacity, resilient infrastructure, early-warning systems and disaster-risk reduction. The strategic challenge for India is therefore to connect its emerging first-responder role with longer-term climate-resilience and reconstruction partnerships rather than allowing HADR to remain primarily episodic.
- Institutional continuity: Although Modi’s April 2025 visit gave bilateral defence cooperation significant political momentum, this is precisely the test case for the article’s central question: whether MAHASAGAR matures into durable institutional architecture or stays a name attached to periodic high-visibility visits. India and Sri Lanka already possess recurring mechanisms, the Annual Defence Dialogue, SLINEX and MITRA SHAKTI exercises, and regular military exchanges and capacity-building programmes, so the challenge was never to invent another high-level framework. It is whether the April 2025 Defence Cooperation MoU gets absorbed into that existing machinery as routine, predictable implementation, or sits as a standalone political achievement re-invoked at the next summit rather than executed between them. That distinction is what separates MAHASAGAR’s defence pillar from its rhetoric. A doctrine that depends on ministerial visits to reactivate cooperation each time is, by definition, not institutionalised, it’s SAGAR’s pattern repeating under a new name. Whether the Dialogue, SLINEX, and MITRA SHAKTI cadence actually carries the commitments forward in the intervals between high-level visits is the concrete, checkable indicator of whether MAHASAGAR is functioning as durable framework or as branding for episodic political momentum, the same test this piece is applying to the HADR and energy tracks.
Way Forward
- Strengthen the existing Annual Defence Dialogue through predictable annual scheduling and greater ministerial-level oversight, so that bilateral defence engagement does not become overly dependent on high-profile political visits. Responsibility for this should sit explicitly with the Defence Secretaries of both countries, who already co-chair the Dialogue, rather than being left to the political calendar; a standing joint working group at the Joint Secretary/Additional Secretary level could track implementation of MoU commitments between annual sessions, with the Indian Defence Attaché in Colombo serving as the continuous monitoring point rather than a purely liaison role.
- Move the fishermen’s dispute from statements of intent to a structured, time-bound bilateral mechanism, given its disproportionate effect on public sentiment and its persistence despite repeated high-level engagement.
- Give MAHASAGAR’s multilateral dimension greater institutional clarity by anchoring it more systematically in existing platforms such as the Colombo Security Conclave, IONS and other Indian Ocean maritime initiatives, so that cooperation with partners including Sri Lanka is based on predictable, continuing commitments rather than primarily visit-driven announcements.
Selected References and Important Links
Press Information Bureau, Government of India. (2026a, September 9). Raksha Mantri pays a courtesy call on Sri Lankan President in Colombo [Press release]. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2308213®=48&lang=2
Press Information Bureau, Government of India. (2026b, September 9). Secure sea lanes and freedom of navigation are pivotal for collective security & prosperity of Indian Ocean Region, says Raksha Mantri at Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence [Press release]. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2308395®=48&lang=2
BW Security World. (2024, June 27). India & Sri Lanka launch maritime rescue coordination centre. https://bwsecurityworld.com/news/india-sri-lanka-launch-maritime-rescue-coordination-centre/
High Commission of India, Colombo. (2025a, April 5). List of outcomes: Visit of Prime Minister to Sri Lanka, April 04–06, 2025. https://www.hcicolombo.gov.in/
High Commission of India, Colombo. (2025b, December 8). Over 1,000 tonnes of Indian humanitarian aid reach Sri Lanka under Operation Sagar Bandhu. https://www.hcicolombo.gov.in/section/press-releases/2over-1-000-tonnes-of-indian-humanitarian-aid-reach-sri-lanka-under-operation-sagar-bandhu/
High Commission of India, Colombo. (2026, June 15). India-Sri Lanka bilateral relations. https://www.hcicolombo.gov.in/page/india-sri-lanka-bilateral-relations/
Indian Council of World Affairs. (2025). India’s role as a first responder in its neighbourhood: Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. https://www.icwa.in/show_content.php?lang=1&level=3&ls_id=14391&lid=8807
Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2025, November 28). India undertakes Operation Sagar Bandhu for emergency HADR assistance to Sri Lanka following Cyclone Ditwah [Press release]. https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases?dtl/40354/India_Undertakes_Operation_Sagar_Bandhu_for_Emergency_HADR_Assistance_to_Sri_Lanka_following_Cyclone_Ditwah
Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2026, August 5). Visit of Foreign Secretary of India to Sri Lanka [Press release]. https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases?dtl/41617/Visit_of_Foreign_Secretary_of_India_to_Sri_Lanka
President’s Office, Sri Lanka. (2025, April 5). President and Indian Prime Minister jointly launch and inaugurate three development projects. https://pmd.gov.lk/
Ray, K. (2026, September 9). ‘Won’t allow territory to be used against India’s security interests’: Sri Lankan Prez assures Rajnath Singh. Deccan Herald. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/wont-allow-territory-to-be-used-against-indias-security-interests-sri-lankan-prez-assures-rajnath-singh-4140798
Reuters. (2025, April 5). India, UAE to develop Sri Lanka energy hub as Delhi competes with China for influence. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/
The Hindu. (2025a, April 5). India, Sri Lanka ink major defence pact following talks between PM Modi and President Dissanayake. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-sri-lanka-ink-major-defence-pact-following-talks-between-pm-modi-and-president-dissanayake/article69416035.ece
The Hindu. (2025b, September 10). India pledges $450 million to aid Sri Lanka’s recovery from Cyclone Ditwah. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-announces-450-million-relief-package-for-sri-lankas-post-cyclone-recovery/article70428547.ece
The Hindu. (2025c, December 9). Cyclone impact sparks fresh calls in Sri Lanka to recast IMF deal. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/cyclone-impact-sparks-fresh-calls-in-sri-lanka-to-recast-imf-deal/article70376168.ece
World Health Organization. (n.d.). Cyclone Ditwah 2025. Retrieved September 12, 2026, from https://www.who.int/srilanka/emergencies/cyclone-ditwah-2025
About the Author
Sudeshna Dutta is a second-year B.A. (Hons.) History student at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She is a Research & Editorial Intern at IMPRI (Impact and Policy Research Institute). Her academic and policy interests lie at the intersection of law & public policy, geoeconomics and history.
Acknowledgement
The author sincerely thanks the IMPRI team for their guidance and support throughout the preparation of this Policy Update. The author also acknowledges the valuable feedback and constructive suggestions provided by the reviewers, which helped improve the clarity, structure, and analytical depth of the article.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organization.
Reviewer: Shailja Singh
Read more at IMPRI:
Punjab Department Wise Schemes Update 2026
