Abstract:
The bilateral relations between United People Freedom Alliance government in Sri Lanka and
Congress Party government in India had deteriorated since 2015. Although, the Indian
government assisted a number of post war reconstruction and development projects in the
Northern Province of Sri Lanka, many criticism and allegations were made by the Indian
government on reconciliation measures in the Northern Province. Further, growing Sri Lanka-
China relation was highly suspected by the Indian government. The aim of this paper is to
examine India-Sri Lanka relations carried out by the United National Front government in Sri
Lanka and Bharathiya Janatha Party government in India between 2015- 2018. The
methodology of data collection was purely based on secondary data and this is a qualitatively
analysis. Prime Minister of India Narendra Mod visited Sri Lanka two times and the Sri Lankan
President Maithripala Sirisena and the Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasingha also visited
India to reconfirm diplomatic relations. Modi once stated that Sri Lanka was the most reliable
neighbor to India. Indian government assisted several projects in Sri Lanka and Memorandum
of understanding was signed in 2017 on economic cooperation in the areas of infrastructure,
agriculture, livestock and electricity power all of which would be jointly developed by the two
countries. Both governments carried out talks on development of the Palaly airport, Mattala
airport and the East container terminal of the Colombo harbor. In 2018, when Sri Lankan Prime
Minister visited India, Prime Minister Modi expressed bitter disappointment and regret about
the issue of the constantly delaying of Indian development projects by the Sri Lankan
government. That was followed by President Sirisena’s serious allegations which was
reportedly made against New Delhi on RAW activities. However, data revealed that India–Sri
Lanka cooperation had started to develop into a better relationship since 2015 in order to protect
Indian interest in the South Asian region
