Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar served as First Secretary and Political Adviser at the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka from 1988 to 1990. His role brought him into close contact with the Indian Peacekeeping Force stationed in the country during a period when Sri Lanka was aflame with anti-Indian sentiment. The JVP’s anti-Indian campaign intensified during this period, contributing to a climate of violence and conflict. Having witnessed these developments first-hand, Jaishankar recently made a striking observation in response to findings by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre.
The survey revealed that nearly 79% of Sri Lankans today hold favourable views of India. Referring to this finding, Jaishankar remarked that such a result was surprising. This reaction is understandable: a country where people associated with India were once targeted and killed now records overwhelmingly favourable views of India. In 1987, the JVP helped drive the country towards an intensely anti-Indian stance; today, as it governs, the same country reflects widespread goodwill towards India — an irony that deepens his sense of surprise.
The reason for this shift may lie partly in the government’s changed posture. Once in power, the degree of goodwill displayed towards India suggests either that the anti-Indian sentiment once cultivated by the JVP was politically driven, or that J. R. Jayewardene’s decision to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord was, in retrospect, more defensible than the JVP once claimed. Perhaps even the JVP itself has now tacitly acknowledged that the hostility it once fostered was misplaced.
Nevertheless, many Indo-Lanka projects initiated by India continue to face criticism or resistance in Sri Lanka, signalling that opposition has not entirely disappeared. Yet the Pew report provides India with a strong counterargument to claims that its engagement is broadly rejected by the Sri Lankan public. The JVP government, like its predecessors, has often maintained that Indian projects face public resistance. Historically, three major waves of anti-Indian sentiment can be identified: first, when J. R. Jayewardene mobilised resistance against Indira Gandhi’s government during the 1977 general election campaign; second, when the JVP opposed the Indo-Lanka Accord in 1987; and third, when the Rajapaksa camp alleged that India had played a role in the fall of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government in 2015.
What these episodes reveal is clear: anti-Indian sentiment in Sri Lanka has often been shaped and amplified by political actors rather than being a straightforward reflection of the broader public mood.
