Editorial
Sri Lanka’s exclusion from meaningful participation in BRICS should be treated as a diplomatic failure, not disguised as another routine event in international affairs. A country that has moved closer to India than at almost any point in its modern diplomatic history has apparently been unable to translate that closeness into even a respectable place in an organisation that claims to give greater weight to the Global South. That should embarrass the government. More importantly, it should force the country to ask what exactly it is receiving in return for the extraordinary political accommodation it has shown towards India.
The government has made no secret of its desire for exceptionally close relations with New Delhi. India’s Defence Minister visited Colombo, several agreements and memoranda were signed, and the government has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to deepen bilateral cooperation. Yet when BRICS gathers, Sri Lanka remains largely outside the room. If this is what a supposedly privileged relationship with India produces, then the public has every right to ask what the government’s foreign policy is actually achieving.
We are repeatedly told that Sri Lanka is pursuing an independent and balanced foreign policy. The evidence increasingly demands a much more serious examination of that claim. There is nothing wrong with maintaining close relations with India. India is Sri Lanka’s closest major neighbour and an indispensable regional power. The problem begins when friendship becomes submission, when cooperation becomes accommodation without reciprocity, and when national interests are quietly exchanged for the appearance of diplomatic goodwill.
The government cannot have it both ways. It cannot celebrate every concession made to India as evidence of sophisticated diplomacy and then remain silent when Sri Lanka is denied meaningful diplomatic space in forums where India possesses considerable influence. If Colombo has genuinely secured a new level of trust with New Delhi, where are the results? Where is the political capital? Where is the support for Sri Lanka’s aspirations? Where is the evidence that this relationship has increased Sri Lanka’s influence rather than merely increased its dependence?
There is a historical warning here. Sri Lanka’s earlier efforts to establish a place within ASEAN demonstrated that regional organisations are not charitable institutions. Countries pursue their interests and powerful states exercise influence. Sri Lanka has learned this lesson before, yet successive governments continue to behave as though diplomatic obedience will eventually be rewarded. It will not.
The present government came to power promising to break with the old political culture. Yet its foreign policy risks producing another version of the same old dependency, only with different political faces. Those who once presented themselves as uncompromising opponents of Indian influence now appear remarkably willing to accept almost everything New Delhi wants from Colombo. That transformation may be politically convenient, but it deserves public scrutiny.
The government has also failed to explain clearly what was discussed and agreed during its increasingly extensive engagement with India. Sri Lankan citizens should not have to depend on political speculation, diplomatic leaks and carefully prepared statements to understand the direction in which their country is being taken. Agreements involving national security, strategic infrastructure, energy, defence or long-term economic interests are not private possessions of ministers. They concern the country.
The foreign policy establishment must also stop confusing diplomatic publicity with diplomatic achievement. Sri Lanka does not need officials who merely appear impressive at international gatherings. It needs diplomats capable of negotiating hard, identifying opportunities, resisting unnecessary pressure and building relationships with several centres of power simultaneously. A foreign ministry that simply reacts to the preferences of stronger countries is not conducting foreign policy. It is administering dependency.
Sri Lanka today has a foreign minister whose command of English is plainly inadequate for the demands of international diplomacy, yet whose public confidence suggests he believes he knows everything while the rest of the world knows nothing. That combination of limited communication skills and boundless certainty is no asset to Sri Lankan diplomacy.
The BRICS question becomes even more significant because the organisation is no longer a marginal experiment. India has a major role within it, while China is expected to assume greater leadership. Sri Lanka therefore cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and pretend that everything is proceeding according to plan. If other countries in the Global South are being admitted or given greater institutional space while Sri Lanka continues to wait, Colombo needs to demand a direct explanation and develop a serious strategy rather than manufacture excuses.
Sri Lanka has spent far too long begging powerful countries to recognise its importance. That approach has produced little. A country does not gain influence by constantly demonstrating how useful it can be to somebody else. It gains influence by becoming useful to itself, by developing strategic assets, credible institutions, competent diplomacy and relationships that no major power can casually ignore. The real scandal is therefore not simply that Sri Lanka is missing from BRICS. It is that a country of strategic importance in the Indian Ocean continues to behave as though its only diplomatic option is to wait for an invitation from someone more powerful.
If this government cannot convert its much-advertised closeness with India into tangible diplomatic gains, it must explain why. If it has made commitments that prevent Sri Lanka from pursuing a broader international strategy, the public deserves to know. And if the foreign policy establishment has no answer to these questions, then the country has a much larger problem than one missed invitation. Sri Lanka is not entitled to a seat at every international table. But neither should it accept permanent exile to the corridor outside the room.
