The Government has reportedly informed India that it is not ready for physical land connectivity between the two countries, despite long-standing interest from sections of Colombo and New Delhi policy circles, and rapid progress made in that direction during the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration.
This is an important moment in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, and the decision has drawn mixed reactions.
Given South Asian interstate relations, Indian foreign policy, and Sri Lanka’s efforts for strategic autonomy post-independence, Colombo’s decision to resist physical connectivity with its giant neighbour is a reasoned move to preserve national sovereignty, geopolitical balance, and long-term economic autonomy.
The Palk Strait Bridge is a bridge or tunnel connecting Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu to Talaimannar in the Mannar District. The idea for such a link was first floated by Ranil Wickremesinghe when he was Prime Minister in the early 2000’s. This was also a priority of his ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’ Initiative and Wickremesinghe reached a preliminary agreement with India’s then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
However, Wickremesinghe’s hopes sank along with the Norwegian brokered ceasefire between 2002 and 2006, and the discussion on a land bridge was shelved for at least a decade. Discussions on land connectivity again commenced in earnest from 2022, when Wickremesinghe was elected President by members of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the political party by the Rajapaksas, for the Rajapaksas. The proposal to connect the two countries with a land bridge was central in agreements arrived at during Wickremesinghe’s visits to India in 2023 and the Indian Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar’s visit in 2024.
Yet, Sri Lanka’s new leadership has made it clear that it is not willing to pursue the project this time, despite India showing a keen interest to follow through on the agreements made during Wickremesinghe’s tenure as President.
Geopolitical symbolism and sovereignty risks
Proponents of the bridge said that land connectivity is a step towards economic integration.
However, physical connectivity with India is not merely about infrastructure, it carries significant symbolic and geopolitical implications. A land bridge implies permanence, dependence, and an implicit ceding of strategic autonomy.
A land bridge between the two countries eliminates a natural buffer that has preserved Sri Lanka’s independence across millennia. Since independence, a key component of Sri Lankan foreign policy is to ensure that it doesn’t become a satrapy of India, and successive Governments have tried balancing India by partnering extra-regional powers such as the United Kingdom, China, and the United States. This balancing act depends not only on diplomatic nuance but also on physical distance and the perception of independence. A land bridge will erode both.
As the world becomes multipolar, smaller states are better off leveraging neutrality to negotiate better terms with great powers. In such a situation, Sri Lanka must convey that it is a neutral and independent State, and not a vassal of India. Becoming physically connected to India could dissuade other countries from deepening ties with Sri Lanka out of concern that Colombo has effectively become a client state of New Delhi.
Security concerns and internal instability
While there were many reasons for the decision, it is obvious that security concerns played an important role. In the past, the porous nature of maritime routes between India’s Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka’s Northern Province facilitated not just trade but also militant movement and illegal immigration. The civil war that lasted nearly three decades was shaped in part by the complex cross-border ethnic and political ties between Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil populations.
The establishment of a land bridge significantly lowers the cost and difficulty of unauthorised crossings between the two countries. Given the sheer volume of potential traffic, it would be impossible to prevent the illegal and informal flows of people and goods even with the best customs and immigration infrastructure. These increased inflows, whether of migrants, contraband, or ideologies, would stir ethnic tensions, strain local institutions, and re-politicise ethnic issues that Sri Lanka has worked hard to put behind.
It is also not difficult to imagine that India’s internal politics, particularly the Tamil Nadu-Centre relations as well as growing Hindutva tendencies, would spill over into Sri Lanka’s multiethnic political environment, further inflaming divisions.
Economic arguments
Those who support land connectivity with India often cite economic integration and expanded trade as justifications. However, evidence for such claims is thin. Trade within South Asia remains abysmally low despite all South Asian States, apart from the Maldives and Sri Lanka, sharing land borders with India. Since the 1950s, policymakers and business elites in the smaller South Asian countries have believed that increased regional trade would disproportionately benefit the dominant regional partner, i.e., India.
This has made the smaller States shy away from the institutionalisation of regional trade arrangements. India, which accounts for 80 percent of the South Asian GDP, has also shown little interest in opening up its markets to the smaller neighbours. Most South Asian States also see India as their main external threat.
Moreover, there are few economic complementarities in South Asia; apart from India and Pakistan, the other South Asian nations do not have diversified industrial bases and often produce similar goods. A land bridge, without addressing any of these issues, would not lead to an increase in trade.
More importantly, India is unlikely to tolerate Sri Lanka as a logistical or commercial intermediary between South Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific at its expense. Some in Sri Lanka seem to believe that it can play the role of Hong Kong with regard to India. However, Sri Lanka does not operate in the same context as Hong Kong when China opened up in the late 1970s. India has trade links with the entire world, and faces lesser tariffs from the U.S. and EU markets. Thus, there is no reason for anyone to use Sri Lanka as a gateway to or from India.
What Sri Lanka needs is not greater dependency on one neighbour, but diversified trade and investment routes. Strengthening digital connectivity, enhancing port efficiency, investing in renewable energy partnerships, and attracting high-value services are more pragmatic paths for economic growth than a high-risk land bridge that could yield modest commercial gains and disproportionate geopolitical costs.
Pragmatism over symbolism
In choosing not to pursue land connectivity with India, the Government has demonstrated a clear-eyed understanding of its geopolitical reality. It is a small State located near a giant neighbour, and in a region of great power competition. For some, physical integration with India might seem like a harmless infrastructure project, but those familiar with history know it carries disproportionate strategic risks that could undermine Colombo’s ability to remain a neutral, sovereign actor in the Indian Ocean.
The challenge for the Dissanayake-led National People’s Power Government is to chart a foreign policy that protects Sri Lanka’s autonomy without alienating any of its key partners. In this regard, rejecting the land bridge proposal is a move rooted in pragmatism, not paranoia. It signals a willingness to engage with India, but on terms that are equitable and strategically sound. And that, in the long run, is the only sustainable path forward.
