The Warmth Between Indians and Sri Lankans

It was a lovely day in Bombay in late-1997 and the city’s Wankhede Stadium was packed to capacity. India and Sri Lanka were involved in a gripping cricket match. Among Bombay’s cricketing-faithful, there was a group of 50 Sri Lankan cricket fans. As the day got warmer, the Sri Lanka batsmen started making some mistakes and the game turned in India’s favour.

Frustrated with the weather and their team’s plight, a Sri Lankan fan decided to take on some of the Indian fans who were taunting them the whole morning. "Your team is horrible" shouted, Dilshan. An amused Indian fan yelled back "that fat captain of yours’ is employing negative tactics." The fan was referring to Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga tying his shoe laces every 2 minutes to waste time. Dilshan angrily replied "What about the Calcutta crowd that disrupted last year’s World Cup semi final?" Suddenly the argument got heated and then came talk about the Indian Peace Keeping Force, which was in Sri Lanka in the mid-1980s.

When the taunts looked like they were taking a turn towards violence, some policemen intervened. It was just as well for the Sri Lankan crowd that the security stepped in. 50 versus 35,000 isn’t a favourable match-up. The Bombay newspapers made a mountain out of the mole hill that this quarrel was and suddenly there were all sorts of articles about how the Sri Lankans hate India. With the internet hardly developed the way it is today and the fact that few Indians visited Sri Lanka, the Bombay public were obliged to believe that Sri Lankans do hate Indians.

The situation was very different 8 years ago. Few Indians visited Sri Lanka, as the country was in the midst of a war with the separatist LTTE. Sri Lankan visas weren’t difficult to get but hardly anyone considered the country a tourist hot spot. The inter-governmental relations between India and Sri Lanka were very good then but they couldn’t dispel the myths of animosity between the people of both countries.

In 2005, the situation has completely changed. For this warming of relations, the governments of both countries are directly responsible. Sri Lanka took the initiative with India by pushing for preferential trade agreements and improving transport links. While the two countries still haven’t restarted a ferry service or rebuilt the railway bridge, flight connections have increased tremendously. Sri Lankan Airlines even flies to Bodh Gaya and Trichy. Indian citizens often look at Sri Lankan Airlines as a great way to fly overseas. There’s also a big demand in India’s high society for Sri Lankan tea.

Increase in trade and commerce was only the first step that brought the people of the two countries closer. A more significant move was Sri Lanka’s abolition of visa requirement for Indian tourists in 2002. India reciprocated with a much more relaxed visa regime for Sri Lankans. This opened the floodgates for tourism and people-to-people contact. Indians who started visiting Sri Lanka started to realise that Sri Lankans felt warmth and not enmity towards Indians. It was a shock for many Indians to see how Sri Lankans loved Bollywood films and that Sri Lankans were connoisseurs in Hindi music, both modern and classical.

This author has visited Sri Lanka each year since 2002 and seen an increase in warmth during each trip. Indian cricketers, movie stars, scientists and even politicians (ones with good reputations) are admired in Sri Lanka. More so to the extent that many Indian icons are considered Sri Lankan by the locals! It’s almost like those nightmarish days of the 1980s just never happened. "We have always considered ourselves part-Indian as our roots are from Orissa," said Sarath, a Colombo-based businessman. "Abhimaan (a Hindi film) is our national film and we all grew up listening to (India’s great singer) Lata Mangeshkar."

Sri Lankans have also spoken of warmth experienced in India on pilgrimages and business trips. A common grievance is that Indians and Sri Lankans have to buy "foreigners" tickets at tourist attractions. India and Sri Lanka have yet to agree to implement a common-ticket price scheme for citizens of the South Asian regional grouping called SAARC. Such minor irritants are however not standing in the way of the friendship between the people.

The biggest boost to warm relations between India and Sri Lanka is the people-to-people contact. Journalists with vested interests can no longer create disharmony and Indians and Sri Lankans aren’t hostage anymore to such biased media reports. The narrow geographical gap between the two nations is figuratively getting smaller with each passing day. The cost of travel between the two nations has been reducing every year and when the ship and train services do get restarted the floodgates will be completely open. With an increased integration between the economies of both countries and booming two-way tourist traffic, the sky certainly seems the limit for India and Sri Lanka.