Narendra Modi urged Sri Lanka’s new leaders to give greater autonomy to its Tamil minority after a long ethnic war, as he began the first official visit by an Indian premier to the island in 28 years on Friday.
Tamils should be able to live “a life of equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka,” Modi said in Colombo after holding talks with new President Maithripala Sirisena.
He called for the “early and full implementation” of a 1987 constitutional provision that envisaged political autonomy for the Tamils, who are concentrated in the island’s north.
Sirisena has promised to work on reconciliation between them and the Sinhalese majority after ousting former president Mahinda Rajapakse, who oversaw the brutal military suppression of a Tamil separatist rebellion in 2009.
Rajapakse won praise for ending the 37-year civil war that had ravaged the island and killed at least 100,000 people, mostly Tamils, but has also faced accusations of overseeing widespread rights abused.
Modi, who will on Saturday become the first Indian prime minister to visit the northern Tamil stronghold of Jaffna, also pledged further economic cooperation with Sri Lanka after years of growing dependence on China.
He said India would help develop a regional petroleum hub in the north-eastern port city of Trincomalee, and offered a $318 million credit line to improve Sri Lanka’s railways.
Colombo became highly dependent on Beijing for infrastructure financing under Rajapakse.
Since his loss to Sirisena in the January elections, the pendulum has swung back towards India with the new president making attempts to renegotiate the terms of some loans.
Modi, who is on a three-nation tour of Indian Ocean islands did not refer directly to China’s growing influence in the region.
But he said he and Sirisena had agreed to set up a task force to focus on an “ocean economy” that could have strategic interests for both.
“This is how it should be between neighbours. We should meet regularly,” said Modi, who is in Sri Lanka just weeks after Sirisena made India his first foreign port of call since his election in January.
“It helps us to understand each other better.”
