… no discussions related to China during meetings with Indian officials

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The National Peoples’ Power (NPP) delegation that recently visited India had not discussed anything related to China during its meetings with Indian officials, academics and researchers, Secretary of the National People’s Power (NPP) and former Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe said.

Dr. Abeysinghe said that during the visit to India they engaged in discussions at the Observer Research Foundation and the Vivekananda International Foundation, two of the leading Indian think tanks that work closely with the government. The meetings helped them better understand what the Indian establishment feels about the region.

Dr. Abeysinghe added that researchers at the Observer Research Foundation and the Vivekananda International Foundation are paying close attention to geopolitical developments in the region. The NPP delegation informed that the party’s foreign policy is the non-aligned foreign policy that had served Sri Lanka so well in the past.

“We informed them that we had no intention of doing anything that upset regional security. We are committed to regional peace, too.”

Abeysinghe said the JVP had a long-standing relationship with the Communist Party of China (CCP) and other leftist organizations across the world. In December, the CCP invited the NPP to send a delegation to China.

“NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, MP Vijitha Herath, Attorneys-at-law, Sunil Watagala and Harshana Nanayakkara visited China. We met many Chinese officials and think tanks. The NPP delegation also used the opportunity to learn about Chinese industry.”

Abeysinghe said India should be aware of the JVP’s relationship with China and they wanted to know what the NPP foreign policy was.

“This is why we had NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka and MP Vijitha Herath, who are from the JVP, as well as Prof. A.A.J. Fernando and I, who are from the NPP. We spent five days in India, and I think that India now understands that we are a movement that stands for and supports regional peace.”

Abeysinghe said it will be difficult to develop Sri Lanka without the support of India. Sri Lanka’s geography compels the country to engage constructively with India.

“We told them we are ready to work with India, but this has to be transparent. The government has engaged with India in a very opaque manner. We told them this. I think India now understands where we are coming from.”

The NPP Secretary said they visited the Amul factory in India. Amul is a farmers cooperative and out of the profits it makes, 80 percent goes back to the farmers.

“This is a very successful operation and ultimately farmers run the company and benefit from it. But we have problems with the way the government is planning to bring Amul into Sri Lanka. We told them we are opposed to any opaque interventions in Sri Lanka. We said we are also not happy about the coercive manner in which some Indian companies have been introduced to Sri Lanka.”

NPP is currently expanding and reviewing the manifesto it presented at the 2019 presidential election and the recent visit to India has helped the party in this process, he said.