After J.R. Jayewardene introduced the Executive Presidency, India extended official visit invitations to Sri Lankan Prime Ministers only during periods when there were distinct power centres within the government.
Since J.R.’s Prime Minister, Ranasinghe Premadasa, did not maintain particularly warm relations with India, although he visited the country, he was unable to meet with the Indian Prime Minister. However, during his UN visit, he met with Indian Prime minister Rajive Gandhi in New York. After Premadasa became President, his Prime Minister, D.B. Wijetunga, too, did not receive any such opportunity.
Following Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s election as President in 1994, neither her mother, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, nor her later Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, were invited to India either.
However, for the first time in 2002, when Ranil Wickremesinghe became Prime Minister, India extended an official invitation to him. This was because the government then was led by two leaders from rival parties — President Chandrika and Prime Minister Ranil — each representing separate centres of power.
After Mahinda Rajapaksa became President in 2005, his Prime Ministers, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and D.M. Jayaratne, were also not invited to India for official visits or meetings with Indian leaders. In 2007, President Mahinda sent Prime Minister Ratnasiri to meet the Indian Prime Minister solely to brief him on the LTTE peace process — a meeting arranged at the request of the Sri Lankan government.
When the Maithripala–Ranil coalition came to power in 2015, India once again invited Prime Minister Ranil for an official visit, as the government comprised two power blocs representing two different parties — President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Similarly, after Gotabaya Rajapaksa became President in 2019, India invited his Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, for an official visit upon recognizing that, despite being brothers, Gotabaya and Mahinda each represented distinct centres of power within the administration.
However, after Ranil Wickremesinghe became President in 2022, India did not extend an invitation to Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, as he was seen to represent the same power camp as the President, despite being from a different party.
More recently, after Anura Kumara Dissanayake became President, India did not invite Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya for an official visit. Nevertheless, when she attended the NDTV Summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accorded her a warm and distinguished reception — a gesture reminiscent of how he met Prime Minister Ranil during the presidencies of Chandrika and Maithripala.
This suggests that although Harini serves as a Prime Minister without substantial executive power under Anura and the JVP government, India perceives her as representing an independent power centre of authority.
It remains unclear how the JVP interprets India’s response, or how Prime Minister Harini herself will explain her discussions with Modi to JVP. It is interesting to note when Harini was in China and India JVP fire brand Bimal Ratnayaka was in China.
