Towards A New International Order? India, Sri Lanka And The New Cold War – OpEd

By Dr. Asoka Bandarage

Will a peaceful and sustainable multipolar world be born when the rising economic weight of emerging economies is matched with rising geopolitical weight, as argued by renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs in his recent Other News article?[1]

There is no question that, as the US-led world order collapses, a new multipolar world that can foster peace and sustainable development is urgently needed. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) was established to promote the interests of emerging economies by challenging the economic institutions dominated by the West and the supremacy of the US dollar in international trade. Asia alone constitutes around 50% of the world’s GDP today. China is expected to become the world’s leading economy and India, the world’s third largest economy by 2030.

But does economic growth alone reflect improvement in the quality of life of the vast majority of people? And should it continue to be the central criteria for a “new international order”?

Unfortunately, BRICS appears to be replicating the same patterns of domination and subordination in its relations with smaller nations that characterize traditional imperial powers. Whether the world is unipolar or multipolar, the continuation of a dominant global economic and financial system based on competitive technological and capitalist growth and environmental, social and cultural destruction will fundamentally not change the world and the disastrous trajectory we are on.

Despite many progressives investing hope in the emerging multipolarity, there is a deep systemic bias that fails to recognize that the emerging economies are pursuing the same economic model as the West. This means we will continue to live in a world that prioritizes unregulated transnational corporate growth and profit over environmental sustainability and social justice. China Communications Construction Company and the Adani Group are just two examples of controversial Chinese and Indian conglomerates reflecting this destructive continuity.

Is India, as Professor Sachs says, providing “skillful diplomacy” and “superb leadership” in international affairs?[2]

Look, for example, at India’s advancing vision of “Greater India,” Akhand Bharat (Undivided India) and behavior towards its neighboring countries. Are these not strikingly similar to US strategies of hegemonic interference?

While India promotes its trade and infrastructure projects as enhancing regional security and welfare, experiences in Nepal demonstrate how Indian trade blockades and electricity grid integration with India have made Nepal dependent on and subordinate to India in meeting its basic energy and consumer needs. Similarly, Bangladesh’s electricity agreement with the Adani Group has created a situation allowing Adani to cut power supply to Bangladeshi consumers.

Since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime, there have been widespread demands to cancel the deal with Adani, which is seen as unequal and harmful to Bangladesh. Similarly, recent agreements made with Sri Lanka would expand India’s “energy colonialism” and overall political, economic and cultural dominance threatening Sri Lanka’s national security, sovereignty and identity.[3]

During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka, April 4-6, 2025, according to reports in the Indian media, some seven to ten agreements were signed to strengthen ties in defense, electricity grid interconnection, multi-product petroleum pipeline, digital transformation and pharmacopoeial practices between the two countries. The agreements have been signed using Sri Lankan Presidential power without debate or approval of the Sri Lankan Parliament. The secrecy surrounding the agreements is such that both the Sri Lankan public and media still do not know how many pacts were made, their full contents and whether the documents signed are legally binding agreements or simply “Memoranda of Understanding” (MOUs), which can be revoked.

The new five-year Indo-Lanka Defense Cooperation Agreement is meant to ensure that Sri Lankan territory will not be used in any manner that could threaten India’s national security interests, and it formally guarantees that Sri Lanka does not allow any third power to use its soil against India. While India has framed the pact as part of its broader “Neighborhood First” policy and “Vision MAHASAGAR (Great Ocean)” to check the growing influence of China in the Indian Ocean region, it has raised much concern and debate in Sri Lanka.

As a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD)—a strategic alliance against Chinese expansion that includes the United States, Australia and Japan—India participates in extensive QUAD military exercises like the Malabar exercises in the Indian Ocean. In 2016, the United States designated India as a Major Defense Partner and in 2024, Senator Marco Rubio, current US Secretary of State, introduced a bill in the US Congress to grant India a status similar to NATO countries. In February 2025, during a visit to the USA by Modi, India and the US entered into a 10-year defense partnership to transfer technology, expand co-production of arms, and strengthen military interoperability.

Does this sound like the start of a new model of geopolitics and economics?

Sri Lankan analysts are also pointing out that with the signing of the defense agreement with India, “there is a very real danger of Sri Lanka being dragged into the Quad through the back door as a subordinate of India.”[4] They point out that Sri Lanka could be made a victim in the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy compromising its long-held non-aligned status and close relationship with China, a major investor, trade partner and supporter of Sri Lanka in international forums.

The USA and its QUAD partner India, as well as China and other powerful countries, want control over Sri Lanka, due to its strategic location in the maritime trade routes of the Indian Ocean. But Sri Lanka, which is not currently engaged in any conflict with an external actor, has no need to sign any defense agreements. The defense MOU with India represents further militarization of the Indian Ocean as well as a violation of the 1971 UN Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace and the principles of non-alignment—which both India and Sri Lanka have supported in the past.

Professor Sachs—who attended the Rising Bharat Conference, April 8-9, 2025 in New Delhi—has called for India to be given a seat as a permanent member in the UN Security Council gushing that “no other country mentioned as a candidate …comes close to India’s credentials for a seat.” But would this truly represent a move towards a “New International Order,” or would it simply be a mutation of the existing paradigm of domination and subordination and geopolitical weight being equated with economic weight, i.e., “might is right”?

Instead, the birth of a multipolar world requires the right of countries—especially small countries like India’s neighbors—to remain non-aligned amidst the worsening geopolitical polarization of the new Cold War.

What we see today is not the emergence of a truly multipolar and just international order but continued imperialist expansion with local collaboration prioritizing short-term profit and self-interest over collective welfare, leading to environmental and social destruction. Breaking free from this exploitative world order requires fundamentally reimagining global economic and social systems to uphold harmony and equality. It calls on people everywhere to stand up for their rights, speak up and uplift each other.

In this global transformation, India, China and the newly emergent economies have significant roles to play. As nations that have endured centuries of Western imperial domination, their mission should be to lead the global struggle for demilitarization and the creation of an ecological and equitable human civilization rather than dragging smaller countries into a new Cold War.[5]

• Asoka Bandarage  has served on the faculties of Brandeis, Mount Holyoke and Georgetown  and is the author of books including Colonialism in Sri Lanka, The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka and Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World and numerous other publications on global political economy and related subjects.

[1] Jeffrey D. Sachs, “Giving Birth to the New International Order.” Other News (blog), April 11, 2025. https://www.other-news.info/giving-birth-to-the-new-international-order/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Asoka Bandarage, “Indian Colonialism in Sri Lanka | Inter Press Service.” Inter Press Service, March 27, 2025. https://www.ipsnews.net/2025/03/indian-colonialism-sri-lanka/.

[4] Dr. G. Weerasinghe, “Defence MoU with Quad Member Will Drag Sri Lanka Further into New Cold War: CP.” Sunday Island Online, April 11, 2025. http://island.lk/defence-mou-with-quad-member-will-drag-sri-lanka-further-into-new-cold-war-cp/.

[5] Asoka Bandarage, “In Search of a New World Order,” Women’s Studies International Forum 14, no. 4 (January 1, 1991): 345–55, https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-5395(91)90165-E.