While military strength and strategic defence agreements with various countries helped sustain peace, these could not, by themselves, act as the bulwark of peace, he felt.

In Moragoda's view, economic development, coupled with an equitable distribution of opportunities for economic growth, will provide the strongest foundation for peace in Sri Lanka by obviating the need for separatism and political violence.

"Internal tension and separatism will thrive only if Sri Lanka were economically weak and poverty stricken. An economically vibrant Sri Lanka will militate against such disruptive tendencies. The building blocks of peace are economic," Moragoda underlined.

To prove the point, he pointed out how peace, through the economic opportunities it threw up, had led to blunting of ethnic animosities and to the building of trust across the ethnic divide in Sri Lanka since the beginning of the peace process in February 2002.

Tamils who had fled the country due to the ethnic conflict and war, were now investing in the island, making use of the peace, he said.

"And very importantly, they are investing in cosmopolitan Colombo and not in Tamil Jaffna. Wellawatte (the Tamil area in Colombo) is now bristling with flats and businesses put up by expatriate Tamils," he pointed out.

Tie-up with India is basic

According to Moragada, economic partnership with India is a sine qua non for the economic development of Sri Lanka.

"We have to integrate economically with India. It is a basic necessity," he said.

But he admitted that this was not going to be easy, given the entrenched prejudices against India, and the atavistic fears of Indian domination in the Sri Lankan polity in general, and in the Sri Lankan bureaucracy in particular.

He recalled that when his party was in power from December 2001 to April 2004, he and his Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, had to fight hard for having a special relationship with India.

"For example, our move to grant Indians visa-on-entry unilaterally, was opposed. But we pointed out that Singapore — a major of hub of economic activity — did not insist on reciprocity in this respect. And we argued that Sri Lanka, like Singapore, would be the beneficiary," Moragoda recalled.

"And we were proved right. Peace, along with the new liberal visa regime, led to an onrush of Indian tourists, like never before," Moragoda said.

"Indians are now the second largest group of tourists coming to Sri Lanka. And they have also turned out to be spending tourists, surprising Sri Lankans. If the Sri Lankan tourist sector is doing well now, it is in no mean measure due to the visa-on-entry system for Indians," he added.

Hundreds of Indian companies are now investing in Sri Lanka, making use of the island as a base for exports to India and other countries.

The India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement, which the UNP wholeheartedly supported, has led to a quantum jump in Indo-Sri Lanka trade and Indian investments in Sri Lanka.

Statistics show that both countries have gained significantly in the process.

"It has not been a one-way street. Sri Lankan companies are also establishing manufacturing units and retail outlets in India," Moragoda noted, referring to the successful ventures of Ceylon Biscuits Ltd, and Damro, the furniture manufacturers in India.

In the UNP's view, a wide and strong economic partnership with India will unleash the entrepreneurial energies of the Sri Lankans, by giving them access not only to the giant Indian market, but also to the international market, through joint ventures aimed at markets in other countries.

Moragoda appealed to Sri Lankans to look at East Asia and see how small countries over there had benefited from partnership and cooperation with their bigger neighbours.

"We should take the cue from Hongkong. For far too long have we thought small. It is time we thought big," he said.

Wickremesinghe's Nehruvian vision

According to Moragoda, the UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, had always believed that India should be the cornerstone of Sri Lanka's economic and strategic thinking.

Even before he became Prime Minister, he had a "grand vision' of a Sri Lanka working in tandem with India, for mutual good. "This was based on his extensive reading and deep understanding of the region's history and geo-politics. He has a Nehruvian vision," Moragoda said.

"When he did become Prime Minister, Wickremesinghe chose to paint on this broad canvas. He courageously took the initiative in several matters pertaining to India-Sri Lanka relations. There was opposition to giving the Trincomalee oil tank farm to India on lease. But he went ahead and got the Indians to take it," Moragoda recalled.

It has been Wickremesinghe's dream to have a road bridge linking South India with North Sri Lanka, to facilitate tourism, trade, investment, exchange of services and also to develop the economy of the war-shattered North and North West of Sri Lanka. He calls it the "Hanuman Bridge".

As Prime Minister, he proposed it to the Indian government, and the then Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, agreed to it in principle and said that there would be a feasibility study.

However, the scheme may have to wait till the security situation in North Sri Lanka becomes conducive for the construction.

About the opposition in Sri Lanka to the Indian plan to cut a shipping canal in the Palk Strait to facilitate Indian coastal shipping (the Sethusamudram project), Moragoda said that the Sri Lankans should not stop India's development projects.

"I am not conversant with the ecological impact of the project. I suppose the Indians will be looking into it. But I think we Sri Lankans should look at it as yet another opportunity. We should exploit it for our economic benefit and not look at it negatively," he said.

Combine Sethusamudram with Hanuman bridge

"It will be even better if the ship canal project is integrated with the land bridge project we have proposed," Moragoda suggested.

The land bridge project gains relevance in the context of the international plan to link roads and Sri Lanka's agreement to cooperate with this grand project. Moragoda appealed to his countrymen to shed the habit of looking at India with suspicion and always wondering if it had a hidden agenda in everything it was doing.

He saw a big future in joint exploration for gas in the Cauvery basin off Tamil Nadu, and also in the Gulf of Mannar.

"We should try and bring gas through pipelines from South India to Sri Lanka. We should also think of a Sri Lanka-South India power grid to solve Sri Lanka's power problem," he said.

Model for strife-torn South Asia

"To put it in a nutshell, Ranil Wickremesinghe wants the Sri Lanka-India relationship to be a model for the South Asian region. India's relations with the other countries in the region are none too good. In this context, India-Sri Lanka relations can show how a small country can prosper and live in perfect security and harmony with a big neighbour, while not standing in the way of the big neighbour's efforts to develop itself," Moragoda concluded.