Opinion India must act as a unifier in the Indian Ocean Region

Past attempts to give substance to the idea of the Indian Ocean as a unified geopolitical space have thrown up organisations whose acronyms constitute a veritable “alphabet soup” (IORA, SAARC, BIMSTEC, IPOI, CSC and IONS). For a number of reasons, including lassitude on the part of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, most of these endeavours, bar the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) have failed to gather substantial momentum. The emergence of the US-origin “Indo-Pacific” paradigm, in the last decade, has also served to divert attention from such endeavours.

Against this backdrop, the Indian Ocean Conference (IOC), a “consultative forum for countries in the Indian Ocean Region” organised annually since 2016 by the Ministry of External Affairs in association with the BJP think-tank, India Foundation, appears to have attained considerable traction and participation. The forum focuses on the ways and means of implementing SAGAR, or “Security and Growth for All in the Region”, the watchword created by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 for IOR maritime cooperation/diplomacy.

Delivering the keynote address at the eighth edition of the IOC, held recently in Muscat, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar referred, without naming names, to the “churn” being experienced at two geographic extremities of the IOR, that is, the ongoing Middle East conflict and the threat posed to international shipping by the Houthi rebels, as well as to tensions across the South China Sea arising from “stronger assertions of interests” and “unilateral changes to the status quo” (presumably) by China. From India’s own experience, he cited the importance of “adhering to agreements and understandings” as a central element for ensuring stability and predictability.

As far as the remainder of the IOR is concerned, Jaishankar pointed to certain economic, developmental, environmental and maritime security-related issues that impacted all nations alike. He then identified a list of 10 examples where, according to him, India continued to contribute by “shouldering responsibilities, stepping up in times of trouble and providing leadership where required”.

This is a list guaranteed to warm the cockles of a sailor’s heart, because almost all the examples cited are covered under the rubric of “maritime diplomacy”, actively and regularly practised by the Indian Navy (IN). Many will see this as validation of the IN’s 2007 Maritime Strategy, which declared: “The main business of major navies in the 21st century is to use warships to support foreign policy…”

There has been an enduring debate in India’s strategic circles about the inadequate use of military power to advance the nation’s foreign policy interests. There is a view that India’s external objectives could have been far better served if the military had been given a greater role in the formulation and implementation of foreign and security policies. India’s great-power ambitions and its quest for a place on the international high table, it is felt, cannot be achieved relying merely on “yoga and Bollywood”. We need to shed inhibitions about the display and deployment of military power.

India’s maritime diplomacy had actually made its mark in December 2004, when the Great Asian Tsunami hit the region. Within hours, the IN reached out with alacrity, not just to India’s stricken citizens but also to its Sri Lankan, Maldivian and Indonesian neighbours in dire need. The humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) rendered by India and the IN left a deep impression on our neighbourhood. This image was strongly reinforced by subsequent sea-lift operations mounted by the IN as a “first responder” to evacuate refugees fleeing from disaster-stricken or conflict zones.

In order to realise its true potential as a “preferred security partner” and “first responder” in the IOR, New Delhi needs to develop a fully funded programme for security and HADR assistance, including amphibious heavy-lift capability and a hospital ship. To ensure timely delivery of assistance, the impediments and delays arising from lack of MoD-MEA coordination need to be eliminated.

An important component of India’s evolving maritime diplomacy has been the creation of a strong Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) capability. This enables the IN to share, in real time, a multidimensional maritime traffic picture with the neighbouring Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. The IN has also been helping island nations safeguard their vast exclusive economic zones against poachers and smugglers by means of aerial and ship patrols.

Maritime diplomacy is a flexible instrument that can be used to convey messages and influence events by offering a choice of naval actions, ranging from peaceful cooperation at one end to compellence and deterrence at the other. Even though they are not designed for this role, warships have many attributes that make them useful diplomatic instruments.

In the emerging international environment, maritime diplomacy will have an increasingly important role to play, because, apart from its “soft power” and humanitarian aspects, it can help contain, resolve and prevent conflict. For this to happen, navies, bureaucracies, diplomats and statesmen need to be on the same page and evolve a strategic approach to maritime diplomacy, within the overall ambit of a national security strategy. All this would require a “whole of government” approach, which is yet to emerge in our system.

The writer is a former chief of the Indian Navy