Is the Indian Ocean India’s Ocean?

Is India the custodian of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)? If it isn’t now, the Indian prime minister’s diplomatic attention to the region in March 2015 indicates that it would certainly like to be. Narendra Modi embarked on a three-nation tour of the Indian Ocean in March, traversing each degree of latitude between the 7th northern parallel and the Tropic of Capricorn. Between these coordinates lie the strategically important and traditionally India-aligned nations of Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and the Seychelles. The prime minister’s regional tour left little to the imagination as to his vision for India’s role the Indian Ocean. In Colombo, Port Louis, and Victoria, Modi reiterated India’s commitment to its eponymous ocean and concluded a series of important economic, defense, and security agreements that will ensure New Delhi’s enduring commitment to the region.

Modi began his trip with a short visit, lasting less than a day, to Victoria, Seychelles, a country considered part of the African continent but with close ties to the Indian subcontinent. The Seychelles, which were also once a British colony, and India have long cooperated on a range of issues. Modi’s visit, however, marked the first visit by an Indian prime minister to the small island nation in 33 years. As one of Victoria’s major defense providers historically, it was perhaps unsurprising that Modi left the Seychelles after unveiling a Coastal Surveillance Radar System (CSRS) and announcing a joint India-Seychelles hydrographic survey. The radar system unveiled during Modi’s visit will be the first of eight planned systems. India regularly provides armaments and training for the Seychelles Peoples’ Defense Forces.

In perhaps a more overt display of strategic entrenchment, Modi secured one of Seychelles’ 115 islands on lease for use, purportedly, for tourism purposes – in reality, this island could be used as an important surveillance node in the Indian Navy’s IOR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) infrastructure. Also as part of Modi’s visit, New Delhi gifted Victoria a Dornier maritime patrol aircraft.

After his brief stay in Victoria, Modi darted off to Mauritius, a small island state just a few degrees north of the Tropic of Capricorn and east off the coast of Madagascar, where he was welcomed as the guest of honor at the country’s Independence Day celebrations. Modi heralded Mauritius as “Chhota Bharat” (Little India) before leaving New Delhi, hearkening back to a term made popular by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the first Indian prime minister to officially visit Mauritius in 1970.

In Port Louis, Modi and Mauritian Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth signed five agreements with strategic and security implications. One agreement explicitly focused on leveraging Mauritius’ “ocean economy,” while another saw India sign on to build sea and air infrastructure for the country. Signaling India’s weight as a major defense player in the IOR, Modi also oversaw the launch of the MCGS Barracuda, the first Indian-manufactured warship built for export. The Mauritian Coast Guard will use the vessel for anti-piracy and broader maritime security applications. Additionally, India will assist Mauritius in a hydrographic survey of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Modi ended his Indian Ocean tour with a stopover in Sri Lanka, the Indian Ocean state most proximal to India. His visit came shortly after Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s own state visit to New Delhi and marked the first state visit by an Indian prime minister to Sri Lanka in 28 years. In Sri Lanka, Modi picked up the bilateral agenda where the two countries had left off just weeks earlier. Sirisena’s visit to New Delhi marked, in the words of both sides, a “new beginning” in India-Sri Lanka ties. Sri Lanka’s changing political context – Sirisena unexpectedly defeated former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in January’s elections – has reinvigorated strategic and economic ties between the two countries. With Rajapaksa, India and Sri Lanka maintained their distance on a range of issues despite their historical and cultural closeness. In Colombo, Modi acknowledged the changing tide in bilateral relations: “I am conscious of the significance of this visit… This is how it should be between neighbors. We should meet regularly. It helps us understand each other better find solutions to mutual concerns and move our relationship forward.”

The Indian prime minister’s trip to Sri Lanka comes at a time when Chinese influence on the island appears to be receding. Under Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka had opted to advance its strategic rapprochement with Beijing at a greater pace than its relations with New Delhi, which had grown strained and lethargic. Last fall, for example, a Chinese submarine’s port call in Colombo raised eyebrows across the Palk Strait. Sirisena, who during his campaign for the presidency stated a preference for a balanced foreign policy, has been reevaluating Sri Lanka’s relationship with Beijing.

Symbolizing Sri Lanka’s shifting place in the India-China tug-of-war for influence in the Indian Ocean, Modi and Sirisena met at an old colonial building overlooking Colombo’s Port City, the site of over $1.4 billion in Chinese real estate investments, now suspended by the Sri Lankan government. The two leaders signed a range of agreements, including a trade and customs pact, a $1.5 billion currency swap, an agreement for an Indian credit line of over $300 million, an inaugural visa-on-arrival program for Sri Lankans visiting India, and a joint oil storage facility venture between Indian and Sri Lankan state-run oil companies.

Democratic Values

A notable footnote to Modi’s visit is that it originally contained a stopover in the Maldives, the fourth major island state in the Indian Ocean. Modi sent a clear message to President Abdulla Yameen when he struck Malé off his itinerary for what India perceived as undemocratic transgressions by the regime. Mohamed Nasheed, the island state’s first democratically elected president and a pro-India opposition leader, was carted off to prison after a farcical trial at the hands of an increasingly autocratic regime in March. Modi’s decision emphasized India’s commitment to democratic values in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi continues to weigh its approach to the political crisis in Male, having no clear best option.

Without a well-defined Indian strategic approach, however, the Maldives may end up drawn into a long-term economic and strategic arrangement with China, which is happy to do business with no strings attached. Despite the turn of events in 2015, India demonstrated its ability to serve as the IOR’s “first responder” when it answered a declaration of emergency by the Maldivian government after a fire at Malé’s only sewage treatment plant left its 100,000 residents without access to drinking water. Beyond normative disagreements, Malé will continue to have practical reasons to restore a good diplomatic rapport with New Delhi.

Ultimately, Modi’s Indian Ocean tour represents a crystallization of Indian aspirations for custodianship of the Indian Ocean Region. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise – Modi emphasized the primacy of India’s neighborhood in his foreign policy as early as May 2014. Additionally, the prime minister’s trip will remind Beijing, New Delhi’s foremost perceived rival in the region, that India will not stand idly by and allow a transition in the balance of power in the IOR. “The course of the 21st century will be determined by the currents of the Indian Ocean,” Modi told Sri Lankan legislators, alluding to the centrality of the IOR in global trade and commerce.

The Indian leadership is aware that its uncontested access to the vast waters of the Indian Ocean offers it a regional competitive advantage unavailable to any other state. Going forward, New Delhi’s challenge will be to use this geographic endowment as a foundation on which to build prolonged and profound strategic engagement. If India is to maintain its position as the foremost power in the IOR, it has to afford the same degree of urgency to its oceanic diplomacy that it grants to its land-based neighbors. Despite the positive optics of the prime minister’s trip, India’s primacy in the IOR is far from a geopolitical constant. Regardless of the future, what is clear is that ensuring that the Indian Ocean merits its name will be a core strategic interest for this Indian government and its successors.