'India has emerged as preferred security partner in Indo-Pacific'

New Delhi, Aug 10 India has now graduated to becoming a "preferred security partner" in the Indo-Pacific region, forming defence partnerships that not only include joint exercises and capacity building but also exports of defence equipment either as a grant or under a defence Line of Credit at the request of the partner state, according to former Indian diplomat Suchitra Durai.

Trilateral maritime security cooperation with Sri Lanka and the Maldives, which began in 2011, has extended to other Indian Ocean states, including Mauritius and Bangladesh, with Seychelles as observer under the Colombo Security Conclave that now has a charter and a secretariat in Colombo. The Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) has 25 participating countries from South Asia, West Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia and European countries with Indian Ocean territories as well as nine observers and a rotating chair (India will take over as chair at the end of 2025). MILAN is a biennial multinational exercise hosted by the Indian Navy in harmony with India’s vision of SAGAR and the Act East policy, Durai, a former envoy to Thailand, highlighted in an article in Mizzima News, a leading media outlet in Myanmar.

A crucial facet of maritime security is enhanced maritime domain awareness. Towards this, India has also been pursuing white shipping agreements with several countries (22 have been concluded till now) and established a state-of-the-art Information Fusion Centre (IFC – IOR) in Gurugram that facilitates the sharing of maritime information among member states.

Ten years after SAGAR, during an official visit to Mauritius in 2025, PM Narendra Modi announced MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), an updated doctrine. If SAGAR is the sea, then MAHASAGAR denotes "ocean" in Hindi and several other Indian languages. MAHASAGAR marks a strategic evolution from a regional focus on the Indian Ocean to a global maritime vision, with particular emphasis on the Global South. PM Modi’s recent engagements with Mauritius, Maldives, Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana, and now the Philippines are aligned with the MAHASAGAR vision.

India has been sharing its developmental experiences and technical expertise in a spirit of “Vasudhaivakutumbakam” (the ancient belief that the World is One Family). As PM Modi stated in his address to the Ugandan Parliament in 2018: "Our developmental partnership will be guided by your priorities, it will be on terms that will be comfortable for you, that will liberate your potential and not constrain your future."

The Indian model of developmental cooperation is comprehensive and involves multiple instruments, including grant-in-aid, concessional lines of credit, capacity building and technical assistance.

In June 2018, at the Shangri-La conference, PM Modi outlined India’s Indo-Pacific vision. For India, the Indo-Pacific stands for a free, open, inclusive region that "embraces us all in a common pursuit of progress and prosperity". He emphasised ASEAN centrality, a rules-based order, freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce and peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law. There is great synergy between the Indian approach and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific. In November 2019, at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok, India launched the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), a coherent initiative comprising seven pillars of practical cooperation built on the SAGAR vision. India’s active participation in the QUAD (Australia, India, Japan and the US) is part of our Indo-Pacific vision. Earlier, in 2014, India established FIPIC (Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation), a strategic initiative for strengthening diplomatic and economic engagement with islands in the Pacific Ocean.

It was in 2023, during India’s Presidency of the G-20, whose leitmotif was inclusivity, that the African Union was invited to join the grouping. India’s presidency, inter alia, revived multilateralism, amplified the voice of the global south and championed development. India has hosted three editions of the Voice of the Global South summit since then.

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