Context
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives was on his first bilateral visit to India after President Mohamed Muizzu came to power last year.
Strategic Engagement in Indian Ocean Region (IOR), India’s $50M Support to Maldives
- Strategic Significance of IOR: His visit to the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) archipelago despite the Lok Sabha elections is a testament to the region’s strategic significance.
- Financial Support to Maldives: During the meet, India extended $50 million of budgetary support to Maldives.
- Emphasizing Strategic Concerns: The External Affairs Minister of India explicitly communicated India’s strategic concerns to him emphasizing that as close neighbors, the development of bilateral ties must be based on “reciprocal sensitivity.”
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About Indian Ocean Region (IOR)
It extends from the eastern coast of Africa to the western coast of Australia including the Arab Gulf, East Africa, South Asia, East Asia to the Straits of Malacca and Southern Ocean Islands encompassing nearly 38 countries within it.
- Connectivity: It serves as an important transit route bridging the gap between East and the West through important choke points, such as the Straits of Malacca, Straits of Hormuz, Bab el Mandeb, and Ombai and Wetar Straits.
Importance of Indian Ocean Region
- Strategic location: India is located at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean with its strategic positioning at the center of the Ocean, with over 7,500 kilometers of coastline.
- Trade: Indian Ocean accounts for 95 per cent of India’s trade by volume and 68 per cent of trade by value.
- Oil Dependence: 80 percent of India’s crude oil requirement of 3.28 million barrels per day is imported by sea and overall dependence is 93%, considering the offshore oil production and petroleum exports.
- Resource Dependence:
- Fisheries: India is the third largest fish-producing country, contributing 8 percent to the global fish production with a total share of marine fish production of 4.12 Million Tonnes.
- Mineral resource extraction: India has the Exclusive Rights to explore the Central Indian Ocean Ridge granted by the International Seabed Authority for deep seabed mining.
- This region is estimated to have massive reserves of manganese, as well as cobalt, nickel, and copper, lithium etc important for driving Industrial Revolution 4.0.
- Geo-strategic importance: To keep a check on the growing Chinese Expansionism by controlling the choke points in the Indian Ocean.
Challenges in Indian Ocean Region
- Challenges Posed by Maldives:
- Replacement of Indian Military Presence in the Maldives: This includes his anti-India rhetoric like India Out’ campaign and it’s decision to request the replacement of the 77 Indian military personnel stationed there with civilians.
- Withdrawl of Hydrography Agreement: It withdrew an agreement on hydrography with India claiming that it didn’t want to collaborate with a foreign country on mapping its territorial waters.
- Deepening Relations with China: Maldives signed a defense pact with China that includes training the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) and supplying non-lethal defense equipment.
- China is providing free military assistance to the Maldives and the two parties had bilateral discussions about military cooperation.
- There has also been an increased presence of Chinese research vessels within the Maldivians’ maritime territory.
- Threats to Maritime Traffic: Conflicts between regional players and their outcomes in the form of increasing instability through rising crimes like smuggling, piracy and terrorism pose a significant threat to maritime traffic in the region.
- Example: Iran-backed Houthi rebels targeting shipping containers passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea with missiles.
- Challenges to international law: Disregard for International Laws like the UNCLOS raises concerns about freedom of navigation and overflights, and safeguarding of sovereignty and independence.
- Militarisation of the Indian Ocean Region: The region is witnessing an increasing presence of warships and submarines with India, The U.S.A, Australia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and China all increasing their naval presence in the Indian Ocean significantly
- Example: The presence of Chinese research vessels in Maldives.
- Debt Trap: Smaller countries are increasingly falling prey to the debt trap diplomacy of China by risking unsustainable debts, unviable projects and injudicious choices. Example: Hambantota port of Sri Lanka.
- China placed a ballistic missile and satellite tracking and survey ship Yuan Wang 5, at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port.
- Maldives is still struggling with the $1.3 billion loan taken from China from 2013 to 2018.
- Strategic Competition: The Balance of Power Axis has shifted to the IOR which has become the the playground for great power competition between the USA and China decreasing the space for maneuverability for littoral states in the region.
- Maintaining a presence in the Bay of Bengal region will allow China to better utilise the oil and gas pipeline that runs from the Kyaukphyu port in Myanmar to Kunming in China.
- It is designed to reduce the travel time of oil imports from Africa or West Asia to China by 700 miles (about 30 percent).
- China’s Increasing Presence: Chinese aggressive moves in the region are creating conflicts and tensions in the region with increasing Chinese maritime confrontations with other countries in the region. China also hosts a parallel Indian Ocean Region forum.
- Example: The South China Sea conflict.
- Chinese satellite and missile tracking ship Yuan Wang 03 has been tracked entering into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
- Non-Traditional Threats:
- Illegal Migration: Rohingyas have illegally migrated into Indian territory through land and riverine-maritime routes of the Bengal delta.
- Human Trafficking: Victims, mainly from Bangladesh and India, are trafficked to Southeast Asian countries across the Bay of Bengal region.
- Drug Trafficking: Seaborne drug trafficking originates from Myanmar along the Andaman Sea and Malacca Strait, transporting methamphetamine to Southeast Asian countries, Australia, and Japan.
- Maritime Terrorism: Many littoral countries in Bay of Begal countries are either victims of terror attacks or are terrorist breeding grounds.
- As per the 2024 Global Terrorism Index, which measures the impact of terrorism on countries worldwide, Myanmar ranked 9, India 14th.
- Climate Crisis: The growing incidence of sea level rise and sinking of small Island states like Maldives and Indonesia will create a population Refugee Crisis across the Region.
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India’s Role in Indian Ocean Region
- Strategic Infrastructure Developments: Sri Lanka approved India’s development of the strategically located Kankesanthurai port in northern Sri Lanka, just 100 km from the deep-sea port of Karaikal in Puducherry, enhancing connectivity between the two nations.
- An Indo-Russian joint venture secured the contract to operate Mattala Airport, built with Chinese loans in Hambantota.
- India operates and maintains radars, helicopters, and aircraft in the Maldives, some of which are used for medical evacuations.
- These projects provide India with a crucial foothold in a region where both Sri Lanka and the Maldives are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
- Regular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions conducted by P-81 long-range maritime patrol aircraft and unarmed MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones.
- Strengthening Presence and Security: India has increased deployments to countries in the region.
- It regularly sends warships to conduct joint patrols and surveillance of the vast exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of countries like the Maldives and Seychelles.
- India’s commissioning of a naval base, INS Jatayu, in the Lakshadweep islands.
- India jointly inaugurated an upgraded jetty and airstrip on the Agaléga islands of Mauritius.
- India also has an outpost in the western Indian Ocean as a China containment strategy.
- Security: India has assumed the role of Net security provider in the IOR region with the largest network of surveillance and vigilance operations in the IOR preventing crimes such as smuggling, illegal fishing, and human trafficking, piracy, terrorism etc.
- Example: Indian Coast Guard diluting piracy attempts in the Red Sea
- Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Role: India is the First Responder in the Region during any crisis situation in the spirit of Neighbourhood First.
- Example: Operation Raahat in Yemen or providing Fresh Drinking water to Maldives
- SAGAR Vision (Security and Growth for all in the Region): It aims at safeguarding maritime interests of its mainland and islands.
- Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) Program: It has been set up to enhance information exchange to reach a high level of collaboration with other maritime forces.
- MILAN Exercise: It underscore the Navy’s growing presence as a preferred security partner and first responder in the IOR.
- Regional Cooperation Initiatives:
- Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA): It is an intergovernmental organization established in 1997 playing a pivotal role in advancing India’s strategic, economic, and diplomatic interests in the Indian Ocean.
- Colombo Security Conclave: It is a grouping that includes India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and the Maldives for ensuring the security and stability of the Indian Ocean region.
- Indo-Pacific Oceans’ Initiative (IPOI): IPOI seeks to ensure security and stability of the regional maritime domain.
- Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative: IPMDA is a technology and training initiative to enhance maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific region.
- The Information Fusion Centre– Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR): It is a regional maritime security centre hosted by the Indian Navy.
Way Forward
- Countering China: India needs to further elevate, strengthen and deepen its security co-operation with regional partners such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, etc as well as the United States, Japan and Australia, to protect its core security interests in the Indian Ocean.
- Building Hard and Soft Power Resources: India needs to develop hard and soft power resources to ensure its maritime security and to be able to deal with any contingent situation that might arise from any future conflict in the region.
- India’s focus should be on the security of SLOCs and resource management.
- India’s Presence in Multilateral Forums: India must expand its strategic foothold in multilateral for a and organizations.
- Defense Infrastructure Projects: India will be required to undertake defense infrastructure projects in the Indian Ocean as an effective counterweight to China’s “string of pearls” doctrine.
- A Comprehensive Approach: India must formulate a comprehensive strategy including enhanced collaboration and coordination among its army, air force, and navy, in conjunction with both central and state governments.
- Enhancing Maritime Domain Awareness(MDA): Beyond militarisation, MDA is needed to devise effective strategies to secure the Bay of Bengal region.
- MDA is “the effective understanding of any activity associated with the maritime environment that could impact upon the security, safety, economy or environment.”
- MDA is intrinsic to the information-decision-action cycle as it allows a nation to assess threats from its waters.
- India’s MDA is enhanced by the Coastal Surveillance Network (a chain of coastal radars monitored by the Coast Guard) and the National Automatic Identification System.
- Effective Maritime Governance: Regional cooperation in enforcing effective maritime governance is a responsibility of all Indian Ocean Region states.
- Enhanced cooperation between various organizations at national level is important in this direction.
- Coastal Security: The authorities must ensure mandatory fitment of automatic identification system (AIS) on power-driven vessels with a length more than 10 metres for broader information access.
- Fostering Inclusive Cooperation for Global Commons: Any quadripartite partnership of India, Japan, the United States and Australia should not be exclusively focused on isolating China.
- Rather, China must be engaged as a co-operative partner in the process of negotiations to resolve mutual differences in the spirit of protecting the global commons.
- Real Time Intelligence Sharing: Despite agreements on sharing information and intelligence on various subject matters, there is an inherent reluctance to share much important and valued real time intelligence among the regional states.
- On the other hand, there is an advanced information/intelligence sharing network among the pirates as well as terrorist networks.
- With maritime security concerns that affect the whole Indian Ocean Region, importance of sharing valued information remains crucial.
- Regional Integration: The regional integration needs to focus on building up a cooperative security dialogue and effective apparatus.
- Cooperative security mechanisms cannot be developed unless there is a convergence of perceptions on common regional security interests among regional and extra-regional powers.
- National Commercial Maritime Security Policy Document. The government must promulgate it to articulate its strategic vision for maritime security.
- It must also promulgate a national strategy for Commercial Maritime Security for efficient, coordinated, and effective action for the protection of the port and shipping infrastructure.
- It must include all agencies involved in coastal security, including the Ministry of Shipping, Director General Shipping, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Fisheries, etc.
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May 17, 2024