PM Modi's three nation tour reiterates India's dominance in Indian Ocean; sends message to China & US

By Sreeram Chaulia
Prime minister Narendra Modi's five-day tour to Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka from March 10-14 infused fresh energy into India's mantle as the fulcrum of stability in the Indian Ocean. It signalled India's intent and capacity to ward off extra-regional challengers and emerge as a 'net security provider' in strategically crucial sea lanes for global commerce and geopolitics.

Dubbed as the "center stage for the 21st century" by American writer Robert Kaplan, the Indian Ocean has as many as 20 nations within its fold, of whom India stands geographically, ideationally and potential-wise bang in the middle. Other capable countries like South Africa, Iran, Indonesia and Australia are also members of the Indian Ocean rim family, but none of them has the centrality or attraction like India to assume regional leadership.

What Modi did in Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka was to affirm that India is not only the historical lodestone of the Indian Ocean but also the contemporary leader with the wherewithal to safeguard and develop the littoral region. He served notice to China and the US, the two external superpowers prowling the Indian Ocean for influence, that India will not let its comparative advantages to go to waste.

Modi's message at all the three stops was to convey that India has the firepower and scientific prowess to support what he respectfully and affectionately dubbed as "chhote chhote taapu" [small islands]. Shedding the reticence of his predecessors, he boldly trumpeted India's military rise as beneficial for these tiny nations.

Small countries lying on the maritime edges of a great power can feel vulnerable when the latter flexes military muscle. For example, China's revolution in military affairs (RMA) concept has frightened the wits out of its weaker neighbours in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, where disputes over islands and mineral rights are escalating.

Modi's proposal is a different approach altogether, wherein India will never mount any territorial claims over its Indian Ocean cohabitants. Rather, India will do everything to strengthen the defence sectors of these countries to ward off traditional challenges like powers from outside the region and non-traditional foes such as seafaring pirates and religious extremists. The African writer Alioune Ndiaye calls it India’s unique "Varuna triangle" strategy.

The distinct Indian vision of a security umbrella in the Indian Ocean is reflected in two landmark agreements signed during Modi’s visits to Seychelles and Mauritius, whereby New Delhi acquired infrastructure development rights in Assumption Island and Agalega Island — two vital listening posts. By operating and sharing surveillance systems on these islets, India is explicitly helping their host nations “access the moves of unsavoury elements in the region."

Seychelles had previously offered refueling and docking facilities to Chinese warships involved in anti-piracy operations. Sri Lanka too had hosted Chinese submarines for re-supplying en route to anti-piracy missions near the Horn of Africa. Cognizant of the expansionist mindset of the Chinese navy, which plans to send many more "naval escort missions" into the Indian Ocean "in accordance with the situation," and the ever-present US navy which has hunkered down in our backyard with heavy paraphernalia, Modi is pursuing robust arrangements for India to remain a "preferred partner" for the security of Indian Ocean neighbours.

Is India behaving like other neocolonial powers by chasing after exclusive defence pacts and leases? We must distinguish what the Americans have done in the Diego Garcia atoll of the Indian Ocean and what we are accomplishing in Assumption and Agalega islands. The former was unethically snatched from Mauritius by Britain and then handed over to the US as a naval base. Nationalistic Mauritians have been demanding for decades that the Chagos archipelago, which contains Diego Garcia, be rightfully returned back to their sovereignty.

American diplomats have insinuated in leaked cables that Mauritius is entering into "willing subordination to India" over Agalega. But the cultural closeness and trust that Modi evoked during his Indian Ocean trip confirm that the Indian model of security and economic cooperation is not imperialistic. The receptivity for his ideas of cooperation to advance the 'blue economy" or "ocean economy" and to arrest climate change echoed in the small island nations whose people as well as governments want an agile and proactive India on their shores and soils.

Modi must be credited for skillfully playing the kinship card in Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. By linking India to "little Indias" in the Indian Ocean, he is ensuring that the diaspora in these countries will make a critical difference in shaping their governments' strategic orientations. Neither China nor the US can tug at the hearts of people in nations such as Mauritius, the Maldives, Seychelles and Sri Lanka the way 'mother India' can.

When Modi invokes umbilical cords of cultural affinity in Port Louis, Victoria and Colombo, it is more than a rhetorical flourish. He is reminding the world that the Indian Ocean derives its ethos and character from India, which is back with a bang in the water body named after it.