In comparison, Beijing has consistently aimed to improve its diplomatic, political and military engagements in the region from Sri Lanka to the Comoros, spanning the Indian Ocean in its entirety. In reality, Delhi ignored and misunderstood the geographic importance of its maritime environment. The lack of direct competition after the end of the Cold War allowed India to continue with its limited maritime approach while retaining the role of a key “Indian Ocean player”. Since Independence, India has enjoyed an advantageous position in the Indian Ocean, primarily accorded through its geography. Beyond the anti-piracy mission, India’s presence and maritime engagements with the African coast, however, have been largely ad hoc. Russia too recently acquired a base in Sudan, on the Red Sea coast, between the Suez Canal and Bab-el-Mandeb - a strategic chokepoint in the Indian Ocean. To place this in context, Beijing’s first overseas military base was set up in the western Indian Ocean, in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. While India has begun to rectify this division of the Indian Ocean, especially with the establishment of the Indian Ocean division in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) in 2016, the western Indian Ocean and the eastern coast of Africa still continue to be in the maritime periphery in Delhi’s official worldview. The Indian Navy, on the other hand, defines the region in its entirety as its area of responsibility from the coast of Malacca to the eastern coast of Africa. In terms of sub-regions, the priority is in the northern (Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal), and eastern Indian Ocean (Andaman Sea and Straits of Malacca). Traditionally, India draws a line with Mauritius and Seychelles as its areas of strategic collaboration in the Indian Ocean. Washington is not alone in engaging the Indian Ocean in silos Delhi’s political class, too, has divided the ocean into many sub-regions. It is also a nod toward the importance of the African coast within the Indian Ocean framework, a geographic reality often lost amid South Asia and West Asia’s geopolitics.
Underlining the need to work with the three US combatant commands, and referring to the western Indian Ocean, is an acknowledgement of the bureaucratic division of the ocean and the need to work through its imaginary divisions. On Twitter, Austin mentioned the western Indian Ocean as a region for collaboration (in addition to the Indo-Pacific) after his meeting with external affairs minister, S Jaishankar. Although the US and India did not sign any specific agreements during the visit, defence minister Rajnath Singh and Austin provided, with their brief statements, a glimpse into the areas of collaboration that lie ahead.įor the maritime domain, the interesting takeaway was the specific mention in Singh’s remarks to “pursue enhanced cooperation between the Indian military and the US Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command and Africa Command”. The United States (US) secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin’s recent visit to India underlined the strategic importance of Delhi in Washington’s Indo-Pacific engagements.
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