10 Dec 2025
🪶 Wisdom Drop–56
🌊 Open Seas, Shared Rules: India’s Resolve for a Rules-Based Indian Ocean
📅 Date: 10 December 2025
📚 GS Mains Mapping:
- GS Paper III: Internal Security, Maritime Security, Blue Economy, Strategic Infrastructure
Introduction
Oceans have always shaped the destinies of civilisations, but in the twenty-first century, they are shaping geopolitics itself. When President Droupadi Murmu reaffirmed India’s commitment to keeping the oceans open, stable, secure, and rules-based, she was articulating more than a diplomatic principle. She was asserting India’s vision for the Indian Ocean Region as a shared commons governed by law, cooperation, and responsibility rather than coercion.
India’s geography places it at the very heart of the Indian Ocean. With a long coastline, island territories, and proximity to key sea lanes, India is both a beneficiary of maritime openness and a guardian of regional stability. As competition intensifies and power shifts play out at sea, India’s resolve for a rules-based Indian Ocean has become central to its national security and global role.
Why the Indian Ocean Region Matters
The Indian Ocean is not a peripheral water body; it is the bloodstream of the global economy.
Nearly half of global container traffic and around eighty percent of seaborne oil trade transit through the Indian Ocean. Chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, Malacca, and Lombok are narrow maritime arteries whose disruption can send shockwaves through global markets, energy supplies, and food systems. For India, which depends heavily on maritime trade and energy imports, the security of these sea lanes is existential.
Geostrategically, the Indian Ocean links West Asia, Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. It is a zone where continental geopolitics meets maritime power. Major powers view the region as a decisive theatre for influence, making it a focal point of strategic competition and cooperation alike.
Beyond security and trade, the Indian Ocean holds immense blue economy potential. It supports a significant share of global fisheries and offers opportunities in shipping, offshore energy, seabed resources, and marine biotechnology. For developing littoral states, the ocean is a source of livelihoods and growth, making stability a shared interest rather than a zero-sum game.
Why the Focus on the IOR Has Intensified
The strategic salience of the Indian Ocean has grown rapidly in recent years.
The Indo-Pacific construct has redefined geopolitical thinking by treating the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a single strategic continuum. This has elevated India’s maritime relevance and expanded its responsibilities beyond immediate neighbourhood waters.
At the same time, maritime security threats have multiplied. Piracy near the Horn of Africa, arms and narcotics smuggling, terror financing through sea routes, illegal fishing, and grey-zone operations have blurred the line between traditional and non-traditional threats. These challenges demand constant vigilance, intelligence-sharing, and cooperative responses.
China’s expanding footprint has further sharpened focus. Increased deployments of the PLA Navy, frequent presence of survey vessels collecting oceanographic data, and strategic port development near India’s maritime boundaries have raised concerns about militarisation and erosion of regional balance. While infrastructure and trade connectivity are legitimate pursuits, their dual-use potential cannot be ignored.
India’s Strategic Maritime Response
India’s response has been calibrated, multidimensional, and rooted in cooperation rather than confrontation.
India has increasingly positioned itself as a net security provider in the region. Its role as a first responder in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations has built trust and demonstrated capability. From evacuations to relief missions, India has shown that maritime power can be exercised responsibly.
Maritime Domain Awareness has become a cornerstone of India’s approach. By sharing information, enhancing surveillance, and building partner capacity, India seeks to ensure that the seas remain transparent rather than opaque zones of competition.
The Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, launched in 2019, reflects India’s holistic maritime vision. It spans maritime security, marine ecology, disaster risk reduction, connectivity, and trade, recognising that security and sustainability are inseparable at sea.
India’s re-articulated MAHASAGAR vision, standing for Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth for All in the Region, reinforces this inclusive approach. It signals continuity with earlier doctrines while adapting to contemporary realities.
Naval Modernisation and Credible Deterrence
A rules-based order requires not only norms but also the capacity to uphold them.
India’s naval modernisation has accelerated to ensure credible deterrence and effective presence. Indigenous platforms such as the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, advanced destroyers, submarines, and enhanced surveillance assets have strengthened India’s ability to project power and secure sea lanes.
This modernisation is not aimed at dominance, but at balance. It seeks to deter unilateral actions, reassure partners, and preserve freedom of navigation without escalating tensions.
Multilateral Engagement as the Foundation
India recognises that maritime security cannot be ensured unilaterally.
Through the Indian Ocean Rim Association, India promotes cooperation in trade, disaster management, and the blue economy. The Indian Ocean Naval Symposium fosters dialogue and confidence-building among regional navies. Platforms such as the QUAD reinforce commitment to a rules-based maritime order, while the Colombo Security Conclave addresses island security and capacity-building in the Indian Ocean.
These forums reflect India’s belief that shared challenges demand shared solutions.
Key Challenges Ahead
Despite proactive engagement, significant challenges remain.
The expanding Chinese naval presence and potential militarisation of ports raise concerns about strategic encirclement. Piracy and non-traditional threats continue to evolve, exploiting governance gaps and technological change. Above all, there is a real risk that freedom of navigation, the bedrock of maritime order, could be gradually eroded through faits accomplis rather than open conflict.
India has consistently stated that militarisation of the Indian Ocean is undesirable and undermines regional stability. Upholding this principle will require sustained diplomacy, capability development, and coalition-building.
Conclusion
For India, the Indian Ocean is not merely a neighbourhood; it is a strategic imperative that underpins national security, economic growth, and global standing. An open and rules-based maritime order is essential not only for India’s prosperity but for the stability of the international system.
India’s resolve lies in balancing power with principle, deterrence with dialogue, and national interest with regional responsibility. In an era of contested seas, the true measure of leadership is not how much water one controls, but how effectively one keeps it open for all.
— IAS Monk
🪶 Philosophical Whisper
“Oceans do not belong to power alone;
they belong to rules, restraint, and shared responsibility.
Those who keep the seas open, keep the future open.”
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