India’s Role in the Indian Ocean Region and Its Links to the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

The main goal of this article will be to show how India’s role in the Indian Ocean region has changed over time and how it is linked to the wider Indo-Pacific region. In the beginning, the importance of the Indian Ocean to India’s overall naval security on a historical basis is pointed out. It is shown that Indian Ocean was the main conduit for carrying out trade with the subcontinent and also for the creation of the British Raj even though it did not receive the same attention from the land-based Indian states. Following this, the article moves on to how following its independence in 1947 India slowly started to realize the importance of the Indian Ocean and later on the wider Indo-Pacific to its national security. Step by step it is shown how India’s maritime policy has evolved over the years. In this respect, the importance of the decade of the 1990s is highlighted when India began to open up not only economically but in all other ways as well. The role of the United States in India’s naval expansion is also explained in detail during both the Obama and the Trump administrations. Here specifically the article focuses on the ‘pivot to Asia’ strategy of the Obama administration and how it impacted India. After this it is described how President Trump further pushed India to take a more active stance in the Indo-Pacific region. Next, the Indo-Pacific policy of the present Modi government is studied along with a detailed analysis of the ‘extended neighborhood’ concept in India’s Indo-Pacific policy. India’s relation with the island nations of the Indo-Pacific is scrutinized in a separate section. India’s role in the QUAD forum is also properly discussed. Finally, India’s involvement in the three main multilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific is laid out before coming to the concluding section.