Govt wakes up to Southern Indian Ocean reality

Delhi has not done enough political tending of the nations that have always been critical for Indian Ocean security.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishnas visit this week to Mozambique and Mauritius is part of the governments new focus on the Southern Indian Ocean that is emerging as the theatre for a new global power play.

During his trip,Krishna is likely to have a brief overnight stop-over in Seychelles,the small island nation that is drawing big geopolitical attention from China.

Although India has a rapidly growing relationship with Mozambique and close historic bonds with Mauritius and Seychelles,Delhi has not done enough political tending of these nations that have always been critical for Indian Ocean security. Delhi is now trying to compensate.

Through the colonial age,Portugal,France and Britain jousted for influence in the eastern coast of Africa and the island chains that straddled the Sea Lines of Communication SLOC between the West and the East.

The invention of a shorter route to India through the Suez Canal and the onset of Cold War did not really diminish the strategic significance of the Southern Indian Ocean.

It remains the home today to one of the worlds most important military bases,Diego Garcia. Access to this island,which together with Mauritius and Seychelles forms the Chagos Archipelago,holds the key to long-term American military presence in the Indian Ocean.

Amidst mounting speculation that a rising China is looking for ways to establish a forward naval presence in the Indian Ocean,President Hu Jintao visited Seychelles in 2007 and Mauritius in 2009.

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It is not that Indias relations with the Southern Indian Ocean are without content. Indian companies are making major investments in developing the vast natural resources of Mozambique. India is already among the top five trading partners of Mozambique.

Mozambique had invited the Indian Navy to provide sea front security when it hosted major international summits in Maputo during 2003 and 2004. Indian naval ships now make frequent calls at the ports in Mozambique.

India has signed a bilateral security cooperation agreement in 2006 that seeks to build up Maputos defence capabilities.

Despite this broad-based bilateral relationship,none of Krishnas predecessors in the Foreign Office have ever visited Mozambique for a bilateral visit. The two earlier visits by the Indian foreign ministers to Maputo in 1979 and 1999 were to attend multilateral conferences.

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Indias relations with Mauritius are older and deeper than those with Mozambique,thanks to the large Indian diaspora. Mauritius is also one of the top sources of capital flows into India.

Yet the focus on diaspora and finance has tended to divert Delhis attention away from the strategic significance of Mauritius.

Nor has Delhi cared to remember that both America and Russia had sought bases in tiny Seychelles during the Cold War.

The growing Beijings economic presence in the region,the sustained deployment of Chinese naval units to the Indian Ocean since the end of 2008,and President Hus twin visits to the region appear to have shaken India out of its complacence. It is not that Delhi has to exert itself too much to become a consequential power in the Southern Indian Ocean.

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The Indian Navy,after all,has had a long association with the Coast Guards of Mauritius and Seychelles,helping them protect their vast exclusive economic zones.

Krishnas visit to the region is expected to begin the long overdue political integration of Indias expanding engagement with Mozambique,Mauritius and Seychelles 8212; the larger strategic goals in the Southern Indian Ocean.