Opinion Modi’s MAHASAGAR: India’s big bet on maritime power and the Global South

Mauritius is a good example of how the 2015 SAGAR vision has been progressively realised. In recent years, India has provided valuable assistance to the island nation. In April 2020, a massive oil spill near Mauritius threatened local environmental security, and India airlifted technical equipment and personnel as a first responder. During the Covid pandemic, Indian naval ships carried life-saving vaccines and medicines to Mauritius. In December 2024, when Cyclone Chido devastated the region, India was quick to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Geography endows nations with distinctive maritime attributes, and island nations acquire a strategic relevance for major powers. In the colonial era, Great Britain consolidated its position through its maritime/naval perspicacity by acquiring and investing in certain islands, as did France, while Germany struggled to bolster its maritime power.

In the current era, major powers are looking at island states with renewed strategic interest. In the IOR, where France and the US are resident powers due to their presence in Réunion and Diego Garcia respectively, China is knocking on the door through the Belt and Road Initiative. Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Djibouti are illustrative of the growing Chinese footprint, which is a combination of economic, trade, and military initiatives.

Modi’s MAHASAGAR vision is commendable. Mauritius can be a very effective bridge to the wider Global South. Capacity building with other smaller states in areas such as MDA (maritime domain awareness) and curbing illegal activities at sea are low-hanging fruit, and India can offer niche partnerships regionally with Port Louis in the lead.

In the current US-triggered geopolitical churn, medium and smaller powers are looking for proven competence, credibility, and long-term empathy from the major powers. China has been perceived as a substantive donor but rapacious and unrelenting when it comes to repayment, and both Sri Lanka and Pakistan have had less than satisfactory experiences with Beijing. The US, with Donald Trump at the helm, is now becoming a more transactional power, and its severest critics have termed the new Washington an extortionist power.

Within the larger Indo-Pacific region, India, in contrast, is seen as a relatively more benign partner, and the maritime domain offers some opportunities that Delhi can pursue over the long term. Modi’s maritime vision — first SAGAR and now MAHASAGAR — are innovative and welcome policy initiatives, and they will have to be harmonised with the objectives of the Quad, which brings the US, Australia, Japan, and India together.

However, while Modi’s vision is laudable, the implementation of such policies has been below par without a doctrinal underpinning. Insufficient bench strength and inadequate monitoring have bedevilled many major policies over the last decade. An objective assessment of SAGAR could provide a valuable reality check on how to realise MAHASAGAR.

The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies