Delhi’s balancing act in Western Indian Ocean

India’s Western Indian Ocean diplomacy may yet evolve into something more consequential. But for now, it remains more aspirational than strategic

India is quietly stepping up its maritime engagement with Africa. Earlier this month, the Indian Navy launched a new multinational exercise — the Africa-India Key Maritime Engagement (AIKEYME) — off the coast of Tanzania, involving navies from 10 African countries. Around the same time, INS Sunayna — designated the Indian Ocean Ship (IOS) Sagar — set sail on a month-long deployment through the Western Indian Ocean, carrying a mixed crew of Indian and African personnel. Both moves are part of a wider push by New Delhi to expand its maritime footprint, burnish its credentials as a regional security provider, and cultivate deeper defence ties with Africa. 

Maritime diplomacy is resource-intensive. Deploying ships, hosting joint exercises, and offering training programmes may look impressive on paper, but they demand considerable time, funding, and logistical commitment

The symbolism behind these gestures is hard to miss. The AIKEYME exercise and IOS Sagar demonstrate India’s ambition to become the “preferred security partner” in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). They embody not only Prime Minister Modi’s vision for Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) but also the recently articulated MAHASAGAR framework — an effort to institutionalise regional maritime partnerships and assert India’s leadership in the Global South. The presence of sailors from Mauritius, Seychelles, Kenya, Mozambique, and others aboard IOS Sagar lends credence to the idea that India is not working in isolation but in partnership. 

India’s moves also point to a maturing maritime strategy. At a time when Indian Ocean dynamics are growing more complex — shaped by both traditional security concerns and non-traditional challenges like piracy, trafficking, and climate-related disruptions — New Delhi is advancing a message of solidarity, shared awareness of maritime threats, and a willingness to offer its naval experience. Beyond asserting itself as a maritime power of consequence, it is making a bid for influence through cooperation, sustained presence, and normative leadership. 

Yet, symbolism and strategic return do not always align neatly. Beneath this part-military, part-diplomatic endeavour lies a more difficult question: To what end is this effort directed? Is it truly about fostering African maritime capacity, or is it, in large part, shaped by India’s anxiety over China’s expanding footprint in the Western Indian Ocean? Beijing’s naval and commercial presence along Africa’s eastern coast has surged—not only through port construction and infrastructure but also via regular naval deployments and joint exercises. Its Peace and Security” drills with Tanzania and Mozambique in 2024, which involved Chinese warships and marines operating alongside African militaries, signalled deepening strategic ties. These very countries are now the targets of India’s outreach. Even so, China retains the advantage of scale, sustained investment, and an already entrenched presence. India, by contrast, is still playing catch-up. 

India’s maritime engagement with Africa, then, is also an attempt to offer alternatives — to reassure African states that it can serve as a viable partner and a soft counterbalance to Chinese influence. Even so, the ground realities are more ambivalent. African nations are not seeking ideological alignment or geopolitical affiliation; they are looking for pragmatic partnerships that deliver infrastructure, investment, and trade. In that calculus, China’s consistency in offering tangible outcomes continues to give it a comparative edge. India, for all its diplomatic finesse, does not yet possess the financial capacity or institutional architecture to match that scale of engagement. 

This gap becomes even more evident when set against India’s own strategic self-perception. The notion of India as a “first responder” or “net security provider”— frequently echoed in New Delhi’s strategic discourse— is not always mirrored in how African states view its role. Many remain cautious of India’s intentions and wary of being drawn into another version of great power competition. Even in countries with longstanding ties, such as Mauritius and Seychelles, Indian-backed infrastructure projects have, at times, provoked political backlash and stirred suspicions of strategic overreach. 

There is also the question of sustainability. Maritime diplomacy is resource-intensive. Deploying ships, hosting joint exercises, and offering training programmes may look impressive on paper, but they demand considerable time, funding, and logistical commitment. For a navy already balancing operations across the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and the wider Indo-Pacific, this western outreach risks stretching capacity. The danger is that such engagements become ritualistic — repeated for continuity’s sake rather than driven by clear strategic purpose. 

This is not to suggest that India should pull back. On the contrary, there is genuine value in deepening ties with African littoral states — building trust, fostering interoperability, and helping shape norms for responsible maritime behaviour. But the effort must be grounded in realism, not rhetoric. India cannot — and should not — seek to replicate China’s model of engagement. It lacks the centralised financing, corporate depth, and infrastructure machinery to compete on those terms. What it can do is partner smartly — with Japan, the European Union, Gulf states, and even the US — to create cooperative frameworks that offer meaningful, if more modest, alternatives for African development and maritime security. 

The more pressing risk is that India might be mistaking activity for influence. Its growing visibility in African maritime affairs may satisfy domestic narratives and external optics, but visibility alone does not yield lasting strategic depth. Presence is not power unless backed by delivery, consistency, and trust. Similarly, rhetoric around Global South solidarity, though emotionally resonant, must be matched by tangible agency. India’s push for regional leadership still outpaces the economic and institutional foundations needed to sustain it.  

India’s Western Indian Ocean diplomacy may yet evolve into something more consequential. But for now, it remains more aspirational than strategic. Delhi knows the region is getting crowded. It should also know that presence alone won’t shape outcomes. 

Abhijit Singh is the former head of the maritime policy initiative at ORF, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal