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The strategic importance of IOR is ever increasing to the world order in general and Indian sub-continent in particular.

What is IOR?

The IOR broadly defines areas consisting of littoral states of the Indian Ocean.
IOR comprises a number of sub-regions, such as Australia, South East Asia, South Asia, Horn of Africa and the Southern and Eastern Africa.
It is marked by a glaring cultural, social, political and economic diversity.

Significance of IOR

Biggest market: The IOR littorals house more than one-third of world’s population.
Trade significance: In addition, more than half of the global seaborne trade and commerce passes through the Indian Ocean out of which, almost 70 per cent goes to countries external to the region.
Rich in natural resources: The IOR littoral states are rich in producing various raw materials, primarily oil, which are key to development of major manufacturing industries of developed as well as developing nations.
Ample marine resources: Complementary to this is the enormous seabed resources possessed by IOR comprising oil and natural gas reserves, minerals and abundance of fishes.
Maritime choke-points: The presence of major maritime choke points and Sea Lanes of Communications (SLOCs) in the IOR lends it a strategic importance of gigantic magnitude.

Geo-Strategic Importance of IOR to India

India is at the centre: India’s central position in the IOR gives her an immense advantage and at the same time presents far greater challenges.
Energy Security: Taking into account the total oil imports by sea, offshore oil production and petroleum exports, the country’s cumulative ‘sea dependence’ for oil is estimated to be about 93 per cent.
Dependence on seas: Today, almost 95 per cent of India’s trade by volume and 68 per cent of trade by value are routed via the Indian Ocean.
Fishing and aquaculture: India depends heavily on Indian Ocean resources with her fishing and aquaculture industries being a major source of export as well as providing employment to more than 14 million people.
Huge maritime boundary: Militarily, the presence of such long coastline makes India vulnerable to potential threats emerging from the sea.
Hostile neighborhood: One of the worst terrorist attacks on India in recent memory – the 2008 Mumbai attack – was perpetrated by terrorists arriving by sea.
Unforeseen and non-conventional threats: The presence of non-traditional threats like piracy, smuggling, illegal fishing and human trafficking also present major challenges and hence, a secure Indian Ocean is key to securing India’s national interests.

Net Security Provider: To Be or Not to Be

Peaceful seas: India has been fortunate to have experienced largely peaceful seas for past several decades.
Conventional threats: The threats were mostly non-traditional like piracy, drug trafficking, IUU (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated) fishing and human trafficking to name a few.

Reasons to take up the role

Obligation for the West: The acceptance of this role, as net security provider, has now become a strategic obligation rather than a matter of choice.
US internal crisis: Amidst a turbulent global economic environment marred by industrial recession in European block and a looming threat of trade wars between China and US.
Wisdom of Responsibility: India has been acknowledged as the emerging global power in the international arena. This acknowledgement brings with itself, a commensurate level of international responsibility.
Void in capability: considering the perceptible void in the existing capability, the ongoing internal debate echoes in the remarks made by India’s former NSA, Mr Shiv Shankar Menon, when he said, “There is a demand that India be a net provider of security and we need to take a call on that”.

IOR Threat Mosaic: From Indian Prism

A quick scan over the IOR brings forth challenges of varied dimensions from India’s perspective. Critical of these areas under:

Growing PLAN Presence: Chinese presence on theports like Gwadar, Hambantota, Djibouti to name a few, in guise of maritime Silk Road needs no elaboration.
Modernisation of Pakistan Navy (PN): PN has embarked upon a rapid modernisation process with thrust on Undersea Warfare garnering assistance from Turkey and her all-weather friend China.
Shifting US Policy: US policies, since Trump, have seen stark deviation from her erstwhile policies on Indo-Pacific Region (IPR).
Non-traditional Threats: The challenges from non-state forces to include, piracy, maritime terrorism, drug trafficking, illicit weapons trafficking, illegal migrants, poaching etc. as well as, vagaries of climate change falls within the ambit of non-traditional threat spectrum of conflict..

Impediments to India Becoming a Net Security Provider

Resource Availability vs. Requirement: The inglorious status of India as the second most populated country in the world with finite resources can muster in the present era of global downtrend.
Financial capabilities: Intents cannot be materialised into reality without a robust financial backing. Achieving the status of net security provider calls for manifold increase in existing military hardware.
Existing Civil-Military Relationship: There have been numerous instances of missing out on strategic gains due to differing views of various ministries as well as between civil and military leadership.
Nascent Jointmanship: Turf war between three Services has not helped the vision of jointsmanship required for India achieving the status of net security provider.
Non-alignment Policy: India has ideologically followed the principle of military non-alignment with any super power so as to retain its strategic autonomy.
Primacy of Land Operations: India has been persistently focused on dealing with its land boundary with China and Pakistan, and her full-fledged participation in ongoing proxy war.

Various steps taken

Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and naval exercise MILAN have been a few welcome steps by India in manifesting a coherent strategic intent.
This has been further augmented by initiatives like Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), project MAUSAM and the proposed Asia-Africa Growth Corridor.
There is an increased participation of Indian Navy in bilateral / multilateral naval exercises and CORPAT (Coordinated Patrol) with Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
India is already involved in training of naval personnel from various IOR nations as part of exchange programmes.
Further, India has also been supplying naval assets to countries like Mauritius, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Seychelles.

Way Forward

Formulation of a National Defence Policy: It is a miraculous paradox that India, a growing regional power and an aspirant global power, doesn’t have a National Defence Policy.
Coherent IOR Strategy: India needs to formulate and adhere to a coherent IOR strategy involving complementary intents and actions in dealing with IOR nations.
Strategic Development of Islands: The world miraculously watched the Chinese expertise in dredging and creating small islets. God’s grace, we have the Andaman, Nicobar and the Lakshadweep Islands.
Capability Enhancement of IOR Nations: A thrust on capability enhancement of IOR nations, particularly their respective navies, would accrue immense benefit for the entire IOR.
Capability Development and Technical Upgradation: When it comes to indigenisation, the IN has gone way ahead vis-à-vis other two Services i.e. army and air force.

Conclusion

Indian core values of mutual respect and peaceful co-existence generate immense goodwill and inspire confidence in the entire IOR.
The smaller nations of the IOR have recognized the genuine intent of the Indian Navy in ensuring freedom of navigation and use of global waters as per existing International Laws.
However, this intent needs to be firmly backed by a matching capability and a clearly spelt-out strategy.
In the absence of the same, it would be a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ India would find itself struggling to secure its own maritime (and in turn, national) interests.