As INS Sunayna sails out of Karwar on 5 April 2025, it marks not just the commencement of another naval training exercise but the dawn of a strategically significant mission. Temporarily renamed IOS Sagar specifically for this initiative, the ship—staffed by naval personnel from nine Indian Ocean nations including Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania—embodies a decade’s worth of carefully calibrated maritime diplomacy under India’s SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) initiative, now evolving into MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security And Growth Across Regions). By the time this piece reaches readers, IOS Sagar will already be navigating towards East Africa, signalling India’s strategic outreach beyond immediate neighbours to deeper engagements across the vast Global South.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated India’s SAGAR policy in Mauritius back in March 2015, it represented a fundamental shift from India’s historically continental geopolitical mindset. SAGAR aimed to foster maritime stability, mutual trust, and shared prosperity through benign outreach and collaborative engagements, placing the Indian Ocean at the heart of India’s international diplomacy. A decade later, Modi revisited Mauritius in 2025, elevating SAGAR’s vision into MAHASAGAR—a broader diplomatic framework explicitly designed for comprehensive engagement with the entire Indo-Pacific rim, particularly Africa, a region crucial to India’s global strategic calculus.
The Indian Ocean Region (IOR), encompassing critical sea lanes through which much of the world’s energy supplies and trade pass, has grown increasingly significant geopolitically. The East African coast, strategically located along these vital maritime routes, has become an economic and security priority for global powers. This reality highlights the importance of initiatives like AIKEYME and MAHASAGAR, positioning India as a regional leader and a vital global stakeholder committed to safeguarding international maritime trade and ensuring stability in these crucial waters.
Hosting AIKEYME off Tanzania’s coast—India’s first naval exercise hosted entirely overseas—is a strategic choice. It reflects a nuanced understanding of maritime diplomacy, focusing not merely on securing India’s immediate maritime neighbourhood but actively strengthening partnerships with nations along East Africa’s geopolitically significant coastline. Countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Seychelles, and Mauritius, rich in natural resources and strategic maritime geography, have long been arenas of rivalry, particularly in the context of China’s expansive Belt and Road Initiative. AIKEYME thus projects India’s diplomatic strategy as an inclusive, cooperative alternative, promoting joint capacity-building, interoperability, and regional resilience against maritime threats.
AIKEYME’s comprehensive operational exercises are carefully designed to enhance practical maritime capabilities among participating nations. As per the planned schedule, these include Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations, seamanship evolutions, helicopter operations, information-sharing exercises, and search-and-rescue drills. These specific activities build tangible maritime competencies while fostering trust and mutual understanding—critical elements for sustained regional security cooperation.
Additionally, AIKEYME significantly strengthens maritime domain awareness (MDA) among participating countries. By collaboratively engaging in exercises such as joint Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) surveillance and information-sharing drills, partner nations enhance their collective ability to monitor and secure maritime boundaries against piracy, drug trafficking, illegal fishing, and other non-traditional security threats. Such cooperation reinforces regional maritime governance frameworks, underpinning collective security.
India’s maritime diplomacy has consistently integrated humanitarian and compassionate dimensions. Operation Brahma (2025), the swift naval-led humanitarian response to Myanmar’s devastating earthquake, reinforced India’s credentials as a reliable first responder. Swiftly dispatching warships, aircraft, and rescue teams, India showcased operational dexterity coupled with genuine humanitarian commitment. Earlier missions like Operation Samudra Setu during the Covid-19 pandemic, Operation Neer supplying water to the crisis-hit Maldives, and Mission SAGAR providing vaccine assistance to Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros, and Mauritius have reinforced India’s benign leadership and compassionate regional influence.
India’s approach contrasts distinctly with China’s transactional maritime diplomacy, frequently criticised by African nations for generating unsustainable debts, opaque contracts, and minimal transfer of skills or capacity-building. By comparison, India’s maritime engagements prioritise transparency, mutual benefit, empowerment, and genuine capacity-building. Consequently, African nations have increasingly welcomed India’s approach, appreciating tangible outcomes such as improved maritime surveillance capabilities, humanitarian assistance, and strengthened security infrastructure. Mozambique and Kenya’s public acknowledgements of India’s role in fortifying regional maritime security infrastructures exemplify this positive sentiment, reinforcing India’s reputation as a trusted and dependable partner.
As India’s maritime diplomacy continues to mature, opportunities remain to enhance the Navy’s capabilities to address increasingly frequent and geographically dispersed regional challenges. The Indian Navy stands poised to significantly benefit from investments in dedicated hospital ships, augmenting amphibious vessels’ modular humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) capabilities, and expanding strategic airlift capabilities already demonstrated effectively in operations such as Operation Brahma. Enhanced maritime surveillance capabilities, expanded information-sharing networks, and strategically placed logistics hubs across the Indian Ocean will further empower India to respond swiftly and effectively to humanitarian crises and regional security challenges, reinforcing its position as a reliable regional partner.
Institutionalising India’s maritime diplomacy through structured naval dialogues, increased joint exercises similar to AIKEYME, and sustained engagement with regional partners will help maintain diplomatic momentum. Expanding these initiatives in the future to potentially include West African nations and broader Indo-Pacific partners will also further enhance India’s diplomatic influence and operational reach.
Since 2017, the Indian Navy’s mission-based deployments have ensured consistent presence at strategic maritime chokepoints, significantly enhancing regional maritime security. Examples such as INS Kolkata’s daring rescue operation of the merchant vessel MV Ruen from pirates off Somalia and INS Sahyadri’s firefighting and salvage operations during the MT New Diamond incident off Sri Lanka underline India’s consistent readiness and effectiveness in regional emergencies.
Moreover, initiatives like the Information Fusion Centre—Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR), providing real-time maritime intelligence-sharing with partner nations, exemplify practical steps towards enhanced maritime governance. Strengthening such collaborative structures solidifies India’s credibility and transparency as a maritime leader.
As AIKEYME and MAHASAGAR shape the trajectory of India’s maritime diplomacy, India’s naval engagements reflect a compelling vision—one where humanitarian values seamlessly converge with strategic geopolitical interests, delivering mutual benefit rather than transactional advantage. Reflecting India’s ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (“the world is one family”), India’s maritime diplomacy embodies compassionate solidarity, positioning the nation not merely as a regional actor but as a globally influential maritime power.
As IOS Sagar continues its voyage towards East African shores, it symbolises a decisive step forward—a beacon of India’s maturing maritime diplomacy, defined not by mere ambition but by empathy, partnership, and shared prosperity across the Indian Ocean Region and beyond.
(Ashish Singh is an award-winning senior journalist with over 18 years of experience in defence & strategic affairs.)