India’s Act East policy: strategic implications for the Indian Ocean

ABSTRACT

Since the Modi government came to power in June 2014, it has invested diplomatic capital in announcing the transformation of India’s ‘Look East’ policy into a new ‘Act East’ policy. While this new semantics has mostly involved a few nuances and adjustments – rather than a drastic change – in India’s strategic posture, it is nevertheless interesting to analyze the implications of the ‘Act East’ policy for the Indian Ocean Region, and more specifically for its Eastern part – the Bay of Bengal. In this respect, the article shows that India’s ‘Act East’ policy has led to its growing involvement in the Bay of Bengal, especially in the field of maritime affairs. It has also led India to acknowledge its security responsibilities. More generally, India’s recent advances in maritime domain awareness, its interests in enhancing joint patrols and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) cooperation, as well as its efforts to contribute to the maritime security of its neighbors, including through weapon transfers, reflect that India is in a nascent positioning as a net security provider, or at least is in an attempt to progress along that line.

KEYWORDS:

• Look East policy
• Act East policy
• Bay of Bengal
• South China Sea
• Indian Navy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Isabelle Saint-Mézard is a Senior Lecturer at the French Institute of Geopolitics of Paris 8 University, and an Associate Research Fellow with the Ifri (Institut français des relations Internationales) Center for Asian Studies. Her research focuses on the geopolitics of South Asia with a particular focus on strategic and security issues in India.

Notes

1. India fully abode by the July 2014 verdict of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, even though it tilted in Bangladesh’s favour.

2. India recently gave a Dornier surveillance aircraft to Seychelles and delivered an Indian-made offshore patrol vessel to Mauritius.

3. The IMAC project was actually launched in 2012 by the Manmohan Singh government. It can be seen as a direct consequence of the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Following these attacks, the Singh government took a number of policy initiatives between 2009 and 2012 to strengthen India’s maritime surveillance capabilities.

4. The service line departs every fortnight from Chennai and travels to Krishnapatnam, Yangon and Colombo before returning to Chennai.

5. On this occasion, India deployed six ships and seven aircrafts, including at Subang airbase in Malaysia, to help in the search campaign across the Bay of Bengal.