In 1885, just over two decades after the Meiji Restoration, the Imperial Japanese Navy coined a term, Kaikoku Nippon which meant Maritime Japan. It was a movement to create catalysts for all round maritime progress for a fundamentally maritime nation. While the Japanese Navy germinated the intellectual seeds, it was the Japanese government that watered and nurtured the “whole of nation” momentum that made it a nation that arrived on the world scene. Kaikoku Nippon was a slogan that harnessed ambition and purpose for gains in several areas. It resulted in Japan building more ships, some naval but mostly merchant vessels. It modernised cargo handling and ship turn-around in existing ports and created many new ones. It created the foundations of skill development, technical and engineering education, that impacted upon and synergised railways, shipbuilding, steel, and machine tools as well as machinery. It created the internal growth of railways and later, of roads as motor transport appeared on the world scene in the early 19th century.
In comparison, as a nation, even if in 1947, we did “awake to life and freedom”, we took far longer to begin the voyage of achieving India’s maritime destiny. In a sense, the decision to do so, as a whole of government approach came to fruition with the first “Maritime India” Summit at Mumbai in April last year. The impetus to Sagarmala Project, along with the very idea of “SAGAR” (Security and Growth for All in the Region) can now begin creating a truly beneficial Indian Ocean regional environment. The two key words, “Security and Growth” are profoundly inter-linked, mutually dependent, and mutually reinforcing. The linkage between Security and Growth brings into the discussion Navies and Coastguards and equivalent maritime security agencies of nations in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). As can be appreciated, trade routes on the sea generally enjoy the freedom of navigation. Yet, the passage itself is subject to many threats and risks. Some risks and threats arise from the vagaries of nature itself; storms, cyclones, earthquakes and sometimes even devastating tsunami. Noone can forget the Dec 2004 upheaval caused by a cruel earthquake off Indonesia, on the Eastern extremity of the Indian Ocean, that carried in its powerful upwelling, a wave that caused destruction thousands of miles away on the coast of Somalia at the Western extremity of the same ocean. As nature and geographers conspired to define the spread of the Indian Ocean, the destruction along India’s coasts and in the Andaman Islands as well as in many areas of Sri Lanka united us all in a shared tragedy and in shared resources for helping each other get back to life and work. At the centre of the mammoth relief and rescue effort, was the Indian Navy (IN), with the Indian Army and Air Force and the Coast Guard standing shoulder to shoulder. Someday, HADR may have to deal with consequences of climate change directly.
Natural disasters and the humanitarian relief that follows (HADR, in military parlance) require national capacities and capabilities that are then cooperatively put into action along with the affected nation’s/ region’s instruments in a cooperative effort. This is something that Indian Armed Forces are demonstrably capable of. With the medium of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), there are regular exercises and workshops where these mechanisms are tuned. This is one way, albeit a very important one, in which human security is ensured through relief; affected ports are opened; people are helped to re-establish their livelihoods.
Security and Growth are also linked to the other threats to freedom of commerce flows upon the seas. This threat is of piracy. Just like terrorism, piracy often has the backing of some states, of interest groups, of financiers. It is a direct threat and risk to international trade. In the past decade-plus, the scourge of piracy has reduced in a maritime region around the Horn of Africa (HOA). In achieving this, there were and are multiple international, and other cooperative efforts through various mechanisms. The Indian Navy has played a most central role in rolling back piracy. In several incidents in the HOA, IN ships specially deployed, or others who were in the area, have thwarted quite a few incidents. Some resulted in the neutralisation of pirates. Even more so, it was in the waters West of the Lakshadweep islands that the IN and the ICG acted robustly in multiple operations leading to the capture of more than a hundred pirates. In the aftermath of the heinous, Pakistan- supported terror attacks on Mumbai, the growth engine of India, the IN and ICG have been at the forefront of ensuring coastal security. As a silent Maritime Services, the IN and ICG inarguably ensured both Security and Growth even before the SAGAR acronym was created. Navies have traditionally done this for centuries in the symbiotic relationship between Flag and Trade, Trade and Flag.
However, there is a larger risk to growth and security that requires navies such as ours to be equipped, trained and deployed not only in defence of India’s national interests but also those of our friends in the region. A navy is primarily raised for conflict and war. At the same time, its most important role is as a guarantor of peace, an assurer of freedom of the seas, a provider of security to friends in time of war or under other dangerous situations. An instrument created for war works through dissuasion and deterrence. Should dissuasion not work, or deterrence collapse, then the Indian Navy will step actively into its role given that India itself is a net security provider in the IOR.
On the contrary, if we cast our eyes on what is happening in the South and East China Seas, a different picture emerges. An economically powerful China is expanding its influence with a new, oriental “trident” of economic muscle, rising military- maritime power and geopolitical leverage. It is altering the maritime geography of the region through claims of which some are unsustainable, and others questionable at best. Almost all littoral nations, with relatively lesser power and leverages, are very concerned about the very uneasy environment. Much of what China is engaged in, de facto, is perceived as a risk to freedom of the seas not only by those smaller nations abutting these seas, but also countries which are geographically at a distance, but still intimate users of those seas. India is one of them, and several have been the occasions when our senior-most political leaders have expressed concerns about such risks
We will always do well to remember that 30 percent of India’s trade flows through the South China Seas. As Programme SAGAR,(in terms of domestic manufacturing, better roads, efficient ports, hopefully, a resurgent Indian merchant fleet built in India and flying the Indian flag), acquires traction, certainly the quantum of trade passing through the SCS, and perhaps even the proportion could increase. In turn. Meanwhile, many SE and East Asian nations are concerned about risks to their Security and to their Growth. Chinese actions, their posturing, their aggressiveness in the SCS seem to be the very antithesis of what SAGAR is about in the IOR. A looming concern is the beginnings of Chinese maritime initiatives in the IOR which, while perhaps superficially attractive, could be double-edged swords for some of the littoral nations. Clearly, these steps are a concern for India. These are concerns that could grow even more serious in years to come.
Thus, the future both beckons us who live in the many nations that fringe the Indian Ocean for shared prosperity and Growth as well as cautions us towards adopting more pragmatic approaches to regional, cooperative Security mechanisms.
The future could provide a framework in which a Pax Indica named more after the eponymous large ocean whose waves touch so many shores rather than just the country that bears the name. In its noble endeavour to address Security and Growth, SAGAR within the Hind Mahasagar, an effective, strong and friendly Indian Navy, along with sister services shall always remain ready.
