Modi Stringing up Indian Sagar Mala

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s current foreign visit forcefully underscores the importance of the Indian Ocean for the country’s interests. India is making a determined bid to secure its sphere of influence to counter the growing role of China. A “strong grouping around the Indian Ocean” is an idea whose time has come. Plans have been firmed up to develop strategic infrastructural assets in Mauritius and Seychelles. This may not match the Chinese maritime silk route initiative, but is a bold beginning, nevertheless.

The Indian Ocean is where the rivalry between India and China is the most intense due to the imperatives of energy security. India’s stakes in this regard are perhaps higher, as 80 per cent of its imported oil transits through the Straits of Hormuz. Its overall import-dependence is expected to go up to 90 per cent by 2020 and it’s likely to be the world’s largest oil importer by 2050.Ensuring an unhindered flow of oil, thus, is a matter of utmost strategic importance for sustaining its economic growth. Trade with the Indian Ocean countries also constitutes around 40 per cent of India’s total trade.

The Indian Ocean region has the two biggest choke points of world commerce in oil. Forty per cent of the sea-borne crude passes through the Strait of Hormuz at one end and 50 per cent of the world’s merchant fleet is hosted at the Strait of Malacca at the other end – making this region the “globe’s busiest and most important interstate” according to Robert Kaplan in his book, ‘Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power’.

China also has an insatiable appetite for oil and gas, supplies of which have to traverse these two choke points of the Indian Ocean.Given Sri Lanka’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean, it is imperative that India exert its influence to rebalance the island nation away from China’s embrace. What could be a game changer from the Modi visit would be moves to ink a comprehensive economic partnership agreement to clear the decks for burgeoning bilateral trade. Interestingly, local industry in Sri Lanka seeks deeper economic ties with India. We should respond accordingly.

To enhance energy security, India is planning to renew discussions with Oman for an undersea pipeline to transport natural gas. The project would be a technological breakthrough, as it entails laying pipes at depths of 4,000 metres in certain places. India also imports a growing quantity of coal transported by sea from Mozambique, South Africa, Indonesia and Australia.

India-bound ships will also be ferrying vast quantities of liquefied petroleum gas across the western half of the Indian Ocean from southern Africa, even as it continues to import gas from Qatar, Malaysia and Indonesia.The geopolitics of the Indian Ocean region is a microcosm of larger global trends. There are countries that are developing rapidly and there are those that are on the verge of collapse.

By N Chandra Mohan