India’s IOS Sagar initiative represents a bold experiment in building a navy of neighbours, embedding regional personnel into Indian deployments to foster interoperability and shared maritime governance, wrote Shantanu Roy-Chaudhury. 

Its success will depend on consistency, inclusivity, and India’s ability to balance strategic ambition with regional ownership.

An Indian warship sailed from Mumbai last month carrying 38 personnel from 16 countries alongside its Indian crew, marking the second edition of the Indian Ocean Ship (IOS) Sagar initiative. The deployment spans the Maldives, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, reflecting India’s intent to intensify regional outreach.

This initiative, launched in 2025, aims to create a shared operational platform where the crew itself is a multilateral formation, moving beyond symbolic gestures to practical cooperation.

Preparatory training was conducted at Indian naval establishments in Kochi under the Southern Command. Here, participants were introduced to seamanship practices, maritime security concepts and naval operations, alongside standardised communication procedures and safety protocols.

This training ensured that the multinational crew could operate as a cohesive unit during the deployment, embedding interoperability in daily routines rather than limiting cooperation to joint communiqués.

The Indian Navy benefits from exposure to diverse practices. Singapore’s heavy automation in ship management and Sri Lanka’s proficiency in visit, board, search and seizure strategies are examples of knowledge transfer. Unlike “sea rider” models where foreign observers remain peripheral, IOS Sagar integrates foreign personnel into shipboard operations, creating genuine operational familiarity.

India’s intensified Southeast Asian engagement is both a response to China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific and a recognition of Southeast Asia’s pivotal role in regional geopolitics. The designation of 2026 as the ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation underscores this priority. 

China’s naval presence in the Indian Ocean has expanded, with frequent research vessel deployments and deepening defence partnerships across ASEAN. India’s counter-strategy has focused on accumulating presence, deepening familiarity, and building practical interoperability with regional navies.

Exercises have evolved into complex collaborations covering anti-submarine warfare, maritime domain awareness, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

IOS Sagar also aligns with India’s broader outreach to the Global South under the MAHASAGAR initiative announced in Mauritius in March 2025. Its focus on exclusive economic zone surveillance, counter-trafficking, illegal fishing, and disaster response resonates with the functional maritime challenges prioritised by smaller Indian Ocean and ASEAN states.

This orientation distinguishes India’s value proposition from other major powers, offering capacity-building and institutional engagement without alliance obligations or ideological conditions.

Yet challenges remain. The economic dimension is India’s most glaring gap. Structural imbalances in trade and investment flows limit the sustainability of India’s influence compared to China’s comprehensive economic engagement. Maritime cooperation alone cannot substitute for the economic density that underpins durable strategic partnerships.

Moreover, the 16 nations participating in IOS Sagar are not a cohesive bloc. They include states with substantial ties to China, those navigating territorial disputes, and others whose maritime priorities are developmental. Sustaining participation will require responsiveness to this diversity rather than consolidation around a narrow strategic agenda.

The long-term credibility of IOS Sagar will rest not only on India’s consistency of commitment but also on its willingness to share ownership. Rotating co-leadership among partner navies could signal that IOS Sagar is a regional institution rather than an Indian project.

Such inclusivity would strengthen its legitimacy and durability, ensuring that it serves regional maritime governance as much as New Delhi’s strategic objectives.

This story originally appeared on The Interpreter, published by the Lowy Institute for International Policy. The piece has been since edited as per IDN policies.