Drawing on Mahan’s sea-power insights, the article examines India’s maritime security architecture built on three pillars: layered surveillance (marine police, Coast Guard, Navy), the Coastal Surveillance Network, and the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region. Launched in 2015, SAGAR prioritises port-led growth, disaster response, naval outreach, and blue-economy potential. MAHASAGAR, unveiled in Mauritius in 2025, expands this vision toward Global South leadership, deeper security cooperation, economic integration, and soft-power outreach to counter Chinese influence. Supporting elements include the Coast Guard’s enforcement role, the expanded Malabar exercises under the Quad, Radio Access Network technology for digital resilience, and the SAGARMALA port-modernisation programme. Persistent challenges—weak institutional mechanisms, regulatory mismatches, piracy, illegal fishing, and territorial disputes—underscore the need for stronger Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness.
Introduction
In his classic book entitled, “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History”, published in 1890, the author, Alfred Thayer Mahan, had argued that national greatness and wealth to a large extent depends on controlling the seas and in maintaining a strong and powerful navy. Key themes in Mahan’s writing includes envisaging a strong naval force, protection of national shipping and trade; control of communications and key waterways.
In the context of India, with its over 7,500 km of coastlines, and for securing 95 percent of trade volume carried through the seas, it is highly imperative for India to explore the potential of the Indian Ocean and the adjacent seas and have a more secure, dedicated maritime security strategy involving the marine police, Coast Guard, and Indian Navy and through regional cooperative frameworks like SAGAR and MAHASAGAR.
India’s key maritime security architecture rests on three pillars. The first one is a three-tier surveillance which includes marine police patrol in shallow waters of up to 12 nautical miles, the Indian Coast Guard managing the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) up to 200 nautical miles and the Indian Navy serving deep ocean and international waters. The second one is Coastal Surveillance Network (CSN) which integrates radar stations and Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders to track real time movements of naval vessels. And, the third one is the Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) by promoting collaboration and maritime domain awareness by sharing data with other international partners and littoral states.
Overall objective of India’s maritime security strategy include: managing strategic competition among rival powers in the IOR; mitigating risks from maritime terrorism, illegal arms and drugs smuggling and acts of piracy along critical sea lanes; addressing unregulated fishing and vulnerabilities of subsea communication cables, etc. It is against this backdrop that SAGAR and MAHASAGAR initiatives have to be understood.
SAGAR
SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region), is an important strategic and geopolitical flagship initiative that was launched by Prime minister Modi in 2015 for maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean. Under SAGAR, key target areas were identified as: focus on port-led development, modernisation of ports, enhancing coastal connectivity, and boosting the logistics factor. Second, rapid response deployments and humanitarian assistance by the Indian Navy during disaster management and pandemics such as Covid-19 and tsunami. And, third, under Sagar Parikrama, India made a firm commitment for operational and outreach programmes designed to build meaningful naval partnerships, training of maritime personnel and actively support coastal fishing countries. Through SAGAR, India wants to leverage blue economy potential through livelihood generation, achieving energy security, building ecological resilience, etc. India has a key advantage due to its vast oceanic resources such as renewable blue energy production originating from wind, wave, tidal, thermal and biomass, resource development from mining of sea bed mineral resources.
MAHASAGAR as an important Value Addition
During Prime minister Modi’s visit to Mauritius on 12 March 2025, he outlined an ambitious plan which would ensure India’s maritime security through MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement of Security and Growth Across Regions). This initiative is geared toward expanding India’s foray into Global South by encouraging trade, security cooperation, and sustainable development.
There was a perceptible shift in MAHASAGAR from maritime security to economic and geopolitical imperatives. Under this framework, India intends to assume a leadership role by developing a strategic coalition with like-minded partners among small island states. MAHASAGAR seeks to strengthen India’s maritime security agenda such as increase in the frequency of naval exercises, information sharing, defence collaboration, alignment of communication protocols, enhancing interoperability, surveillance of the Indian Ocean to prevent acts of piracy, and illegal fishing. It also has a wider goal toward economic integration and expansion of the blue economy.
India also is committed to enhance supply chain networks in the region which relies a great deal on Chinese footprint in the form of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Through capacity building and sustainable development and also by showcasing India’s soft power capabilities and exchanges in culture and education, India wants to be a viable partner and facilitator in disseminating its knowledge economy and expertise in various fields ranging from renewable energy, climate change, solar energy, skills development, digital connectivity, technology sharing, etc.
Role of India’s Coast Guard
The Indian Coast Guard protects India’s maritime zones and enforces sea laws under the Ministry of Defence. While sticking to its core vision of promoting maritime cooperation and capacity building, the Coast Guard supplements SAGAR and MAHASAGAR initiatives. It ensures maritime safety and security, enforcement of maritime law, protection of off-shore installations, guarding oil rigs terminals off-shore, maintaining marine ecology and biodiversity, supporting the India Navy during times of War or conflict situation.
Malabar Exercise, RAN Technology and Sagarmala
Malabar Exercise, that started out as a bilateral naval exercise between India and US in 1992, has transformed into an annual military comprehensive military drill involving four countries of QUAD (quadrilateral initiative): India, Japan (joined in 2015), USA, and Australia (joined in 2020). Core objectives of Malabar Exercise have been: improving naval coordination, boosting tactical interoperability, maintaining free and open Indo-Pacific, developing anti-submarine workforce, and facilitating training facilities for surface combat operations and gunnery drills. Apart from it, under Malabar Exercise, the participating countries including India within the gambit of rule-based international order, conducted joint fleet operations, airborne maritime missions and coordinated maritime operations.
Radio Access Network (RAN) technology is a major component of mobile telecommunication infrastructure that facilitates the wireless connection between end-user devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops, IOT sensors and connecting it to the core network using radio waves. In its modern evolution, RAN technology has shifted towards Cloud RAN (C-RAN) and Open RAN for greater sustainable virtualisation, and thus insuring costs efficiency, greater scalability, quicker management and AI-driven optimisation. RAN can be particularly useful in the niche areas of emerging and critical technologies and digital communications. India is actively contributing to improving underwater cable systems through partnership with Quad for cable connectivity and resilience. These underwater cable networks are essential in protecting digital communication in the region and for further reinforcement of its security maintenance.
Sagarmala, which means “a garland of the sea” was launched in 2015. It is India’s ambitious port-led development initiative managed by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways. It leverages 7,517 km coastline to modernise ports, enhance logistics, and boost the coastal economy. Core focus areas of Sagarmala have been: port modernisation by upgradation of major and minor ports to expanding cargo capacity; enhance connectivity through building better road, rail and inland waterway links to the hinterland; port-led industrialisation by setting up Coastal Economic Zones (CEZs) and maritime clusters for the purpose of minimising transport costs for raw materials and exports; and Coastal Community Development by creating sustainable livelihoods and modern infrastructure. Plans are also afoot to upgrade Sagarmala to Sagarmala2.0 by emphasising upon green technologies, sustainable maritime infrastructure, shipbuilding, and digital innovation initiatives.
Challenges and Future Directions
There are onerous challenges to India’s maritime security strategy. It includes: lack of formal institutional mechanisms for implementing India’s sustainable maritime agenda with a concerted long-term planning, differing regulatory mechanism between India and other nearby littoral states in the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, territorial disputes among littoral countries both maritime and continental, maritime piracy, illegal fishing, organised crime, human trafficking, arms trafficking, narcotics and ecological concerns, etc. The future direction of India’s maritime security points to a more robust PMDA (Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness) that can provide real time information of situational awareness by gathering valuable data about weather, ship locations, and movement of ocean traffic; response awareness by curbing acts like piracy, smuggling and unauthorised ship movements and in creating threat awareness through fast tracking of rescue naval boats and patrols in an emergency situation.
Frameworks alone will not secure India’s maritime future. SAGAR and MAHASAGAR have painted an ambitious vision of security, growth, and regional leadership, yet the real test lies in execution. India must move decisively beyond declarations—strengthening institutions, closing capability gaps, aligning partners, and delivering tangible results on every promise. Only then will these initiatives transform from strategic rhetoric into lasting maritime power.
The writer is former Director of Research; Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, India
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