The 23 rd Council of Ministers (COM) and the 25 th Committee of Senior Officials of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 11 October 2023. During this meeting Sri Lanka assumed the role of the Chair of the IORA for the period 2023-25, while India became the Vice-Chair. India will assume the role of the Chair from 2025 to 2027.

Speaking at the IORA meeting, India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar described India as ‘Vishwa Mitra’, a global friend. This description resonates with the concept of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, i.e. “the whole world is a family”, which is a major guiding force of India’s current foreign policy.

Dr. Jaishankar reiterated India’s commitment to the Global South. He also warned the IORA member countries to steer clear of the dangers of hidden agenda in unviable and unsustainable projects. This was an apparent reference to China and its debt-trap diplomacy that has caused economic distress to a number of smaller countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Dr. Jaishankar’s speech at the IORA outlined India’s policy towards the Indian Ocean Region from three perspectives.

First, Dr. Jaishankar spoke about working with the IORA member states towards strengthening the institutional, financial and legal mechanisms of the grouping for its effective functioning. There are several aspects to this statement. One, it is parallel to India’s call for strong institutional mechanisms at global and regional levels. India’s advocacy of multilateralism, particularly in the Indo-Pacific Region, is based on creation and maintaining effective institutional mechanisms. Two, in continuation of the first point, it calls for a democratic system of functioning of the grouping where interests of all the stakeholders are protected. Three, a dynamic institutional mechanism would also imply inclusivity where all the member countries, irrespective of their size and economic capabilities, would have a voice in the running of this grouping.

Second, India could look to build upon its interactions with the African countries that are members of the IORA. India has accelerated its engagements with African countries in the past decade. Africa has remained a relatively lesser focused entity in India’s foreign policy. India is now addressing this issue through the prism of navigating in the Indo-Pacific Region in general and Indian Ocean Region in particular.

Specific to the Indian Ocean Region, the past few months have seen India engaging closely with IORA members Tanzania and Mozambique at bilateral and plurilateral levels. Earlier this year External Affairs Minister Dr. Jaishankar visited Mozambique in April and Tanzania in July 2023.  

Prior to these engagements India participated in a trilateral naval exercise with Mozambique and Tanzania in October 2022. While defence cooperation has emerged as a cornerstone of India’s interactions with the African countries, India has been mindful of the African countries’ need for development. Along with the defence ties, India has stepped up cooperation with African countries in the areas of economy and capacity building. As regards to Tanzania and Mozambique; India contributing to their infrastructure development and capacity building. In Mozambique, India is engaged in development of railway transport along with cooperating in health and agriculture sectors while the Indian Institute of Technology will set up a campus in Tanzania.

Third, the IORA is another platform for India to work closely with Sri Lanka, the chair of the grouping. The India-Sri Lanka relations have been in a flux since past decade. With the emergence of the construct of Indo-Pacific Region, India’s ties with Sri Lanka have shifted from being only neighbouring South Asian countries to two countries trying to leverage their respective positions in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Region. Despite Sri Lanka’s proximity to China, India has always been the first responder to its southern neighbour during the time of crisis. As Sri Lanka faced economic crisis starting 2021, Chinese debt-diplomacy being one of the reasons, India had provided economic assistance along with ensuring steady supply of food, medicines and fuel. For its part Sri Lanka would do well to learn from its own experience and cooperate with India to promote equitable and mutually beneficial developmental projects among the member countries of the IORA.

India will remain in the senior leadership positions effectively for the next four years. It would allow India to engage more closely with the members of the IORA and in turn IORA could be a platform for India to implement its vision of the Indian Ocean Region. India’s engagements with the IORA countries could be a template for the other countries to follow for effective working of this organization.

Mr. Niranjan Marjani is a political analyst and researcher based in Vadodara, India.