Nearly a decade ago, during a visit to Mauritius, Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated a maritime vision that would come to frame India’s engagement with the Indian Ocean: the SAGAR Doctrine, Security and Growth for All in the Region. At the time, it appeared as an aspirational formulation. Today, amid intensifying great-power rivalry, expanding Chinese naval presence, and fragile sea-lane security, SAGAR demands reassessment not as rhetoric, but as strategy. The Indian Ocean is no longer a peripheral theatre in global politics.

It carries the bulk of global energy flows, sustains critical trade arteries, and hosts an expanding military footprint. For India, nearly 90 per cent of trade by volume transits by sea. Maritime stability is therefore not optional; it is existential. The central question, ten years on, is whether SAGAR has evolved from diplomatic slogan to coherent maritime architecture. At its core, SAGAR envisioned cooperative security, capacity building for littoral states, humanitarian assistance, and the promotion of the blue economy.

It signaled India’s intent to act as a net security provider in its immediate maritime neighbourhood. Operationally, there have been tangible gains. The Indian Navy has expanded mission-based deployments, strengthened coastal surveillance networks across island states, and responded rapidly to humanitarian crises, from cyclones to evacuation missions. India’s vaccine outreach during the pandemic further demonstrated maritime logistics capability aligned with regional goodwill.

Yet implementation remains uneven. Unlike major maritime powers that anchor strategy in publicly articulated doctrine, India has not produced a comprehensive maritime white paper consolidating SAGAR’s objectives, institutional responsibilities, and resource commitments. Instead, maritime policy is dispersed across ministries such as External Affairs, Defense, Shipping, and Commerce, often without a central coordinating mechanism. Strategic coherence requires more than naval deployments; it requires institutional alignment. The geopolitical environment has also evolved faster than SAGAR’s institutionalization.

China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean, through port infrastructure, logistics agre ements, and expanding deployments of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, has altered the regional balance. The expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative across littoral states underscores that infrastructure diplomacy is inseparable from strategic competition. In this context, cooperative security must coexist with competitive realism. Moreover, India’s maritime discourse remains underdeveloped domestically. Public and parliamentary debate continues to prioritize continental threats, while maritime security is treated as episodic and invoked during crises but rarely sustained as a strategic priority.

If SAGAR is to mature into doctrine, maritime thinking must move from the margins to the centre of national security planning. Three areas require urgent attention. First, institutional consolidation. A formal maritime strategy document would clarify objectives, define inter-ministerial coordination, and signal long-term commitment to regional partners. Strategic ambiguity may serve short-term flexibility, but durable leadership demands clarity. Second, strengthening maritime domain awareness and force posture. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands remain under-leveraged as a strategic vantage point.

Investments in surveillance, logistics, and joint-ness would reinforce deterrence credibility while supporting cooperative security initiatives. Third, integrating the blue economy into foreign policy. Fisheries management, climate resilience, sustainable port development, and disaster response cooperation are not peripheral development issues; they are instruments of strategic influence. Smaller island states evaluate partnerships through tangible developmental outcomes as much as through security assurances. SAGAR’s original promise was normative as well as strategic, security and growth as shared goods rather than exclusive privileges.

That framing remains valuable. However, leadership in the Indian Ocean cannot rely on geography alone. It requires predictable resource allocation, institutional coherence, and sustained diplomatic engagement. It also requires the willingness to articulate competition without abandoning cooperation. The Indian Ocean is entering a period of structural flux. Sea-lane disruptions, naval expansion, and strategic infrastructure politics will define the next decade.

If India intends to shape rather than merely respond to these shifts, SAGAR must transition from vision statement to operational blueprint. Ten years on, the doctrine stands at an inflection point. The question is no longer whether SAGAR was conceptually sound. It is whether India is prepared to institutionalize it with the strategic seriousness that maritime leadership demands.

(The writer is a PhD scholar at Sharda University, and writes on India’s maritime strategy and strategic affairs.)

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