MAHASAGAR: India’s global maritime vision explained — and where does Australia fit

What is MAHASAGAR?

In March 2025, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a new and expansive maritime doctrine under the title MAHASAGAR, short for “Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions,” in a speech delivered during his visit to Mauritius. In his speech he described MAHASAGAR as a “vision for the Global South” which “shall encompass the ideas of trade for development, capacity building for sustainable growth, and mutual security for a shared future…extend cooperation through technology sharing, concessional loan and grants.” Further elaborating on MAHASAGAR, foreign secretary Vikram Misri in a press briefing explained that initiatives under MAHASAGAR will expand existing cooperation and identify “new frontiers for engagement” that focus on both growth and security.

Building on the earlier 2015 SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) doctrine — which defined India’s security and defence engagements with its Indian Ocean neighbours over the past decade — MAHASAGAR goes beyond its predecessor’s regional, predominantly security-oriented focus. Explaining the difference between SAGAR and MAHASAGAR, in a testimony before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, which was evaluating India’s Indian Ocean Strategy, the Ministry of External Affairs highlighted that the newer version reflects a “larger agenda.” This agenda includes economic growth, sustainable development, and deeper trade and technology cooperation, and “extends India’s engagement beyond the Indian Ocean region to the entire Global South.” This shift underscores the limitations of the original SAGAR vision, which was constrained in both its geographic reach and focus areas of cooperation.

Although MAHASAGAR’s exact geographic coverage remains unclear, its rationale is to commit New Delhi to expanding the scale of its engagements as part of its ongoing attempt to counter growing Chinese influence across the Global South.

Although MAHASAGAR’s exact geographic coverage remains unclear, its rationale is to commit New Delhi to expanding the scale of its engagements as part of its ongoing attempt to counter growing Chinese influence across the Global South. So far, Modi has invoked MAHASAGAR during his engagements in Malaysia, Mauritius, the Maldives, Trinidad and Tobago and the Philippines.

Representing nearly 39% of global GDP and around 85% of the world population — including countries in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America — Global South countries will play a significant role in shaping international power dynamics. India has long championed the Global South discourse through its leadership of the non-aligned movement, which highlights the perspectives, economic and security needs of developing countries. MAHASAGAR is meant to send a strategic signal to developing countries that India is now committed to taking on greater responsibility for shared growth and security globally.

New Delhi’s efforts to build influence among Global South countries were on display through its role as chair of the G20 in 2022, where it presented itself as the “voice of Global South.” This was well received by participating developing countries. With the announcement of MAHASAGAR, New Delhi is looking to leverage this momentum and cement its role as a trusted partner, specifically by contributing to capacity building through maritime security cooperation.

Positioning India’s increasing engagements in the Pacific and Southeast Asia within MAHASAGAR

India’s increasing engagement in the Pacific and South-East Asia predates the announcement of MAHASAGAR, driven by the need to secure its growing economic interests in the region. With more than 55% of India’s trade passing through the South China Sea and the Malacca Straits, ensuring free and open sea lanes of communication in this region is vital to New Delhi’s economic security. With the announcement of MAHASAGAR, New Delhi is looking to align existing policies (such as the ‘Act East’ Policy) in these regions under an overarching, unified framework that advocates economic prosperity for all through cooperative security frameworks.

Although the Indian Navy’s 2015 Maritime Strategy describes the South and East China Seas, Western Pacific Ocean and their littoral regions as areas of secondary interest, its defence engagements here have been steadily increasing over the past decade. This has taken the shape of building interoperability and mutual understanding through institutionalising maritime exercises, including trilaterally and multilaterally (see Figure 1). This has allowed New Delhi to incrementally increase its presence in the waters surrounding the South China Sea and build for itself an active role in Southeast Asia’s maritime security landscape.

Notably, India has moved away from its historic reluctance to engage with Southeast Asian states over security matters due to fears of antagonising China.

Notably, India has moved away from its historic reluctance to engage with Southeast Asian states over security matters due to fears of antagonising China. When the 2016 arbitral tribunal adjudicating the Philippines’ case against China in the South China Sea ruled overwhelmingly in favour of Manila and determined that major elements of China’s claim were unlawful, New Delhi only “noted” the outcome of the award, falling short of expressing support for the judgment. However, in 2023, New Delhi issued a joint statement with the Philippine Government calling for full adherence to the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea, making it New Delhi’s first-ever public support for Manila’s position. Before this, in 2020, at a press briefing, the official spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced that India sees the South China Sea as a “global common” and maintains that it has “abiding interest in peace and stability in the region.” These moves signal a subtle but important shift in New Delhi’s position, driven by its desire to become a more reliable partner to Southeast Asian states to counter China’s influence and presence.

Figure 1. Indian Navy Exercises with Southeast Asia countries (excluding CORPAT*)

Parallelly, India is steadily increasing its engagement with Pacific Islands nations as well, especially through frequent high-level visits. India already has a rich history of developmental cooperation with these nations, which was strengthened with the establishment of the Forum for India-Pacific (FIPIC) in 2014. FIPIC serves as a multinational grouping established by New Delhi to ensure sustained interaction with Pacific Island nations to pursue multidimensional cooperation. Through this forum, India has announced several initiatives (see Figure 2) that seek to address many of the unique developmental challenges faced by the island states.

MAHASAGAR now provides New Delhi the strategic impetus to deepen these engagements and amplify its role in South-East Asia and the Pacific. The vision’s focus on bolstering trade and connectivity with the Global South complements many Southeast Asian countries’ interest in diversifying trade partnerships. For Southeast Asian economies, India offers a “hedge and a partner in diversification”— especially during the ongoing US-China trade and tariff war. With the Pacific nations, it opens up avenues to complement the development partnership with maritime security initiatives that bolster their capabilities, as it has been doing under SAGAR with its maritime neighbours in the Indian Ocean.

Figure 2. Indian initiatives announced at FIPIC summit meetings (2014-2025)

Is India ready for expanded commitment?

The 2015 announcement of SAGAR was an attempt at course correction from sea-blindness, which has long plagued Indian foreign policy. As part of SAGAR, notable progress has been made on maritime domain awareness (MDA), humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) and naval diplomacy in its immediate surrounding Indian Ocean maritime neighbourhood. MAHASAGAR underscores India’s ambition to extend this influence to distant geographies where India has economic and security interests, building upon its predecessors’ foundational principles.

However, there remain significant challenges for India to achieve its ambition, most notably constraints on resource allocation. As with SAGAR, given the multi-faceted nature of MAHASAGAR, resource allocation and responsibilities for the program are spread across multiple ministries, including the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. Among them, the MEA has historically been one of the least funded ministries. While the 2026 budget offers a modest increase in the MEA’s budget, foreign aid allocation — which forms the backbone of implementing MAHASAGAR initiatives — continues to remain static. For FY2025-26, the bulk of MEA’s aid budget remains focused on its immediate neighbourhood, with Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar receiving a major share of the aid budget (see Figure 3). Without sufficient funding, it is unclear how New Delhi will be able to pursue development aid projects in distant geographies under the re-invented MAHASAGAR vision.

Figure 3. Percentage of total aid allocation across countries in India’s 2026 budget

To counter Chinese presence as envisaged in MAHASAGAR, New Delhi also needs to engage with the current reality of glaring asymmetry between the Indian Navy and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). PLAN currently has 6 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), 6 nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSN) and 48 diesel-powered/air-independent powered attack submarines (SS). In contrast, India operates only 2 SSBNs and 16 diesel-powered attack submarines. Meanwhile, India has no indigenous SSNs but operates two such submarines on loan from Russia. While there has been some progress on the long-delayed plan for the indigenous construction of SSNs, according to the Indian Navy estimates, the first SSN will only be ready by 2036-37. Such naval assets will be crucial for India to maintain a presence in distant geographies as it looks to play a more important role in ensuring global maritime security. At its current rate of naval modernisation, it is unlikely that New Delhi will be able to keep pace with Beijing’s unabated naval expansion.

Indian Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopter operating with an INS Shishumar-class submarine.Source: Indian Navy

Therefore, while MAHASAGAR lays out an ambitious agenda for India, it is likely to be plagued by similar resourcing challenges as SAGAR. Although India has committed to expanding the scope and scale of its engagements, it is still unclear how it will support these projects, especially when existing ones are suffering due to the underdelivery of funds. As it currently stands, MAHASAGAR remains an abstract idea, which, although rhetorically sound, risks being reduced to a set of noble ideas if not resourced adequately. To overcome this, India should seek support from like-minded middle powers, who can help translate MAHASAGAR’s objectives into concrete action.

Operationalising MAHASAGAR: Pathways for India-Australia cooperation

As maritime democracies with a shared vision for cooperation across the Indo-Pacific, Australia will be a key partner in actualising MAHASAGAR. There are a lot of complementarities between Australia’s Pacific Step-up strategy — a neighbourhood engagement policy announced in 2016 that has resulted in a significant uptick in regional engagement through security cooperation, development aid, trade and investment with Pacific Island countries — and MAHASAGAR. While both focus on countering Chinese influence, they approach the question of security more holistically, focusing on sustainable development and technological and economic connectivity.

As maritime democracies with a shared vision for cooperation across the Indo-Pacific, Australia will be a key partner in actualising MAHASAGAR.

Canberra has correctly identified India as a key partner to deliver “tangible benefits” across the Indo-Pacific arc. Both countries also share similar goals and values as enshrined in the joint “shared vision” for the Indo-Pacific released in 2020. However, despite these shared interests, for many years, a major challenge hindering stronger bilateral cooperation has been differences in priority theatres, with New Delhi more focused on the Indian Ocean and Australia on the Pacific. As India signals a more active role in the Pacific as part of its grand maritime vision, opportunities for deeper collaboration with Australia are emerging.

Although New Delhi is yet to announce projects for the Pacific islands under MAHASAGAR, as part of the recommendations of the aforementioned standing committee, the Indian Government was urged to champion a ‘Green MAHASAGAR’ initiative. This would focus on collaborative projects with island states for marine protection, disaster response and climate adaptation. New Delhi should consider keeping the Pacific Islands at the centre of such an initiative. It could explore collaborative opportunities with Australia, which has extensive experience in formulating and implementing capacity-building projects for the Pacific Islands. Not only would this help deliver coordinated responses to real problems facing the Pacific, but it also gives these regional countries greater flexibility in choices vis-à-vis options provided by other actors.

For both India and Australia, the challenge is to translate development cooperation into geopolitical advantage while delivering on promises made to partner countries. It is in their national interests to work together to address this challenge.