India boosts security partnerships with neighbors Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
FORUM Staff
India and Bangladesh bolstered their defense relationship in June 2024, signing agreements to expand cooperation in maritime security, ocean economy and other issues. The accords came soon after Sri Lanka opened an India-funded upgrade to its naval monitoring center.
The initiatives illustrate India’s “Neighborhood First” policy of managing relations with its eight closest neighbors: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The goal is to enhance physical, digital and people-to-people connectivity while boosting trade and commerce. The policy “has evolved into an institutional priority for all the relevant arms of the government,” stated India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
It also follows India’s doctrine of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), which advocates for the Indo-Pacific to be “free, open, inclusive, peaceful and prosperous.” The doctrine is a “close cousin” to the Indo-Pacific strategies of Canada and the United States, according to the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada think tank.
Enhanced security measures with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka came on the heels of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s June 2024 pledge to raise the country’s military preparedness and clout. “The government will focus on expanding defense production and exports,” Modi said, according to The Associated Press. “We will not stop until the defense sector becomes self-sufficient.”
India also is cognizant of its neighbor, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which seeks greater influence in the Indo-Pacific through illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive measures. India and the PRC share a disputed 2,100-kilometer border, known as the Line of Actual Control, along which Beijing has long attempted to further its territorial claims.
“China really is India’s long term strategic challenge, both on the border and in the Indian Ocean as well,” Viraj Solanki, a London-based expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told The Associated Press. “This has resulted in a number of defense partnerships by India shifting, or just focusing on countering China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The most recent partnership enhancements began in Sri Lanka, where the Maritime Rescue Coordinating Center, backed by a $6 million grant from India, opened in June 2024. The upgraded center has the ability to track shipping across vast areas. Based in Sri Lanka’s naval headquarters in Colombo, it includes seven remote stations along the island’s eastern seaboard, including one close to the PRC-run port of Hambantota.
India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar opened the facility and said on social media that Colombo was a key part of India’s regional relations and maritime security policies, Agence France-Presse reported.
Just two days later, during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, the two countries signed agreements to strengthen defense cooperation. The Bangladesh Navy then signed a deal with India’s state-run Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers for an 800-ton oceangoing tug. It is the first major contract under a $500 million line of credit, offered by New Delhi to Bangladesh in 2023, for defense purchases, according to the Hindustan Times newspaper.
