How does the MAHASAGAR doctrine reshape India's maritime engagement with the Indo-Pacific and the Global South?

In March 2025, the Prime Minister announced MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) in Mauritius. It turns SAGAR from a vision for the Indian Ocean into a global maritime doctrine centred on the Global South [1]. India's role shifts from regional security provider to partner in shared security and growth.

What changes: SAGAR to MAHASAGAR

• Scope: "the Region" becomes "Across Regions". The doctrine now reaches beyond the Indian Ocean into the wider Indo-Pacific [1].
• Content: security is packaged with trade for development and capacity building for sustainable growth [1].
• Method: the words "mutual and holistic" signal partnership rather than patronage.

Reshaping Indo-Pacific engagement

• Act East at sea: India officially linked the participation of INS Sahyadri and INS Kulish in AIME-2026 in the Philippines to Act East and MAHASAGAR [2].
• A regular ASEAN track: 2026 is the ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation. India proposed a second AIME and a second Defence Ministers' Meeting under it [3].
• Partnerships built in layers: India and the Philippines raised their ties to a Strategic Partnership with a Plan of Action for 2025-29 [4]. Their first bilateral maritime exercise followed, in the South China Sea in August 2025 [5].
• Non-confrontational framing: India says its support for UNCLOS and freedom of navigation is "not against any country" [6]. It also backs ASEAN centrality [7].

Reshaping Global South engagement

• An offer built on development: India offers growth and mutual security, not only naval presence [1].
• Capacity building: the MAHASAGAR Academy at Rashtriya Raksha University opened in April 2026. It trains people in maritime security and law [8], which matches the IPOI's capacity-building pillar [7].
• First responder: the HADR, CASEVAC and VBSS drills build the disaster-relief and anti-smuggling skills that coastal states need [2]. This matches the IPOI's disaster-risk pillar [7].

Gaps to bridge

• Exercises are irregular: the second AIME came three years after the first in 2023 [9][3]. Skills for working together fade over such a gap.
• Risk of being misread: the 2023 Sea Phase took place in the South China Sea [9], and the Philippines hosted the 2026 edition [2]. China may read this as balancing against it, which could make some ASEAN members less willing to join.

MAHASAGAR therefore widens India's maritime reach, adds to the tools it uses, and makes India a co-developer rather than a guardian. Two steps would make the change last: turn the 2026 Year of Maritime Cooperation into a fixed exercise calendar, and expand training through the Academy. Both would advance SDG 14 and a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.