How does the vision of MAHASAGAR build on India's earlier maritime outreach frameworks? Assess its relevance for India–ASEAN maritime cooperation.

The Prime Minister announced MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) in Mauritius in March 2025. It builds on the SAGAR vision, whose foundation was laid there a decade earlier [1]. It widens a regional security idea into a partnership model, and ASEAN is where that model faces its hardest test.

How MAHASAGAR builds on earlier frameworks

SAGAR (2015) ──► IPOI (2019) ──────────► MAHASAGAR (2025)
Indian Ocean     Indo-Pacific, 7 pillars   "Across Regions"

Evolution of India's maritime vision

• From "Region" to "Regions": It keeps SAGAR's idea of security and growth together. It adds trade for development, capacity building for sustainable growth and mutual security [1].
• Takes in IPOI: The Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (2019) set out seven pillars, from maritime security to disaster management and capacity-building. It rests on ASEAN centrality [3].
• Builds on Act East: 2024 marked a decade of Act East. Since the 2018 Delhi Declaration, India and ASEAN have focused their partnership on the maritime domain [2].

Relevance for India–ASEAN maritime cooperation

Strengths

• Put into practice at sea: INS Sahyadri and INS Kulish joined the 23rd ADMM-Plus maritime security activity at Subic Bay (Sep 2026). The activity was framed under Act East and MAHASAGAR, and the ships practised search-and-rescue, medical evacuation and hydrographic survey [4].
• Inclusive, not a bloc: ADMM-Plus has 18 members, including the US and China, so cooperation builds trust rather than rivalry [5].
• Institutional depth: India and ASEAN formed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2022) and adopted a 2023 Joint Statement on Maritime Cooperation [2]. India co-chairs the counter-terrorism Experts' Working Group with Malaysia (2024–27) [6].
• Rules-based order: India backs UNCLOS, as seen in its statement on the 2016 South China Sea arbitral award [7].

Limitations

• Consensus limits ambition: Every member must agree, so drills stay non-traditional. ANCM-GMI are guidelines, not binding rules [4].
• Hard to balance: The host, the Philippines, has maritime disputes with China [4][7]. Manila may expect more than statements of principle.
• Short presence: Two ships for five days signals intent but is not a sustained presence [4].

Way forward: India should seek to co-chair the maritime security Experts' Working Group. It should also deepen minilateral formats such as the India–Indonesia–Australia trilateral exercise [8].

MAHASAGAR thus brings SAGAR, IPOI and Act East together into one outreach vision. Its value for ASEAN lies in steady, rules-based capacity-building rather than power projection. Combining ADMM-Plus trust-building with deeper bilateral support can make India a reliable partner, in line with UNCLOS and SDG 14.