The wider maritime neighbourhood: Southeast Asia, Iran and Oman

Detail

1. Why a "maritime neighbourhood"?

• Maritime neighbour: a country that touches India across the sea and shares a sea boundary with it, but no land border.
• India's sea neighbours in the east are Thailand and Indonesia. Both lie across the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, close to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• To the west, Iran and Oman face India across the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
• These links are very old. Monsoon winds carried ships east to Southeast Asia and west to the Gulf, so trade, religion, scripts and stories travelled with the sailors.

2. Southeast Asia: "Suvarnabhumi" and "Suvarnadvipa"

• Suvarnabhumi / Suvarnadvipa ("golden land" / "golden island"): the old Indian names for Java, Sumatra and Malaya.
• Indian traders sailed there from a few centuries BCE. They went looking for gold, spices and other goods.
• The chain of cultural spread:
• traders and monks crossed the Bay of Bengal
• Indian scripts, Hindu epics and Buddhism took root in port kingdoms
• local rulers took Indian names for their cities and titles

3. Thailand: from Dvaraka to Dvaravati, and Ayodhya to Ayutthaya

• Location: Thailand shares a maritime boundary with India in the Andaman Sea, east of the Andaman Islands.
• Dvaravati culture (6th–11th centuries CE): an early Mon-Buddhist culture of central Thailand. It was named after Dvaraka, Krishna's city in Gujarat.
• Ayutthaya kingdom: named after Ayodhya, Rama's city.
• UNESCO gives its founding year as 1350. It was the second capital of the Siamese Kingdom (Siam is the old name of Thailand) [4]. (NCERT: founded 1351.)
• It did well from the 14th to the 18th centuries. It became one of the world's largest and most cosmopolitan cities, and a centre of trade and diplomacy [4].

• The Historic City of Ayutthaya is a UNESCO World Heritage Site [4].

• Chakri dynasty: every Chakri king is called Rama. The present king is Rama X.

• Samudra manthana (the churning of the ocean, a story from the Puranas): a large sculpture of it stands at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok. The airport's own name means "golden land".

4. Malaysia

• Location: the Malay Peninsula is joined to the mainland in the north. Across the sea it was linked to India's east coast.
• Script: Malaysia took up a Brahmi-based script around the 4th century CE. Brahmi is the old Indian script from which most South and Southeast Asian scripts come.
• Religion: it was mostly Muslim by the 15th century.
• Migration: in colonial times, workers from south India went to work on rubber plantations.
• Indian-origin people: about 9 per cent of the population (NCERT; verify current).

5. Singapore

• Name: from "Singapuram", the lion city (Sanskrit simha means lion; pura means city).
• It became a separate nation in 1965, after it left Malaysia.
• Tamil is one of its official languages.
• About 9 per cent of its people are of Indian origin. Little India is a well-known Indian quarter.
• It is among the top investors in India (verify current).

Country	Ancient Indian link	Modern Indian link
Thailand	Dvaravati (from Dvaraka); Ayutthaya (from Ayodhya); kings called Rama	Maritime boundary in the Andaman Sea; samudra manthana at Suvarnabhumi airport
Malaysia	Brahmi-based script (c. 4th century CE)	~9% Indian-origin (NCERT); rubber-plantation migrants from south India
Singapore	"Singapuram", the lion city	Tamil an official language; Little India; top investor
Indonesia	Java and Sumatra traded with India 2,000+ years ago; Borobudur	Maritime boundary; Six Degree Channel; tsunami warning cooperation

6. Indonesia: the archipelago

• Archipelago: a group or chain of islands. Indonesia has over 17,000 islands. They lie south-east of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
• Old trade: Java and Sumatra traded with Indian kingdoms over 2,000 years ago.
• Learning link: Nalanda (the ancient Buddhist university in Bihar) had links with the Muara Jambi temple complex in Sumatra.
• Borobudur (Central Java):
• It is the world's largest Buddhist monument, built in the 8th–9th centuries CE under the Syailendra dynasty [5].
• It stands in the Kedu Valley, southern Central Java [5].
• It is laid out as a mandala: a sacred diagram of the universe, made of squares and circles around a centre.
• It has three levels [5]:
  • a pyramid-shaped base with five square terraces
  • three circular platforms
  • a large stupa at the top
• 72 openwork stupas stand on the circular platforms, and each one holds a Buddha statue [5]. In all, there are over 500 Buddhas.

• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Borobudur Temple Compounds) [5].

• Garuda (the eagle mount of Vishnu) appears on the rupiah, Indonesia's currency. It is also Indonesia's national emblem.

• Islam reached Indonesia from India's shores, carried by traders.

7. Indonesia, earthquakes and the 2004 tsunami

• Why Indonesia shakes:
• the Indian Plate slides under the plate carrying Sumatra and the Andaman–Nicobar islands (this is called subduction: one plate sinking below another)
• stress builds up along this line and is released in big earthquakes

• melting rock rises and forms a long line of volcanoes across Sumatra and Java

• Tsunami: a series of huge sea waves. It starts when an undersea earthquake suddenly lifts or drops the sea floor and pushes up the water above it.

• 26 December 2004 tsunami:
• an undersea quake off Sumatra pushed up the sea floor
• the waves spread across the Indian Ocean within hours
• about 15,000 people died in India, in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

• over 200,000 people died across the region

• India's response: the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) at INCOIS, Hyderabad

• INCOIS is the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
• It was set up on 15 October 2007 by MoES. DST, the Department of Space and CSIR helped build it [2][3].
• It was built in India in about two years and cost about ₹125 crore. 14 organisations and about 150 scientists worked on it [2][3].
• It runs 24×7. It can issue a tsunami bulletin in less than 10 minutes after a big Indian Ocean earthquake. That gives places near the quake about 10–20 minutes of warning, and far-away places a few hours [2][3].
• It watches two subduction zones: the Andaman–Nicobar–Sumatra island arc and the Makran subduction zone north of the Arabian Sea [2][3].

• In 2011 it was named a Regional Tsunami Service Provider (RTSP). It now sends tsunami advisories to Indian Ocean rim countries [2][3]. (Link: natural-hazards-disasters.)

• Indira Point:

• It is the southern tip of Great Nicobar and India's southernmost point.
• It lies about 150 km from Indonesia across the Six Degree Channel.
• The Ten Degree Channel is a different strait. It separates the Andamans from the Nicobars.

8. Iran: the western neighbour

• Old links: India and Iran were linked from the Bronze Age, both overland and by sea.
• Language and texts: the Avesta (the holy book of the Zoroastrians) has many parallels with the Rigveda in words, gods and ideas.
• The Mahabharata calls the Persians Parasika.
• Persian was the court language of the Mughals.
• Parsis: Zoroastrians who came from Iran and settled first in Gujarat, and later in Mumbai.

9. Chabahar port and the INSTC

• Location:
• Chabahar is on the Gulf of Oman coast, in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province.
• It lies outside the Strait of Hormuz and faces the open Arabian Sea.

• India runs its Shahid Beheshti terminal.

• Why it matters: it gives India a route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that goes around Pakistan.

• Timeline:

Year	Step
2000	INSTC agreement signed (India, Iran, Russia)
2016	India–Iran–Afghanistan trilateral pact on a transit corridor through Chabahar
13 May 2024	10-year contract to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal

• INSTC (International North-South Transport Corridor): a mixed ship, rail and road route that runs Mumbai → Bandar Abbas (Iran) → Caspian Sea → Russia. Chabahar links to this corridor.
• The problem: US sanctions on Iran
• the sanctions make investors and shipping firms wary
• India depends on sanctions waivers (special permissions from the US) for Chabahar
• so the project's pace is uncertain (verify current)

10. Oman: "the land of copper"

• Location: the south-east corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It faces India across the Arabian Sea.
• Harappan link: Oman sent copper ingots (bars of metal) to Harappan cities.
• People: over 10 per cent of Oman's population is of Indian origin. Muscat has a Shiva temple.
• Defence: Oman is India's closest defence partner in the Gulf. It is the Gulf country that holds joint exercises with all three Indian services (army, navy and air force).
• Duqm port: Oman gives India access to the port of Duqm on its Arabian Sea coast for naval support (beyond NCERT; verify current).

Prelims Hooks

• Dvaravati culture (6th–11th centuries CE, Thailand) is named after Dvaraka. Ayutthaya is named after Ayodhya.
• Ayutthaya's founding year: UNESCO gives 1350, NCERT gives 1351. It was the second capital of Siam and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Borobudur: Central Java, Kedu Valley, Syailendra dynasty, 8th–9th century, built on a mandala plan, 72 openwork stupas. It is Buddhist, not Hindu (Prambanan is the Hindu one, a common trap).
• Indira Point ↔ Indonesia across the Six Degree Channel (~150 km). The Ten Degree Channel separates the Andamans from the Nicobars.
• ITEWC at INCOIS, Hyderabad is under MoES. It started on 15 October 2007 and became an RTSP for the Indian Ocean in 2011.
• Chabahar is in Sistan-Baluchestan, on the Gulf of Oman. The terminal is Shahid Beheshti. The 10-year contract was signed on 13 May 2024.
• INSTC runs Mumbai → Bandar Abbas → Caspian Sea → Russia (agreement 2000). Its Iranian hub is Bandar Abbas, not Chabahar.
• Singapore: separate nation in 1965, and Tamil is an official language. Malaysia: Brahmi-based script around the 4th century CE.
• Oman ("land of copper") supplied copper to the Harappans. It is the only Gulf country with exercises involving all three Indian services.
• Suvarnabhumi/Suvarnadvipa = Java, Sumatra and Malaya. It is also the name of Bangkok's airport, which has a samudra manthana sculpture.

Mains Points

• Soft power from shared culture (GS-I): Indian scripts, epics (the Ramayana in Thailand), Buddhism (Borobudur, the Nalanda–Muara Jambi link) and diaspora communities (Malaysia, Singapore, Oman) give India goodwill. This supports the Act East policy in Southeast Asia and its "Link West" outreach to the Gulf.
• Tsunami risk and regional disaster cooperation (GS-III):
• the Sunda (Sumatra–Andaman) and Makran subduction zones put India's east and west coasts at risk
• after 2004, India built ITEWC (2007), which can warn within 10 minutes

• since 2011 it has served as an RTSP for Indian Ocean countries, which makes India a regional provider of help and safety

• Connectivity around Pakistan (GS-III): Chabahar and the INSTC open a route to Afghanistan, Central Asia and Russia. They cut transit time and cost, but US sanctions, unrest in West Asia and slow rail links hold them back.

• Maritime security in the western Indian Ocean (GS-III): Oman sits near the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea shipping lanes. Its tri-service exercises with India and the access to Duqm port protect India's energy imports and its diaspora in the Gulf.