India’s Warship Diplomacy — Will It Reap Benefits?

With the gifting of a frontline missile warship INS Kirpan to Vietnam, India has taken its naval diplomacy to a new level and added a new dimension to it.

India’s unique warship gifting diplomacy, which was confined to the Indian Ocean, has now expanded to the Pacific Ocean, in the Chinese backyard of the South China Sea. This has rattled the strategic establishment in China. With the gifting of a frontline missile warship INS Kirpan to Vietnam, India has taken its naval diplomacy to a new level and added a new dimension to it. Till now India’s adversary was creating ripples in Indian waters with its submarines and warships’ forays into the Indian Ocean, but this time India has directly challenged China on its own turf through its subtle but smart naval diplomacy.

China's silence on the gifting of  INS Kirpan to Vietnam may indicate that they are not bothered and not shaken over the development, but commentary seem to convey that the Chinese are perturbed over the Indian move as it enhances the threat perception from the Vietnamese navy aided by its archrival India. The warship can stoutly challenge Chinese belligerent actions against Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea.   

Chinese online media outlet Sentinel Jiang reacted feverishly. Its commentary was titled, “Throwing sand in China’s eyes, India sent warships to Vietnam.”  The commentary in Chinese roughly translated into English by Google, explained, “India gave Vietnam a big gift, directly to Vietnam a warship! The cooperation between India and Vietnam does not stop there, while sending warships to Vietnam, it is also continuing to strengthen defence relations with Vietnam, and even helping Vietnam train troops. India has been helping Vietnam train Su-30 fighter pilots and helping Vietnam train submariners! And India did this for only one purpose, to add sand to China's eyes.”

This is not for the first time that the Indian Navy has gifted powerful warships to friendly partner countries. The Indian Navy has gifted, till date, over 20 small and big offensive naval, patrol and maritime surveillance warships. They include four island nations of the Indian Ocean i.e. Maldives, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Seychelles, and two littoral states, the African Mozambique and the Bay of Bengal littoral nation Myanmar. Gifting a submarine to Myanmar in October 2020, which was then friendly towards India, before the coup by the military junta, was the high point of Indian naval warship diplomacy. This is a Soviet-designed Kilo class submarine INS Sindhuvir, acquired by India in 1998. Through this move, the Indian strategic establishment wanted to take bilateral relations to a new height, but China did not want this to happen and hence conspired with military generals to dethrone the democratically elected government, which was gradually moving towards a strong strategic partnership with India. However, gifting of the submarine will compel the receiving nation’s dependence on India for the maintenance of the ship.

India’s Successful Naval Diplomacy With Small Island Nations 

Though China derailed India’s very significant strategic move to arm Myanmar with submarines, aimed to counter Chinese submarine forays in the Indian Ocean, India was successful with its new brand of naval diplomacy with other small island nations, where China has been making strenuous efforts to set up their military bases. Instead of helplessly watching Chinese military overtures to small island nations, India made a very smart move of gifting, from coastal surveillance ships to small reconnaissance aircrafts, which dissuaded the friendly island nations from deepening maritime contacts with China. The warships donated by the Indian Navy to island and littoral nations include – one to Myanmar (submarine INS Sindhuvir), four to Maldives, including a Fast Patrol Vessel and a landing craft assault ship in 2023, Offshore Patrol Vessel in 2019, and a Trinkat class Patrol vessel MCGS Huravee in 2006.

India had gifted way back in 1974 INS Amar, a Seaward defence boat, to Mauritius. Reviving this diplomacy, India gifted another batch of 9 Mandovi class patrol boats and later replaced them with 5 Praga class Patrol craft in 2000. In 2001, India gifted another interceptor boat CGS Observer to Mauritius.

To Seychelles, India had gifted a Trinkat class patrol vessel Topaz in 2005. In 2014, India gifted another Trinkat class patrol vessel PS Constant. In 2021 India gifted the third Fast patrol vessel to Seychelles. Later, a fourth, named Zoroaster, was also transferred.

The Indian Ocean littoral African country, Mozambique, received two fast interceptor boats in 2019 and another two in 2021. India gifted Sri Lanka Vikram-class offshore patrol vessel ICGS Varah in 2015.

Thus the Indian Navy has been playing a silent but effective role in deterring the Chinese Navy from dominating the Indian Ocean. The India-China rivalry guides India’s strategic direction towards containing China in the third largest ocean. But India’s strategic interests cannot be safeguarded unilaterally and can be protected only through a multilateral cooperative approach and empowering small island nations of the Indian Ocean for capability and capacity building to help them safeguard their maritime area on their own.

This is contrary to the Chinese policy of using carrots and sticks to deepen defence partnerships. Whereas, through gifting of various maritime platforms like patrol ships and surveillance ships to small island nations, India has been trying to prevent the rise of anti-India maritime forces in the Indian Ocean.

Though China has made its visible presence in the littoral African state Djibouti with a naval base, India has dissuaded other coastal nations to expand Chinese area of influence. Since India would not be able to singlehandedly contain China either in Indian or Pacific waters, it has to develop a web of friendly nations directly enabling them to deter China.

The Indian Ocean, considered the courtyard of India, which was world’s leading hotspot of big powers during the cold war, is now being eyed by big non-littoral powers like China, USA, France, Britain etc, whose naval flotilla brazenly roam around the Indian Ocean to deter other naval powers from staking their claims in the Ocean.  With this intention, the Chinese naval ships have of late made invasive forays raising concerns in Indian strategic circles.

The way China has been eyeing these island nations speaks volumes and relevance of the famous quote, almost 125 years ago, in 1897, of the then American Admiral Thayer Alfred Mahan, “whoever controls Indian Ocean will dominate Asia. This Ocean will be the key to seven seas in the 21^st century. The destiny of the world will be decided on it’s waters.”

During the cold war, the Indian Ocean was evolving as a zone of conflict between the two superpowers, Soviet Union and USA. Hence, the then Indian strategic establishment yearned for the Indian Ocean to be declared as Zone of Peace. Being a maritime nation and a top naval power of the Indian Ocean, India has a role and responsibility to manage the Indian Ocean as a zone of cooperation, to work with leading India-friendly naval powers to keep the maritime sea lanes of trade open and secure. Since over 55 percent of India’s maritime trade is conducted through these trade routes, it is in prime interest of the country to align with small and big powers to keep the Indo-Pacific maritime region free and open. India’s naval warship diplomacy has a big role to play in achieving this aim.

The author is a senior journalist and strategic affairs analyst.

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