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When the United Nations Convention connected the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was negotiated successful the 1970s and aboriginal 1980s, India stood with the world’s smallest and astir susceptible states. Alongside Pacific Island countries, India championed the rule that the seabed beyond nationalist jurisdiction should beryllium the “common practice of mankind”. It was a singular moment: a ample processing state aligning itself with land nations, not for advantage, but for fairness.
This was not caller for India. As aboriginal arsenic the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru recognised the ocean’s centrality to India’s future, declaring: “Whichever mode we turn, we are drawn to the seas. Our aboriginal information and prosperity are intimately linked with the state and the resources of the oceans.” That foresight acceptable the signifier for India’s enduring relation arsenic some a maritime federation and a maritime leader. Half a period later, the water faces pressures unimaginable astatine the clip of UNCLOS. Climate alteration is heating and acidifying the seas, oversea levels are rising, and amerciable and unregulated sportfishing is stripping marine beingness from the h2o column.
The Indian Ocean, location to one-third of humanity, is already 1 of the astir climate-vulnerable basins connected earth.
India present has some the accidental and the work to play a historical enactment relation erstwhile again. This time, the task is not to draught law, but to signifier signifier — ensuring that the Indian Ocean becomes not a theatre of rivalry, but a laboratory of sustainability, innovation, and resilience.
The lawsuit for a Blue Ocean strategy
India’s Blue Ocean Strategy should remainder connected 3 pillars: stewardship of the commons, resilience, and inclusive growth.
First, stewardship. India indispensable proceed to asseverate that the Indian Ocean is simply a shared space, not a contested one. By prioritising ecosystem restoration, biodiversity protection, and sustainable fisheries, India tin acceptable the code for cooperative management, alternatively than competitory exploitation.
Second, resilience. As the clime situation intensifies, water nations indispensable absorption connected adaptation and preparedness. India tin pb by establishing a Regional Resilience and Ocean Innovation hub — 1 that strengthens water reflection networks, improves aboriginal informing systems, and transportation exertion to tiny land processing states and African coastal nations.
Third, inclusive growth. The Indian Ocean indispensable go a operator of prosperity for each littoral states. Green shipping, offshore renewable energy, sustainable aquaculture, and marine biotechnology connection pathways to improvement that are compatible with clime goals. Realising this potential, however, volition necessitate sustained concern and coordinated determination action.
It is encouraging that the fiscal tide is opening to turn. At the Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF) held successful Monaco, successful June 2025, governments, improvement banks and backstage investors highlighted a €25 cardinal pipeline of existing water investments and announced €8.7 cardinal successful caller commitments, with near-parity betwixt nationalist and backstage sources. The Finance successful Common Ocean Coalition, bringing unneurotic 20 nationalist improvement banks, announced yearly pledges of $7.5 billion, portion the Development Bank of Latin America doubled its bluish system people to $2.5 cardinal by 2030.
At COP30 successful Belém, the Brazilian Presidency launched the One Ocean Partnership arsenic portion of the Belém Action Agenda, committing to mobilise $20 cardinal for water enactment by 2030. These signals matter. They show that the water — agelong marginal successful clime concern — is present firmly connected the planetary agenda.
India indispensable prehend this infinitesimal to transmission planetary financing into determination priorities. An Indian Ocean Blue Fund, seeded by India and unfastened to contributions from improvement banks, philanthropy, and the backstage sector, could supply the organization architecture needed to crook pledges into projects.
Security done sustainability
Much of today’s sermon connected the Indian Ocean is framed successful presumption of “Indo-Pacific strategy”, naval balance, state of navigation, and unafraid oversea lanes. These concerns are legitimate. But they should not obscure a much cardinal reality: water insecurity begins with ecosystem illness and clime disruption.
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, coral reef degradation and intensifying tempest surges erode livelihoods and undermine societal stability. Addressing these threats requires a displacement from accepted notions of maritime information toward information done sustainability.
India’s doctrine of Security and Growth for All successful the Region (SAGAR) articulated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi successful Mauritius successful 2015, offers an important anchor, “We question a aboriginal for the Indian Ocean that lives up to its sanction arsenic a portion of peace, stableness and prosperity,” helium said.
The Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard, moving alongside civilian agencies, tin deepen determination practice successful maritime domain awareness, catastrophe effect and ecosystem monitoring - aligning information objectives with biology stewardship. Equally important is the communicative India chooses to tell. Not of rivalry, but of responsibility. Not of dominance, but of stewardship. As External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has noted, India’s attack to the Indian Ocean is “cooperative, consultative, and outcome-oriented,” aimed astatine shared prosperity and stability.
The guiding rule should beryllium elemental and resonant: “From the Indian Ocean, for the World.”
India’s historical responsibility
At the Stockholm Conference successful 1972, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi warned, “We bash not privation to impoverish the situation immoderate much than we privation to impoverish our people.” That penetration remains strikingly relevant.
COP30 successful Belém (2025) and the G-20 Summit successful Johannesburg recognised the value of terrestrial and marine ecosystems for clime stability, sustainable development, and assemblage resilience arsenic good arsenic anchoring scaling up of concern and enactment for processing countries, aligning with the equity dimensions of water action.
Momentum is building. With the outcomes of the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) successful Nice, COP30 successful Belém, and the introduction into unit of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, 2026 is shaping up to beryllium a pivotal twelvemonth for water governance. India’s readiness to ratify the BBNJ Agreement presents an accidental to show however the Indian Ocean portion tin pioneer globally applicable solutions, from greenish shipping corridors and bluish bonds to inclusive marine exertion transportation and cautiously governed ocean-based c dioxide removal. This docket could besides service arsenic a defining taxable for India’s chairmanship of the Indian Ocean Rim Association.
India’s past successful water diplomacy gives it credibility. India’s aboriginal successful water enactment gives it the responsibility. The Indian Ocean, the cradle of immoderate of the world’s oldest civilisations, tin present go the cradle of a caller bluish economy, 1 that marries prosperity with sustainability, and resilience with justice.
The situation is clear: to determination beyond rhetoric, to align imaginativeness with finance, and to physique partnerships that endure. For the world, the connection is urgent: the water is not a void to beryllium filled oregon a frontier to beryllium conquered. It is the instauration of beingness itself.
If India leads with ambition, humility, and inclusivity, the Indian Ocean tin erstwhile again show what was evident during UNCLOS negotiations: that adjacent successful the astir analyzable of arenas, practice tin prevail implicit conflict, and solidarity implicit rivalry.
The clip to enactment is now.
Kilaparti Ramakrishna is the Director of Marine Policy Centre and Senior Adviser to the President connected Ocean and Climate Policy astatine the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the world’s largest autarkic oceanographic instauration astatine Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S.
