Commander Subhasish Sarangi, Writes :
The Foreign Secretary delivered a speech at Policy Exchange, London on “India’s Vision of the Indo-Pacific” on 03 November 2020.[1] Among other things, he said that “India’s Indo-Pacific strategy was enunciated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech in Singapore in 2018 as the SAGAR doctrine”. It is difficult to wrap one’s mind around this statement even after setting aside strict definitions of “doctrine” and “strategy”.
“Security and Growth for All in the Region” (SAGAR) was enunciated as a “vision for Indian Ocean Region” in the Prime Minister’s speech at the commissioning of CGS Baracuda in Mauritius on 12 March 2015.[2] In his Address at the International Fleet Review (IFR) in Visakhapatnam on 07 February 2017, the Prime Minister mentioned SAGAR as “our vision for the Indian Ocean”.[3] The then External Affairs Minister (EAM) also described SAGAR as “our vision for the Indian Ocean Region” in her Address at the 2nd Indian Ocean Conference in Colombo on 31 August 2017.[4] SAGAR did not find mention in Indian statements with either ASEAN forums or ASEAN nations.
The then Foreign Secretary, in his statement during his visit to the Seychelles on 27 January 2018, referred to SAGAR as India’s “Indian Ocean doctrine”.[5] Till then, SAGAR had been interchangeably mentioned as either a “vision” or a “concept”.
In his famous Keynote Address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on 01 June 2018, the Prime Minister had said that “Three years ago, in Mauritius, I described our vision in one word – Sagar, which means ocean in Hindi. And, Sagar stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region and, that is the creed we follow to our East now even more vigorously through our Act East Policy”.[6] This was probably the moment when India announced that the “Region” in SAGAR was now the Indo-Pacific Region and not merely the Indian Ocean Region that it was used for earlier.
The 3rd Indian Ocean Conference was curiously held at Hanoi, Vietnam. In her address to the conference on 27 August 2018, the EAM spoke of SAGAR as “a holistic vision for India’s engagement with this region”.[7] However, the maritime “region” that she referred to was not clearly delineated since the speech dwelled on the Indian Ocean Region and ASEAN simultaneously.
The 2018-2019 Annual Report of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that “India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific integrates our Indian Ocean policy of SAGAR into an inclusive Indo-Pacific framework”.[8] The former Foreign Secretary, now as EAM, followed a similar line while delivering the Keynote Address at the 4th Indian Ocean Conference in Maldives on 03 September 2019.[9] He spoke at length on the history, evolution and relevance of the Indo-Pacific and described SAGAR as the “first integrated maritime outlook” while making the point that “India getting its Indo-Pacific approach right rests on ensuring that it gets its Indian Ocean strategy even more correctly”.
The EAM mentioned the “SAGAR doctrine” while delivering the 4th Ramnath Goenka Lecture in New Delhi on 14 November 2019.[10] The Prime Minister too mentioned the “SAGAR doctrine” in his Press Statement during the visit of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka to India on 08 February 2020[11] and in his Opening Remarks at the India-Sri Lanka Virtual Bilateral Summit on 26 September 2020.[12] The 2019-2020 Annual Report of the MEA mentions SAGAR in both the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific sections of the document.[13] SAGAR is described as a “doctrine” and as a “vision of the Prime Minister”. The Prime Minister mentioned “Security and growth for all in the region” in his remarks at the 17th ASEAN-India Summit on 12 November 2020.[14] This is probably the first time that the Prime Minister alluded to SAGAR in an ASEAN forum.
If the narrative seems a trifle garbled till now, perhaps it is. SAGAR has been described interchangeably over the years as a vision, concept, policy and doctrine. It is clear that it is meant for the maritime region that was earlier supposed to be the Indian Ocean Region but is now assumed to be relevant to the broader Indo-Pacific Region. The hierarchy or connection between SAGAR and the Indo-Pacific Oceans’ Initiative (IPOI) proposed by India is not clear. The broader point is that the MEA chooses not to publish policy documents clearly describing India’s foreign policy pronouncements. It prefers major policy pronouncements to be declared solely in Prime Ministerial speeches. Everything has to be gleaned from speeches of the Prime Minister and EAM, with multiple supplementary sources providing supporting information.[15] However, the labels are liberally used by all without dwelling into the details of what they mean. Public pronouncements on Act East[16], SAGAR, 10 Guiding Principles of India’s engagement with Africa[17] and Indo-Pacific Vision are all examples of this approach. It will be helpful if MEA publishes policy documents, even if as part of its Annual Report, to provide clarity to those who pursue or study India’s foreign policy.
End Notes
[1] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Foreign Secretary’s Speech at Policy Exchange, 03 November 2020.
[2] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Prime Minister’s Remarks at the Commissioning of Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) Barracuda in Mauritius (March 12, 2015), 01 June 2018.
[3] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Prime Minister’s address at International Fleet Review 2016, 07 February 2016.
[4] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Address by External Affairs Minister at the 2nd Indian Ocean Conference (August 31, 2017), 31 August 2017.
[5] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Statement by Foreign Secretary in Victoria (January 27, 2018), 27 January 2018.
[6] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Prime Minister’s Keynote Address at Shangri La Dialogue (June 01, 2018), 01 June 2018.
[7] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Remarks by External Affairs Minister at the 3rd Indian Ocean Conference, Vietnam (August 27, 2018), 27 August 2018.
[8] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Annual Report 2018-2019, p.6.
[9] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Keynote Speech by External Affairs Minister at Indian Ocean Conference in Maldives (September 03, 2019), 03 September 2019.
[10] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, External Affairs Minister’s speech at the 4th Ramnath Goenka Lecture, 2019, 14 November 2019.
[11] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Translation of Press Statement by Prime Minister during the State Visit of Prime Minister of Sri Lanka to India, 08 February 2020.
[12] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Opening Remarks by Prime Minister at India-Sri Lanka Virtual Bilateral Summit, 26 September 2020.
[13] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Annual Report 2019-2020.
[14] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, English translation of Prime Minister’s remarks at 17th India-ASEAN Virtual Summit, 12 November 2020.
[15] These sources include speeches of the Foreign Secretary and other officials, Press Releases, Press briefings, Answers to questions in Parliament, MEA Annual Report and reports of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs.
[16] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Prime Minister’s remarks at the 9th East Asia Summit, Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, 13 November 2014.
[17] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), GoI, Prime Minister’s address at Parliament of Uganda during his State Visit to Uganda, 25 July 2018.
Commander Subhasish Sarangi is a Research Fellow at the United Service Institution of India (USI), New Delhi.
Article uploaded on 07-12-2020
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation that he belongs to or of the USI of India.