Revealed: India's Master Plan for the Indian Ocean ( Source- The National Interest / Author- C.Raja Mohan)
INS Vikramaditya being inducted into the Indian Navy (Source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Indian Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- C.Raja Mohan On a March 2015 trip to Seychelles and Mauritius, Narendra Modi outlined a bold framework that overturned the political approach that India had taken towards the Indian Ocean for half a century. Beginning in the late 1960s, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked all major powers to withdraw from the Indian Ocean out of concern for great power rivalry. This approach fit with India’s self-perception as a non-aligned and Third World state, and its desire to be economically self reliant and to distance itself from the British Raj, which had long been the central security provider in the Indian Ocean. The context which gave rise to the Gandhi approach began to change in the 1990s, as India embarked on a policy of economic globalization and ended its military isolation. India’s new maritime imperatives did not, however, tran