India Boosts Ties With Oman, Malaysia, Seychelles And Sri Lanka In Major Diplomatic Push – Analysis

The Indian Ocean rarely witnesses a week as packed as the last one, but the activity did not come out of thin air. India’s naval diplomacy, often seen in the past as incremental or understated, suddenly revealed the scale of the foundation laid over years of humanitarian work, port access negotiations, and quiet diplomatic capital-building. What became visible was not a flurry of last-minute activism but the crest of a long strategic wave. At the heart of that wave stood Kuala Lumpur—India’s first stop in a series of engagements that pulled together the entire breadth of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Malaysia: Southeast Asia’s Maritime Pivot

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s February 8 visit to Malaysia provided the week’s most important political marker.

Following a relatively dormant phase in ties in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the two nations had upgraded their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2024, injecting new energy into India–ASEAN engagement. The timing aligned with the Year of India–ASEAN Maritime Cooperation, ensuring the elevation wasn’t merely ceremonial. With the recent meeting between the leaders, it was agreed to further strengthen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership established between the two countries, recalling the age-old India-Malaysia ties, which underpinned the partnership and the close people-to-people bonds.Regular deployments by Indian naval vessels—INS Sahyadri and INS Sandhayak among them—have helped revive operational familiarity between the two navies. Eleven agreements signed during the visit ranged from semiconductor cooperation to joint work in peacekeeping operations. Yet the strategic weight lay elsewhere: Malaysia’s geographic position astride the Strait of Malacca, a chokepoint through which nearly a quarter of global trade flows. Joint exercises such as Samudra Laksamana now carry heightened value as India and Malaysia emphasize an open, rules-based maritime order.

With a 2023 defence cooperation MoU already in place, the 2024 upgrades formalised industrial linkages and operational mechanisms that India sees as essential for stability amid mounting pressures in the South China Sea.

Oman: The Western Moorage

Oman remains the anchor in the west. The week began with the graceful sails of INS Sudarshini appearing at Salalah—part of the Lokayan 26 expedition tracing India’s historic maritime routes. Its companion voyage by INSV Kaundinya to Muscat earlier this year added historical flavor to what is otherwise a deeply strategic partnership.

Oman has consistently offered India something few nations can claim with such reliability: strategic predictability. The Duqm Port agreement, allowing India logistical access beyond the volatility of Hormuz, is the heart of this cooperation. Maritime exercises, particularly Naseem Al Bahr, have matured into wider defence-industrial frameworks under a Vision Document adopted in 2025. Whether the issue is piracy suppression off Yemen, securing sea lines of communication, or building the blue economy, the Oman partnership is crucial for India’s western flank.

Seychelles: Securing the Southern Arc

On February 9, India announced a $175 million special economic package for Seychelles, underlining its determination to prevent the southern Indian Ocean from slipping into the orbit of predatory external powers. The package followed extensive dialogue between Modi and President Patrick Herminie, culminating in the unveiling of the SESEL Joint Vision, an agenda geared toward sustainability, resilience, and maritime security.

Seychelles’ full membership in the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) in 2025 has already tightened its alignment with India’s regional security architecture. Deliveries of radar systems, Dornier aircraft, and support for a hydrographic unit in Victoria are reshaping the island nation’s maritime awareness capacity—an essential asset for a region vulnerable to illegal fishing, trafficking, and strategic encroachment.

Sri Lanka: Humanitarianism as Statecraft

But nowhere is India’s maritime diplomacy more visible—or more emotive—than in Sri Lanka. India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar arrived in Colombo during the island’s 78th Independence Day celebrations, but the purpose extended far beyond the ceremony. The Indian Navy’s Operation Sagarbandhu, launched after Cyclone Ditwah struck in late 2025, reached another milestone as INS Gharial delivered ten Bailey Bridges to restore connectivity in damaged northern provinces.

India’s history of HADR missions in Sri Lanka stretches back decades—Operation Rainbow in 2004, deployments during the 2016 Roanu floods, and INS Kirch’s relief work in 2017. With time, India has become Sri Lanka’s primary partner for naval training and equipment. That role has helped maintain the neutrality of Sri Lankan waters at a time when various powers have attempted to secure footholds for geopolitical leverage.

A Strategy Bound by SAGAR and MAHASAGAR

The varied engagements—from Kuala Lumpur to Salalah, from Victoria to Colombo—appear dispersed on the map, but they are tied together by a conceptual thread: India’s doctrine of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and its more expansive extension, MAHASAGAR. Unlike coercive strategic models, the Indian approach builds sovereignty rather than compromising it.

The upcoming MILAN 2026 naval exercises, set to be the largest India has hosted, will likely serve as the next major platform to demonstrate the maturing of this vision.

The past few days' diplomacy reveals an India comfortable in the role of the Indian Ocean’s foremost security provider—not through dominance, but through reliability, capacity-building, and shared prosperity. The Indian Ocean, long described as a zone of contestation, is steadily becoming a network of cooperation—with India as its most active architect.