Holding the Line: India, Maldives, and the Contest for the Indo-Pacific

Analysis

By Zahid Sultan

In the shifting tectonics of the Indo-Pacific, few geographies have condensed strategic anxieties as densely as the Maldives. What once appeared peripheral to India’s continental strategic imagination has now become essential to the architecture of maritime security in South Asia. The Maldives is not merely a small island state navigating the crosscurrents of great power interests—it has become a barometer of India’s capacity to resist encirclement, project stabilising power, and shape the emerging grammar of regional order in the Indian Ocean.2

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns to Male, it is not diplomacy he is performing—it is doctrine. Doctrine of presence, doctrine of purpose, and doctrine of permanence. The Indian Ocean is no longer a soft frontier. It is a hardened theatre. The political geography of the region is changing under the weight of Chinese debt diplomacy, Pakistan-sponsored ideological proxies, and the fragility of postcolonial sovereignty. The Maldives has become the confluence point of these threats and an urgent test of India’s ability to project responsible leadership.

For much of post-independence India, maritime strategy remained subordinate to continental anxieties. Partition, border wars, and the Himalayan security dilemma with China and Pakistan pulled strategic attention northwards. As K.M. Panikkar had warned in “India and the Indian Ocean” (1945), “A power that neglects its maritime frontiers, however powerful on land, is strategically naked.” India was late to heed that warning. But the twenty-first century has corrected that imbalance. The locus of global competition has moved to the Indo-Pacific. India, belatedly but deliberately, has reoriented itself toward the ocean that bears its name.

The Indian Ocean is no longer an inert space. It is a contested arena of logistics, communications cables, choke points, energy flows, and port politics. More than 80 percent of global seaborne trade in oil transits through its waters, and nearly 40 percent of the world’s population lives in littoral states that depend on its security. In the strategic imagination of China, this ocean is the gap in the chain—the only corridor through which India can project beyond the subcontinent. Thus, China’s “string of pearls” strategy—ports in Gwadar, Hambantota, Kyaukpyu, Djibouti—aims not just to secure trade, but to create a perimeter of strategic denial.

Maldives sits at the heart of this matrix. Situated near the critical Eight Degree and One and a Half Degree Channels, it straddles the arterial sea lanes that connect the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca. What happens in Male no longer stays in Male—it ripples through India’s maritime calculus. As the Chinese Navy expands its blue-water capabilities, islands like the Maldives become not merely diplomatic assets but potential logistical nodes, surveillance outposts, and pressure points in times of conflict.

China recognised this early. Under President Abdulla Yameen, Maldives signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative, opening its economy to a flood of Chinese loans and opaque contracts. Infrastructure became the currency of leverage. Ports, bridges, airports—everything was built, but little was owned. As Graham Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” reminds us, the contest between a rising power and a resident one is rarely without tension. But in the Indian Ocean, China’s strategy is less about open confrontation and more about silent encirclement. Beijing does not knock on doors—it installs ports near them.

India, for a moment, appeared to be caught flat-footed. Its response was delayed, diffused, and at times deferential. But under the Modi government, the recalibration began. SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) was not just a slogan—it became an architecture. From gifting patrol vessels and building radar networks to setting up hydrographic cooperation and coastal surveillance systems, India began to translate intention into infrastructure. This was not an arms race—it was an assertion of relevance. As Alfred Mahan wrote in “The Influence of Sea Power upon History”, “Control of the sea, by maritime commerce and naval strength, means control of the world’s riches.”

Yet the threat from China is not the only threat. There is a second, more corrosive, less visible danger: ideological radicalism. The Maldives, despite its size, has produced one of the world’s highest per capita numbers of foreign fighters for jihadist movements like the Islamic State. This radicalisation is not homegrown alone—it has been fertilised by transnational ideological currents, many of which trace their roots to Pakistani madrasa networks, Gulf charities, and global jihadist propaganda. This is not just a challenge of terrorism—it is a civilisational challenge. If Maldives succumbs to ideological capture, it undermines the very foundation of India’s vision for an inclusive and plural maritime region.

Here, India’s strategic burden multiplies. It must deter military encroachment without alienating partners. It must neutralise ideological subversion without appearing intrusive. And it must preserve the Maldivian state’s capacity without undermining its sovereignty. In short, India must do what great powers often fail to do: exercise power with restraint, and influence with patience.

This dual challenge also exposes the fragility of India’s diplomatic model. While India offers civilisational familiarity and strategic proximity, its engagement often lacks depth, follow-through, and institutional continuity. President Mohamed Muizzu’s “India Out” campaign was more than political theatre—it revealed a deeper vulnerability: that India’s presence can be politicised, caricatured, and challenged from within. New Delhi must now learn to navigate this populist volatility. Influence in a democracy cannot be built on coercion. It must be earned—and re-earned.

Hence, India must invest in regional architectures that go beyond bilateralism. Forums like the Colombo Security Conclave, the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, and trilateral security dialogues with Mauritius, Sri Lanka, and Seychelles offer the institutional glue for regional order. But these mechanisms need consistency. They must evolve from dialogue platforms into strategic stabilisers. As Halford Mackinder observed, “Who rules the Rimland rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia rules the world.” In the Indian Ocean, it is not territory but tides that determine influence.

India’s greatest strategic asset is time-tested: legitimacy. Unlike China, which builds infrastructure to acquire influence, India builds trust to sustain presence. Unlike Pakistan, which exports radicalism, India exports restraint. The task now is to link this moral capital to strategic capacity. That requires not just power projection—but power endurance.

Maldives offers a test case. If India is to prevent the Indian Ocean from becoming another theatre of coercive hegemony, it must embed itself not only in the state structures of its neighbours, but in their strategic imaginations. It must outlast political cycles, offer tangible security, and provide reliable alternatives. Above all, it must move beyond reactive policy and articulate what kind of regional order it wants to shape. Does India seek to be merely a balancer? Or a builder of rules, norms, and capacities?

There is no automaticity to Indian leadership in the Indian Ocean. It must be earned—through credibility, discipline, and staying power. China’s ports and Pakistan’s proxies will continue to test the limits of Indian restraint. But in Maldives, as elsewhere, the question is no longer who builds infrastructure. The question is: who offers a future?

Disclaimer: This paper is the author's individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organization's viewpoint.

Zahid Sultan is a Freelance Researcher and a  PhD scholar in Political Science)