Maldives and the Indian Ocean region
India and Maldives recently decided to expand defense cooperation between them. India is set to install a maritime surveillance system and provide two Coast guard helicopters in the near future. In 2006 it gifted a fast attack craft (INS Tillanchang) to Maldives’ Coast Guard. Defense and security cooperation also involves assistance in defense and police training.
During the India-Maldives Friendship Week in Male, Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony said that “both countries face myriad security challenges especially from the sea and it would be New Delhi’s efforts to help its neighbor in whichever way it can.” He also said that “the scope of the ongoing joint MNDF Marines/Army and the Coast Guard exercises would be enhanced and Hydrographic survey and other joint events including surveillance and co-ordinated patrolling by IN and MNDF CG ships would continue apace. MNDF CG ship Huravee which was transferred to MNDF in 2006, would be provided a three month long refit by the GoI at Naval Dockyard Vizag.”
Maldives, a small island country located to the south of India in the Indian Ocean, is said to be “emerging as an important logistics and intelligence base for India.” The two countries have a long history of ethnic, commercial and cultural relations, and India was amongst the first to recognize Maldives as an independent nation in 1965. It is also committed to helping Maldives’s transition to a democratic government. The recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008 and increased piracy in the Gulf of Aden require that greater attention be paid to securing sea routes in the Indian Ocean. India would also like to limit Chinese influence in the region. But Maldives is already an Indian stronghold as the island nation has an ‘India first’ policy and trusts India to be its personal “911”. India had earlier provided immediate assistance during the 2006 Tsunami and helped crush the 1988 coup in Maldives.
