The series of annual strategic-level international conferences that constitute the IPRD are reflective of the desire of the Indian Navy, at its apex level, to further the process of ‘constructive engagement.’ Such engagements are an important part of the Indian Navy’s strategy and highlight its willingness to engage with partners across the Indo-Pacific. The Indian Navy, being the principal maritime security agency in India and in accordance with its diplomatic role, is deeply invested in the actualisation of each of the seven spokes or pillars of the IPOI, with particular but not exclusive focus upon the pillar of ‘Maritime Security.’ Likewise, the NMF, in addition to military maritime security issues, also focuses on a wide range of important economic, socio-economic, socio-cultural, scientific, legal, and historical issues, all of which are critical to ‘maritime India.’ These include, amongst others, fleshing-out the vision of SAGAR, providing specificity to the IPOI, pushing India’s efforts to improve maritime connectivity, supporting a national and regional transition to a Blue Economy, etc.
The IPOI provides a unique opportunity to countries of the Indo-Pacific region to address the seven areas of maritime opportunity and challenges that have been identified in the seven spokes or pillars of the deeply interconnected web of the IPOI. It has been three years since the IPOI was proposed by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the 14th East Asia Summit meeting in November of 2019. And yet, the IPOI is a collective and inclusive initiative, which seeks regional champions to craft inclusive and collective solutions that can be applied across the rich and varied fabric of the Indo-Pacific. However, it does not ask its champions to walk their chosen paths alone. It invites partnerships in every positive sense of the word so that the solutions that are identified are owned not by one or another of these champions but by all who would wish to sustain a free, open, inclusive, and orderly maritime common.
The multiplicity of perspectives that were witnessed during the deliberation at IPRD-2022 makes it abundantly clear that a simplistic ‘one-size-fits-all’ omnibus solution to any of the challenges that are embedded within the seven pillars of the IPOI is unlikely to succeed. However, it became abundantly clear during the deliberations that challenges and solutions within the maritime domain need to be referenced to common interests – as reflected in the seven pillars of the IPOI – rather than to individual threats. It was further reaffirmed, through several telling examples, that not a single one of the seven pillars of the IPOI can ever be isolated from the others. In sum, the IPRD made a clarion call to unite individual strengths, capacities, and capabilities, in common cause for a better future.
