By S. Sultan

Bay of Bengal, situated in between south and southeast Asia, which is surrounded by the vital sea routes by connecting the Indian Ocean to the Straits of Malacca. The Bay of Bengal has become increasingly important to India’s geopolitical calculus. New Delhi’s interests in the Bay of Bengal can be broadly viewed in two ways. The first, India sees the bay as a sea-bridge to the east, through which New Delhi can unlock greater political, economic, and strategic cooperation between itself, its neighborhood, and the Asia-Pacific. Second, against the backdrop of increasing Chinese footprint in the Bay of Bengal, it is in India’s interest to uphold a stable, rules-based maritime order in the region to secure the flow of goods along vital sea routes and the freedom of navigation for the Indian Navy. Given New Delhi’s interests in the region, it is time that India reprioritizes the Bay of Bengal as the centerpiece for its relations in South Asia and a springboard to venture further east.

The Bay of Bengal, by virtue of its geography, has the potential to bolster ties between India, the South Asian neighborhood, and the Asia-Pacific. This fact has not gone unnoticed in India and further polished by the Indian prime minister. In June 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) a natural platform to fulfill Indian key foreign policy priorities of neighborhood “First and Act East.” Indeed, a renewed focus on the Bay of Bengal through BIMSTEC—a multilateral organization consisting of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand has the potential to bolster both India’s Neighborhood First Policy, which gives importance to its immediate neighbors, and its Act East Policy, which aims to strengthen New Delhi’s engagement with its extended neighborhood to its east. As an organization exclusively structured around the bay, BIMSTEC could be India’s vehicle for greater economic cooperation in the region by linking Bhutan and Nepal to the Indian Ocean, integrating India’s Northeast with Southeast Asia, and deepening India’s economic ties with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Yet, even after twenty years of its existence, it remains an underperforming organization and the Bay of Bengal persists as one of the world’s least economically integrated regions.

India kept on focusing the strategic interests in Bay of Bengal. In this regard, New Delhi’s renewed effort to build a stronger BIMSTEC will be an important step in institutionalizing a regional architecture for the Bay of Bengal. However, India’s commitment for a stronger BIMSTEC must be matched by the political will to provide leadership to the organization. India at the same time is good to take stand on whether it wants to engage with China in the region by pursuing the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor. Moreover, India is expert in putting new initiatives on the table, like Project Mausam, to link the states around the Bay of Bengal. Collectively India has sharp eyes on Bay of Bengal in order to save its own national interests by engaging other regional actors to behave as hegemony in the region of south Asia.

Moreover, In the Indian Ocean Region, the Bay of Bengal is re-emerging economically and strategically. The region has become a theater of strategic power play due to its strategic relevance, the presence of critical SLOCs, and the strong economic prospects of several adjoining states. India seeks to become region’s largest naval power, and it strives to maintain a rule-based maritime order.

In recent times, the centre of gravity attraction for global trade and economic activities has shifted to the Indo-Pacific with the Bay of Bengal economies in focus. Subsequently, there is heightened competition between global powers that have stakes in the region. The importance of connectivity has therefore come to the forefront, covering domains like digitization with interoperable regimes comprising data protection and cyber security, along with cross-border infrastructures that need attention. Nearly 1.4 billion people live along its coastlines. With 25 percent of global population inhabiting countries surrounding the Bay, the extensive resources of the region have been a major source of livelihood for these people. In the post-pandemic world, investment in these resources can very well aid economic recovery processes enabling a blue benefits-driven growth for countries in the region and promote their long-term socio-economic development.

However, imminent stressors associated with climate change and anthropogenic disruptions are posing a threat to the coastal and marine ecosystems of the region affecting livelihood security of its people. Increasingly confronted with climate change-induced risks, there is an urgent need for the Bay of Bengal Blue Economies to transition towards Sustainable Ocean Economy that envisage environmental sustainability and conservation of sensitive ecologies as a linchpin for promotion of oceans-based enterprises for societal benefits.

As an inter-regional arena, the Bay of Bengal reflects security concerns prevailing in the wider Indo-Pacific such as apprehensions over freedom of navigation, terrorism, illegal activities, and environmental challenges. These threats have transnational impacts as almost eighty percent of the semi-enclosed Bay is a contiguous belt of Exclusive Economic Zones, while twenty percent qualify as the high seas. Effective security control thus requires collaboration amongst the littoral countries as well as extra-regional stakeholders in threat mapping, assessment, inter-country dialogues and security arrangements such as joint patrols.

Coastal and marine ecosystems in the Bay of Bengal region have emerged as a critical space today. Additionally, the Bay of Bengal economies should be able to sustain short run emergencies and supply chain disruptions without falling apart; and at the same time, countries should also strive toward diminishing their external dependency and increase the efficacy of the domestic production and consumption processes. As a fundamental pillar of any security framework is attaining knowledge or awareness about threats in the concerned domain, collaboration in developing Maritime Domain Awareness or MDA is a cardinal requirement in the Bay. However, the nuance of implementing MDA needs to be analyzed if robust systems of intelligence gathering are to be built and functional networks for information exchange are to be designed, to secure the Bay’s future. Moreover, the close collaboration of regional actor is required to face any calamity in future without falling apart and the threats which are going to be posed by extra regional actors.