| Summary/Abstract |
This paper elucidates the changing dynamics of India’s Indian Ocean Policy that substantiates four hypotheses. First, India’s maritime mindset has changed from a territorial to a non-territorial conception of the sea due to change in its strategy of economic development. Second, the evolving geopolitics of the Indian Ocean and India’s power projection aspirations have been driving New Delhi deep into the Indian Ocean. Third, the Chinese attempts to penetrate into the India Ocean through its client states such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Myanmar, etc., and its One Belt One Road (OBOR) or Maritime Silk Route (MSR) initiatives, have been posing a real-time maritime security challenge to India’s Indian Ocean strategy. Fourth, the US policy of Rebalance to Asia (RTA) has been providing geopolitical opportunity as well as challenge to India’s power projection drive in the Indian Ocean.
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