OPINION | India’s Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue 2025 to Focus on Maritime Capacity and Cooperation

by Shashwat Gupta Ray

The Indian Navy will host the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) 2025 in New Delhi from October 28 to 30, convening naval leaders, diplomats, policymakers, and maritime experts to discuss regional cooperation across the Indo-Pacific. The conference will be held at the Manekshaw Centre with the National Maritime Foundation (NMF) as its knowledge partner.

The event’s theme — “Promoting Holistic Maritime Security and Growth: Regional Capacity-Building and Capability-Enhancement” — positions this year’s dialogue as a practical extension of India’s ongoing effort to translate broad maritime concepts into implementable measures.

Building on the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative

IPRD 2025 continues India’s effort to operationalize the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 14th East Asia Summit in Bangkok on November 4, 2019. The IPOI outlines seven interrelated pillars — maritime security, marine ecology, marine resources, trade-connectivity and maritime transport, capacity building and resource sharing, disaster risk reduction and management, and science, technology, and academic cooperation.

Since 2019, the initiative has attracted participation from several partner countries that have volunteered to lead or co-lead specific pillars:

• Maritime Security — India and the United Kingdom

• Marine Ecology — Australia and Thailand

• Marine Resources — France and Indonesia

• Trade Connectivity and Maritime Transport — Japan, India, and the United States

• Capacity Building and Resource Sharing — Germany and the Netherlands

• Science, Technology and Academic Cooperation — Italy and Singapore

• Disaster Risk Reduction and Management — India and Bangladesh

  
  

The European Union and Greece are expected to join the framework, with their specific area of engagement yet to be decided.

For India, the IPOI gives operational clarity to its maritime policy encapsulated in the acronym MAHASAGAR — “Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions.” The policy emphasises collective development and shared security across the full expanse of the Indo-Pacific, stretching from the eastern coast of Africa to the western shores of the Americas.

Concept, Politics, and Execution

According to the concept note circulated by the Indian Navy, the architecture for “holistic security” in the Indo-Pacific is envisioned as a three-layered structure:

1. Conceptual Layer — built around MAHASAGAR and the IPOI framework.

2. Political Layer — drawing upon regional forums such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).

3. Executive Layer — composed of seagoing agencies such as navies and coast guards operating under cooperative mechanisms like the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS).

   
   

The IPRD serves as a platform within this third layer — a space for translating policy ideas into operational cooperation. India’s renewed chairmanship of IONS is expected to strengthen this link, aligning maritime dialogues with actionable outcomes.

Focus on Capacity and Capability

The core agenda for IPRD 2025 centers on two interdependent objectives: capacity-building, referring to the creation of material assets, logistics, and infrastructure; and capability-enhancement, which involves developing human skills, institutional frameworks, and operational coordination.

Panel sessions will address issues such as: Mechanisms for sharing maritime resources and infrastructure among Indo-Pacific states. Cooperation in marine research, technology transfer, and maritime education. Strategies for improving disaster-response and humanitarian-assistance coordination. Policies to expand maritime domain awareness and information exchange.

Organizers have indicated that discussions will seek “specific solutions that could guide policy formulation and execution at national, sub-regional, and regional levels,” rather than reiterating known challenges.

A Regional Response to Common Challenges

The Indo-Pacific’s security and economic environment remains shaped by multiple stress factors — climate change, environmental degradation, transnational crime, and strategic competition. The IPRD concept note identifies holistic maritime security and sustainable growth as mutually reinforcing objectives.

India’s approach frames the Indo-Pacific not as a singular strategy but as a strategic geography where diverse national and multilateral strategies can coexist. This perspective underscores India’s preference for inclusive cooperation over alignment-based blocs.

The concept note further notes that the Indo-Pacific “is not, in and of itself, a strategy,” but a spatial context for policy instruments designed to promote economic and societal security. Within that context, India seeks to contribute to a regional order grounded in freedom of navigation, the rule of law, and shared prosperity.

Institutional Continuity and Outreach

The Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue was conceived as the Indian Navy’s annual apex-level international conference to project India’s strategic-level maritime thinking and foster exchanges among policymakers, uniformed leadership, and academics. Previous editions of IPRD have examined themes such as regional connectivity, maritime governance, and cooperative security.

Each successive dialogue has sought to elaborate one or more of the IPOI’s seven pillars, effectively linking India’s maritime diplomacy with its practical initiatives at sea. The 2025 edition continues this progression, with a targeted emphasis on regional mechanisms that can improve collective readiness and resilience.

Broader Strategic Context

The conference takes place as India expands engagement with partners across the Indo-Pacific through a series of parallel frameworks — the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) with Australia, Japan, and the United States; bilateral logistics and information-sharing agreements with regional navies; and participation in humanitarian-assistance and disaster-relief (HADR) operations.

While the IPRD is not a decision-making body, it serves as a venue for dialogue that complements these operational arrangements. By drawing together officials, scholars, and practitioners, it aims to strengthen what Indian officials describe as an “ecosystem of maritime cooperation” spanning both the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean regions.

Toward a Practical Maritime Agenda

The organisers describe IPRD 2025 as a “problem-solving dialogue,” designed to advance regional consensus on practical measures rather than political statements. Its sessions are expected to produce recommendations relevant to maritime capacity development, inter-agency coordination, and regional architecture reform.

The discussions will also build upon India’s leadership of IONS and its participation in multilateral exercises aimed at enhancing interoperability in areas such as anti-piracy, search-and-rescue, and environmental monitoring.

For India, the event represents continuity in maritime outreach — aligning national objectives with collective regional interests and reinforcing the principle that maritime security and economic growth are interdependent.

As the Indo-Pacific grows more central to global commerce and strategic competition, cooperation among its maritime nations will be critical to maintaining stability. The Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue 2025 seeks to reinforce that cooperation by linking vision with execution — transforming the conceptual pillars of the IPOI into actionable partnerships.

Through IPRD 2025, India aims to consolidate its role as a facilitator of collective maritime security and capacity development, offering a forum where nations can deliberate shared solutions to shared challenges across one of the world’s most consequential maritime regions.

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About Author

Shashwat Gupta Ray is a multiple award-winning defense and strategic affairs journalist with over 20 years of experience in print and digital media. Previously Deputy Editor at Herald Group of Publications and Resident Editor at Gomantak Times, he has extensively covered major events, including the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and Maoist insurgencies. He is also the creator of the award-winning YouTube channel Uncovering India, which focuses on impactful social and developmental documentaries.