"India's SHANTI framework positions Bay of Bengal as maritime governance laboratory"
SHANTI
Securing Holistic Advancement through Norms, Trust and Integrity; India's 2026 normative maritime security framework
SAGAR
Security and Growth for All in the Region; India's 2015 Indian Ocean maritime vision emphasising equitable development
India's maritime strategic thinking has evolved through a series of normative frameworks that reflect its growing ambitions as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region. The foundational articulation came with SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region), announced in 2015, which established India's vision of equitable development, freedom of navigation, and collective maritime security in the Indian Ocean. SAGAR was significant because it moved India beyond a purely bilateral, transactional approach to maritime engagement and signalled a willingness to assume regional leadership responsibilities.
The Bay of Bengal itself has deep historical significance as a civilisational connector — linking South and Southeast Asia through centuries of trade, cultural exchange, and religious diffusion long before contemporary geopolitical frameworks emerged. Today, the Bay is home to some of the world's busiest shipping lanes, connects India's eastern seaboard to the Malacca Strait, and serves as the maritime gateway for India's Act East Policy. The region is also among the world's most disaster-prone, regularly experiencing cyclones, storm surges, and flooding that cross national boundaries and overwhelm individual state capacities. BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) remains the primary regional institution, though it has historically struggled with institutional fragmentation and weak operationalisation.
The SHANTI framework — Securing Holistic Advancement through Norms, Trust and Integrity — represents the third and most methodologically sophisticated layer of India's maritime doctrine architecture. Where SAGAR provided a vision of shared prosperity and MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), announced in 2025, expanded that vision's geographic scope to the wider Indo-Pacific and the Global South, SHANTI provides the grammar — the normative principles and institutional methods through which vision is translated into durable, reciprocated action.
Conceptually, SHANTI shifts the emphasis along three axes:
Consider the following statements with reference to the Sagarmala Programme of the Government of India:
1.The Sagarmala Programme seeks to achieve port-led economic growth through cost-effective and sustainable coastal infrastructure.
2.The success of the Sagarmala Programme is reflected in significant growth in coastal and inland waterway shipping, along with improved global port rankings.
3.Sagarmala 2.0 aims to position India as a global maritime innovation hub aligned with Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat 2047 visions.
Which of the following relationships among the above statements is/are correct?
1.Statement 2 validates the effectiveness of the strategies envisioned in statement 1.
2.Statement 3 extends the objectives of statement 1 by embedding them into a future-oriented innovation framework.
3.Statement 1 contradicts statement 3 by focusing only on traditional infrastructure instead of modern innovation.
Select the answer using the code given below:
Consider the following statements about India's maritime security frameworks:
1.SAGAR stands for 'Security and Growth for All in the Region' and was articulated in 2015.
2.MAHASAGAR was announced before SAGAR and focuses exclusively on the Bay of Bengal.
3.SHANTI was introduced in the context of India's candidature for the UN Security Council for the 2028–29 term.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
With reference to BIMSTEC, consider the following statements:
1.BIMSTEC connects South Asian and Southeast Asian nations through the Bay of Bengal.
2.Nepal and Bhutan are members of BIMSTEC despite being landlocked countries.
3.The BIMSTEC Charter, which gave the grouping a formal legal personality, came into force in 2022.
4.BIMSTEC's headquarters is located in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Assertion (A): The Bay of Bengal is described as India's most 'governable' maritime sub-region for operationalising the SHANTI framework.
Reason (R): Unlike the western Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal's littoral states face structurally similar non-traditional threats and its strategic geography encourages cooperative rather than conflictual responses.
Which of the following is correct?
Which of the following correctly maps India's maritime doctrine frameworks to their defining conceptual contributions?
1.SAGAR — Vision of equitable development and shared security in the Indian Ocean
2.MAHASAGAR — Expanded scope to the wider Indo-Pacific and recognition of Global South interconnectedness
3.SHANTI — Normative grammar providing norms, trust, and integrity as the method for maritime cooperation
Select the correct answer using the code below:
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