Locating Sri Lanka and Maldives in India’s Neighbourhood First Policy: Identifying Areas of Convergences and Concerns

India has always accorded primacy to its immediate neighbourhood with which it shares 15,106.7 km of land border and has a coastline of 7,516.6 km (including island territory). This has been one of its major anchors while steering the course of its foreign policy in the turbulent seas of international politics through seven decades. Both the pre and post liberalisation eras—which is considered to be the most significant point of departure in India’s policy architecture, have witnessed prominent leaders of the State like Indira Gandhi (1966–1977; 1980–1984), Narsimha Rao (1991–1996) and Inder Kumar Gujaral (April 1997–March 1998) seeking to maintain India’s robust presence in the South Asian region through active interest and initiative in regional affairs, promoting regional inclusivity and trying to minimise the role of extra-regional actors. Importantly, in this journey of carving its undeniable presence in the region, India’s neighbourhood has become inextricably linked with its desire and goal to establish itself as a major power. With the official introduction of the Neighbourhood First Policy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, there was fresh impetus to accord greater salience to the littoral states. The geographical location of Sri Lanka and Maldives render it as India’s maritime neighbours. Sub-regional diplomacy involving them have gradually gained credence to boost India’s maritime security interests. The driving forces of India’s Neighbourhood First policy were geography, regional integration, geo-economics, development imperatives and security concerns, and the shared goals were greater cooperation and better ties with neighbours, based on reciprocity, synergetic collaboration and co-development. India’s rising stakes in the Indian Ocean region, its urgency to counter the aggressive Chinese presence in Asia and its continued ambition attain global power status in the rapidly changing dynamics of world politics informed its search for pressing issue areas of convergences and concerns with Sri Lanka and Maldives. Prime Minister Modi declared that India has always given priority to Sri Lanka under its Neighbourhood First Policy and Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) doctrine (September, 2020). For Maldives, Modi underlined that it occupies a special place in the hearts of Indians and also in the country’s Neighbourhood First policy, and the two countries have strong ties in a range of fields (August, 2022). India-Maldives-Sri Lanka conducted a trilateral exercise in 2021 to manoeuvre interoperability and to build cooperation between the Coast Guards of Maldives, India and Sri Lanka. They agreed to work with four pillars of security cooperation, covering areas of maritime security, human trafficking, counter-terrorism and cyber-security. However, certain trends can be discerned which complicate the otherwise seemingly linear chain of amity among these three countries. Sri Lanka’s internal politico-economic chaos with acute regional ramifications rendered its unhealthy surrender to the Chinese clutches explicit. Maldives started to look at India as a provider of security and economic benefits only under the regime of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih from 2018 to 2023. The present paper would critically map the areas of convergences and issues of concerns which shape the relations among these three countries, keeping the contextual scope of India’s prioritisation of its neighbourhood in its foreign policy and the evolving complexity of power dynamics in the Indian Ocean region.