The contradiction in diplomat KM Panikkar’s vision of a maritime strategy for India

Over a decade has passed since India sought to reorient its grand strategic discourse from continental to maritime Asia and anchored its vision of international order in the Indian Ocean Region.

In justifying this maritime turn within India’s national security discourse, both internal architects and external observers have pointed to the enduring strategic vision of Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (1895-1963). Panikkar was a historian, diplomat and influential foreign policy personality in pre- and post-independence India.

He served in different capacities at princely courts in the erstwhile British Raj, was part of deliberations over India’s geostrategic position during the interwar years, and had crucial stints as independent India’s ambassador to China and then Egypt. Panikkar’s influence was wide-ranging, but in contemporary foreign policy circles, one of his key legacies is the role he played in defining the contours of India’s maritime strategy.

Panikkar’s naval thought, laid out specifically in India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power (1945), is consistently invoked to defend both the legitimacy of the grand strategic narrative embedded in New Delhi’s more recent maritime turn, and the convergence of partner states’ Indo-Pacific strategies seen through a “Mahanian” veneer. This entails control of the “ocean space” by leveraging India’s geostrategic position to project naval...

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