India seeks strategic edge in Indian Ocean, to help Mauritius develop, keep watch on Chagos Islands

New Delhi: India will help Mauritius develop and keep watch on and around the Chagos Islands – an archipelago, which the Indian Ocean nation recently got back from the United Kingdom, and which will continue to have a military base of the United States in Diego Garcia, its largest island.

As Narendra Modi and Navinchandra Ramgoolam, the Prime Ministers of the two nations, met in Varanasi on Thursday, India pledged to support Mauritius’ plans for development and surveillance of the Chagos Maritime Protection Area. The move is expected to give India a strategic edge in the wake of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s increasing forays in the Indian Ocean region.

New Delhi and Port Louis agreed on India building a satellite tracking station in Mauritius. The station will not only help track and receive data from satellites but will also turn into a strategic asset for India. The two sides also renewed a pact for India’s support for hydrographic surveys in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Mauritius.  India agreed to provide about $680 million in economic assistance to Mauritius for healthcare, infrastructure and maritime security projects.

 “A free, open, secure, stable, and prosperous Indian Ocean is our shared priority. In this context, India remains fully committed to strengthening the security of Mauritius’s Exclusive Economic Zone and enhancing its maritime capacity,” Modi told journalists after his meeting with Ramgoolam. “India has always stood as the first responder and a net security provider in the Indian Ocean region.”

India also pledged its support for the redevelopment and restructuring of ports in Mauritius.

“We will also advance projects such as the Chagos Marine Protected Area, the ATC (Air Traffic Controller) Tower at SSR International Airport, as well as the expansion of highways and ring roads (in Mauritius),” said the Prime Minister.

The Chagos Islands were originally part of the territory of Mauritius. However, just three years before Mauritius gained independence from the colonial rule of the United Kingdom, London detached the archipelago in 1965. The UK leased Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, to the United States for building and running a joint British American military base. The International Court of Justice in 2019 ruled that the UK’s control over the Chagos Islands was illegal and the archipelago should be returned to Mauritius. The UK agreed to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius in October 2024. The concerns in Washington D.C., over China gaining an edge in the Indian Ocean out of the Mauritius-UK deal, delayed the process. London and Port Louis finally signed the transfer agreement on May 22, 2025, with the provision that the island of Diego Garcia would be leased back to the UK for at least 99 years, so that the British American joint military base could continue to be operational.

“This (the return of the Chagos Islands from the UK to Mauritius) is a historic milestone for Mauritius’ sovereignty. India has always supported decolonisation and the full recognition of the sovereignty of Mauritius,” Modi said after his meeting with Ramgoolam on Thursday.

“We want to visit Chagos to put our flag there, including Diego Garcia. The British offered us a vessel, but we said we preferred one from India because symbolically it would be better,” said Ramgoolam.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri later told journalists that Mauritius, after the treaty with the UK on the Chagos Islands, now had a much larger Exclusive Economic Zone to protect and secure its interests in.  “India is, I would imagine, a preferred partner in this pursuit, and we look forward to assisting Mauritius in facing up to all these challenges that I mentioned that will be there in that area,” said Misri.

New Delhi and Port Louis, earlier this year, agreed to enhance the utilisation of the runway and jetty India built at Agaléga Island of Mauritius to get a strategic edge against China in the Indian Ocean region.