Opinion India and the geopolitics of Mauritius: The ‘Star and Key’ to the Indian Ocean

But the geopolitics of the region have become even more contested and demanding over the last decade. India has its task cut out in raising its game in Mauritius and the Western Indian Ocean islands as more actors, including Europe, Russia, China, Gulf states and Turkey, jostle for greater influence in the region. Central to Delhi’s task is the clear recognition that Mauritius is not an extension of India, despite the strong bonds of ethnic kinship. Mauritius has a geopolitical identity and agency all of its own.

Few locations in the world capture the complex evolution of modern world politics more succinctly than Mauritius. Consider, for example, its colonial history. All European colonial powers — including the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British — showed up here. Its independence from Britain did not end its battle against colonialism. One of the last vestiges of colonialism in Mauritius was sorted out only recently with the agreement between Port Louis and London over the Chagos archipelago.

When Britain gave independence to Mauritius in 1968, it separated part of the Chagos archipelago into the “British Indian Ocean Territory” and gave the island of Diego Garcia on lease to the United States, which set up a major military base on the island. Over the last couple of decades, Mauritius had mounted a patient but powerful global campaign to reclaim its sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago.

The UK-Mauritius agreement on Chagos holds profound legal, geopolitical, and humanitarian significance. From the legal standpoint, the agreement reaffirms Mauritius’s sovereignty over Chagos. It aligns with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2019, which supported Mauritius’s claim to the archipelago. This move strengthens international law by respecting decolonisation principles and sets a precedent for resolving similar territorial disputes between European powers and post-colonial states. The agreement between Mauritius and the UK also addresses the humanitarian concerns of the people dispossessed during decolonisation. It also provides the basis for long-term environmental cooperation between London and Port Louis.

From the geopolitical perspective, Mauritius has extended the lease on Diego Garcia for 99 years, helping retain the US military base there. Although the Tories in the UK and some Republicans in the US have denounced this agreement as paving the way for Chinese dominance of the Indian Ocean, it does exactly the opposite by retaining the US base with Mauritius’s consent. This should help sustain a long-term US military presence in the Indian Ocean amid China’s growing strategic focus on the littoral. During British PM Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington last month, President Donald Trump endorsed the agreement.

For India and PM Modi, who stood by Mauritius in its struggle to regain sovereignty, it is a moment of quiet diplomatic satisfaction. Delhi was instrumental in promoting a pragmatic agreement between Mauritius and the UK that would meet India’s regional security concerns over China’s expanding naval profile in the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, India’s construction of logistics infrastructure on Agaléga Island underlines both Mauritius’s enduring geopolitical significance in the Indian Ocean and Delhi’s growing maritime stakes in regional security. Many things have changed in world politics over the centuries, but the importance of geographic location remains constant. Mauritius’s critical position in the Western Indian Ocean earned it the name “Star and Key of the Indian Ocean”.

For European sailors navigating down the African coast and entering the Indian Ocean after passing the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius was indeed key to the onward journey up the African coast and across the Indian Ocean. The opening of the Suez Canal in the mid-19th century seemed to reduce the importance of Mauritius and the Western Indian Ocean islands. But the two World Wars and the Cold War thrust Mauritius back into the centre stage of world politics.

Britain’s decline as a great power and its withdrawal from the Indian Ocean in 1970 was followed by a large American military presence in the Middle East and Indian Ocean region. The US-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War led to competition between Washington and Moscow for military access to key locations in the Indian Ocean, including the Western Indian Ocean islands.

While the end of the Cold War once again turned focus away from the islands, China’s rise and growing influence in the Indian Ocean littoral has made Mauritius and other islands in the region — including Comoros, Madagascar, the French territory of Réunion, and Seychelles— a zone of geopolitical contestation.

China’s growing reliance on African and Middle Eastern resources, its construction of major infrastructure projects including ports and transport corridors in the region, the PLA’s eagerness to project naval power into the Indian Ocean, and its establishment of its first foreign military base in Djibouti underscore Beijing’s growing salience in the Western Indian Ocean.

China has also consistently courted Mauritius and other Western Indian Ocean islands. It has convened two Indian Ocean conferences focusing on the island states in recent years. Beyond the military dimension, China recognises Mauritius’s geo-economic importance.

During the 19th century, Mauritius was an important node in Indian Ocean globalisation, facilitating the movement of capital and labour across the region and developing sugar plantations to serve the world market. Through elite pragmatism and economic vision, post-colonial Mauritius has transformed itself into a regional financial hub, a centre of connectivity networks, and a bridge between Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

It isn’t just China that’s now interested in the Western Indian Ocean. Europe is attempting to reclaim a strategic presence in the littoral. The Gulf countries, with their vast financial power, have become influential actors in the region. Russia, Iran, and Turkey are all actively expanding their regional involvement.

As a complement to its prosperity rooted in global connections, Mauritius has developed balanced ties with all major powers while strengthening its strategic autonomy. Delhi’s success in Port Louis stems not from shared ethnicity but from being a reliable and benign partner in boosting Mauritius’s sovereignty. That Delhi is determined to strengthen this unique bilateral strategic partnership, with all its regional and global dimensions, is the main message from the PM’s visit to Mauritius.

C Raja Mohan is a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express