India’s Domestic Debate over China’s Growing Strategic Presence in the Indian Ocean

This article seeks to capture the domestic debate in India over China’s activities in the Indian Ocean. It engages the critical geopolitical articulation around formal, practical and popular geopolitics, and provides a narrow perspective on the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). It begins with a look at how India and China perceive the IOR, which is crucial to understand how the Indian Ocean is framed in the public consciousness in India. This is followed by a look at debates over China in the Indian Parliament, specifically focusing on the debates and questions raised by various Members of Parliament (MPs) and the government’s response. The article then analyses the largest circulated newspaper in English, The Times of India, during the last few years to discern any domestic discourse in the public sphere. It concludes by looking at domestic discourse created by think tanks and research organisations which pay close attention to China.