Naval forces are known generically to operate in three main areas of national interest-military, politics and enconomics. However, their warfighting capabilities could also be utilised to fulfil an important diplomatic role, as has often been demonstrated in the past by the Indian Navy. Continuing with this tradition, units of the Western Fleet successfully completed an overseas deployment to ports of the Indian Ocean region (IOR) in August-September this year. Indian Naval ships Delhi and Ranvijay called at the ports of Port Louis (Mauritius) and Mombasa (Kenya) while Aditya and Godavari visited Port Victoria, Seychelles and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The aims of the deployment were to establish forward naval presence in the sea areas of interest, display indigenous shipbuilding capability and foster goodwill with countries in the IOR.

The deployment enabled interaction with the highest political, military and administrative leadership of the countries visited. Meetings in Port Louis were arranged with the President of Mauritius, Vice President, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Commissioner of Police and Mayor of Port Louis. The deployment also facilitated a large number of professional and social exchanges with heads of Indian missions, heads of local governing bodies and top ranking military and police officials. A common feature of these interactions was the growing realisation of the importance of India for regional stability and the increasing significance of the Indian Navy for regional security.

Indigenously constructed warships, it is believed, represent a combination of technological ability and military capability of a nation. Presence of high-end indigenous warships such as Delhi, Aditya and Godavari was seen as a projection of Indian technological, industrial and military capability. This made a lasting impact on the political and military leadership and the local people and attracted extensive media attention. The port visits were also significant for the opportunities they presented for carrying out community welfare works.

Activities undertaken by the ships' crews included a blood donation camp at Port Louis and repair and refurbishment of the Old Age Home at Port Louis, Rehabilitation Centre for the Physically Disabled at Mombasa and Kurasini National Children's Home at Dar-es-Salaam. Apart from donating dry ration to these centres, medical teams from the ships carried out free medical check-ups for their inmates and distributed medicines. A Sintex tank, chairs and dry ration were also donated to the Missionaries of Charity, Anse Etiole, Seychelles and useful workshop equipment was gifted to the Seychelles People’s Defence Force.

In order to improve interoperability and forge closer professional interactions with the host navies, joint exercises with them were arranged on departure from the ports of call. Exercises were conducted between the Indian ships and Mauritian Coast Guard ships Vigiland and Guardian, Seychelles Coast Guard ship Andromache and Kenyan naval ships Shujaa, Nyayo and Mamba. These exercises included underway replenishment, tactical manoeuvres, gun firing and helicopter demonstration search and rescue, weapon deployment, formation flying and dunking operations.