President Prabowo Subianto’s visit to India marked a pivotal moment in India-Indonesia relations, strengthening a maritime and defence partnership grounded in shared interests, strategic autonomy, and a commitment to a rules-based Indo-Pacific.
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This article is part of the series—Jakarta Edit 2025
The presence of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto as Chief Guest of India’s 76th Republic Day ushered in a new phase in India-Indonesia relations. The relationship was further amplified by the release of the India-Indonesia Joint Statement at the end of President Prabowo’s four-day trip to India. The statement underlined many convergences in shared worldviews and national priorities between the two major Indo-Pacific democracies. The bilateral relationship is rooted in shared history, maritime geography, and aspirations for greater strategic autonomy. The visit also underlined President Prabowo's efforts to engage rising and fellow middle powers to broaden Jakarta's traditional non-aligned diplomacy. Despite the differences in their approaches, Indonesia and India find themselves aligned on one core priority: ensuring an open, rules-based Indo-Pacific. Indonesia has long been a beneficiary of international law, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). While it has traditionally been more focused on ASEAN centrality, it has now begun signalling a willingness for broader coalition-building, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. India, on the other hand, positions itself as a leading voice of the Global South, advocating for reform of global institutions, affordability in fuel, fertiliser, and food, and equality in access to global public goods, among others.
Despite the differences in their approaches, Indonesia and India find themselves aligned on one core priority: ensuring an open, rules-based Indo-Pacific.
For long, India-Indonesia relations lacked top-level leadership interactions to initiate broader engagement. The visit in January could serve as the necessary top-down push to deepen the maritime and defence partnership. Further, Prabowo’s interest in India’s other policies, such as the Mid-Day Meal Programme and public food distribution system during his visit, shows Jakarta’s willingness to learn from India’s domestic resilience mechanisms—a mindset that could extend to defence production.
India and Indonesia already enjoy a relatively advanced level of maritime cooperation, notably through regular engagements of their navies. Since 2002, they have engaged in regular Coordinated Patrols (IND-INDO-CORPAT) and held independent bilateral naval exercises called Samudra Shakti since 2018, which reached its fourth iteration in 2023. These engagements are becoming increasingly sophisticated, including tactical manoeuvres, air defence, and anti-submarine warfare exercises. India has also signalled interest in joining the Malacca Strait Patrol and strengthening multilateral maritime domain awareness by linking Indonesia more closely with its Information Fusion Centre in the Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR). Apart from the Navy, their respective coast guards have also engaged with each other in cross-deck training, maritime search and rescue operations, marine pollution response, and maritime law enforcement through the sharing of best practices.
This operational depth suggests that maritime security is not only a shared interest but a trusted avenue for deepening the bilateral partnership. Importantly, both nations uphold principles such as open navigation, adherence to international law, and dialogue to solve differences. These shared values are essential for countering unilateral actions that threaten the regional maritime order, particularly in flashpoints around the Indo-Pacific.
The real test is whether Indonesia-India’s long-standing maritime partnership can serve as a launchpad for a more integrated defence industrial ecosystem. Indonesia, having faced arms embargoes in the past, sees value in diversifying its partners, though its diversified assets have caused difficulties in terms of system interoperability. While Indonesia’s defence industry has long suffered from budget constraints and limited room for its private sector, its ambitions to modernise could now serve as an impetus for industrial collaboration with countries having complementary defence industry structures.
For Indonesia, India represents a technologically capable and politically palatable middle power—neither a traditional arms hegemon nor encumbered by geopolitical conditionalities.
India, for its part, has been bolstering its indigenous defence manufacturing capacity. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has made notable strides in advancing defence technology research in developing assets like strategic and cruise missiles. It has the potential to establish technological transfer agreements with foreign partners. Companies like Tata Advanced Systems (known for command and control systems, fuselage), Bharat Forge (artillery systems), and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (warships and submarines) are equipped with advanced defence facilities for production capabilities recognised by Indonesian officials. A blooming defence startup ecosystem serves as another interesting variable in the rise of India’s defence industry.
For Indonesia, India represents a technologically capable and politically palatable middle power—neither a traditional arms hegemon nor encumbered by geopolitical conditionalities. There are opportunities in domains such as shipbuilding, patrol craft, coastal defence systems, and radar technology. Indonesia’s need for asymmetric capabilities (e.g., UAVs, surveillance systems) and maritime logistics could synergise with India’s production strengths.
However, expectations must be managed. Indian enthusiasm for joint production or large-scale investment may remain tempered. New Delhi currently prioritises technology transfer into the country and co-manufacturing with established defence industry players. If Indonesia seeks both transfer of technology and investments from the country, then the “Made in India” policy could spell practical constraints. Rather than aiming for large-scale defence collaborations for transformative leaps, perhaps phased engagement or pilot projects are possible in the short term.
Although historically different in practice, Indonesia’s foreign policy doctrine of being “free and active” is, to an extent, similar to India’s idea of strategic autonomy. Even as it warms up to India, Jakarta remains careful not to antagonise Beijing or appear aligned with any geopolitical bloc. Consequently, any India-Indonesia defence collaboration must be framed not as a counterbalance to China, but as a contribution to strengthening regional self-reliance and resilience.
Another challenge would be the protectionist policies in both countries, which could further complicate collaboration in high-tech sectors like defence, or even in strategic/dual-use economic sectors like critical minerals. It is plausible that both countries will equally look to attract large-scale investments rather than facilitate them for the other.
As two of the Indo-Pacific’s largest democracies, India and Indonesia are uniquely positioned to co-develop an alternative defence framework rooted in strategic autonomy, shared values, and regional ownership.
The key will be to find specific maritime and defence cooperation areas where India and Indonesia can complement one another and work as niche partners. For example, India could be a source of defence equipment and spare parts from Russia, like Sukhoi, which Indonesia had already adopted and still uses. As trade with Russia gets complicated against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, New Delhi offers Jakarta an alternative channel for sustaining legacy systems. Indonesia may look to India as a potential partner or source to diversify its trade and investment sources, and avoid over-reliance on certain partners, be it in defence equipment or the strategic trade of its dual-use materials used in the production of such defence equipment.
As two of the Indo-Pacific’s largest democracies, India and Indonesia are uniquely positioned to co-develop an alternative defence framework rooted in strategic autonomy, shared values, and regional ownership. Maritime security offers a trusted and operational foundation. The next step is scaling cooperation into joint production, knowledge transfer, and long-term industrial partnerships. If done right, this collaboration can offer the Global South a viable model of defence collaboration beyond great power influence. It could also enhance existing regional cooperation frameworks by injecting them with new forms of middle-power agency and capacity.
In the coming years, India and Indonesia have the potential not just to protect the Indo-Pacific’s maritime domain but to help shape the future of its norms. The building blocks are already in place; it is now a matter of political will and strategic imagination.
M.Waffaa Kharisma is a Researcher at CSIS, Indonesia.
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Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma is a Researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, Indonesia. His work focuses on the intersection of geopolitics, ...
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