India’s foreign policy must look seaward
India's growing maritime workforce faces significant risks due to the complex, multi-jurisdictional nature of global shipping, where seafarers often lack clear consular protection. The article argues that India must move beyond reactive measures by establishing a standing maritime consular protocol and a robust tracking system to ensure the safety and welfare of its citizens at sea.
Why it matters
As India becomes the world's second-largest supplier of seafarers, the lack of a unified legal and consular framework leaves hundreds of thousands of workers vulnerable to abandonment, conflict, and exploitation in international waters.
At sea, nationality is usually clear. Responsibility seldom is. An Indian seafarer may be recruited in Mumbai, hired by a company based in Singapore, placed on a ship flying the flag of Panama, carrying Kuwaiti oil, attacked off the coast of Oman, and detained in a fifth country. His family may know that he is in danger without knowing which government, shipowner, or insurer is responsible for bringing him home. No single authority is fully in charge. For thousands of Indian seafarers, this uncertainty is not an exception but a routine part of ordinary working life.
Of the 14 Indians killed in attacks connected to the conflict in West Asia since February 28, at least eight were seafarers aboard commercial ships. Other Indian seafarers have been injured or stranded because their vessel, its owner or its cargo made them targets in a war they did not choose.
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