🌐 International RelationsMAINS · GS2.18 · GS2.17

The Navy’s cadet ships teach Seychelles firefighting and small arms

INS Tir, INS Sujata and a Coast Guard ship spent three days at Port Victoria, ran a passage exercise with the Seychelles Coast Guard, and held a medical camp.

What happened

The First Training Squadron - INS Tir, INS Sujata and ICGS Sarathi - left Port Victoria, Seychelles on 15 October 2026 after a call that began 12 October.
The Senior Officer and commanding officers called on the Chief of Defence Forces, Seychelles Defence Force.
Training delivered: firefighting and small-arms training for SDF personnel, with professional activities and cross-training visits.
A Passage Exercise was conducted with Seychelles Coast Guard Ship Andromache - joint patrolling, communication drills and coordinated manoeuvres.
Outreach: a medical camp, supplies for the Point La Rue elderly home, a schoolchildren’s visit and an Indian Navy Band performance - framed under MAHASAGAR.

For Prelims

First Training Squadron: the Navy’s dedicated cadet training squadron, based at Kochi under Southern Naval Command, which takes officer trainees on long deployments - so its port calls combine training with diplomacy by design.
PASSEX: a passage exercise, improvised when ships of two navies meet, covering communications, manoeuvring and basic drills. It is distinct from a named bilateral exercise and needs no prior agreement, which makes it the workhorse of naval diplomacy.
Seychelles’ strategic weight: an archipelago of about 115 islands with an exclusive economic zone of roughly 1.3 million square kilometres - a vast maritime area policed by a very small force, which is why capacity building is the currency of the relationship.
India’s record there: India has supplied patrol vessels and Dornier aircraft, built coastal radar stations and trained SDF personnel. The Assumption Island facility agreement of 2015, revised in 2018, was never ratified by the Seychelles National Assembly - the limit of the relationship.
MAHASAGAR: Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions, the successor framing to SAGAR - Security and Growth for All in the Region, announced in 2015 - and now the standard phrase in Indian naval releases.
Net security provider: India’s stated role in the Indian Ocean, delivered through EEZ surveillance assistance, hydrography, anti-piracy patrols, humanitarian relief and training rather than through bases.
Indian Coast Guard abroad: the ICG conducts its own high-level meetings and joint exercises with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Sri Lanka; an ICG ship sailing with naval training ships extends that law-enforcement channel.
Why firefighting training matters: damage control is the single most common cause of loss at sea for small navies, and it is a transferable skill a visiting training ship can teach in two days - the kind of cooperation that outlasts a communique.

For UPSC: A compact, concrete illustration of what maritime diplomacy actually consists of, usable wherever an answer needs more than the phrase "net security provider". Deploy it on India and the Indian Ocean littorals, on defence diplomacy and capacity building, and on the MAHASAGAR framing in questions about SAGAR.

What it is NOT: No numbers: how many Seychelles personnel were trained, how many cadets are on the deployment, what the medical camp treated, or how long the training deployment runs and where it goes next. No mention of the agreements that underpin the relationship - white shipping information exchange, EEZ surveillance arrangements or the coastal radar chain - and nothing on Assumption Island, which remains the unresolved question in India-Seychelles defence ties. No reference to Chinese naval activity in the western Indian Ocean, which is the strategic context for a capacity-building visit.

For Mains

Syllabus: GS2.18 · GS2.17 · Linkage L1

Anchor

The Indian Navy’s First Training Squadron, with an Indian Coast Guard ship, completed a three-day call at Port Victoria, training Seychelles Defence Force personnel in firefighting and small arms and conducting a passage exercise with the Seychelles Coast Guard.

Substantiation (data)

INS Tir, INS Sujata and ICGS Sarathi were in port from 12 to 15 October 2026. The programme included cross-training visits, a call on the Seychelles Chief of Defence Forces, a PASSEX with SCGS Andromache covering joint patrolling and communication drills, a medical camp, supplies for an elderly home, a schoolchildren’s visit and a band performance - all framed under the MAHASAGAR vision.

Position

Using a cadet training squadron for this work is the economical insight. A frigate deployed for diplomacy is a frigate not deployed for operations; a training ship is already at sea for months, already carrying instructors, and can teach damage control and small arms to a partner force at almost no marginal cost. For an island state with an EEZ the size of a subcontinent and a force of a few hundred, that transfer is worth more than a joint statement.

Counterpoint

Presence is not influence. Three days, a PASSEX and a medical camp repeat an engagement India has run for years, while the structural question - the Assumption Island facility that Seychelles declined to ratify - remains unaddressed, and competing naval presence in the western Indian Ocean has grown. Without numbers on personnel trained or equipment sustained, the release records a visit rather than a capability gained.

Way forward

What to watch: whether this becomes a scheduled annual training package with reported numbers, whether Indian-supplied vessels and radars in Seychelles get a maintenance and spares arrangement, and whether the deployment’s next ports extend the same model along the East African coast.

Conclusion

Small, cheap and repeatable: firefighting drills, a passage exercise and a band concert are what MAHASAGAR looks like on an ordinary week, and they are the part of maritime diplomacy that accumulates.

Deploys into: India and the Indian Ocean littorals · Defence diplomacy and capacity building · SAGAR and MAHASAGAR · Maritime domain awareness

Ministry of Defence · 2026-10-17 · PRID 2324739 · PIB source ↗