23/07/2026
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to Jakarta produced a full ledger. India and Indonesia signed 20 memorandums of understanding and several substantive agreements, on BrahMos and Astra missiles, a renewed maritime security arrangement, critical minerals, and the long-stalled Sabang port.
As CSIS Commentaries author Premesha Saha writes, the relationship has never lacked goodwill. It has lacked follow-through. The test of a visit like this isn't how many agreements were signed. It's how many are still working a year from now.
Sabang port is the clearest example. India was invited to develop it in 2018, and it took more than five years just to complete a feasibility study, with Indonesia firmly rejecting any framing of it as a military foothold. This visit put Sabang back on the table: the two governments agreed to develop the port jointly and set up a task force for Sabang and Andaman-Aceh connectivity, the clearest signal of intent in eight years. But intent was never the problem. The real test is whether Sabang finally moves from feasibility studies to construction.
On maritime security, the visit delivered genuine, if incremental, progress. The two sides renewed their coast guard maritime security arrangement, and an Indonesian liaison officer is now deployed to India's Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region, enabling real-time maritime information sharing. Still missing: a permanent White Shipping Information Exchange, the kind India already holds with more than a dozen partners, and a disaster response system that activates automatically.
On defence, the BrahMos agreement was signed alongside additional missile batteries and a decision to import India's Astra air-to-air missiles, making Indonesia India's second BrahMos customer after the Philippines, with Vietnam reportedly close behind. The next step is turning that sale into a durable partnership through a proposed Joint Defence Industry Cooperation Committee.
Economically, the visit delivered its most concrete results: an agreement on critical minerals and the steel supply chain under which India will invest in processing steel, nickel, and rare-earth magnets in Indonesia, a direct move into a sector China dominates, together with a steel joint venture and a digital infrastructure pact linking India's ONDC network with Indonesia's counterpart.
The recurring risk is institutional. The Joint Commission Meeting, the forum meant to steer the relationship, met in June 2026 for the first time in four years. Twenty fresh memoranda raise the stakes: each one now needs to be turned into action, and the relationship still lacks a standing senior officials' mechanism to track delivery between summits.
Read the full commentary by Premesha Saha, Senior Policy Fellow at Asia Society Australia, on the CSIS Indonesia website.
