NEW DELHI: In one of its largest multinational exercises on home soil, the Indian Army will next month host contingents from nearly a dozen countries in Meghalaya for the maiden edition of Exercise PRAGATI (Partnership of Regional Armies for Growth and Transformation in the Indian Ocean Region), in a significant military outreach under India’s Act East policy.
The two-week exercise, scheduled from 18 to 31 May at the Foreign Training Node in Umroi, will span India’s immediate neighbourhood, including Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka and wider Southeast Asia, bringing together armies from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos, among other participating countries.
Though the Army’s Additional Directorate General of Public Information (ADGPI) announced the exercise earlier this week, sources in the defence establishment said its real significance lies in it being a follow-through of sustained strategic engagement under ASEAN-led platforms such as the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus).
The exercise comes at a time when India is seeking to strengthen strategic partnerships across Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific amid intensifying geopolitical competition and China’s expanding regional footprint.
The choice of Meghalaya is equally significant, with the Northeast increasingly central to India’s Act East strategy as a geographic bridge for deeper connectivity, military engagement and strategic outreach to Southeast Asia.
PRAGATI will focus on strengthening interoperability among participating armies in counter-terrorism, sub-conventional and jungle warfare, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), as well as coordinated responses to emerging regional security challenges. Joint tactical drills, professional exchanges and capacity-building are also expected to form core components.
Sources said that India’s expanding Army-to-Army engagement with Southeast Asia is also set to continue in parallel, with an Indian Army contingent scheduled to depart for Cambodia in the first half of May for the second edition of the bilateral CINBAX exercise, following its inaugural edition in Pune last year, even as a Cambodian contingent is also expected to participate in PRAGATI.
A two-day defence industry exposition alongside the exercise will also showcase indigenous military platforms and technologies, underlining India’s push to increasingly bind defence diplomacy with defence production and exports.
This gains added significance as Southeast Asian partners increasingly seek to diversify procurement. The Philippines is already India’s first foreign buyer of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, while Vietnam has emerged as a key prospective market amid ongoing talks for a BrahMos deal.
Moreover, unlike the Navy’s MILAN and the Air Force’s Tarang Shakti, both purpose-built multinational platforms, the Army has largely focused on bilateral, smaller-format or country-specific exercises on home soil. PRAGATI, therefore, represents its first substantial move towards creating a dedicated large-scale multinational exercise in India.