CNS Auckland Maori welcome opened Admiral Krishna Swaminathan's visit to New Zealand on Monday, with the Chief of the Naval Staff received in a traditional Maori Powhiri at Te Taua Moana Marae, the marae inside HMNZS Philomel at the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland.

The Auckland leg comes three days after his Canberra talks on the Australia side of the same official visit, announced before his departure.

Inside the CNS Auckland Maori welcome

The Indian Navy described the powhiri as a distinctly New Zealand opening to a visit it called anchored in enduring bonds, mutual respect and shared maritime traditions. Te Taua Moana, the marae within HMNZS Philomel, is where the RNZN has long welcomed foreign dignitaries, service chiefs and visiting ship crews, under a protocol built around the challenge known as Te Wero Powhiri, at a base whose own naval history runs back to 1841.


A guard of honour at the Home of the Navy

The RNZN also accorded Adm Swaminathan a Guard of Honour at HMNZS Philomel, which the Indian Navy referred to by its nickname, the Home of the Navy. The parade drew a direct line to a ship that once wore the same ensign as the Indian Navy does today.

The turret that once served as INS Delhi

Framing the parade ground was the historic six inch Y turret of HMNZS Achilles, the Leander class cruiser that fought at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939 under the Royal New Zealand Navy's flag. India bought the ship in 1948 and recommissioned her as INS Delhi, in whose service she remained until 1978.

When she was decommissioned that year, her Y turret was gifted back to New Zealand and now stands at the gates of Devonport Naval Base, a memorial the Indian Navy called an enduring link between the two navies across generations.


Bridges of Friendship across both legs

Both Auckland posts carried the tag Bridges of Friendship, the same framing the Indian Navy has used through the visit, and tagged the New Zealand Defence Force, the Indian High Commission in New Zealand and the Ministry of Defence's spokesperson's office.

A New Zealand leg on a roadmap already in motion

The CNS Auckland Maori welcome lands on the far side of a year that already produced a run of India New Zealand exchanges. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon elevated bilateral ties to a Strategic Partnership during Modi's visit to New Zealand in July, unveiling a Roadmap to 2030 that lists defence and security as one of six pillars.

Defence officials carried that framework forward at the second India New Zealand Defence Strategic Dialogue, held in Wellington in August. Adm Swaminathan's own itinerary this month runs through the same two capitals, Canberra first and Auckland now.