High resolution eddy resolving models are shown to be necessary for simulating submesoscale variability of the ocean. Although how these resolved submesoscale features impact the larger scale simulations is not yet clear. Here, using satellite observation and model experiments based on Modular Ocean Model (MOM5), we investigate the impact of model resolution in the sea level variability of the north Indian Ocean in the seasonal and intraseasonal time scale. While one model experiment uses uniform 0.25 o horizontal resolution with 40 vertical levels, in the second experiment model resolution is increase to uniform 0.05 o in horizontal with 50 vertical levels. The high resolution model shows significant improvement in simulating mean sea level and its variability especially along the coast of India, in the equatorial regime and in the western Arabian Sea. The Great Whirl and its extension become more realistic as the resolution increases. We show that these improvements are owing to the better representation of the mesoscale variability of the upper ocean water column. Further, we show that the coarser model tends to get biased towards wind-driven Ekman circulation in the open ocean and produce stronger seasonal signal along the coast.