Strategic importance of Modi’s plan to develop India’s islands in what he calls “India’s Ocean”
The increasing challenge from expanding China and India’s wish to be the net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region combine to make India develop its islands militarily.In his Independence Day address recently, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that priority will be given to the “development” of some of India’s 1,300 islands, starting with Lakshadweep, which he said, would get optical fiber connectivity in the next 1,000 days.
Modi did not clarify whether the development he envisaged was economic or military or both. However, it is likely to be predominantly military for two reasons/Firstly, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) and Laks had weep are of great strategic importance. Secondly, the government’s 2017 plan to develop tourism in some of its key islands has flopped.But word has it that Modi likes to refer to the Indian Ocean as “India’s Ocean”.
WARY OF CHINA
India is wary of China’s increasing activity in the IOR. A keen observer said: “China has steadily expanded its maritime presence in the Indian Ocean littoral through a continuous deployment of its naval forces, arms sales, creating bases and access facilities, ramping up military diplomacy, cultivating special political relations with littorals, and lavishly disbursing developmental finance for strategic ends. “It has used the alibi of anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden to ramp up the scale and frequency of its presence, without consideration for the threat perceptions of India,” he points out.
This broad-based trend in the evolution of China’s presence is also reflected in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, where Chinese naval and survey vessels have been on the prowl and have occasionally entered India’s EEZ without prior intimation. Lakshadweep’s Strategic ImportanceLocated approximately 300 km from the Indian west coast state of Kerala, the Lakshadweep ar-chipelago comprises 36 islands giving India around 20,000 sq. km of territorial waters and an Ex-clusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of approximately 400,000 sq.km.
India plans to convert the present naval outpost in Lakshadweep into a fully-fledged operational base, able to project power and provide sea denial and command of the sea capabilities, especially in relation to Pakistan, Mauritius, the Seychelles and the Maldives.
India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives already have a trilateral maritime security co-operation. From Lakshadweep, India will work closely with the network of 26 radar emplacements deployed across the atolls of the Maldives, which will be linked to the Indian Southern Command.
The aim is to keep a tab on Chinese maritime activity in the East IOR, he says. “China’s advancing interests in the Indian Ocean Region, which are evident from its increasing naval presence and the establishment of its first overseas military base in Djibouti, lend added urgency to the need for a reconfiguration in India’s military approach to Lakshadweep.”
