On June 27th, the New Delhi-based newspaper Economic Times reported that a May meeting between the three branches of the military, the Coast Guard, and the National Security Advisor’s office resulted in the approval of a February 2010 plan to increase security infrastructure in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Lakshadweep chains in the Indian Ocean. Existing facilities will be upgraded over the next decade, with the air strips at Port Blair and Car Nicobar being expanded to accommodate fighter jets and heavy transport planes. Equipment will be transferred to these bases and others, including the basing of amphibious assault ships and UAVs. As well, the Indian Navy has been expanding relationships with nations across the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and eastern Africa to increase its regional influence. This plan is part of the government’s commitment to increase its capabilities in the Indian Ocean in order to protect its sea lines of communication (SLOCs), monitor increasing Chinese naval activity in the region, and conduct anti-piracy operations. A good deal of attention has been paid to China’s development of maritime facilities in the Indian Ocean – the so-called “string of pearls” – but this month’s In Focus examines similar moves India has made in its namesake ocean.
At the Mouth of Malacca
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 1,200 kilometres off India’s east coast and near Indonesia’s northern Aceh province and the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, are strategically located on the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean. They provide a vantage point between the Bay of Bengal to the north and the wider Indian Ocean. Furthermore, their critical location enables Indian forces to monitor activity and respond as necessary in the vital strait leading to the South China Sea. India has recognized the Andaman and Nicobars’ importance since 1978, when an interim Coast Guard station became operational, but it wasn’t until September 2001 that New Delhi established a tri-service (as well as the Coast Guard) Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC) there to provide greater ISR and operational support.
The ANC’s three main bases are INS Kardip, an advance base on the Nicobar island of Kamorta, Jarawa, a support facility in Port Blair in the Andamans, and Dhanvantari, a naval hospital also in Port Blair. In addition, there are naval airfields in Port Blair and Campbell Bay, an Air Force base in Car Nicobar, and helipads at Kamorta and Little Nicobar. As of February 2010, ANC included approximately 3,000 Army troops, about a dozen Dornier Do-228 Defender maritime patrol aircraft and Mi-8 and Chetak helicopters, a five-ship Navy landing ship squadron and INS Kesari, a new Shardul-class landing ship, as well as several small patrol craft.
Under the February 2010 plan, several upgrades are to be made to the ANC facilities. The Shibpur runway in the northern Andamans will be extended from 3,200 feet to 12,000 feet to accommodate all types of aircraft as well as night operations, while the Port Blair and Car Nicobar airfields will be modified to allow fighter jet, heavy transport plane, and helicopter activities. The Navy jetties at Diglipur in the north Andamans, Kamorta in the south Andamans and Campbell Bay in the Nicobars will receive improved refueling and communications infrastructure, as well as personnel to man them, so that they can quickly supply forward operations. The number of Army troops will be increased to 15,000, including a mechanized infantry battalion and an artillery regiment, and UAVs will be deployed to improve ISR capabilities. In addition to the Air Force’s Su-30MKIs that have operated from the ANC for some time (but have not been stationed there permanently), the command’s upgrades promise to make it a significant basing area from which the Indian military can conduct operations in the eastern Indian Ocean.
The Arabian Sea Westward
Meanwhile, in the Lakshadweep Islands 200 kilometres off the coast of the southwestern Indian state of Kerala, the Navy plans to add to the Coast Guard district headquarters that was commissioned there in December 2010 by standing up a naval detachment. Plans for Lakshadweep include the upgrade of an existing patrol craft base to a full-fledged Navy base able to host fast attack craft, planes, and helicopters in the near future.
Moving northwest into the Arabian Gulf, India has established significant defence ties with Oman. In December 2005, India and Oman signed a defence Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) primarily aimed at improving maritime security cooperation. The MoU was followed-up by several notable joint naval exercises. These drills included the participation of India’s first-of-class Talwar guided missile frigate, and paved the way for a more comprehensive bilateral defence agreement in 2008, which raised the possibility of stationing Indian troops in Oman. Indian-Omani defence ties extend even further, with Oman being the first Gulf country to purchase India’s domestically-developed INSAS assault rifle. Meanwhile, further up the Gulf, in November 2008 India and Qatar signed a defence cooperation deal that opened the door for joint training exercises and personnel exchanges; one Indian official was quoted as saying that the accord “…is just short of stationing troops.”
Turning south to the mid-Indian Ocean, India has cultivated the Republic of Seychelles as a regional partner for several years. In February 2005, India donated the Trinkat-class large naval patrol boat Tarmugli, which was renamed Topaz for service in the Seychelles Coast Guard (SCG). New Delhi’s generosity with regard to Topaz continued in 2009, when the vessel underwent a six-month refit in the Indian Navy dockyard at Visakhapatnam completely at India’s expense. Topaz‘s donation was followed-on by the gifting of a new Do-228 plane and two Chetak helicopters for maritime surveillance; since the aircraft are not expected to enter service with the SCG until late 2011, an Indian Coast Guard Dornier is being flown out of the Seychelles in the meantime, giving India a direct presence there. These equipment transfers have been complemented by India providing training for SCG personnel, as well as the Indian Navy providing anti-piracy protection at the Seychelles’ request as Somali pirates have ventured into Seychellois waters.
Finally, India has also established a presence in southern Africa, completing the horseshoe in the Indian Ocean. In July 2007, the Indian Navy stood up a listening post in northern Madagascar with radar and other surveillance equipment that are linked with naval stations in Kochi and Mumbai. India has also reached out to Mauritius, to which it gifted an interceptor patrol boat and a Do-228 maritime patrol plane in the early 2000s, and in whose territorial waters the Indian Navy has occasionally patrolled. As well, India has increased its maritime defence ties with Mozambique. On June 28th, during a five-day visit to India by Mozambican Defence Minister Filipe Jacinto Nyussi, the two countries agreed to greater maritime security cooperation, including joint maritime patrolling of the Mozambican coast, and military training and equipment maintenance training exchanges. Last month’s accord follows an MoU India struck with Mozambique in 2006 that called for maritime patrols in Mozambique’s waters and training exchanges, with two follow-up meetings of the Joint Defence Working Group in 2008 and 2010, and maritime security for the 2003 African Union summit in Mozambique was provided by the Indian Navy.
Also worth mentioning is India’s cultivation of naval relations by way of international drills. In addition to the aforementioned exercises with Qatar and joint patrols with Mozambique, India has hosted the MILAN and MALABAR exercises. The seventh iteration of MILAN was held off the Andamans in early February 2010, with the Indian Navy exercising alongside the Australian, Bangladeshi, Burmese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean, Sri Lankan and Thai navies, with representatives from Brunei, New Zealand, the Philippines and Vietnam also present. The official purpose of MILAN 2010, as with the other iterations, was to promote interoperability in SLOC protection and search-and-rescue; this latter component being especially important for those navies following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, though Jane’s has also characterized MILAN as a message from India to China that the Indian Navy has friends in its efforts to preserve stability in the Indian Ocean. The MALABAR drills have expanded in scope over the years from a bilateral US Navy-Indian Navy affair to include the navies of Australia, Japan and Singapore. MALABAR includes a diverse range of complex activities, such as aircraft carrier operations, anti-submarine warfare and maritime interdiction, and is a more pointed message from New Delhi to Beijing than MILAN. The exercise has been held in both the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, with the 2007 iteration in particular irking China, which issued demarches to the participating nations.
The Endgame
India has been building its maritime ISR capabilities for several reasons. First, India’s SLOCs extend across the Indian Ocean, drawing minerals and oil from Africa and the Middle East back India and returning Indian products and services. According to the World Bank, India’s GDP has increased by an average of 7.5 percent annually over the past decade. Continuing growth will require a continuous flow of resources, and, recognizing this, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has worked to improve ties with Africa as bilateral trade is predicted to increase to $70 billion by 2015, well up from the $3 billion traded in 2000. During a six-day trip to Africa earlier this year, Singh pledged USD $5.7 billion loan for rail lines, water improvement projects, and other African infrastructure initiatives. Meanwhile, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that 70 percent of India’s 2009 oil imports originated in the Middle East, with a further 14 percent from Africa. Strong GDP growth in India will require greater fuel consumption, with the EIA predicting that India will become the second-largest consumer of oil in Asia behind China by 2030, and the second-greatest consumer of natural gas by 2025. In order to meet this rising demand, New Delhi is considering projects such as a 2,000-kilometre-long deepwater natural gas pipeline from Oman to Gujarat or Maharashtra in India.
Second, pirates who initially operated off the coast of Africa have increased their operational range south to the Seychelles and east into the heart of the Arabian Sea. The Indian Navy estimates that 100,000 Indians are currently employed as sailors, comprising approximately six percent of the global total, and India-bound vessels transiting the Gulf of Aden carry over $100 billion in annual trade. To counter the growing pirate threat, the Navy has dispatched over two dozen warships to conduct anti-piracy operations since October 2008, and in the interval have escorted over 1,100 merchant ships and prevented 15 piratical attacks. However, the Navy’s intervention has come without a price; following successful Navy action against a pirate mother ship in the Arabian Sea in mid-March 2011, in which 61 suspected pirates were captured, at least one Somali pirate threatened Indian sailors if his partners-in-crime were not released from Indian custody. Such piratical activity and threats prompted Indian coal traders in mid-April to seek alternatives for South African coal, and holds the promise of more clashes in the future.
Third, although the rivalry is always downplayed by Indian officials, New Delhi is wary of Beijing’s activities in the Indian Ocean. Whether one calls it a “string of pearls” or a series of places at which China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) can base or simply be resupplied, Beijing is deliberately and strategically establishing ties in the Indian Ocean to support SLOC protection and anti-piracy operations. Among the ports at which the PLAN has called and established a replenishment relationship are Salalah in Oman and Aden in Yemen – which secures the end of the Arabian peninsula – as well as Karachi in Pakistan and Colombo in Sri Lanka on the southeastern end of the Arabian Sea. These locations mean that the PLAN has support along the same SLOCs as India, which is natural given that China imports 77 percent of its oil from Africa and the Middle East, according to the EIA. Nonetheless, it causes some concern for Indian planners, who fear a potential disruption of their own SLOCs in the event of hostilities with China. As such, India is pursuing the same strategy as China and creating its own relationships in the Indian Ocean.
That India is extending its military capabilities to ensure its continuing economic success is understandable. New Delhi is building on previous efforts to improve relationships and develop bases across the Indian Ocean to ensure that if the military need arises, the necessary support infrastructure and network will be in place. Whether the threat be Somali pirates or hostilities between the two Asian giants, New Delhi is ensuring that its capabilities will be sufficient for whatever may arise, a trend all but certain to continue as India’s power and influence increase.
