Intro: For India to project its power into the broader Indo-Pacific space, it will need to strengthen defence establishments in the Andaman Nicobar Islands.
Mumbai 2008 woke up India to the fact that threats to national security need not necessarily be land-based. For years, we have been busy fortifying our borders, putting up barbed wires along the international borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. While this initiative is not trivial or irrelevant, it highlights an important dilemma in security preparedness, which is that often we land up fighting yesterday’s battles.
The ability of Pakistan-based militants and terrorists to enter India, specifically Punjab and later Jammu & Kashmir alerted us to the dangers of leaving our land borders unguarded. In the aftermath of Mumbai, the government of India has focused on upgrading coastal security, primarily by assisting state governments strengthen marine police infrastructure, purchase high-speed boats etc. The navy has gone in for a very comprehensive tracking and monitoring in real-time of all maritime movements as part of maritime domain awareness (MDA).
It is not often remembered that India's eastern coastline does not run from Sunderbans to Kanyakumari, but is actually a thousand kilometres to its east. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands stretch 800 kms for north to south. East Island and Landfall Islands in the north are barely 20 kms from Myanmar's Coco islands. The southernmost point of Great Nicobar Island is around 140 kms from Banda Aceh in Sumatra (Indonesia), and just 30 kms off the main shipping route leading to the Malacca Straits. Around one third of global trade, one quarter of global oil flows and over two-thirds of China's oil imports passes through these Straits.
There are 572 islands, islets and rocks; census lists 36 inhabited islands but for around half of such inhabited islands, there is only police or forest posts. Due to wind and sea conditions, most of the habitations are on the eastern sides of the islands and large sections of North, Middle, South and Little Andaman island, and Great Nicobar have absolutely no human presence. Nor are these areas easily accessible from the land side.
The population of the islands which was increasing by almost 50 percent in each decade seems to have stabilised at around 4 lakhs. The epicentre of the 2004 Tsunami was quite close to Great Nicobar, and the islands particularly the tribal dominated Nicobar suffered excessive losses of lives. Islands like Katchal are almost a third smaller, with large scale subsidence as a result of tectonic shifts. The physical and psychological effect of the tsunami has been devastating for the Nicobarese who have withdrawn from sea faring quite dramatically. In hindsight, the government’s decision to carry out all the reconstruction, which has led to a quantum jump in the availability of infrastructure, has deprived the Nicobarese of the opportunity to rebuild their lives and their social capital.
The end-result is much higher quality housing and social infrastructure but low vitality and high dependence.
The population of the Andamans is highly cosmopolitan, with Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam speaking people living with Hindi as the lingua franca. Heath and education indicators are far above the national average.
The islands are home to India's only unified joint services command, with the three services holding the post of commander-in-chief by rotation. Port Blair has a relative concentration of defence assets. There is an Air Force Station at Car Nicobar with minimal assets—it had seen huge casualties in the tsunami and is slowly rebuilding its infrastructure. There are air strips at Diglipur (North Andamans) and at Campbell Bay (Great Nicobar Island), which would need upgradation to handle bigger aircrafts. There is also the presence of an army establishment just outside Port Blair.
The biggest challenge facing the Andaman Nicobar Command (ANC) is that being a joint command, it is nobody's responsibility. Leaving the Coast Guard asides for a moment, none of three services see it as integral to their planning. Hence, there is reluctance to transfer assets—ships, aircrafts, battalions, artillery-to the ANC. The ANC is the responsibility of the Integrated Headquarters, but it is still in an incipient stage. The net result is that though the ANC prepared acquisition plan has been approved by the government, the actual flow in assets is at an early stage and it will be almost a decade when the Command would be properly equipped. The fact that the Malaysian airlines MH 370 flew over the airspace of the islands, coming quite close to the main islands, but was not detected since the main tracking stations are shut down at night reflects the state of defence preparedness.
This point should be appreciated in the light of the fact that the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the islands is 1, 80,000 sq kms, almost one third of India's 6, 00,000 sq km EEZ. In earlier years, fishing trawlers from Thailand and even distant Taiwan used to regularly poach in these waters. In recent years, Myanmaese fishers harvest sea cucumbers, which serve the lucrative Chinese market. At certain times, there are over 1000 Myanmaese fishers in custody awaiting/undergoing trial, including many repeat offenders. So often, desperate Rohingyas trying to reach Malaysia, Australia and other countries land up on the Andaman shores. Till now none of these have posed a threat to national interests or security. But we should not wait for an incident to then focus on the security and development challenges of the islands. The defence ministry should prioritise the acquisition, and transfer, of assets to make the command minimally functional.
Lack of connectivity, physical and virtual, is the primary development challenge that must be sorted out. Port Blair airport used to shut down by 12 noon due to lack of ATC staff; the Navy has since added more staff and it remains open to traffic till mid-afternoon. Due to lack of competition, it is often more expensive to travel to Port Blair from Kolkata and Chennai than it is to go to Thailand and stay there for three days. Most inter-island journey except in the main Andaman group is by ships. There has been inadequate investment as a result often there is crisis due to lack of ship availability. The Andaman Administration runs helicopter services linking different parts of the islands by hiring the services of Pawan Hans. And some areas are covered by an amphibious aircraft. Since there are air strips at different locations, it makes much more sense to run fixed-wing services that carry more passengers, as they are economic and are safer.
Internet connectivity outside Port Blair is patchy, and practically non-existence in the Nicobar. This is because the islands are on the edge of ISRO satellites' footprints. Having dedicated satellites makes little sense because of the large scale redundancy and paradoxical need for back-up. It makes much more sense to take breach cables from undersea cables running between Chennai and Singapore.
Improved connectivity would not only lead to better quality of life and improved security preparedness but can be used to leverage the growth of tourism. Presently blanket one-size fits-all environmental regulations restrict development works over most of the territory, 92 percent of which are forests.
In fact the environmental ministry had turned down the defence request for clearance for a radar facility on Narcondum Island-a small volcanic island located in the Andaman Sea; fortunately the change in government had led to the clearance being given. It must be understood that smart regulation could drive growth and sustainability.
The location of the islands so close to the main shipping routes presents another opportunity-that of transshipment facilities and ship repairs at Campbell Bay (Great Nicobar Island). This port could serve ports on the eastern coast of India as well as ports in Bangladesh, Myanmar and western ports of Thailand. Government must pro-actively push economic development in the national interest.
The bottom line is that converting the islands into an economic dynamo backed by a strengthened defence establishment would not only be India's robust outer ring, but more importantly it’ll enable India to project its power into the broader Indo-Pacific space.
Shakti Sinha (The writer was the Chief Secretary, Andaman & Nicobar Islands Administration)
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