The growing rivalry of superpowers in the Indian Ocean is heating up the region. The hitherto relatively calm and un-noticed vast tract of the Ocean is witnessing a race for supremacy and one-upmanship in the region. With the USA and China competing with each other to grab strategical advantages is making the region more dangerous not only from a naval perspective but also for commercial navigation fishing and extraction of mineral wealth under the sea level.
While the USA, the UK, France, Japan and China have their military bases in the tiny coastal country of Djibouti, the US has another base in Diago Garcia, an island in the Chagos Archiplago, disputed between the United Kingdom and Mauritius. China, on the other hand, has its operational base in Djibouti and is constructing one in the Great Coco Island (just sixty kilometres south of Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal) and another in Gwadar, the coastal city of Baluchistan which was offered by Oman to India in the 1950s but the latter rejected the offer, resulting in its purchase by Pakistan.
Besides, China has taken the Hambantota Port of Sri Lanka on a long-term lease in lieu of partial repayment of the loan from China which is guessed to be used for military purposes. China is also reportedly wooing the Maldives to concede some of its islands to the Chinese Navy.
However, India, having the largest coastal line in the Indian Ocean (7,600 kilometres), naturally has the biggest responsibility for rescue and relief as well as security in the Indian Ocean region. One need not be reminded that when the Maldives was under seize in November 1987, the Indian Armed Forces were the first to respond to the SOS call from Maldives in just four hours and save the country from a possible coup. Again, in the first decade of the current century, when Sunami struck the Indian Ocean countries, India undertook successful rescue and relief operations not only on the domestic front but also assisted the affected countries in the region as one of the first responders. Lately, during the Covid pandemic, we supplied vaccines to all our neighbours and the countries in the Indian Ocean littoral.
Due to its geographical location and the size of its Navy and Coast Guard, India has also been engaged in its endeavour to make the Mercantile navigation safe and secure in the Indian Ocean. The piracy in the Arabian Sea in modern times, which began as a reaction of Somalia's impoverished fishing community to illegal and fishing indiscrete fishing by foreign trawlers off Somalia’s territorial waters, soon snowballed into a lucrative hijacking business with huge ransoms involved.
Though initially, a combined task Force (CTF150), a multi-national force formed to address the menace achieved some success, the crime could not be eradicated. As regards India, the Indian Navy launched 'Operation Sankalp' to fight this crime after attacks on some merchant ships in the Gulf of Oman in June 2019 with good results.
However, the Israel-Hamas conflict aggravated the security situation in the area as the focus of the international community shifted from the Somalian waters to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The possible (but not yet confirmed) tie-up of pirates with Houthi militants also gave the pirates more liberty and an easier playground for their operations. With navigation through the Red Sea corridor (one of the world's busiest cargo and oil transit points) becoming increasingly unsafe due to the Houthi attacks, the only other option left for carrying sea cargo to and from Europe was to take the longer route of circumventing the entire African continent through the Cape of Good Hope, which takes not only 14 extra days but also the cost goes up by more than 2.5 times over that taken through the Red Sea corridor. This is when the Indian Navy intensified its Operation Sankalp.
Playing the crucial role of the 'first responder and the preferred security partner', the Indian Navy acted in at least 19 incidents during the last four months. Since December 14, 2023, the Indian Navy has deployed more than a dozen warships, mainly fidgets and destroyers, in the Gulf of Aden and the North Arabian Sea in order to help commercial vessels sail safely through the Red Sea corridor where the navies of other big powers are also present for the same purpose. Vessels saved by the Indian Navy are, inter alia, from Liberia, Malta, Iran etc.
The Navy has kept the region under "continuous surveillance activities", using aerial platforms and other vessels to gather information and monitor the region. So far, the Navy has saved 110 lives, including that of 45 Indian and 19 Pakistani sailors besides freeing the merchant ships from the pirates.
With the Middle East conflict not showing any signs of an end in the foreseeable future, the Indian Navy’s role in the region will become more and more important and rewarding. Irrespective of how the conflict ends, India's role as the “net security provider and the first responder” in the region will, once again, stand vindicated.
