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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Seychelles

Creating an Indian Lake

15 Thu Mar 2018

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Creating an Indian Lake

Tags

Aldabra group, Andamans, Assumption Island, Australia, China, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Danny Faure, Diego Garcia, EEZ, Exclusive Economic Zone, France, France-Albert René, India, Indian Navy, INS Vindhyagiri, James Michel, Japan, Maldives, maritime, Narendra Modi, nuclear, Rajiv Gandhi, Reunion, Seychelles, SOSUS, Sound Surveillance System, United States

The small, out-of-mind archipelago of Seychelles has been in the Indian news cycle an inordinate amount. Part of this is due to a prospering Indian public starting to take greater interest in the geopolitics of their region. Another reason is the recent agreement signed between India and Seychelles for the construction of a military base on Assumption Island, one of the 115 islands of the African country. Originally signed in 2015 during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the country, work could not begin on the strategic asset as the deal was not ratified by the Seychelles parliament during the term of the previous president, James Michel.

Controversy was stirred recently when the present president of the South Indian Ocean country, Danny Faure, declared in 2017 that the agreement would have to be renegotiated as it did not serve the interests of the Seychellois. Then, a recent leak of the text of the newly-negotiated agreement also stoked the controversy in that it was alleged that Victoria has sold off Assumption Island to India; Faure’s administration rushed to clarify that this was not the case and stressed that India would not be developing infrastructure on Assumption for military purposes. Ostensibly, the facilities are meant to support patrolling against illegal fishing, piracy, and drug and human trafficking.

Under the agreement, India will renovate the airstrip on Assumption Island, renovate the jetty, and build living quarters for the Seychelles Coast Guard. The entire project is expected to take a quarter of the tiny island that measures barely 6.7 kms in length and 2.9 kms in width and cost approximately $550 million.

Several things were clarified and modified between the 2015 agreement and the 2018 revision. The deal was extended to 20 years from 10 years with an option to further extend the arrangement by another 10 years; it was clarified that the island was still under the sovereignty of Seychelles, meaning that Indians stationed on Assumption Island will face Seychellois justice if accused of a crime; the obligations of each party were explicitly spelled out as were technical details pertaining to the jetty and airstrip; conditions for the storage of arms have been made more stringent (military exercises, guarding the facilities, and self-defence in case of internal disturbances). As in the 2015 agreement, India has agreed not to use the base in times of war or allow vessels with nuclear weapons to use the facilities. Third parties may be allowed use of the facilities upon joint agreement by both governments.

Although Seychelles has been at pains to emphasise that the agreement with India is not military in nature, the terms indicate otherwise or at least hold open the strong potential for use for security purposes. Victoria, however, does not wish to invite Great Power rivalry – not just between India and China but potentially the United States and France as well – into its living room and has made a public relations decision to highlight the benefits it receives from the development of infrastructure on Assumption Island in the enforcement of domestic law and order.

The deal is seen as important for India because it enhances its surveillance capabilities over the Indian Ocean. In concert with a coastal surveillance radar station already operating in Seychelles, a naval base at Agalega in Mauritius, a coastal radar station in Madagascar, an array of radars in Maldives, and a strong presence in the littoral waters of Mozambique, Delhi’s acquisition of facilities on one of the 67 raised coral islands of the Aldabra group will create an impermeable surveillance net in the southwestern and central Indian Ocean. Assumption Island’s position dominating the Mozambique channel, a key sea lane for merchant ships, adds to India’s kitty a second potential choke point after the Strait of Malacca; the latter is dominated by India’s augmented presence in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands chain as well as with naval agreements with Vietnam and Singapore.

India’s strategic assets in its ocean, important as they are on their own, have an added multiplier effect: Delhi has recently signed a Logistics Support Agreement with the United States and France, allowing the navies of those countries to share naval facilities with the Indian Navy. This extends India’s reach even further from the French base at Reunion – perhaps even Paris’ services in Djibouti – and the US base at Diego Garcia. Together, it is possible for the three countries to establish a Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) line array to closely monitor the movement of all ships and submarines through the region. It is rumoured that India is seeking Japanese assistance in setting up a similar surveillance line from Indira Point to Sumatra, which will then connect with a similar existing US-Japanese network in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean Rim. Between these two arrays, Delhi’s knowledge of movement in the Indian Ocean will see a marked increase and make its naval deployments more efficient.

An agreement with Australia for access to its Indian Ocean Territories, Cocos Islands and Christmas, is tempting but the geography and size of the islands is not an insignificant obstacle to overcome.

There has been some opposition to India’s presence in the archipelago that range from geopolitical to economic and environmental. However, with approximately 10% of the population tracing its roots back to India, there is, so far, general good will towards India. Unlike its larger northeastern neighbour China, India has avoided giving hard loans or flooding client states with Indian labour and instead preferred joint development. India’s previous assistance to the archipelago also puts it in good standing with the Seychellois. In June and September 1986, India helped suppress two coups in the country, the first by deploying the INS Vindhyagiri (which, to be fair, was already on its way to the island on a routine visit) and the second by then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi loaning Air India One to Seychelles president France-Albert René. India has also helped Seychelles patrol its Exclusive Economic Zone and provided equipment such as Dornier Do 228s and Chetak helicopters to meet the security needs of the island chain. The Indian Navy has frequently assisted Seychelles in anti-piracy operations in the past decade. and Delhi has also helped train the Seychellois own armed forces.

At present, India is economically and militarily incapable of facing Chinese encroachment into the Indian Ocean. Beijing has been candid about its String of Pearls for over a decade and yet little was done to augment India’s ability to respond to the threat, either diplomatically or otherwise. Despite its jarring paeans to non-alignment, strategic autonomy, and other such dated misadventures, Delhi has recently made a sound move by agreeing to work in tandem with similarly-minded powers to protect the Indian Ocean. The acquisition of its own assets in the Indian Ocean Region is a bonus and will retain some autonomy for India.

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Modi’s Travels

13 Mon Apr 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

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Tags

Australia, Bhutan, Fiji, France, India, Japan, Mauritius, Narendra Modi, Nepal, non-alignment, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, United States

It has now been almost a year since Narendra Modi took office and by the time the year passes, he will have visited 15 countries, not counting attendance at the state funeral of former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew or the five multilateral summits he participated in. Modi is undoubtedly the most well-travelled prime minister in Indian history and this has been an unexpected yet interesting development, for he was known primarily for his clear domestic vision before the general elections of 2014. In addition to his own visits, Modi has also received several delegations and sent his external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, to meet with leaders from other countries. All this adds up to a substantial foreign policy effort on the part of India’s new government and points to what some had suggested before the elections as a programme for a potential Modi government.

Modi’s foreign policy so far views the world in elegantly simple terms – there are states that can help India and there are states that India can help. Both of these categories are, of course, mutual but the description marks the dominant flow of power. In essence, the prime minister understands that a key ingredient in India’s stability, security, and economic revival is its region. Yet to carry the region, India will need tremendous assistance from countries that have the technological and financial wherewithal to support its ambitious growth. As a result, India is courting countries in its region such as Nepal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius with as much enthusiasm as it is reaching out to economic powers such as the United States, France, Japan, and Australia. There is an enamourment among scholars as well as the public for doctrines and though it may be tempting to term this emphasis on the region as the ‘Modi Doctrine,’ it is nothing but a common sensical approach to one’s neighbourhood that finds long precedence in history.

India has paid more attention to its neighborhood since Modi took office than it probably has in the past decade. Though Manmohan Singh had visited Mauritius in 2005 and Bhutan in 2008, the last visit by an Indian prime minister to Nepal was in 1997, to Sri Lanka was in 1987, to Fiji in 1981, and to Seychelles also in 1981. Modi’s state visits to these countries on its borders and in the ocean that bears its name all saw promises of increased trade, assistance with infrastructure development, cooperation in matters of mutual security, and the easing of travel restrictions. These relations build Indian influence in these countries as well as in regional fora where India might need more voices to support its agenda. For India, these links are not just about economics but also strategic assets as it seeks to modernise and expand its military capabilities while the states of the Indian Ocean Region gain by piggybacking on an expanding Indian economy. The trick is, for India, never to cause its neighbours to fear its expansion or they will resent it and seek to balance it with other powers within or without the region. If India’s neighbours feel that they too have a stake in her success, there will be little cause for suspicion as China experiences in Southeast Asia. To that end, missions like Operation Rahat – the rescue of civilians from war-torn Yemen – are valuable.

The rekindling of India’s ties with its neighbours depends to a large extent on the growth of the Indian economy. This requires a huge influx of capital as well as technology in almost all sectors of the Indian economy – infrastructure, education, industry, finance, security, and more. Modi has reached out to potential partners among the developed nations of the world who may have not only a financial interest to invest in India but strategic reasons as well. India has concluded or is close to concluding agreements on civil nuclear cooperation with Australia, France, Canada, and the United States; this will bring in reactors and fuel to power Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign that seeks to boost manufacturing in the country. Modi hopes to double India’s exports by the end of his first term. As companies like Airbus move parts of their operations to India, Modi is also taking his country militarily closer to the United States, Australia, Japan, and France with joint training exercises, intelligence sharing, and defence equipment procurements. A greater Indian role in the regional security commons is of interest to almost all parties in the region and beyond and Modi is capitalising on this sentiment to build India into a regional power.

There are undoubtedly domestic tasks that require the prime minister’s attention. Yet India’s needs cannot be met by domestic spring cleaning alone and requires international involvement, particularly if the country wants to leapfrog some of the technologies and learning of the second half of the 20th century. Modi’s moves on the international chessboard so far have not been merely formality but have begun to redefine Indian strategy and thinking. Most importantly, they are a distinct departure from Delhi’s policies during the Cold War as well as the quasi-governmental position of Non-Alignment 2.0. For such a momentous course correction, the visibility of the prime minister on the international stage is indispensable.

The fruits of Modi’s labours abroad will likely not be fully seen for at least a decade but there should be some signs of the results by the end of his term in 2019. For the first time in the history of independent India, the country seems to have a foreign policy that puts Indian ambitions at the centre. In the early years of independence, Jawaharlal Nehru’s non-alignment was structurally defined by a struggle that had little to do with India; later, foreign policy became subject to ad hocism and the personality of the prime minister rather than a coherent, cogent, and continuous programme. Now, under Modi, India is finally acting on the role that has been advised her and expected of her by her neighbours or decades.


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on April 13, 2015.

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