Disquiet on the Eastern Front — Great Nicobar and India's Maritime Blind Spot

The Editorial Argument

India’s security discourse remains stubbornly tilted westward — toward Pakistan, the LAC, and the Arabian Sea. The SIPRI 2026 data, released on the same weekend as Andaman & Nicobar’‘s Guinness record celebrations, should prompt a harder question: is India’'s growing defence budget being invested in the right strategic direction?

The Andaman & Nicobar Islands — sitting 150 km from the northern entrance to the Malacca Strait, through which approximately 80% of China’s oil imports flow — represent India’s most under-utilised strategic asset. The Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC), India’s only tri-services integrated theatre command, was established in 2001. Twenty-five years later, it remains below the capability threshold needed to serve as a credible deterrent to Chinese naval power projection into the Indian Ocean.

The Chinese Calculus

China’s naval strategy in the IOR has moved from presence to permanence. The PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) now has a base in Djibouti (since 2017), access agreements in Gwadar (Pakistan), Hambantota (Sri Lanka leased port), Kyaukpyu (Myanmar), and is pursuing influence in the Maldives and Bangladesh. This is the String of Pearls made operational — no longer a think-tank concept but a logistics and intelligence network surrounding India.

India’s eastern maritime response has been conceptually articulated (SAGAR doctrine, 2015) but operationally thin. The Great Nicobar Holistic Development Project — approved by GoI, managed by ANIIDCO — includes a transshipment port, international airport, and dual-use military facility. If fully built to specification, it would give India a naval-air base on the tip of the Nicobar chain, 150 km from Malacca. The question is speed of execution.

Why Great Nicobar Is Strategically Non-Negotiable

1. Malacca chokepoint leverage. India cannot close the Malacca Strait — that would be an act of war. But a credible military base at Great Nicobar gives India surveillance, interdiction capability, and deterrent leverage over Chinese SLOC (Sea Lines of Communication) vulnerability. China’s PLAN knows this; Chinese commentary has repeatedly flagged the Great Nicobar development with concern.

2. Countering Chinese submarine activity. Chinese nuclear and conventional submarines operate increasingly in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. A Great Nicobar base — with submarine detection infrastructure (SOSUS-type passive sonar arrays), patrol aircraft, and ASW-equipped surface vessels — could significantly improve India’s maritime domain awareness.

3. Complements IOR island strategy. India has developed a Far Forward Deployment policy — building infrastructure on Agaléga (Mauritius), strengthening ties with Seychelles, Maldives, Madagascar. Great Nicobar is the capstone of India’s eastern arc.

The Environmental Dilemma

The Great Nicobar project faces genuine environmental opposition. The leatherback sea turtle — largest living sea turtle, critically important ecologically — nests on Great Nicobar’s beaches. The project area includes Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and primary tropical rainforest. The Shompen, a PVTG (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group) of ~300-400 people who have had minimal contact with the outside world, inhabit the island.

These are not trivial concerns. India has international obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity and domestic obligations under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The National Green Tribunal and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change are examining the project’s environmental clearances.

The editorial is not arguing that environment be bulldozed for strategy. It is arguing that the design reconciliation — between military necessity and ecological protection — must be completed urgently and not allowed to stall the project indefinitely.

Three Recommendations

1. Accelerate ANC capacity building. The Andaman & Nicobar Command needs upgraded fighter squadrons (Rafales or Tejas Mk-2), additional submarine support infrastructure, and dedicated ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) assets.

2. Fast-track Great Nicobar military component. Even if the civilian transshipment port and township face environmental hearings, the military airfield and naval facility — with a smaller footprint — should be prioritised on a separate clearance track.

3. Invest in Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). India’s Information Fusion Centre — Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR), established at Gurugram in 2018, needs to be expanded and its real-time data-sharing with partners (US, France, Australia, Japan, Quad partners) upgraded.

UPSC Relevance

Mains Keywords: Great Nicobar Holistic Development Project, Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC), SAGAR doctrine, String of Pearls, Malacca Strait, Maritime Domain Awareness, IFC-IOR, leatherback sea turtles, Shompen PVTG, ANIIDCO, SLOC (Sea Lines of Communication), PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy)

Prelims Facts Corner