Advertisement
Advertisement
India
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
A boat moored in Lakshadweep waters. Photo: Shutterstock

India needs tiny Lakshadweep to counter China. So why alienate it?

  • The Indian Ocean archipelago is tiny yet strategically important for New Delhi to project power into an arena where it fears Chinese encroachment
  • But its plans for developing Maldives-style tourism, which include a ban on beef and the sale of alcohol, have not impressed the mostly Muslim locals
India
If India wants to win friends and influence people to counter China in the Indian Ocean, then why is it antagonising the people of Lakshadweep?

That is the question the government’s critics are asking.

The archipelago of 36 tiny but strategically important and ecologically sensitive islands is hardly ever in the news. Of all the parts of India that New Delhi has to administer, the archipelago, located about 300km from Kerala on the southwestern coast of the Indian mainland, is the smallest unit of all.

It is not even a state but a union territory, meaning it is directly ruled from New Delhi.

Outsiders here are restricted. Tourism remains very low key, even on the 10 inhabited islands.
Yet it has been in the headlines because the ruling party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), appointed Praful Khoda Patel, a close aid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as administrator last December. Patel has proposed controversial measures which critics say have a whiff of the BJP’s Hindu nationalism agenda about them.
The proposals have infuriated the population of 65,000, most of whom are Muslim. Beef, which is eaten by the locals, will be banned as it is in much of India, while alcohol, which offends local sentiments, is to be served at the handful of resorts.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: AFP

Meanwhile, people with more than two children will be banned from contesting local council seats. Most controversially of all, it will become easier for New Delhi – which has its eyes on creating a Maldives-style tourism industry – to acquire land belonging to local people for building tourist infrastructure.

Locals say their livelihoods, culture and fragile ecology will be damaged by Patel’s plans. The Maldives, which used to rule the islands and still enjoys close links, has criticised the proposals as insensitive.

Retired diplomat and professor of international law, Kalarickal Pranchu Fabian, said he could not fathom why Patel had not consulted people before sending his proposals to the Home Ministry in Delhi.

“Banning beef does not make sense as the people eat it. There is no popular demand for alcohol so why open liquor shops? If the federal government wants to introduce five-star tourism there, it is a wrong move that will ruin this piece of paradise. They could consider independent huts on one or two islands but no more,” Fabian said.

Is India planning to spy on Chinese submarines from the Andamans?

The Home Ministry is still examining the proposals but opposition parties have been quick to find fault with them. Congress Party spokesman Manish Tewari called them “obtuse”.

“While acknowledging that the islands are strategically located and give India the ability to project power towards the North Arabian Sea, whatever measures are adopted should have the consent of the local populace. Tourism is a good template but whether it can be fully customised to Lakshadweep’s special needs requires greater examination,” he said.

As an example, Tewari said the tiny size of the islands and their population density (2,000 people per sq km) might make it infeasible to build wide highways, museums, and other tourist facilities.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan also attacked Patel.

“His actions pose a grave threat to the life and culture of the people of Lakshadweep,” he told journalists.

A Chinese navy supply vessel in the western Indian Ocean. Photo: Xinhua

A strategic priority

Observers say that if the Modi government is focused on Lakshadweep, it is because the Indian Ocean has become a strategic priority in recent years. India has a small naval base on the islands and patrol boats monitor them.

India knows it needs naval power to secure its sea lines of communication for various reasons. One is the need to enjoy undisrupted energy supplies from the Middle East.

New Delhi says that China has been expanding its area of naval operations into the Indian Ocean, a policy that India refers to as the “string of pearls” to suggest that China is encircling India in the ocean by establishing military, commercial, diplomatic, and sea line communication outposts.

India has also expanded its maritime goals. To this end, Lakshadweep offers certain advantages for the Indian Navy, allowing it to project India’s command of the sea in the western Indian Ocean.

Commentator Seshadri Chari, writing for The Print website, said New Delhi was justified in wanting to shore up its security on the islands because “Lakshadweep is a significant theatre for the country’s force projection and a deterrent to China’s increasing influence in the Indian Ocean”.

Are China and Russia teaming up on the US in the Indian Ocean?

Chari said the success of the Quad grouping (of India, the United States, Japan and Australia) as a security alliance greatly depended on “the combined strength of the naval assets and bases of its members in the Indian Ocean”.

“Lakshadweep becomes an important choke point as far as the secured sea lanes of communication are concerned,” Chari said.

However, Abhijit Singh, former naval officer and head of the Maritime Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi, said Patel’s plans may be designed to create a tourist industry on the islands with no strategic angle. The islands are simply too small to build a bigger naval base.

Once the tourist infrastructure has been built and more people start visiting and bigger boats start arriving, those plans may change and New Delhi may seek to enhance security.

“If tourism takes off then, then India may well seek to create more ports and berthing facilities for bigger boats or warships to create more security for itself,” Singh said.

01:46

US missionary John Allen Chau killed with arrows by remote Indian Ocean tribe

US missionary John Allen Chau killed with arrows by remote Indian Ocean tribe

Nonetheless, critics of the policies say Modi’s government needlessly alienated Lakshadweep at a time when its neighbours are already disappointed with its role in the pandemic, accusing it of failing to lead.

India’s health care system has been engulfed by a second wave of infections and its plan, as a global manufacturer of vaccines, to win goodwill from the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan and other neighbours collapsed when it ran out of shots.

These countries were looking to India for doses but as the supply dried up China stepped in to give doses of its home-grown Sinopharm vaccine to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

“China, with its deep pockets, has taken advantage of the situation, rushing in with vaccines and loans to assist countries it deems strategically significant,” wrote Aparna Pande and Husain Haqqani in The Print.

On Monday, in a recognition of the controversy over the new measures in Lakshadweep, Home Minister Amit Shah said no decision would be taken without consulting the local people.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: plans for strategic islands blasted
6