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Indian Navy Special |
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Sea Power |
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The Indian Navy sails in blue waters |
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By Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab |
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The Indian Navy owes its present perspective, both for peacetime and war
time, to at least five factors: India’s growing stature as a rising economic and
information technology power; the United States that was the first major power
to recognise the potential of the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)
after the Cold War; the 1999 Kargil war called Operation Talwar by the navy; the
1998 nuclear tests; and the fact that a certain stalemate has set-in on India’s
disputed land borders with neighbours Pakistan and China. All these factors
require explaining.
First, with the opening of India’s economy in the Nineties, and with a
growth rate of eight per cent that has been predicted to enter double figures in
the near future, it is now universally acknowledged that India is a rising economic
power. This is reinforced by the fact that India’s energy needs are growing
exponentially and the country is investing in foreign oil and gas fields. As this
trend will continue to grow there will be a greater need to protect these assets,
as well as the enormous trade and commerce in the IOR. This is not all. The
government has publicly mentioned terrorists’ threat from hundreds of
uninhibited island territories in the IOR. Undoubtedly, the navy will be in the
forefront protecting Indian assets aboard, and if needed evacuating Indian
citizens from harm’s way in foreign lands. Second, the US understood the value
of close ties with the Indian Navy that stands guard astride important commercial
sea-lanes, the Andaman and Nicobar islands dominate the approaches to the
Malacca Strait, the Lakshadweep Group lies cross the Nine Degree Channel and
the Persian Gulf is just 600 miles from India’s shores. The Indian Navy is a
professional, English speaking force with force levels structured around two-
carrier groups since Independence. In the Eighties, India had leased the Soviet
nuclear-powered submarine, Charlie-I. Both the aircraft carrier and nuclear-
powered submarines are hallmarks of a navy that aspire blue water capabilities.
Third, Operation Talwar (see account by the then naval chief) was a well-
planned, definitive and an assertive manoeuvre by the navy to support the
geographically limited land-air Kargil war. Even as the naval operation remained
in the background, two things did not go unnoticed by discerning people; that
Operation Talwar did put pressure on the Pakistan Army to not broaden the Kargil
war, and unfortunately had it happened, there would have been a need for the
navy to support the land battle in addition to its own sea battle. This was the
beginning of the navy’s transformation of its war strategy: the naval war must
support the land war. Fourth, as a consequence of the 1998 nuclear tests, India,
with a declared second-strike nuclear capability, realised that the needed assured
sea based nuclear deterrence had to be acquired fast. According to the ‘Indian
Maritime Doctrine’ released in 2004: ‘There is a strong case for India to acquire a
non-provocative, strategic capability and the most viable platform by all accounts
is the submarine.’ And lastly, with a continuing stalemate and a certain
operational fatigue on its northern land borders, the only option for a rising India
to assert its strategic borders beyond its territorial limits in is the IOR. For these
reasons, from a traditional threat-based thinking, the navy now unambiguously
speaks about capability-based growth in tune with its new perspective, summed
up in the phrase ‘Maritime Domain Awareness’ (MDA), coined by the Chief Of
Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta. |
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