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By Lieutenant Sanjay J. Singh, Indian Navy
The recent expansion of India’s naval forces has received wide publicity—there has been a great deal of peculation about the nation’s possibly hegemonistic intentions. But the fact that the size and scope of the forces developed are suitable to a defensive foie has been more or less glossed over.
India has a “brown water” legacy, which has affected the development of Us navy and is an outcome of traditional Indian military philosophy. The nation’s maritime security perceptions have been greatly influenced by the fact that India has fought against sev- efal invading forces through the centuries, including Greece, Portugal, and England. India has been subjugated to alien rule several times, but there is only one instance of an Indian force venturing beyond its natural boundaries °f the Himalayas, river Indus, and the seas.
The various navies of the Indian states remained coastal in nature in accordance with the Indian penchant for defense. Today, Indian maritime forces are still being developed primar- Uy for coastal defense and limited Power projection at sea only.
India has always been oriented toward land warfare; in the days of ani- ffial power, the armies were structured around a force of elephants akin to moving fortresses. The invaders’ cavalries possessed far greater speed and flexibility and were ideally suited for offense.
The seas have been venerated since at least the Vedic Ages (2000 B.C.- 500 B.C.), when trading links were established across the Arabian Sea with Persia, Arabia, and other states along the Red Sea coast. Shipbuilding was also well developed. It is surprising that India never looked toward its maritime defense in successive centuries; a Possible explanation is that the seas have retained a holy position in Indian mythology. Because fishing and maritime trade brought prosperity for several hundred years, the seas were never Used for hostilities.
In addition, the Hindus were forbidden by religion to go to sea and were excommunicated for any such transgression, which affected karma—the offender was destined to non-salvation forever. Thus Hindus too refused to look toward the state’s maritime defense.
Today, the Indian Navy has less than 5% of the manpower of the army, although two-thirds of the country juts out into the sea, with India’s coastline spanning a distance that is more than half its land frontiers.
Geography
India’s coastline extends over 7,562 kilometers (including the mainland and island territories); there are 351 island territories, of which 32 lie in the Lakshadweep Group (Arabian Sea) and 319
The Soviet-built guidcd-missile destroyer INS Ranvir (here in Bahrain) is one of only five in the Indian Navy, where coastal defense is of paramount concern.
constitute the Andaman and Nicobar Group (Bay of Bengal). If a number of named and unnamed rocks and islets are included, the total figure is 588. The nearest island in the Andaman Group lies more than 1,000 kilometers from the mainland, with the group itself stretching 900 kilometers north and south. India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) comprises more than two million square kilometers. This could expand farther once the survey of the continental shelf off India’s east coast is completed, because of the clause pertaining to continental shelves in demarcating a nation’s EEZ.
India has exploited only a small portion of its EEZ, but the country is already fairly dependent upon it: about 50% of India’s oil needs and 80% ol its gas requirements are met from offshore assets. Bombay’s annual oil output is worth $5 billion. Another 30% of the oil comes from overseas, principally from the sensitive Persian Gulf region. About 97% of India’s trade is borne across the seas. The merchant marine stood at nearly 5.7 million GRT in 1989 and comprised almost 400 ships. India has 10 major, 20 intermediate, and 150 minor ports, the safety of which is of critical economic importance to the nation. This is particularly true for major ports such as Bombay, which in 1986-1987 accounted for some 30 million tons of the total cargo of 140 million tons handled by Indian ports. This represents more than 20% of the gross. India also has a large number of economic and militarily significant targets on or near the coast; these are vulnerable to seaborne attack and include Bombay, Madras, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Tarapore and Kalpak- kam power stations, and oil refineries.
The task of safeguarding all of this falls upon the country’s maritime forces. Complicating that responsibility is the growing economic importance of the Indian Ocean and the strategic importance of this ocean to extrarcgional states.
The Indian Navy
The Indian Navy is charged with the following five missions:
- Protecting the mainland and island territories from seaborne invasion
- Protecting the territorial waters, EEZ
Maritime History
India’s maritime tradition can be traced back to the Harappan culture in the Indus Valley civilization in 3000 B.C. Evidence unearthed shows that shipping and fishing activities were well developed; there was even a dock at Lothal, in the Gulf of Cambay.
Vasco de Gama first introduced men-of-war in Indian waters in 1498. When the threat from the sea became evident in the form of Portuguese and English warships appearing on the horizon, Indian naval forces lacked the capability for an effective defense. In the battle of
Calicut in 1503, the Indians were able to keep the Portuguese invaders at bay but could not take the battle beyond the coastal waters; thus the Europeans attained command of the sea. During the next 100 years the Indian coastal navy, under the Kunjalis, kept up the war against the Portuguese but still lacked the capability to inflict a decisive defeat. Likewise, the Maratha Navy battled the Portuguese and the English from 1659 to 1757 and held its own, but did not possess the strength to vanquish them since they could not take the war onto the high seas.
On the one occasion when Indian ships sought a military expedition across the seas, they were used only as a means of transporting the land forces.
This was in 1014-1025, when King Rajendra Chola conquered Ceylon and the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the Malay Peninsula and lower Burma, and the Indonesian archipelago, including Sumatra. The maritime aggression lasted only for 11 years, and the policy was reversed in the next generation.
S. J. Singh
and off-shore assets
- Protecting India’s sea lanes of trade and communication
- Safeguarding the nation from gunboat diplomacy
- Safeguarding India’s interests in contiguous waters
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, Military Balance 1989-1990, the Indian Navy has the following composition:
- Principal surface combatants 28
Carriers 2 Destroyers 5 Frigates 21 Submarines | 17 |
Patrol/coastal combatants | 34 |
Minesweepers | 20 |
Amphibious | 10 |
Support and miscellaneous | 18 |
| 127 |
This indicates that over 50% of the Indian Navy is comprised of patrol/ coastal craft. Less than 20% of this force can partake in attaining command of the sea, and of that only a third carries antiship missiles.
Despite projection of a “blue water” image at home and abroad, the Indian Navy is nowhere near attaining this capability and consequently lacks the strength required to discharge its legitimate maritime role. The only effect of such exaggeration is to instill a false sense of security at home and fears of regional hegemonistic intentions
abroad—both of which are harmful to India in the long run.
India’s two aircraft carriers both have an antisubmarine warfare role and provide the base only for limited area air defense for the fleet’s protection and survival at sea. The nation does not possess any credible aerial maritime strike capability; Australia, an island state, possesses the largest aerial maritime strike force in the region. In second place, Pakistan’s formidable force of maritime strike aircraft defies justification. That country has only a 700- kilometer coastline (less than one-tenth of India’s), with no island territories.
By the middle of this decade, Pakistan can be expected to have the strongest aerial maritime strike capability on the Indian Ocean littoral. This is of particular significance to India, as Pakistan lies abeam to India’s oil routes to the Persian Gulf. After Iraq, Egypt, and New Zealand, India is sixth in the region in terms of aerial maritime strike capability.
India’s ten amphibious warfare vessels have a gross carrying capacity of 1,460 troops. In real terms this figure would be reduced because of the logistic and operational imperatives of an amphibious task force. This would place the amphibious warfare capability, at the maximum, on the level of a battalion-size force. Any credible power projection onto land would require a division at least; this is patently
beyond the scope of the Indian Navy at present.
Conclusions
It is evident that while the countries on the Indian Ocean littoral have little grounds to fear that India is pursuing a regional superpower status, the nation needs to review its military philosophy in order to at least assure itself of a credible defense. A coastal navy is intrinsically not in a position to safeguard even the mainland, let alone the EEZ and other maritime interests; India must make good this deficiency.
In the past the country has paid a heavy cost for its failure to attend to the imperatives of maritime security. Geography confers upon India a natural advantage in maritime defense, since it is in a strategic position in relation to the two seas vital to its interests—the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal— and its area of influence is further extended by island territories in the Andaman and Nicobar Group.
It is in the interest of regional stability to develop the defensive capability of each nation on the Indian Ocean littoral in order to preclude hostile interventions and to develop mutual confidence.
Lieutenant Singh has served as a deck officer in various ships during the past few years. He was commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1986.