By the seashore in Seychelles

EVER since the colonialists departed from Asia, the Indian Ocean had returned to its status as a vast backwater after the contest between the existing and rising powers shifted to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean oceans. The simultaneous rise of China and India and the need for the existing naval powers to preserve their suzerainty is churning up the Indian Ocean like the old days. Stripped down to the basics, the contest for holding on to established naval bases in the ocean and setting up new ones boils down to China versus the rest. And India has suffered a setback in trying to make itself militarily useful in the West’s China containment strategy after the Seychelles government rejected its proposal to set up a naval base on one of the islands.  

But the game isn’t over yet. On arrival to India, the Seychelles President was accorded due protocol and even gifted a plane for surveillance purposes. India and the Seychelles leadership may well be attempting a different modus vivendi rather than an outright leasing agreement that has raised the opposition’s hackles. Not far back, China was an active suitor for this base but lost interest after Djibouti offered it an alternative. At stake is a frenzied hunt for toeholds in the Indian Ocean that over time will translate into a chain of bases across the ocean. The Western world believes that these bases and naval infrastructure-sharing agreements (India has signed up with the US, Singapore and France) will serve as a Maginot Line to deter the Chinese.

For India the hunt for bases abroad is about projecting its military power. In fact, South Block will fight shy of being benchmarked with China in this respect, especially after India was turfed out in the Maldives. But India cannot be a useful player in the West’s security policy games nor contribute to quick disaster response by remaining tethered to its immediate neighbourhood. Yet, PM Modi’s urge to etch a lasting Indian presence in far corners of the Indian Ocean cannot be without impediments, especially with China smelling the evolution of a hostile grouping.