A Year After Op Sindoor India Must Look East And Militarise Nicobar Islands Urgently

TITLE: A year after Op Sindoor, India must look east & militarise Nicobar islands urgently CHANNEL: ThePrint DATE: 2026-05-02 ---TRANSCRIPT--- This is the right time.

[cough and clears throat] This is the right time. Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read all scheme related documents carefully. [music] As we head for the first anniversary of operations in due next week, we should brace for being inundated by stirring stories of the military performance during those 87 hours. We should stop it and here is why. I’d see it as being being in the national interest to play spoilsport and say that this non-stop jubilation over the past is most unwise. Not even prudent, imprudent. We need to think of wars of the future instead. We also need to shift our gaze across our landmass from the west to the east. Everything looks quiet on the eastern front now, but it will change. Remember I didn’t say it may change, it will change. Remember also what Field Marshal Asim Munir said in his boastful speech at Tampa, Florida on 9th August 2025. He said the next time Pakistan would start the war from the east because that’s where, and I quote him now, that’s where they as in India they have located their most valuable resources and he says then we will move in westward from there. Open the map now and spread your gaze wider. What do you see across our 3,416 km eastern seaboard? It’s a relatively small 600 km Bangladesh coastline at the head of the Bay of Bengal followed by 2,227 km of Myanmar coast and then Thailand. South of that the Andaman Sea takes you across the Malacca Strait into the Pacific. Both Bangladesh and Myanmar, the latter more so, are vulnerable to Chinese influence and definitely in the case of Myanmar even presence. And if somehow at some point the Thai idea of digging a canal across the Isthmus of Kra about 50 km at at its narrowest, although where the canal may may be dug is probably 110 km. This is where the country’s southern zone tapers into the Malay Peninsula. See on the map. If that becomes a reality, it will cut the sailing time from the Pacific to the Andaman Sea by about 3 days. Further, it would greatly undermine the significance of the Malacca Strait as a strategic choke point. That idea might cost $55 billion today and sometimes may seem like a fantasy, but there is enough juice in it to have survived 350 years since it appeared as a vision in a Thai monarch’s dream. It was highlighted in October 2023 when then Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s doodle at the BRI forum, see the doodle that was in Beijing, that was caught by cameras. The doodle marked a canal exactly at the narrowest point of the Isthmus. You would then be complacent not to presume that if the project were to ever become a reality, it will be done with Chinese help and maybe Chinese ownership or co-ownership. It will expose India’s buzzing eastern seaboard, the big metros and in industrial zones to China. Can you imagine the Chinese navy could come in straight through this and be present in front of your entire eastern seaboard? It could reverse the entire Indo-Pacific equation by bringing the Pacific alarmingly closer to Indo. Historically and instinctively, India has seen threats emerging from the west and the north from Pakistan and China. The east has received less attention particularly since 1971. There’s been much talk of the quad, but also the leverage over the Strait of Malacca, but psychologically India has had benign view of the east. It follows that most of our key operational assets, army and air force, look north and west. Even the navy’s focused towards the west, namely Pakistan. That focus is valid, but the vulnerability in the east now must be plugged. It must be foreseen and plugged. Geography has gifted India just the assets it needs to defend itself in the east. Andaman and Nicobar Islands are designed by gods as unsinkable aircraft carriers. We also have in the west Lakshadweep. However, the threat is more from the east. These These islands can harbor and launch ships and submarines, base combat and reconnaissance aircraft. Given the long ranges these days and the availability of refuelers, India can watch the entire Bay of Bengal, Andaman Sea and beyond. That’s what makes the Great Nicobar Island our southernmost territory an incredible strategic asset. With Rahul Gandhi going there earlier this week to oppose a multi-purpose township come transshipment port, essentially a huge military base, the case for the project has somewhat grandly and erroneously become trapped in the prospect of India choking the Chinese in the Strait of Malacca. That’s indeed possible, but not so plausible. The strait lies between powerful sovereign nations, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Also, to block it India would need to be as reckless as Iran with Hormuz because it would hinder friend and foe, Japan, South Korea, Russia for example. Things will need to be really desperate and dire for India to risk all of that. It’s much simpler therefore to see the island territories, especially Great Nicobar, as India’s forward defensive shield. If developed prudently and patiently, this could become to the defense of eastern India what the Himalayas are to the north. That project is on right now. Look at it this way. In the next 10 to 15 years, what’s the more likely prospect? India going out to fight China proactively in the oceans or the Chinese coming in to threaten us? It could be either direct or as a distraction in case India is caught in a larger conflict with Pakistan. If we take you back to that enlarged map, please see it again on your screens, you might spot some tiny dots just 20 km from Landfall Island. Landfall Island is the northernmost point in the Andaman archipelago. Here sits Here sits Myanmar’s Great Coco Island. It’s just 14.57 square km, but already has an airstrip at 7,500 ft than what we have built and expanded at Great Nicobar. There have been Chinese visits to Coco. It has four more way tinier islands in the Little Coco chain and anybody who rules out a Chinese foothold here, given the chaos in Myanmar, won’t be forgiven by history. The island territories in the east are now an indispensable defensive phalanx for India. Hedy talk of the quad has blurred our strategic vision. It can’t be a realistic aspiration for India to proactively block the Strait of Malacca for the Chinese on behalf of the US and its allies. A more urgent need is to shore up our maritime defenses in the east. That’s why the islands need to be militarized urgently. India would be stupid not to leverage this gift worth trillions in geostrategic capital. The political fight over this has been hijacked by an argument over whether India can block the Malacca Strait or not. The more important point is that it gives India the presence to watch anything of interest in and out of Malacca Strait and now we are building the muscle power to intervene if our security is so gravely threatened. Remember, any shipping going in and out of Malacca must pass through the 6° channel well within India’s exclusive economic zone of the Great Nicobar Island. To fully appreciate the value of these islands, we must anticipate threats of the future and stop fighting wars of the past. Least of all, a mere air skirmish of 87 hours. Any warfare hits the most sensitive emotional buttons in a nation and it’s natural for human beings to be obsessed with what’s already been fought, especially if done so successfully. Serious nations, however, don’t act like mere individuals. They draw lessons from past conflicts and look at the battles that lie ahead. In conclusion, we bring back Asim Munir. The best thing about him is that he’s such a big mouth. Reckless big mouth. He’d be a much bigger nuisance and dangerous if he had the smiling, cunning and vicious smarts of a Zia-ul-Haq. Unlike Zia, who knifed you in the back silently and smilingly, Munir boasts and gives you his mind. That’s why as our attention widens to the east, we have to debate two questions. First, what is it that he describes as what they value the most? And second, what will be the wherewithal at his disposal to target those assets? I might have some guesswork, but I’m not about to give anybody ideas in a mere column. All I can tell you is he isn’t talking about Siliguri as many instinctively presumed, particularly at a juncture when anger and distrust with Bangladesh had been running high on establishment social media also with West Bengal elections coming up. I’d say think east, think eastern seaboard and meanwhile keep adding muscle and eyes on those islands. [music]