Indian Ocean – Strategic Imperatives For India To Keep It Indian – Analysis
By: SAAG http://www.eurasiareview.com/04102012-indian-ocean-strategic-imperatives-for-india-to-keep-it-indian-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29
“The Indian Ocean is where the rivalry between the United States and China in the Pacific interlocks the regional rivalry between China and India and also with America’s fight against Islamic terrorism and the Middle East, which includes America’s attempt to contain Iran” — Robert Kaplan
The Indian Ocean stands aptly named because India’s peninsular geographical configuration jutting deeply into this Ocean merits this appellation. India’s deep peninsular configuration also places India in the unique commanding position of the Bay of Bengal on the Eastern flank of the Deccan Peninsula and the Arabian Sea on the Western flank.
In strategic maritime terms India is in a position to dominate the vast expanse of maritime waters from the Straits of Malacca to the Gulf of Aden and all the way down south to the outermost extremities of the Indian Ocean.
The above assertion of such a vast maritime expanse is premised on the fact that India accords over-riding priority and fast tracks the modernization and expansion of the Indian Navy’s operational might to achieve this dominance. The manifestation of The China Threat in the maritime domain in the Indian Ocean can no longer be ignored by India.
India’s political leadership does not have the luxury any longer that it is business as usual and that India can take its own sweet time to pursue Indian Navy’s enhancement of operational capabilities at the pace of its own choosing.
Strategic imperatives that dictate this fast-track expansion of Indian Navy combat ships, maritime surveillance assets and submarine fleet arise from two major factors namely China’s growing naval intrusiveness in the Indian Ocean and the overstretch of the US Navy to face the growing naval challenges from China both in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
While the United States has begun responding to the Chinese naval threat by increasing and repositioning US Navy assets in the Asia Pacific, there is no comparable Indian activity or urgency visible.
India cannot imperil India’s national security in terms of capacity-building of its military assets to counter the China Threat to pious readings of China’s military intentions by India’s national security establishment dominated by a civilian hierarchy. Nor can India’s national security be imperilled by diverting vast financial resources to social-politically populist wasteful expenditure and starving the Indian Armed Forces of adequate financial resources to add teeth and punch to counter The China Threat.
Further, India’s defence acquisitions cannot be made captive inordinate delays of tendering and re-tendering just because some vested entities write letters to the Defence Minister alleging irregularities and he orders a re-run of the whole acquisition process, endangering India’s national security by avoidable delays.
The China Threat to India will increasingly manifest itself in the Indian Ocean again for two good reasons. The first is that despite India’s lack of punch along the Himalayan heights on the India-Occupied Tibet Border, the Indian Army can be said to be in a military dissuasive posture. This precludes therefore a straight walkover by the Chinese Army strongly embedded in Occupied Tibet
Secondly, India’s defence planners need to recognize the strategic reality that the next round with China unlike 1962 will not be confined to land operations in the Himalayan heights. More than the use of massed air-power by the Chinese Air Force, China is likely to mount a tri-Service campaign in which China would certainly resort to sizeable naval operations against India which only uniformed Service officers can appreciate. It is beyond the scope of this Paper to spell those out.
In any future China-India conflict, China would be strategically vulnerable and concerned with the security of her sea-lanes emanating from the Gulf to the Chinese coast and traversing the maritime waters that India is in a position to dominate. This itself would be a major military imperative for China to increase her naval might in the Indian Ocean to counter India’s potential maritime threat to her energy security.
Can India afford to let China to close the differentials in terms of whatever little naval dominance and strategic pressure points India enjoys in her adjoining seas and the Indian Ocean against China? India’s military objective should be to increase the differential in her favour.
The Indian Ocean and India’s accretion to her naval might is one critical area in which both the United States and India enjoy singular strategic convergences. Whichever way one puts it, it can be safely asserted that the United States would not be averse to out-source Indian Ocean security to India. It is India that needs to shed its strategic coyness and strategic virginity as in strategic embraces there is no such thing as platonic love.
Concluding, the major challenge that India faces is as to how India keeps the Indian Ocean effectively as ‘Indian’. Can India with its current naval strengths and also with her assets in a slow-moving pipeline in a position achieve the strategic imperative to keep the Indian Ocean as ‘Indian”? It doesn’t seem so.
Hence how does India achieve her strategic imperatives in the Indian Ocean? Will Russia be in a position to assist India to emerge as the dominant power in the Indian Ocean despite the fact that India’s naval inventories are predominantly Russian in origin? The answer is negative. China as India’s strategic adversary and the prime threat to Indian security is automatically ruled out.
India’s strategic imperatives to keep the Indian Ocean as ‘Indian” can only be assisted by the United States. For this to emerge two things are necessary. The first is India’s readiness to accept the United States as a strategic partner effectively in the Indian Ocean. The second major factor is for India to be more explicit about The China Threat to India and appropriately signal China that India too has major strategic pressure points against China.
About K4Kashmir
PROFILE OF Dr SHABIR CHOUDHRY
Dr Shabir Choudhry was born in Nakker Shamali (near Panjeri) in District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir. He went to UK in 1966, and holds a dual nationality.
Dr Shabir Choudhry has done extensive research on the issue of Kashmir and Indo Pakistan relations. He passed BA Honours in Politics and History, and Mphil in International Relations (title of the thesis, ‘Kashmir and Partition of India’); and title of his PhD thesis is ‘Kashmir- An issue of a nation not a dispute of a land’.
Apart from this Dr Shabir Choudhry passed Post Graduates Certificates in Education, and NVQ Assessor’s qualifications; and taught English in London.
Political Achievements
Founder member of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front established in 1977) and got elected as a Press Secretary in 1984.
• Became its Secretary General in 1985, and resigned from this post in 1996.
• Got elected President of JKLF and Europe in May 1999, and decided not to contest in elections of July 2001.
• Said good - bye to the JKLF as it is in many groups and is largely seen as advancing a Pakistani agenda on Kashmir dispute, and set up a new party Kashmir National Party in May 2008.
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At present, he is:
• Spokesman Kashmir National Party and Director Diplomatic Committee;
• Founder member and Director Institute of Kashmir Affairs;
Previously
• A founder Member and Trustee/ Director of London based registered charity, Kashmir Foundation International and resigned from this position in August 2001.
• Regularly take part in the Sessions of the UN Human Rights (Commission) now Council in Geneva; and address various conferences and seminars to oppose violence and highlight the Kashmir cause.
• Have addressed dozens of seminars and conferences in the British Parliament, European Parliament and other important capitals of the world on issue of Kashmir, violence and terrorism.
• Addressed as a key note speaker in a Conference at New Delhi arranged by Jawahar Lal Nehru University.
• Participated in a Round Table Conference on Kashmir, organised by Socialist Group of European Parliament in Brussels in 1993.
• Addressed as a Chief Guest in a seminar on issue of Mangla Dam during the UN Sub Commission’s proceedings in August 2003.
• Addressed as a key - note speaker in a seminar on the issue of Gilgit and Baltistan, organised by Association of British Kashmiris.
• Addressed as a keynote speaker on human rights conference in Paris in 1991.
• Addressed at Cambridge University as a Chief Guest in a conference on Kashmir in 1990.
• Addressed as a keynote speaker at New Delhi conference on Kashmir, which was part of Track Two diplomacy in November 2000.
• In September 2008, addressed a Conference arranged by Interfaith International in Geneva, topic of which was: “Kashmir Issue, Terrorism and Human Rights”.
• Addressed as a speaker in a NGO Conference on Self - Determination in Geneva in August 2000.
• Addressed as a keynote speaker in a fringe meeting of Liberal Democrats at their Annual Conference in Brighton in 1995.
• Participated in World Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993.
• Before President Clinton's visit to India and Pakistan in 2000, lead a JKLF delegation to the State Department to discuss Kashmir dispute and situation in South Asia.
• Also had two rounds of meetings with senior State Department officials before President Musharraf’s meeting to Washington in June 2003.
• Apart from that had meetings with senior officials including Ministers of different countries, and also held many meetings with the State Department and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials on number of occasions.
• Played important role in advancing a Kashmiri perspective on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir; and also helped Baroness Emma Nicholson with her report ‘Kashmir: present situation and future prospects’, which was adopted by the European Parliament in May 2007.
• Won first prize in an essay competition in Urdu in 1976. It was organised by High Commission of Pakistan in London, and title of the essay was 'Qaaid-e- Azam's role in Islamic History'.
• Apart from that have addressed conferences in Brussels, Geneva, Toronto, Islamabad, Delhi, and
Publications
• Got first Urdu novel ‘Fareena’ published at the age of eighteen.
• Second Urdu novel ‘Bay-Khataa’ which was about the problems of Asian youths living in UK published in 1983.
• Third Urdu book ‘Pakistan and Kashmiri struggle for independence’ published in 1990.
• Fourth Urdu book is also on Kashmiri struggle, 'Is an independent Kashmir a conspiracy?'
• Apart from that has twenty five books and booklets published in English on various aspects of the Kashmiri struggle.
• Recent publications are: Kashmir dispute as I see it
• Different perspective on Kashmir
• JKLF visit to Pakistan Administered Kashmir
• Kashmir Needs a Change of Heart
• If not self - determination then what?
• Emma Nicholson report- who has won?
• Struggle for independence, Jihad or proxy war (Introduction by Baroness Emma Nicholson)
• Why 22 October 1947 is important in Kashmiri history?
• New dimensions of the Kashmiri struggle.
The following books are published by a German company and available on www.amazon.co.uk
• New Round of the 'Great Game', ISBN 978-3-639-33084-7
• Liberation Struggle, Jihad or a Proxy War,
ISBN 978-3-639-33424-1
• Kashmir Dispute: New Dimensions and New Challenges
ISBN 978-3-639-33566-8
• Kashmir Dispute and Peace in South Asia
ISBN 978-3-639-33732-7
• Terrorism, Kashmir Dispute and Possible Solutions ISBN 978-3-639-34239-0
• Kashmir And The Partition of India, (my Mphil research)
ISBN 978-3-639-34801-9
• Kashmir – an Issue of a Nation not Dispute of a Land, (my PhD research) 978-3-639-35593-2
• Are Kashmiris part of the Kashmir Dispute? 978-3-639-37225-0
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A brief background
Dr Shabir Choudhry was born in a small village called Nakker Shamali (near Panjeri) in District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir. He went to UK in 1966, and like other people from the region, holds a dual nationality. He left secondary school in 1970 with no qualifications and began his life as a textile worker.
In 1975 he started part time studies and passed Matriculation from Government High School Panjeri, passed ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels from UK, and resumed full time degree course in 1981, and passed BA (Hons) in Politics and History in 1984.
He continued full time and part time jobs until he got his Mphil. He passed his PGCE (Post Graduates Certificate in Education) in 1990, and then started full time job as a Lecturer. Due to health problems he resigned from teaching in 1999. At present he is self - employed, provides private tuition, translation and interpretation and consultancy.
Through out his adult life he has actively worked for the cause of Kashmir, and even during long illness he effectively carried out his responsibilities as a leader of the JKLF, a ‘prolific writer’ and consistent campaigner of Rights Movement and peace in Jammu and Kashmir and South Asia.
Dr Shabir Choudhry
Email:drshabirchoudhry@googlemail.com
Telephone: 0044 (0)7790942471
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