India and the sea

Summary

ABSTRACT.Although unified modern India was a product of British sea power, it inherited a weak awareness of the sea and gained independence with few warships or merchant ships of its own. Growth was initially modest, but by the 1970s Indian governments were becoming aware of the risks of not controlling the Indian Ocean. Only the economic liberalization of 1991 revealed India's potential gains from world trade, and much of that still remains unrealised.

RÉSUMÉ.Bien que son unification fût le produit du pouvoir maritime britannique, l'Inde moderne n'hérita que d'une faible connaissance de la mer et gagna son indépendance avec peu de navires de guerres ou vaisseaux marchands lui appartenant. Sa croissance fut au départ modeste mais dans les années 1970, les gouvernements indiens commencèrent à prendre conscience des risques générés par le non-contrôle de l'océan indien. Seule la libéralisation économique de 1991 révéla les bénéfices potentiels que l'Inde pouvait tirer du commerce international, lesquels restent pour la plupart encore aujourd'hui irréalisés.

India has strong maritime traditions, but it is not a nation with a maritime outlook. This is the result in part of geography and in part of its history. It is a simple strategic reality that India, although a peninsula, has land borders that are twice the length of its coast. Equally significant is that relations with Pakistan have been tense, when not overtly hostile, over the entire period since partition and independence in 1947, while an undeclared war was fought with China on the disputed northern border in 1962, over a boundary that has yet to be agreed in 2015. Relations with other neighbours on land, such as Nepal and Bangladesh, have been somewhat less fractious, but never entirely comfortable.

And it is a simple historical fact that “India” as an entity is the result much more of its domination by the British than of its pre-colonial past, and that diversity marked – and continues to mark – the Indian maritime domain as much as that of the land. The sub-continent, made up of a patchwork of competing states, fell to the British as much through the latter's successful division of local rivals as through outright conquest. This was just as true at sea. Later proponents of Indian sea power were quick to point out that such a lack of Indian unity benefited the intruders much more than their undoubted technological superiority.