Anchoring Nicobar: India’s Bid to Guard Asia’s Busiest Sea Lane

At the mouth of the Malacca Strait, India is trying to turn an isolated outpost into a maritime gamechanger.

India’s southernmost tip is easy to miss on a map. At just 6.6° north, Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island juts into the Andaman Sea, closer to Indonesia than to Chennai. A 35-metre lighthouse, built in 1972, still guides sailors along one of the busiest maritime corridors in the world. Yet the island’s importance today lies not in navigation but in geopolitics. For New Delhi, the Nicobars are more than an isolated territory of 8,000 souls—they are the key to the Malacca Strait, the narrow sea passage through which much of Asia’s trade, and China’s oil, flows.

The Malacca Strait is among the world’s great choke points. Stretching 575 nautical miles from Singapore to Indonesia’s northern tip, it is barely 1.7 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point.

Around 100,000 ships transit it annually, more than the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal or the Strait of Hormuz put together. Nearly two-thirds of China’s oil imports pass through these waters. For India, which has long prided itself on sitting astride the Indian Ocean, the Nicobars’ proximity to this vital artery, just 40 nautical miles from Indonesia’s Sabang island, offers both an opportunity and a challenge.

Maritime Fortress

New Delhi is belatedly awakening to this potential. The government plans to transform Great Nicobar into a hub of commerce and defence. The Galathea Bay project envisions an international container terminal, an airport, a power plant, and enhanced naval facilities. The price tag is steep - over $8 billion, spread across three decades. The first phase, costing $2.1 billion, is meant to deliver port infrastructure by 2028. Later stages, stretching to 2058, would add tourist attractions and civil amenities.

Connectivity is already improving. An underwater fibre-optic cable to Chennai was inaugurated in 2020, a small but significant step in binding the islands closer to the mainland. The model resembles America’s Pacific outposts such as Guam and Saipan—naval strongholds that also double as tourist destinations. Japan, a fellow member of the Quad, is on board. In June 2025 Tokyo and Delhi agreed to cooperate on turning India’s far-flung island territories into ‘smart islands’ equipped with renewable energy, digital infrastructure, disaster-response systems and green ports.

Such ambition is not without critics. Environmentalists fret about turtle nesting grounds and the destruction of fragile rainforests. But to India’s strategists, the choice is stark: either develop Nicobar as a bastion of security, or risk ceding influence to rivals. As one school of thought bluntly puts it, better to offset ecological costs now than to find an adversary entrenched on the island later.

Security Arrangements

India’s renewed focus comes as regional security arrangements evolve. Since 2006 Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia (later joined by Thailand) have conducted the Malacca Strait Patrols (MSP) - a joint effort to combat piracy, terrorism and armed robbery. For years India was excluded, deemed a non-littoral state with no coastline near the Strait. But that premise looks increasingly dated.

Great Nicobar lies within 90 nautical miles of Indonesia’s Sabang. Ships, once hugging the traditional east-west passage through the Six Degree Channel, are now straying further north into waters uncomfortably close to India’s contiguous zone, which extends 24 nautical miles from its coast. Within this belt India can enforce customs, immigration and security laws. To Delhi, foreign vessels loitering here are like strangers in the lobby outside one’s apartment and while not technically trespassing, are still cause for concern.

The case for India’s inclusion in the MSP is compelling. Its navy is the world’s fourth largest, with experience in search-and-rescue and anti-piracy missions. Its National Automatic Identification System can track vessels in distress and monitor illegal fishing across vast waters. And India has a direct stake in keeping the Strait open: as trade grows, disruptions would hurt not just China and Japan but also Indian exporters and energy imports.

However, the littoral states have hesitated so far. While Thailand’s farthest territory lies 60 nautical miles from the Strait’s centre, India’s Galathea Bay is only slightly farther at 90 nautical miles. Yet politics, not geography, may be the sticking point. Southeast Asian countries guard their sovereignty jealously, wary of ceding control to a larger power. India’s insistence on being a ‘net security provider’ in the region, though welcomed by partners like Japan and America, can sound domineering in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur.

Balancing Act

That leaves Delhi in a bind. It wants to play guardian of the Strait while avoiding the charge of neo-imperialism. At home, it must also reconcile security ambitions with ecological responsibility. Great Nicobar is home to the endangered leatherback sea turtle, as well as indigenous tribes with precarious ties to the outside world. For all the talk of ‘smart islands,’ critics worry that mega-projects could erase fragile ecosystems in pursuit of strategic vanity.

Yet, India is unlikely to retreat. In its calculus, Malacca is too important. China already frets about a ‘Malacca dilemma,’ which is the fear that its oil lifeline could be cut off in a crisis. India, by contrast, sees opportunity in its geographic advantage. By fortifying Nicobar and seeking a seat in the MSP, it signals that it intends to shape the security of the Indo-Pacific, not merely observe it.

The Nicobar saga is thus is far more than ports or turtles. It is about India’s attempt to stitch together its far-flung islands into a coherent maritime strategy. The Galathea Bay project, the Quad’s smart island push, and the lobbying for MSP membership all point to a country determined to anchor itself more firmly in Asia’s seaborne trade.

Whether its neighbours will welcome India’s activism is uncertain. But one fact is not: with its lighthouse still beaming over the Andaman Sea, Indira Point is no longer a forgotten outpost. It is now India’s front line in the contest to safeguard and shape the world’s busiest shipping lane.

(Capt. Singhal is a shipping and marine consultant and member, Singapore Shipping Association. Capt. Saggi is ex-Nautical Advisor to Government of India)