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By:

Commodore S.L. Deshmukh

31 October 2024 at 3:00:19 am

The Battle for Great Nicobar

China’s discomfort with India’s island ambitions may be the clearest indication yet of Great Nicobar’s strategic value. As India pushes ahead with its ambitious Rs. 80,000-crore Great Nicobar infrastructure project, an unlikely convergence has emerged. Chinese commentators have intensified criticism of the island’s development, warning of ecological destruction and strategic destabilisation. At home, opposition politicians and environmental activists have mounted similar attacks, portraying...

The Battle for Great Nicobar

China’s discomfort with India’s island ambitions may be the clearest indication yet of Great Nicobar’s strategic value. As India pushes ahead with its ambitious Rs. 80,000-crore Great Nicobar infrastructure project, an unlikely convergence has emerged. Chinese commentators have intensified criticism of the island’s development, warning of ecological destruction and strategic destabilisation. At home, opposition politicians and environmental activists have mounted similar attacks, portraying the initiative as an assault on tribal rights and biodiversity. Beneath the environmental rhetoric, however, lies a harder geopolitical reality: Great Nicobar occupies one of the most strategically sensitive maritime locations in the Indo-Pacific, barely 100 nautical miles from the Malacca Strait through which much of China’s trade and energy supplies flow. Maritime Power The battle over Great Nicobar is therefore about far more than forests. It is about whether India intends to become a serious maritime power or remain a hesitant continental one. For decades, India’s island territories were treated as distant appendages rather than strategic assets. Yet geography has a stubborn habit of asserting itself. Great Nicobar, India’s southernmost island, sits close to the main East-West shipping corridor linking Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Nearly 40% of global trade passes through these waters. Whoever can monitor these sea lanes enjoys not merely commercial advantages but immense strategic leverage. That reality has acquired fresh urgency amid intensifying Indo-Pacific rivalries. China’s naval presence in the Indian Ocean has expanded steadily over the past decade. Chinese submarines have made periodic appearances in the region, while Beijing has pursued access arrangements and port projects stretching from Gwadar in Pakistan to Hambantota in Sri Lanka. India increasingly views these developments as part of a broader strategic encirclement. Great Nicobar offers New Delhi a chance to respond. The proposed development project seeks to transform the island into a major maritime and logistics hub. At its centre lies a massive International Container Transshipment Terminal capable of handling 14.2 million TEUs annually. Alongside it are plans for a greenfield international airport, a power plant and a modern township. The objective is both economic and strategic: reduce India’s dependence on foreign transshipment hubs such as Singapore and Colombo while simultaneously strengthening its surveillance and military reach near the Malacca Strait. In commercial terms, the logic is difficult to dispute. Despite being one of the world’s largest trading economies, India still depends heavily on foreign ports for cargo transshipment. Much Indian cargo is rerouted through overseas hubs before reaching global markets, increasing costs and strategic dependence. A deep-water port at Great Nicobar could alter that equation, positioning India as a more consequential maritime trading power. Military Value The island’s military utility may be even more significant. Great Nicobar sits at a vantage point from which India can monitor shipping traffic across the Andaman Sea and the approaches to Malacca. It strengthens the Andaman and Nicobar Command, India’s only integrated tri-service command, while enhancing the country’s ability to respond rapidly to regional crises, whether military or humanitarian. In an era when maritime competition increasingly shapes global politics, such infrastructure is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. China, unsurprisingly, appears uneasy. Chinese commentary surrounding the project has frequently emphasised environmental risks and alleged political controversies. State-linked narratives have portrayed the development as ecologically reckless, highlighting its impact on forests and indigenous communities. Yet Beijing’s sudden ecological sensitivity has struck many observers as selective. China itself continues to pursue enormous infrastructure ventures in environmentally fragile regions, including controversial dam projects on the Brahmaputra and extensive construction in the South China Sea. Like most great powers, China tends to discover environmental principles most passionately when strategic rivals begin building infrastructure near its vulnerabilities. And Great Nicobar touches one of China’s deepest strategic anxieties: the ‘Malacca dilemma.’ Chinese leaders have long feared that rival powers could disrupt energy and trade flows through the narrow strait during a conflict. Roughly four-fifths of China’s imported oil passes through these waters. An India with expanded naval and logistical capabilities near the chokepoint complicates Beijing’s calculations considerably. But India’s challenge is not merely external. The government must also confront legitimate domestic concerns. Great Nicobar is ecologically sensitive terrain, home to tropical evergreen forests, unique biodiversity and indigenous communities such as the Shompen and Nicobarese tribes. Critics warn that large-scale construction could irreversibly damage fragile ecosystems and disrupt tribal life. Such concerns deserve scrutiny rather than dismissal. Strategic ambition cannot become an excuse for administrative recklessness. The government insists that safeguards are in place. Officials point out that the project has received environmental clearances under existing regulatory frameworks, including the EIA Notification of 2006 and the Island Coastal Regulation Zone norms of 2019. Authorities also argue that compensatory afforestation and re-notification measures will offset ecological and tribal impacts. Whether these assurances translate into credible implementation will determine much of the project’s long-term legitimacy. Still, the broader strategic rationale remains compelling. India has spent years speaking of the Indo-Pacific, maritime connectivity and the ‘Act East’ policy. Great Nicobar represents one of the clearest attempts to convert those slogans into physical infrastructure. Nations do not emerge as maritime powers through speeches alone. They require ports, airfields, logistics chains and sustained investment in frontier geographies. There is also a deeper shift underway in India’s strategic imagination. Since independence, the country has largely thought of security through a continental lens, focused on land borders with Pakistan and China. But the centre of geopolitical gravity is moving steadily toward the seas. Trade routes, naval deployments, undersea cables and maritime chokepoints increasingly shape global influence. The Indian Ocean, once viewed as India’s backyard, is becoming an arena of intense great-power rivalry. Great Nicobar symbolises India’s attempt to adapt to that reality. The debate surrounding the island is therefore not simply about development versus conservation. It is about whether India can pursue strategic infrastructure without descending into either ecological vandalism or endless political paralysis. For China, the implications are already clear. An India entrenched near the mouth of the Malacca Strait represents a long-term strategic complication. For India, the project reflects a broader recognition that geography unused is opportunity wasted. (The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)

The Godfather II: A Sequel That Surpasses the Original

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

The Godfather II

Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather II’ (1974), which marks its fiftieth anniversary, stands as that rarity - a sequel that not only rivals but arguably surpasses the original 1972 masterpiece, a feat seldom equalled in cinematic history.

The breathtakingly ambitious 200-minute film is a continuation of the Corleone family saga and possibly the definitive artistic word on the criminal underworld and the exploration of power - aesthetically rivalled only by Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984).

Far more than just the vicissitudes of a Mafia family, The Godfather Part II mirrors the great dynasties of classical history, like the Médicis or the Borgias of Renaissance Italy. The Godfather II is two films in one, traversing multiple historical epochs to showcase the rise of the father – a young Don Vito Corleone (masterfully portrayed by Robert De Niro) in the 1910s alongside the tragic fall of son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino’s finest performance) in the late 1950s.

The film intercuts between Michael’s crumbling empire, with scenes set against backdrop of Battista’s Cuba, and his father Vito’s rise as a young Sicilian immigrant in New York decades earlier.

In a tour-de-force on the intricacies of power and succession, Coppola invites the viewer to explore the contrasting trajectories of father and son: one building an empire from nothing, the other presiding over its fall as it corrodes his soul.

By the film’s end, Michael, who, in ‘The Godfather’ started off an idealist WWII hero, transforms into a cold, loveless monster, prematurely aged, ordering the execution of his older brother Fredo (brilliantly played by John Cazale) for going against the ‘Family.’

The transformation of Mario Puzo’s pulpy novel into high art under Coppola’s direction is an intriguing story in itself. In 1965, a 45-year-old Mario Puzo, bedevilled by shylocks, set about writing, not great literature, but a hypnotically engrossing story about America’s criminal underworld titled ‘Mafia’.

By 1967, Hollywood’s Paramount Studio, reeling from financial losses, had latched on the concept of nurturing potential bestsellers into films. This is how Puzo’s novel on the strength of 114 pages and telling the sympathetic story of a racketeer Don Vito Corleone was ‘nurtured’ by the studio.

In 1969, the book, ‘The Godfather’ became a runaway bestseller. Yet, the film, which came out in 1972, was fraught with uncertainty. From the unbankability of one of the world’s greatest actors Marlon Brando, who played the ageing Don to the initial hostile reviews of a then-unknown Pacino, a pressure-cooker atmosphere had pervaded the making of the film as Coppola frenetically pulled of all stops to achieve his artistic vision. As ‘The Godfather’ broke movie records, the film became, according to historian Arthur Schlesinger, “the cultural phenomenon of the season.”

But why this sequel to a perfect film? Coppola agreed to do it as he was handed complete creative control by Paramount and fascinated by the idea of a film that “would work freely in time, moving backward and forward in time.”

Casting played a pivotal role in the ‘The Godfather II’s success. De Niro, who pulled-off the notoriously challenging assignment of playing the younger Vito Corleone, delivering lines in Sicilian and broken English, was unilaterally cast after Coppola viewed his early performance in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Mean Streets’ (1973).

The formidable supporting cast included Michael V. Gazzo and legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who portrayed the Machiavellian Hyman Roth.

Critics initially struggled to reconcile to the film’s darker themes; Roger Ebert, who has awarded four stars to several less-deserving flicks, initially gave ‘The Godfather II’ a mere respectable three.

The film’s stunning period detail (right down to the dirt of early 20th-century New York), its technical mastery - Gordon Willis phenomenal cinematography, moving seamlessly between sepia-toned scenes of Vito’s early 20th-century New York to Michael’s late 1950s, is remarkable.Critic D. Keith Mano said that The Godfather II was better than The Godfather and that the two-volume set represented a great American document.

‘The Godfather II’ went on to win six Academy Awards. Pacino, however, was notably overlooked for Best Actor, a snub that would resonate until he belatedly received one for ‘Scent of a Woman’ eighteen years later – for a performance in a film far inferior to his high points in the 1970s.

 
 
 

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