NEGLECTED BASTIONS

CAN THE ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS BECOME THE FOCUS OF INDIA’S MILITARY STRATEGY AGAINST A BELLIGERENT CHINA? THERE IS PLENTY OF INTENT, BUT INSUFFICIENT MILITARY CAPACITY ON THE GROUND

- Sandeep Unnithan

FROM HIGH ABOVE, Teressa Island resembles a giant green boomerang, frozen mid-throw over an azure sea. Last December, this island in the Nicobar chain was a military objective for over 100 soldiers from an elite army unit. Leaping out of the back of a C-130J transport, paratroopers from the Agra-based Shatrujeet Brigade practised parachuting onto the island and securing a drop zone, simulating how India would react to an invasion of the islands. In a real-world scenario, it would be the entire 3,000-man brigade parachuting and airlanding to capture key installations like airfields before a larger friendly seaborne force arrived. The brigade’s emblem, a winged centaur drawing a bow, symbolises its composite capabilities. It has seen action in all of independent India’s conflicts—two successes in the modern era involved an operation behind enemy lines in erstwhile East Pakistan in 1971 and thwarting a coup in the Maldives in 1989.