WHO'S AFRAID OF INDIA'S ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR PROJECT?

While still relatively under-the-radar, this project is already facing the kind of pressures once applied to try and stop India’s nuclear programme. India must not relent.

- HINDOL SENGUPTA

Location of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The question of who controls which global maritime chokepoints and sea routes has been brought brutally on the table by US President Donald Trump’s demand for a handover of Greenland to American control.

As Trump hopes to counter China in the northern sea routes, the crisis in the Bay of Bengal is deepening. Even as India moves ahead with its big Andaman and Nicobar development projects (especially the Great Nicobar Island project), the noise against the project from assorted activists, environmentalists, and even major political players is increasingly reminiscent of the clamour nearly three decades ago against India’s nuclear programme.

STRATEGIC ARCHITECTURE OF GREAT NICOBAR PROJECT

The Great Nicobar Island (GNI) project—conceived by NITI Aayog and launched in 2021—aims to create an International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), a greenfield international airport, a township, and a gas-solar power plant, implemented by ANIIDCO.

Strategically, official policy commentary frames this as dual-use infrastructure that can reduce reliance on foreign hubs like Singapore and Colombo while improving India’s ability to monitor sea lanes near the Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok Straits.

The wider Andaman & Nicobar posture is anchored by the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), India’s only tri-service theatre command, alongside bases such as INS Baaz and INS Utkrosh that expand surveillance and operational reach in the eastern Indian Ocean.

A major base-plus-port complex in the Nicobars changes peacetime “maritime geography” into wartime leverage: it strengthens India’s capacity to observe, track, and potentially interdict movements through approaches to the Strait of Malacca—one of the world's busiest maritime chokepoints—thereby sharpening great-power threat perceptions.