India to help Mauritius develop, keep a watch on Chagos Islands, gains a strategic toehold in Indian Ocean

India will help Mauritius develop and keep a watch on and around the Chagos Islands —an archipelago, which the Indian Ocean nation recently got back from the United Kingdom. The UK continues to have a military base of the United States in Diego Garcia, its largest island.

- BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

As Narendra Modi and Navinchandra Ramgoolam, the Prime Ministers of the two nations, met in Varanasi on Thursday, India pledged to support Mauritius’ plans for development and surveillance of the Chagos Maritime Protection Area.

The move is expected to give India a strategic edge in the wake of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s increasing forays in the Indian Ocean region.

The UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in May this year, but retained control of the military base under a 99-year lease. The marine protected area, where commercial fishing is banned, is one of the world’s largest.

Ramgoolam sought India’s help in surveillance of the “vast EEZ” as his country lacked the capacity.

The Chagos Islands were originally part of the territory of Mauritius. However, just three years before Mauritius gained independence from the colonial rule of the United Kingdom, London detached the archipelago in 1965.

The UK leased Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, to the United States for building and running a joint British-American military base.