India has recently renewed its attention to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean, which occupy a key location in West-East maritime trade, with a series of infrastructure, economic, and defense projects that experts say will help India and its Indo-Pacific allies.
The country is upgrading two airstrips on the islands into full-fledged fighter aircraft bases, according to Aug. 25 media reports, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has begun other development projects in the past few weeks.
“The Andaman and Nicobar Islands provide critical access and key entry and exit points for the Indian Ocean. They oversee the Strait of Malacca, a key chokepoint connecting the western Pacific to the Indian Ocean,” Pratik Dattani, an advisory member to the London-based think tank Bridge India, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“By controlling this, India or the U.S. could, in theory, block Chinese movement across the Strait, cutting off China’s major energy routes from the Middle East.”
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) are a chain of 572 islands close to the shipping channel of the Malacca Strait, which lies between Malaysia and Indonesia. While only 38 of the islands are inhabited, they constitute 30 percent of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
They increase India’s maritime boundary deep into the Indian Ocean and, because of their proximity to the Malacca Strait, ensure that the maritime trade necessarily passes through India’s EEZ.
“These islands are strategically located to cast an eye on the critical shipping lanes of China, thereby giving India critical, much-needed leverage,” Harsh Pant, director of studies and head of the Strategic Studies Programme at Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank, told The Epoch Times on a chat platform.