By P.K.Balachandran
Colombo, July 19: During a recent visit to Mauritius, India’s External Affairs Minister Dr.S.Jaishankar told Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth that New Delhi will continue to support Mauritius in its fight to retrieve the Chagos archipelago from the UK.
Jaishankar told Prime Minister Jugnauth: “As we look at our deep and enduring relationship, Prime Minister, I would like to again assure you today that on the issue of Chagos, India will continue its consistent support to Mauritius in line with its principal stand on decolonisation and support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations”
Reciprocating Jaishankar’s gesture, Mauritius’ Foreign Minister Maneesh Gobin said on X: “We express our deep gratitude to Dr. S. Jaishankar for reaffirming India’s consistent support to Mauritius regarding the Chagos archipelago, in alignment with India’s principled stance on decolonisation, sovereignty, and Territorial integrity.”
Diego Garcia
The Chagos archipelago is a chain of 60 islands, the largest of which is Diego Garcia, which the British leased out to the US in 1966 to build a naval base.
Known as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” Diego Garcia played a major role as a launching pad for US airstrikes in the West Asian wars.
Today, Diego Garcia is the only US outpost in the Indian Ocean and it is doubtful if Washington will ever abandon it. Located bang in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Chagos archipelago is also on China’s vital oil supply route. And it lies in the Indian Ocean, which New Delhi considers to be its legitimate geopolitical domain.
Therefore, the archipelago is of critical importance to all three powers at play in the Indian Ocean, the US-UK, China and India.
The Chagos Issue
The Chagos archipelago was historically a part of Mauritius but it was cut off from it by the British in 1966 as a condition for granting independence. The then Mauritian leader, Sir Seewoosagar Ramgulam, who gave his nod to the deal, later got flak for it because Mauritians saw it as a sell out.
Once the archipelago was obtained, the British promptly made it a part of a new entity called British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT) with sovereignty over it. As stated earlier, Britain also leased out the biggest island in the chain, namely, Diego Garcia, to the US to establish a naval base. The lease is to expire in 2036.
To enable the setting up of the base and operate it without let or hindrance and in total secrecy, the British and the Americans forcibly removed the entire native population of the Chagos archipelago. The mixed stock of Africans, Indians and Malays were bundled off to Mauritius mainly.
Since then, Chagossian exiles have been agitating to get back their traditional home. On its part, Mauritius raised the Chagos issue 23 times on various international platforms.
In 2019, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed a “non-binding” resolution which affirmed that the “Chagos Archipelago forms an integral part of the territory of Mauritius,” and demanded that “the UK withdraw its colonial administration from the Chagos Archipelago unconditionally within a period of not more than six months.”
But because it was a non-binding resolution, UK kept ignoring it. It also ignored a 2000 UK High Court judges’ observation that the expulsion of indigenous Chagos Islanders was incompatible with British law.
In 2009, without consulting Mauritius, UK declared the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT) as a marine reserve, with the exception of Diego Garcia, putting all sorts of curbs. Mauritius filed a case against the UK under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
India’s Stake
India is supporting Mauritius’ claim to the Chagos archipelago primarily because it does not want it to go into the hands of China, which is spreading its tentacles in the Indian Ocean to India’s chagrin.
Ever since the Indian Ocean became an area of intense geopolitical contestation the Chagos issue has acquired centrality. With this at the back of their minds, India and China have been trying to increase their footprints in Mauritius competitively.
As far as India is concerned, Mauritius is an Indian-majority country. 70% of Mauritius’ 1.2 million people are of Indian origin, mostly from Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Successive Indian governments have developed close ties with this community.
Since 2005, India has been among the largest trading partners of Mauritius. In 2022-2023, Indian exports to Mauritius was US$ 462.69 million, Mauritian exports to India was US$ 91.50 million and total trade was US$ 554.19 million.
Cumulative FDI worth US$ 161 billion came from Mauritius to India in the two decades from 2000 – 2022 (26% of total FDI inflows into India), thanks largely to the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC). In Mauritius, Indian companies have invested over US$ 200 million in the last five years.
India and Mauritius signed a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) in 2021.
In 2016, India provided a grant of US$ 353 million to Mauritius as a Special Economic Package for five priority projects. India also extended a US$ 500 million Line of Credit (LoC) in 2017 to finance social/infrastructure projects. In October 2021, an LoC of US$ 190 million and US$ 10 million grant were for a Metro Project. In August 2022, another LoC worth US$ 300 million and a grant of US$ 25 million were announced.
Defence Ties
India has constructed a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agaléga. According to the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF), in 2015, India formalised the plan to develop the existing 800-metre airstrip at Agalega into a full-length airfield capable of receiving large and long range planes like P81.
There are plans to build a port close to the current jetty, establish institutions for intelligence and communications and instal a transponder system to identify ships travelling through the Indian Ocean. The port would be used by Indian ships passing through the region for refuelling.
Enter China
But the road to developing such infrastructure was not smooth. In 2020, massive protests broke out in the country, accusing the Mauritian government of compromising national security. Indians suspected the hand of China in these protests. Nevertheless, construction was completed in five years.
Since 2008, Chinese warships have patrolled the Indian Ocean, and since 2017, China has been having a naval base in Djibouti.
To add to India’s worries, the nearby Maldives signed an agreement with Beijing “on China’s provision of military assistance”. Maldives asked Indian military personnel involved in medical evacuation to leave. The Indian military men were replaced by Indian civilians.
With India’s relationship with Maldives reaching a historic low, Mauritius became pivotal in India’s quest to retain its influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
The ratification of the Mauritius-China Free Trade Agreement in January 2021 was not seen very favourably in New Delhi. After the ratification of the FTA, Mauritius’ exports to China increased by 148%. According to data from China’s Ministry of Commerce, Chinese cumulative investment in Mauritius reached US$ 887 million, mainly in the finance, real estate, manufacturing and tourism sectors.
Military Threat
Indians would generally say that China poses a threat to India in the Chagos archipelago. And Westerners see the Chagos archipelago as essential for their defence against both China and Russia.
Writing in Asian Military Review in 2019 on the strategic utility of Diego Garcia to the West, Ben Ho argued that Diego Garcia, if not the whole of Chagos archipelago, is essential for the West’s defence against China and Russia.
“Past events show that Diego Garcia is the point d’appui (the fulcrum) for multiple lines of operations. Strategic bombers from its airstrip flew northwest to partake in Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In recent years, counter-terrorism and anti-piracy operations in the Horn of Africa littoral also originated from the atoll. And last year, B-52 Stratofortress bombers took off from Diego Garcia to conduct ostensibly freedom-of-navigation missions in the South China Sea, which is east of the island,” Ho wrote.
Diego Garcia’s location is also noteworthy for its “isolation”, Ho said. The nearest landfall is over 1,600 km away in India and it is some 3,500 km away from a potential area of operations in the northern Arabian Sea.
Diego Garcia is thus safe, except from long-range weaponry like intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and sea-launched cruise missiles. The other advantage is that Diego Garcia has no local population other than US and UK military personnel. And it is held by friendly Britain.
Peter Harris writing in The Diplomat in 2022 said that US presence on Diego Garcia is unlikely to be affected because both the UN vote and the ICJ ruling were “symbolic and non-binding.”
According to Harris there is simply no evidence to support the view that China has military plans in the Chagos archipelago. This is so especially because the Mauritian government has already offered the US a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia.
“This is a credible offer consistent with longstanding cooperation between the United States, Britain, and Mauritius on maritime security issues,” Harris added.
However, Mauritius is under pressure from China to sign into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with China. But Mauritius’ closeness to India is expected to prevent signing into the BRI.
However, there remains a point to ponder: Will India’s advocacy of Mauritius’ case vis-à-vis the Chagos archipelago contradict its geopolitical and strategic partnership with the US and UK?
As it is India has irked the US by not supporting Ukraine against Russia and breaking sanctions to buy oil from Russia.
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