India's quest for Assumption Island: How New Delhi's military base aspirations in Seychelles are at a crossroads

On 7 December, the tiny island of Mahe, Seychelles, was struck by twin disasters: an explosion in an explosive depot and torrential flooding. President Wavel Ramkalawan called it a calamity. It is off Seychelles where India is seeking a military base at Assumption Island. Former President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had said that “Sri Lanka offered the Hambantota Port to India twice, but the offer was not taken up.” Though a white elephant till now, China, taking a long view, built the port and acquired it on a 99-year lease. Is India’s quest since 2015 for Assumption Island of Seychelles, linking the Suez Canal and Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, acting as a military base to counter the Chinese base at Djibouti, floundering? Assumption is a remote 7km-long island, 1,100 km southwest of Seychelles, with a population of 300 people, an old airstrip, a naval jetty, and a tin shack post office. Of the three contenders for Assumption, the other two – China and the US – India has the longest and deepest bilateral relations with Seychelles, which has 10 per cent of its 96,000 populations of Indian origin. India’s assumption is that the strategically located island will soon become a joint military base with Seychelles. For India, the Assumption story is better encapsulated as ‘so near and yet so far.’ India’s first out-of-area military base, Ayni in Tajikistan, came up around 2002 soon after the Northern Alliance recaptured Afghanistan from the Taliban. Some difficulties were encountered in its use with Russia, which was the first to operate the Ayni base. A small BRO detachment and a couple of IAF warriors maintain the airstrip. Agalega Island in Mauritius is developing into India’s second sea base. Efforts to build a Coast Guard harbour on Uthullu Island off the Maldives have been thwarted by the recent regime change there. Trincomalee in Sri Lanka was in India’s mind, but the plan had to be aborted. A seaport has been constructed at Sittwe in Myanmar, which can be put to military use later. Assumption is a work in slow motion, as is the India story elsewhere. By contrast, China has constructed seaports in Kyakphhu, Myanmar; Hambantota, Sri Lanka; Gwadar I, Pakistan, and acquired Djibouti. It is fishing for a naval base near Chittagong in Bangladesh, not to forget its plan for the Kra Isthmus canal in Thailand to bypass its Malacca dilemma. It recently posted a Military Attaché to Madagascar, exploring the possibility of a base and is looking for one in Comoros Island. This is China’s developing string of diamonds in the Indian Ocean, similar to its string of pearls around India. For India, the Assumption project is vital and urgent as it monitors the Mozambique Channel across which the bulk of container traffic, especially oil tankers, plies. Protests against any military facility have been voiced by environmentalists. Seychelles recently entered into a swap agreement for part of its sovereign debt of $400 million with the US-based company NatureVest by designating one-third of domestic waters as a protected area for $21.6 million. In August 2023, the Assets Development Company of Qatar was allowed to construct a five-star hotel to develop eco-tourism. Close by is the Aldabra Atoll, a UNESCO heritage site with the world’s largest population of giant tortoises. In 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi first visited Seychelles, the Assumption agreement was signed. It was initially meant to be a logistic facility for refuelling and repair of ships, which was to be expanded later. Unfortunately, the agreement was never ratified. It would have been easy, as President James Michel’s Seychelles National Party, later United Seychelles Party, also had the majority in the assembly. Like the 2015 initial Agreement, the text of the Revised Agreement of January 2018 was also not released. It was believed to contain a lease for 20 years for the construction of an airstrip and naval jetty. The 2018 agreement was cleared by President David Faure when he met Prime Minister Modi on 25 June 2018 in New Delhi. He met Modi twice that year for the first time at the International Solar Alliance Summit during the London Commonwealth Summit in April. Ahead of his visit, he expressed doubt about the Assumption Agreement as the opposition was not on the same page. Prime Minister Modi said that India will develop a naval base keeping each other’s interests in mind. Faure said both sides will continue working on the Assumption project. India offered a $100 million LoC for buying Indian defence equipment and agreed to construct the new police headquarters, Attorney General’s office, new government office, and send Indian experts on deputation. Six other agreements, including cybersecurity, information-sharing and white shipping, were also signed. Earlier, in March 2018, then foreign secretary S Jaishankar clarified in Victoria that the project would not be built by India but jointly operated under Seychelles operational control. Indian Ambassador to Seychelles Ausaf Sayeed spoke about the elaborate military cooperation with Seychelles since 2003, which has included the installation of six surveillance radars, gifting fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, fast patrol boats and other light naval vessels. Seychelles was given slots for the training of Seychelles Peoples Defence Force personnel in all major military institutions. More significantly, India helped to thwart at least two coup d’etat attempts, one in 1977 and the other more serious by white mercenaries to topple president Albert Rene in 1986. Then VCOAS, Lt Gen SK Sinha organised the military mission, and prime minister Rajiv Gandhi let Rene use his Air India One to return to Victoria from a meeting in Africa that both were attending. Neither the 2015 agreement nor the 2018 revised agreement was ratified by the Seychelles National Assembly. In 2015, Michel, who enjoyed a parliamentary majority, was not persuaded to get it ratified. Similarly, in 2018, Faure hesitated because the leader of the opposition, Indian-origin Wavel John Charles Ramkalawan, refused to oblige. Not releasing the text of the two agreements led to suspicion and dangerous speculation. Between January 2018 and October 2020, when Ramkalawan, after five attempts, became president with already a majority in the national assembly, Indian diplomacy failed again in getting the agreement ratified and implemented. In June 2019, Sayeed was replaced as Ambassador by Gen Dalbir Singh, who earned laurels for masterminding surgical strikes in Myanmar and Uri in 2015 and 2016. The speed of construction of development projects picked up; so did military cooperation. The Assumption project had lost momentum due to Covid-19 when the focus shifted to its cure and prevention. Seychelles was the first country to receive 50,000 vaccines. History was made in 2016 when after 43 years of rule by the Seychelles National Party, it was defeated by Ramkalawan’s Linyon Demokratik Seselwa. What went wrong with the two agreements was this: The strategic messaging on the military base went awry as the narrative got hijacked. Only later in 2015, Lt Col Michael Rosette, Chief of Staff of Seychelles People’s Defence Force, said that there was no lease agreement and the military base would be controlled by SPDF. In 2018, worries of sovereignty, foreign troops and Indian workers were added over the construction of the military base. The project narrative in both cases was hijacked over sovereignty and clarifications lacked credibility. In January 2018, Ramkalawan was invited to India for the PIO Parliamentarian’s meet. He was taken to trace his roots in Parsauni village in Gopalganj district of Bihar. He told The Wire that he would support the agreement in principle, and the national assembly would ratify the revised agreement within a couple of months. This attracted protests in Seychelles. On return to Victoria, he said he was misquoted. In April 2021, Modi, in an audio interaction during the joint inauguration of the Magistrate Court building in Seychelles, called President Ramkalawan a ‘son of India’ and repeated India’s commitment to strengthen maritime security. A year later, CNS Adm R Harikumar visited Seychelles where he had served as Naval Advisor in 2001-02. He reaffirmed India-Seychelles strategic bondings through various maritime agreements. Jaishankar, as foreign minister, has made at least two visits. Last month, Seychelles Foreign Minister Sylvester Radegonde met Jaishankar for scheduled talks. Seychelles’s leaders, being in a strong bargaining position due to India-China rivalry, have indulged in double-talk and secured maximum gratification from both India and China. Dennis Hardy, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Seychelles, says Ramkalawan may relent and award Assumption to India but ensure China also gets something. Seychelles has not officially cancelled the Assumption Agreement. A state visit by President Ramkalawan and renewed efforts by the Modi government could tilt the balance, and the Assumption base could become a stellar achievement for Indian diplomacy before the 2024 elections. The writer is a retired army veteran. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. 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