Ramification | Chagos Islands: India’s silent victory in the Indian Ocean

It was once said of the British Empire that it is “the empire on which the sun never sets”, but the recent transfer of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius marks the end of the last African colony for the United Kingdom. It ends the last vestiges of British rule in the Indian Ocean.

The Archipelago is a group of seven atolls (ring-shaped islands with a coral rim that encircles a lagoon) comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean. One of the largest of these islands, Diego Garcia, serves as a key military base operated by the United Kingdom and the United States together, making it a key military outpost in the Indian Ocean of strategic consequence. Notably, Britain will continue to administer this crucial island for another century, preserving the Anglo-American joint base on it.

The island, which was previously used for air operations during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, continues to provide a base for surveillance on West Asia, has facilities to dock large warships, and is of critical importance to US security interests in the Indo-Pacific to counter Chinese ambitions. Additionally, Mauritius is among the few African countries that are not a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and with the Chinese establishing a military base in Djibouti in 2016, the importance of Diego Garcia has not been lost on observers.

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It was in 1814 that the French handed over the Chagos Islands to the British through the Treaty of Paris. In 1965, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) was created, which included Mauritius as well as the atoll, but when Mauritius gained independence in 1968, Chagos was separated from Mauritius and retained by the United Kingdom as BIOT. In 1966, Britain and the US signed an agreement to use the BIOT for its defence needs.

And Diego Garcia, with its central location in the Indian Ocean, fits perfectly with the Pentagon’s defence analyst, intellectual and academic Stuart Barber’s “Strategic Islands Concept”. The concept included identifying key islands with relatively low populations to establish US bases. The “limited population” would aid in countering any opposition to the US footprint.

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Consequently, the agreement made it impossible for people to enter Diego Garcia, and its inhabitants were forcefully rehabilitated in the Seychelles and Mauritius, which became a focal point for reclamation of Diego Garcia. Ironically, during the 1960s, when Britain was withdrawing from many of its colonies, it made its move on Diego Garcia.

Since 1980, Mauritius has fought for the reclamation of the islands from the UK. In 2019, the International Court of Justice called for the islands to be handed over to Mauritius with the United Nations General Assembly and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) following suit. However, the UK resisted and in 2016 extended the lease of Diego Garcia to the US for twenty years. It was also as recently as 2019 that Sir Alan Duncan, the UK Minister of State for Europe and Americas, said that “we have no doubt about our sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, which has been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814”. What is noteworthy is that none of the international organisations, even under the pressure of human rights violations of the forcefully evicted Chagossians and environmental concerns, could bring the US or the UK to comply with international rulings.

However, negotiations between the two countries started in 2022 and culminated this month, two years later, marking a definitive moment in maritime geopolitics and regional security. The UK ceded the islands but signed a deal to maintain the UK-US military outpost in Diego Garcia with a lease of 99 years. Apart from the rulings of international organisations, India consistently backing Mauritius’ claim while championing the cause of the Global South has been seen as a deal-maker to the satisfaction of majority stakeholders. Mauritius has successfully reclaimed the Chagos Islands, the US-UK has retained its base in Diego Garcia, and India, as a major player in the Indian Ocean Region, has strengthened its security view towards maintaining a secure and balanced Indian Ocean.

China in 2016 extended loans worth $ 730 million, built an Olympic complex, and signed the Free Trade Agreement with Mauritius in 2019, China’s first with an African country. Potentially making Mauritius a gateway to China’s aspirations in Africa and the Indian Ocean. Therefore, despite Mauritius’ people-to-people connection with India, China’s deepening economic relationship with Mauritius is a matter of concern. This concern is common to the West as well. Therefore, a successful resolution to the issue has not only reinforced their commitment to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific but has also become the binding force between the India-US-UK partnership.

The Diego Garcia base can be used as a listening post and be used for patrolling activities as well as joint operations with the US if the need arises. It is also well known that nuclear submarines have been hosted here. Further, the construction by the US of subsea cables near the base is a pillar for the India-US relationship. Considering 99 per cent of the data traffic is through undersea cables and integral for intelligence collection.

Therefore, what India has achieved with this settlement is a successful counter to China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean. The region includes 36 countries with 35 per cent of the world population and 40 per cent of the world’s coastline. With more than one-third of the world’s bulk cargo and two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments crossing through it, the Indian Ocean is critical for regional security. Even though India, through its support and negotiations, brought all parties to a consensus, what remains is for India to further strengthen its relationship with Mauritius. While India already has a military facility on the Mauritian island of Agalega, it must provide Mauritius with economic incentives considering China surpassed India in 2015 by becoming the biggest exporter to Mauritius.

China has also constructed a “smart city” called Jinfei in Port Louis. However, to get an accurate picture of China’s expansionist agenda, it is pertinent to note China’s port building in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, as well as Pakistan, amongst other key islands across the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, it is imperative that India continues to proactively keep an eye on developments in the Indian Ocean.

On the other hand, the new agreement also means that Chagossians will be able to resettle in all the other islands apart from Diego Garcia. But for the UK, the news may not be as good as it is for the Chagossians, the Americans, or the Indians. Britain has 13 other contested territories, including the Falkland Islands. This week Argentina has vowed to gain “full sovereignty” of the Falkland Islands. PM Keir Steimer has been criticised as being weak by the opposition for the potential of risking other overseas territories.

Nevertheless, what matters is that India has nudged a difficult situation in the right direction. Now India must continue to play its cards well and ensure that none of the other islands in Chagos are leased out to China and that India’s relationship continues to strengthen with island nations across the Indian Ocean. After all, those who control the seas rule the world. It is probably time for India to revisit the ‘Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace’ and ask all external powers to leave the Indian Ocean.

Rami Niranjan Desai is an anthropologist and a scholar of the northeast region of India. She is a columnist, author and presently Distinguished Fellow at the India Foundation, New Delhi. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.