By Aishwarya Acharya
A recent Reuters report exposed the secretly conducted process of subsea cables construction in Diego Garcia atolls present in the Indian Ocean. The cables have been laid by the US private subsea cables manufacturing and laying company SubCom, and the exercise has reportedly been done to enhance connectivity and communications capacity of the US military in the Indian Ocean region. This development creates a space for India to reflect upon the importance of enhancing connectivity of its Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Addressing Civilian and Military components of the Islands’ connectivity
Strategic importance of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean facing the straits of Malacca is quite well established. China’s rising actions in the South China Sea and its progress in implementing and increasing advanced surveillance systems in the Indian Ocean have highlighted the necessity for mainland India to enhance its connectivity with and within the Islands.
Addressing this connectivity issue for Andaman and Nicobar can be divided into two components- the civilian and the military. While the civilian component focuses on enhancing communications capability to foster businesses, service industries such as tourism, BPOs etc., the military aspect focuses on enhancing communication between various layers of armed forces. While incorporation of digital components including AI, ML, IoT etc. in armed forces has become a global norm, ensuring progress on the technological front without securing enough bandwidth to facilitate this form of communication is impossible.
Many Indian armed forces veterans have been calling out to emphasize more upon upgrading the defense infrastructure on the Islands, which includes digital infrastructure as well. The Islands have also been considered analogous to unsinkable aircraft carriers. The Andaman and Nicobar Command is the only joint-services command in India, where all the three arms- Army, Navy and Air Force of the armed forces operate together. It is necessary to ensure seamless conversation and interoperability among them. Conversation can enhance only via communication, whose base lies in enhancing connectivity.
Why BSNL?
In this backdrop, it is important to understand why making a case for improving BSNL operations on the island demands urgency. Till 2020, the Islands will get their internet via satellites. Compared to the subsea cables, satellite transmissions are slower and their maintenance and repair is more expensive. The Chennai Andaman and Nicobar Island (CANI) cable was constructed in 2020 to address this lacuna. Three years down the line, conditions have not improved much. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is the sole Indian International Long Distance (ILD) operating Public Sector Undertaking,which has undertaken the projects of subsea cables ownership. The construction process of CANI cable, which operates as the sole subsea cable connecting mainland India to the Andaman and Nicobar, was also overseen by BSNL.
Bolstering BSNL operations is necessary owing to two important reasons:
Firstly, private companies which work with profit motive do not intend to expand their operations in such inaccessible areas which yield less in their cost-benefit charts. This is visible in the fact that out of 60 GBPS of allocated bandwidth for the Islands, BSNL has around 40 GBPS bandwidth, while the private telecommunications giant Airtel has only around 20 GBPS bandwidth. Reliance Jio also intends to expand its operations on the Islands, but it will restrict them in the populous capital of Port Blair. In such cases where a citizen-centric approach is to be adopted rather than a profit-centric one, state owned enterprises should take up the responsibility.
Secondly, the US has the resources to construct subsea cables solely meant for military purposes. India cannot afford to undertake such expensive projects. In such a case, cable and bandwidth sharing options for civilian and military purposes may become feasible alternatives. Government-private sector relationship in India is not as highly developed as that in the US. Moreover, general public response to state-led favouritism towards private enterprises is unwelcoming in India. Thus, in order to ensure data integrity and work more towards the security of data as well as the cables, especially meant for military purposes, tenders allocated to public enterprises may be more reliable and their operations may also be strategically re-configured if required.
Way Forward
Budget allocated to develop military infrastructure on the Islands can have a specific slot allocated to the development of subsea cable infrastructure whose civilian component may be managed by BSNL. In 2018, BSNL signed a MoU with the Indian Army regarding the leasing of circuits and telephone lines for enhancing communication in various parts of the country. Thus, BSNL is already in conversation with the Armed Forces, whose scope will simply increase by involving the subsea cables as well.
In 2012, the Ministry of Defence in association with the Department of Telecommunications conceptualized a special network for the military that currently connects critical locations across the country. The project was titled “Network for Spectrum” (NFS), under which a substantial amount of progress for establishing efficient communication infrastructure for Army, Navy and Air Force has been made. The responsibility of constructing this huge backend network infrastructure grounded in optical fibre cable system and satellite communication was given to BSNL. Such a project can be undertaken for building subsea cables backend ecosystems with special focus on Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Conclusion
While the tactical connectivity of Islands has been considerably improved since the past decade, its strategic connectivity still lags behind. With such a strategic location, India can prove to be one of the prime actors in real-time information sharing mechanisms developed in the Indian Ocean. But the basic inefficiencies in its digital architecture slows India down. Though India has developed deterrence capabilities on the Islands, deployed sensor technology to track submarines and is engaging in joint security efforts along with the Quad countries, it will not be able to provide valuable digital inputs for Indian Ocean security till the Island’s connectivity issues are not solved.
BSNL has the record of reaching to the most inaccessible areas in the country. It is high time that it penetrates well in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are important from both-civilian and military perspectives for India.
The author has completed her Master’s in International Relations and Area Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has worked as a research intern at Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), where she focussed on the geopolitics of subsea cables. Her interests lie in security, political economy and tech geopolitics.
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