The rising might of India and the growing menace of piracy collided last week in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. Raising the profile of both India and modern piracy, the INS Tabar engaged and set ablaze a pirate mother ship - just weeks after New Delhi demonstrated its prowess in space with the successful launch of a lunar probe, another symbol of scientific development and international stature.
There are a number of reasons why India has invested in a credible naval force.
First is geography. The Indian Ocean is of vital commercial, political and strategic importance to India. It covers about a fifth of the world's ocean area, with almost 50 countries around its littoral and immediate hinterland and links to both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The peninsular nature of the country's shoreline exposes it to potential seaborne threats from the east, west and south.
Second is history. The British conquered and ruled India on the back of the Royal Navy. There are also the island territories: the Andaman and Nicobar chain to the east and the Lakshadweep group to the west.
The appearance of a U.S. aircraft carrier task force in the Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh War of 1971 shocked India's security elite into re-emphasizing sea power. A modernized and expanded navy was needed for sea denial, sea control and exclusive economic zone protection capabilities. Three key acquisitions - long-range aircraft, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines - have made New Delhi a formidable force in the Indian Ocean.
The regional public goods aspect of this force was demonstrated in 1999, when Indian warships rescued a Japanese cargo ship that had been captured by pirates - Tokyo sat up and took notice of India's rising naval profile. This was repeated after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, when India was one of the core group of four countries, along with Australia, Japan and the United States, helping Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Indian Navy also joined in the international relief operations during the 2006 Lebanon war. A security co-operation declaration was signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Japan last month, calling for enhanced co-operation against terrorism, piracy, nuclear proliferation and natural disasters.
According to the International Maritime Bureau, there were at least 199 incidents of piracy in the first nine months of 2008. A total of 581 crew members were taken hostage. Nine were kidnapped, nine were killed and seven remain missing (presumed dead) as 115 ships were boarded, 31 were hijacked and 23 came under pirate fire. About a third of these took place in the Gulf of Aden. Somali pirates have been responsible for almost all the attacks there, with 26 vessels hijacked and 537 crew taken hostage; plus another 21 vessels that were attacked. The recent seizure of the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, loaded with more than $100-million worth of crude oil, was the pirates' most audacious attack to date.
Ideally, the waters off East Africa should be patrolled by the navies of Kenya, Tanzania and other interested littoral states, backed by Western technical help. But India too has vital stakes in enforcing the rule of law in these waters. Indians represent one-sixth of the world's maritime workers, and each month, about 30 Indian-owned ships pass through the Gulf of Aden, laden with $100-billion worth of oil and other merchandise. The Tabar incident is the first time India has carried out an attack so far from its shores, and it shows that New Delhi has authorized its navy to act autonomously to tackle piracy.
One unresolved question is where captured Somali pirates should be tried, since Somalia has no functioning government. On the positive side of the ledger is the dramatic decline in piracy in Southeast Asian waters, following multilateral co-operation among littoral navies and the forces of China, India and Japan.
All this is yet another indication of why a new leadership-level G20 is likely to replace the G8 as the forum of choice for articulating norms and formulating rules that can then be ratified by the globally legitimate international organizations. But a G20 will not assure success, because without an urgently updated architecture of global governance, an accumulation of intensifying global deadlocks, from climate change and terrorism to nuclear proliferation, financial meltdown and agricultural trade, is guaranteed.
Ramesh Thakur is director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont.
