Indian Ambitions For Maritime Dominance Amid Operational Liabilities – OpEd
By Syeda Tahreem Bukhari and Abdul Basit
The Indian Ocean region has become a contested zone between the great powers in the era of great power competition. The Naval Power theory proposed by Alfred Thayer Mahan linked the power of the state with its ability to control sea. The contested zone of Asia Pacific has a great reliance on the Naval Power. India is eyeing to maximize its strategic footprint across the region, realizing the strategic significance of the oceans it has control over almost 40% of the strategic waters of Indian Ocean. It boast to have one of the most active Navy in the Indian Ocean region with a continuous presence throughout the key maritime terrain via 7 ongoing deployments, 16 submarines, and 29 major surface combatants. It also maintains various important naval stations on its island and coast holdings.
Despite having an active navy would India be able to maintain its self-claimed title as a net security provider in Indian Ocean Region with growing peacetime naval losses. Its vessels are facing series of such accidents over the years resulting in a huge loss. INS Brahmaputra incident is another pearl in string of naval accidents that was capsize in Mumbai dockyard. According to 2017 report by Comptroller and Audit General, the Indian Navy reported 38 incidents involving ships and submarines between 2007 and 2016. According to the survey, which examined a number of naval mishaps over a nine-year span, fire, explosions, or water caused 39% of them. Thirty-three soldiers, including six officers, lost their lives because of these incidents. Moreover, sixteen percent of the mishaps involved ships making contact with the seabed, sixteen percent involved collisions, and the remaining twenty-nine percent involved a variety of mishaps such unintentional stranding, gas leaks, and equipment damage. The report criticized the safety procedures of the navy, blaming material failure and personnel mistake for numerous incidents. Despite expert recommendations and corrective steps being offered by many audit findings and recommendations, Indian navy failed to avoid such incidents from happening. Furthermore, these are the peacetime military losses raising question on their capacity to stand in a battlefield.
As per IISS Military Balance report 2024, India has sixteen operational submarines comprising four German Shishumar-class, five Indo-French Kalvari-class, and seven Russian Sindhughosh-class vessels. Out of these submarines, Russian Sindhughosh and German Shishumar class submarines are vintage of early 80s and late 90s while two have suffered peacetime military losses. These aging fleets contribute to more accidents. The incidents so far faced by Indian navy raised question on its naval preparedness. Some of those incidents discussed below where the reason was either negligence by crewmembers or not following the standard operating procedures;
INS Brahmaputra
On July 21, 2024, a huge loss faced by Indian Navy when INS Brahmaputra, guided-missile frigate, caught a huge fire while it was docked for refitting purpose at Mumbai dockyard. In an attempt to control fire, the ship capsized under mysterious circumstances led to a significant damage. Many officials and analysts believe that the huge quantity of water pumped by firefighting units to extinguish fire lead to an imbalance that resulted in the ship tilt to one side. All the sailors investigated except the one who is missing. There are claims that it would take three months to upright the frigate but some are also speculating, the vessel might not be salvaged given the extent of damage. The capsizing of ship while extinguishing fire is not the one of its kind, even before many of its vessels were sank due to the excessive water thrust in to pull out the fire.
INS Ranvir
INS Ranvir, Soviet made guided missile destroyer faced an accident on January 2022, while returning to base port. At Mumbai Naval dockyard, the vessel had an explosion in internal compartment resulted in death of three sailors while eleven injured. Though there was no such major material damage faced by the vessel. The reason attributed behind the incident was the gas leak in Air Conditioning compartment of the frigate.
INS Betwa
In 2016, INS Betwa another Brahmaputra-class missile-guided frigate that suffered accident while undocking. The vessel slipped from her dock blocks, resulting in the death of two sailors and 14 injured. The investigations revealed the negligence of three naval officers behind the incident who were court martialed. The global firm, Marine Resolve group was given contract to upright the vessel and it cost about 20 crore rupee to salvage the ship. This frigate had also met an accident in 2014, when it collided with an unidentified object and ran aground touching the seabed.
INS Sindhughosh
During a naval drill in 2015, a fishing boat struck the periscope of the Kilo-class Indian Navy submarine INS Sindhughosh. The submarine was performing an operation where divers must swim out of its torpedo tubes while participating in a navy drill in the Arabian Sea. It was at periscope depth.
This incident of collinding while surfacing in waters in not the only of its kind. The same submarine collided with foreign merchant vessel MV Leeds Castle in January 2008, while attempting to surface in waters north of Mumbai. During the incident, the submarine was participating in fleet-level war games. The Navy deemed it as a minor incident as no casualties reported.
INS Sindhuratna
INS Sindhuratna diesel-electric Russain made Kilo Class submarine was underwater on routine mission when the fire broke out on board on February 26, 2014. The smoke filled the accommodation chamber resulting in death of two naval officers. The investigations found out seven navy officers responsible behind the incident. Their negligence while not abiding by the Standard Operating Procedures. The captain is facing court martial for this incident.
INS Sindhurakshak
INS Sindhurakshak is Russian based diesel-electric submarine that underwent a huge accident in 2013 while berthed at Mumbai dockyard. It exploded and sank resulting in the death of 18 sailors. The explosion took place in the forward compartment where the weapon bay was located where out of 16 warheads two were exploded. The internal inquiry of the incident revealed the Standard Operating Procedures not followed. This incident highlights negligence by Indian Navy that resulted in loss of 400 crore-rupee submarine that had recently gone through 450 crore-rupee extensive upgrade in Russia. Its wreck is now resting 3000ft under the sea.
INS Vindhyaghari
Indian Navy faced another major peacetime loss in 2011 when its Nilgiri-class frigate hit by merchant vessel while entering harbor. A significant fire started that same evening, and it took more than 15 hours to put out. Water began to fill its compartments the next day, and it finally sank. The vessel was salvaged, but it was determined that the damage caused by the fire and flooding was too great to restore economically it was decommissioned.
INS Prahar
In 2006, INS Prahar, guided missile vessel collided with merchant vessel in its way to Mumbai and sank. As per Shipping Corporation of India’s official INS Prahar as a governing ship has to give way to the merchant vessel, its failure to do so led to massive accident. All ships required by Rule 7 of the International Regulations for Avoiding Collisions at Sea to use radar and long range scanning in order to get early warnings of the risk of collision. It is still unclear why, despite having at least two radars apiece, neither ship alerted the other of its impending approach. This incident again highlights the negligence by the naval officials exposing the fault lines in Indian navy.
The naval mishaps faced by Indian navy questioned the professionalism of its naval officers as most of these peacetime military losses reveals the sheer negligence responsible behind those incidents. The navy with record of violating Standard Operating Procedures in a contested ocean would it be able to survive. This also punctures the rants of being a net security provider.
About the authors:
Syeda Tahreem Bukhari is a Research Officer at the Centre for International Strategic Studies-AJK. A NESA Alumni and an MPhil Scholar in Peace and Conflict Studies from National Defence University, Islamabad.
Abdul Basit is an Associate Research Officer at Strategic Stability Desk, Center for International Strategic Studies, AJK. A NESA Alumnus and a graduate student of International Relations from National Defence University, Islamabad.