India Navy Day
4th December
By Capt Mysore Venkatrao Prabhakar
03 Dec 1971 NEW DELHI: In a radio broadcast
shortly before midnight, the Prime Minister, Smt
Indira Gandhi, addressed the nation. She said “I
have no doubt that by the united will of the
people, the wanton and unprovoked aggres-
sion of Pakistan should be decisively and
finally repelled.....aggression must be met and
the people of India will meet it with fortitude ,
determination, discipline and utmost unity.....”
In response to the call of the nation, the Indian
Navy had planned a most audacious and daring
attack in the history of naval warfare ‘OPERATION
TRIDENT’. The plan required ingenuity, perfect tim-
ing and absolute emphasis on surprise. On the night
of 4th December 1971 a Task Group consisting of
Figure 2 Missile boat launching Surface to Surface Mis- and conditions which were suitable to In-
sile somewhere in the Indian Ocean
three missile boats escorted by Frigates, stealth-
ily approached the Makaran coast. At about 2215
hrs the three missile boats carried out a very suc-
cessful attack on Pakistani naval ships and Karachi
harbour. In all, three enemy ships sank that night.
Many more were to follow as the war progressed.
Each year on the 4th of December, the Indian Navy
celebrates ‘Navy Day” to commemorate our coura-
geous attack on the Pakistani ships and harbour.
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world’s
oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of
the water on the Earth’s surface. It is bounded on
the North by the Indian subcontinent, on the West
by East Africa, on the East by Indochina, the Sunda
Islands and Australia. The Indian Ocean has been
the cradle of the earliest of human civilizations such
as Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and Indus Valley
civilizations. The Indian Ocean naturally became
the crucible of early trade and exchange of culture.
India, being a peninsular country with a coastline
of approximately 7,500 km, was the hub of all this
ancient mercantile trade.
Religious scriptures such as the Rig Veda and an-
cient Indian history are replete with references to
the early maritime traditions of India. The world’s
earliest dockyards were built in the Harappan port
city of Lothal circa 2400 BC in Gujarat. The Artha-
shastra makes a detailed mention of maritime
concerns of the day. We traded extensively with the
merchants from Arab nations, East Africa, Roman
Empire and our culture reached the shores of many
countries in the Far East. HMS Trincomalee was
built at Bombay dockyard in Oct 1817. Today it is
the world’s oldest wooden sail ship still afloat in
Portsmouth as TS Foudroyant.
The Portuguese sailor, Vasco de Gama, arrived
in Calicut in the year 1498 and by 1502 he had
made a substantial foothold in city. In 1510
Afonso de Albuquerque established an important
trading presence in Goa, by conquering the city.
The colonial era in India had begun. The Por-
tuguese were quickly followed by the British,
French and the Dutch. King James I of England
sent a personal envoy, Sir Thomas Roe, to the
court of the Mogul emperor Jahangir in 1614.
What followed is history. Two important fac-
tors which led to colonization of India was that
the arrival of foreign traders from the sea route
coinciding with the beginning of the end of Mogul
empire and secondly the gross neglect of the
maritime traditions by the Moguls.
Because we did not have a powerful navy,
we were unable to dictate trading terms
dia. Britain, with a strong navy, was able
to establish supremacy in the seas of their
interest. After 1858, India became officially
a British colony as the British crown took con-
trol of India from the East India Company.
The Indian Navy’s Vision Document released by the
Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence
(Navy) 2006 states – “In support of the nation’s
growing strengths and responsibilities, the In-
dian Navy is determined to create and sustain
a three dimensional, technology enabled and
networked force capable of safeguarding our
maritime interest on the high seas and pro-
jecting power across the littoral”.
To support the vision, the Indian Navy currently
has approximately 56,000 personnel on active duty,
including 5,000 members of the naval aviation
branch, 1,200 marine commandos and 1,000 Sagar
Prahari Bal making it the world’s fifth largest navy
in terms of personnel. The Indian Navy currently
operates around 170 vessels which include variety
of surface ships, submarines, aircraft carriers and a
number of jet fighters and maritime reconnaissance
aircraft making it truly a three dimension force.
What is safe guarding our maritime interest on the
high seas and how it is achieved needs to be un-
derstood clearly to appreciate what the navy is all
about. Our maritime interest includes many as-
pects. The Indian navy should be capable of deter-
ring and defeating any threat or aggression against
the country. It should be able to project influence in
our area of interest in line with the aspiration of the
nation’s political, economic and security objectives.
The navy should be able to protect our off shore
maritime assets along with other forces and be able
to provide assistance during natural disasters. We
should have a sufficiently strong navy to be able to
achieve all our objectives. With a strong navy we
are able to prevent wars and let us not forget ‘pre-
venting wars is as important as winning wars’.
It is very interesting to note that, 90% of India’s
international trade by volume and 77% by value
are carried by sea. Safe and secure sea trade has
a large bearing on the economy of the country. We
should be able to sell and buy what we want, where
we want and when we want. To be able to do that,
the country should have a credible navy. More than
600 Indian merchant ships are at sea carrying our
cargo in addition to foreign merchant men. India
has 12 major and 184 minor ports which act as
centers for the maritime trade.
Not many know that we are a nation of 1280 is-
lands in the Andaman and Nicobar island group
and the Lakshadweep island group – which require
24/7 logistic support, communication and security.
This to a very large extent is provided by the Indian
Navy.
Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic
zone (EEZ) is a sea zone over which a state has
special rights over the exploration and use of ma-
rine resources. It stretches from the seaward edge
of the state’s territorial sea out to 200 nautical
miles from its coast. When converted to area, it
represents almost two thirds of the Indian land
mass. Imagine having 2.2 million square kilometers
of EEZ in addition to 3.3 million square kilometers
of the land mass.
During 2004, the marine fish catch was 2.81 million
tons, of which 63% was taken from the West coast
and the rest from the East coast .Unfortunately In-
dian fishermen do not venture out into deep sea for
fishing on a large scale. Imagine the amount of fish
that would be available in the market if we were to
fish aggressively like our neighbours from South-
east Asia. There is potential to increase the catch
by more than 60%.
As seabed mining technology improves there are an
abundant quantity of minerals such as manganese
and cobalt nodules, ilmenite, tin, monazite (a rare
earth), zircon, and chromites, to be mined from the
EEZ.
India has significant amounts of offshore oil and
natural gas. The striking of oil and gas in the con-
tinental shelf notably in Mumbai High and in the
Krishna - Godavari basin on the East coast brought
up the indigenous content of energy input to about
30 per cent. The Indian Oil and Gas sector is one
Figure 2 Early Trade Routes in Indian Ocean
of the six core industries in India and extremely
crucial to the entire economy. The oil & gas sector
meets more than two thirds of the total primary
energy needs in the country. At present, India is the
fourth largest crude oil consumer in the world and
the sixth largest crude oil importer. The oil produc-
tion and processing platforms are easy targets.
Similarly the pipe line and ships carrying oil are ex-
tremely vulnerable during war. They require protec-
tion and security. The Indian navy should be strong
and well equipped to achieve ‘Command of the seas
around us and exercise Control over them’.
We are all witness to the horrific terrorist attack of
26/11 in Mumbai. The terrorists reached Mumbai
through the sea route. India has a coast line of ap-
proximately 7,500 km which needs to be secure and
constantly monitored to counter this new threat.
In addition, the Indian Navy continues to success-
fully foil and destroy piracy off Somalia. Unknown
to all of us sitting snug and warm in the salubrious
climate of Bangalore, Indian naval ships have safely
escorted about 700 merchant ships, including about
600 foreign-flagged vessels from over 45 countries,
through the Gulf of Aden since October 2008.
When Tsunami hit the coastal belt of Indian Ocean
on December 26, 2004, the Indian Navy reacted
with utmost alacrity and was the first of the block
to render assistance not only in the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, coastal Tamil Nadu and Andhra
Pradesh but in Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia.
Since independence, the navy has been called on a
number of occasions to provide assistance to civil
authorities.
This then is the role of the Indian Navy.