Maritime trade is uniquely important in history. Technical and commercial challenges encourage inventiveness. Shipbuilders, painters, stevedores, ship-chandlers, lawyers, agents, repairers and the associated industries created employment. This, in turn, promoted economic growth, technical innovation, literacy, numeracy, and independent thinking. That is why most of the greatest cities in history were either ports or, like Rome’s Ostia and Greece’s Piraeus, had one attached. Of the “Seven Wonders of the World”, the Pharos at Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes were designed to guide ships into port, a vital element of the ancient Mediterranean economy. Today too, the most important countries tend to possess significant coastlines and use them wisely. Most modern manufacturing is located in coastal regions.
Maritime power signifies both naval strength and trade. At their peak, Athens, Rhodes, Carthage, the Venetian Republic, the Genoese Republic, Holland, especially Amsterdam and Britain, exemplified both aspects. They also shared certain values: toleration, civic engagement, opposition to hegemonic and autocratic powers and an aim of conquest and domination.
Ancient Northwest and Southeast India also embraced these values and were economically strong because their merchants tenaciously sailed east and west from the world’s earliest ports to find markets. The Mughal invaders, however, largely ignored the sea and its coastal communities. Britain, in contrast, offered many Indian merchants opportunities to grow. The Tata group’s commercial roots, for example, lay in 19th-century cotton cloth and opium trading. Britain provided the conditions in which Indian enterprise in industry and
shipping was unleashed, especially in Bombay.
Trade flourishes in peacetime. In the 19th century, Britain maintained global peace, promoting its own trade through the strength of its navy, which it wielded as an instrument of power to prevent any single European hegemon from attempting invasion. This dominance ended in 1918, but the United States took up the mantle in 1945, policing the seas and enabling world trade to expand with unprecedented speed and volume, enriching previously impoverished countries and regions.
India did not immediately follow the examples of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia. But with economic liberalisation and freedom from the dead hand of the state, it unleashed privately owned companies to build efficient bulk and container ports with skill and audacity. As throughout world history, this led to greater national and individual wealth.
In this context, the Great Nicobar Island Development Project seems a logical next step. The initiative echoes Singapore’s blueprint, itself heavily influenced by Hong Kong. Dubai studied both before embarking on its own shipping development, where containerisation proved crucial.
Until the 1980s, maritime trade in the Persian Gulf was insignificant. Dubai capitalised on its neighbours’ new oil wealth and vast purchasing power by building multiple berths along its creek and, 21 miles away, the container port of Jebel Ali, a project many considered recklessly over-ambitious. Today, it ranks among the world’s largest. Other emirates, especially Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, together with neighbours Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, have tried but failed to match its momentum. Nevertheless, they have succeeded in creating profitable niche hubs of their own. The developers of Nicobar project must surely have taken note of this.
Nicobar project is comparable, though not identical. Located 800 miles from mainland India, it is closer to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar, and just 34 miles from Myanmar’s military outpost, built with Chinese support and continuing involvement. Importantly, it sits close to the Malacca Strait, the key chokepoint between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, dominated successively over the last 1,500 years by the Srivijayan Empire at Palembang, then Malacca, and now Singapore, which is unlikely to be threatened by Nicobar project. Malaysia’s rival container ports have rail links to Thailand and have taken or created some business, but Singapore is also an important distribution hub for petroleum products, dry docks, ship repair, shipowners’ regional headquarters, maritime businesses, and service companies, all of which continue to grow. Again, however, like Dubai’s would-be rivals, they have all been successful in many areas, if not in replacing it.
With India’s growing economy and rising container traffic, a large, deep-drafted container terminal at Nicobar, expanded incrementally by experienced Indian port and infrastructure companies, should prosper. It is also copying Singapore and Dubai’s model of a coordinated modern airport, cruise ship terminal, luxury tourist resort, manufacturing associated with the main activities, and crucially, a free trade zone enabling seamless trans-shipment and the growth of ancillary businesses. These are proven recipes for success.
One concern is seismic risk. The region is prone to frequent earthquakes, sometimes severe, such as the devastating 2004 event, which caused an estimated 3,500 and some say 10,000 deaths. Buildings will therefore have to be constructed to Tokyo standards, able to withstand quakes of at least Richter Scale 8 intensity.
The existing naval base will presumably be strengthened. The nearby Chinese presence on Myanmar’s island is not commercial but a strategic projection of power. For India, however, the main reason must be commercial power. Overall, the Nicobar project represents a welcome development not only for India but also for Southeast Asia, as it is likely to accelerate trade volumes and foster wealth creation across the Indian Ocean.
(The writer is a maritime historian. He authored ‘How Maritime Trade and the Indian Subcontinent Shaped the World’)
