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Why India needs the Great Nicobar Project—new great games in the Eastern Indian Ocean

The mega Great Nicobar Development Project has invited sustained opposition from the Congress party. It should instead look to the statesmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Much of the global attention has been fixated on the Arabian Sea, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, resulting in a relative neglect of some critical developments in the Eastern Indian Ocean, a major maritime region encompassing the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea, and the waters surrounding Indonesia and Western Australia.

This area is witnessing two significant developments that could adversely impact Indian national security and maritime interests.

The first is the nascent ambition of the Indonesian political establishment to impose a levy on ships passing through the Strait of Malacca. It’s something their ancestors tried some one thousand years ago by trying to establish their monopoly on navigation passing through this area, which the Chola rulers of India foiled determinedly by occupying parts of Indonesia and Malaysia.

The second is the determined effort of China to pressurise Thailand for the construction of the Kra Isthmus canal that would provide direct maritime connectivity between the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.

With these developments brewing, India’s answer is the long-pending Great Nicobar Island Development Project. In February 2026, the National Green Tribunal dismissed fresh challenges to the project’s environmental and coastal clearances, allowing it to proceed. A master plan was subsequently notified for its completion in three phases, with the final stage targeted for 2047. The mega project, however, has invited sustained opposition from the Congress party. What explains this opposition? Why is this project so vitally important for India?

Also Read: Great Nicobar Project is a trade game-changer for India

Cholas to the Chinese

 A brief historical survey of the Thai-Malay peninsula and Indonesia offers some useful insight. Even centuries ago, the Strait of Malacca area had been a hotly contested zone, inviting interventions from the Chinese, Indonesian, and Indian powers.

Until the end of the 4th century AD, the preferred line of maritime communication between eastern India and China was through the Kra Isthmus, a narrow strip of land in peninsular Thailand that separates the Andaman Sea from the Gulf of Thailand.

Indian mariners would sail to the Andaman Sea side of the Kra Isthmus and offload their cargo. It would then be transported across the isthmus to the Gulf of Thailand side, where another........

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