Comment: Diego Garcia. (1997, 20 Marks)
Diego Garcia is the largest atoll of the Chagos Archipelago, about 1,800 km south of India’s southern tip. It hosts a joint UK–US base central to American operations from the Gulf to East Africa. For India it has tested two commitments at once: anti-colonial sovereignty and an Indian Ocean free of great-power bases. How New Delhi balanced them traces its foreign policy’s arc.
Origins: a colonial detachment
- In 1965 Britain detached the Chagos islands from Mauritius, three years before Mauritian independence, and created the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). A 1966 UK–US exchange of notes made them available for defence use; the arrangement now runs to 2036.
- Up to 2,000 Chagossians were removed between 1968 and 1973. A communications station became a full base after 1979, when the Iranian revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan pushed Washington towards a Gulf rapid-deployment force.
- It served the 1991 Gulf War, Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). In 2026 Britain allowed its use against Iran only for limited defensive operations.
India’s position in three phases
| Phase | Indian stance | Underlying logic |
|---|---|---|
| 1970s–1980s | Opposed the base; backed the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (UNGA, December 1971), a Sri Lankan initiative | Non-alignment; memory of the USS Enterprise in 1971; fear of superpower nuclear rivalry offshore |
| 1990s–2010s | Muted opposition; growing defence ties with the US (Malabar, LEMOA 2016) | Post-Cold War convergence; Chinese naval presence |
| 2019 onwards | Backs Mauritian sovereignty and accepts the base | Decolonisation principle plus balancing China |
The legal turn and the stalled treaty
- The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion of 25 February 2019, held the detachment unlawful and said Britain must end its administration “as rapidly as possible”. The UN General Assembly endorsed it in May 2019 by 116 votes to 6, with India in favour.
- The treaty of 22 May 2025 recognised Mauritian sovereignty over the whole archipelago and leased Diego Garcia back to Britain for 99 years at an average of about £101 million a year. India’s MEA welcomed it the next day.
- Washington then turned against it. Donald J. Trump called the deal an act of “great stupidity” on 20 January 2026; the implementing bill, shelved in April, lapsed at prorogation on 29 April. On 22 September 2026 Trump told Prime Minister Andy Burnham it was “a terrible deal”, and Defence Secretary Wes Streeting put payments to Mauritius on hold. The treaty, signed but unratified, is under review.
Significance and limits for India
- Strategic convergence. K. M. Panikkar (India and the Indian Ocean, 1945) tied India’s security to control of its ocean. Read through Stephen M. Walt’s balance of threat (The Origins of Alliances, 1987), a partner’s base now offsets China’s Djibouti facility (2017), the Hambantota lease and Chinese research vessels. C. Raja Mohan’s Samudra Manthan (2012) frames the ocean as a Sino-Indian contest where Indian and American interests converge.
- Principled consistency. Backing Mauritius keeps India credible with the Global South and Port Louis: MAHASAGAR was announced there in March 2025, and India built an airstrip and jetty at Agaléga (2024).
- The limits. Quietly dropping the Zone of Peace invites the charge that India judges bases by their owner. The 2026 reversal shows a settlement India welcomed can be undone by a power it cannot sway.
Conclusion
Diego Garcia records India’s move from non-aligned idealism to sovereignty-respecting realism: on who owns the atoll it insists on law, and on who uses it, the balance of power. The way forward is to keep backing Mauritian sovereignty, accept any revised deal that secures both claim and base, and deepen India’s own footprint (Agaléga, maritime domain awareness with Mauritius) so that its ocean security never rests on one atoll.