Indo-Pacific security: India mustn’t let Diego Garcia fall off its map
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In any word association test, ‘Diego’ would cue the name of football legend Maradona. But for elderly Indians, it recalls Diego Garcia, a geopolitical bugbear of the Cold War era, when India wanted the US to withdraw its forces from an air-base on a small island by that name in the Indian Ocean.
About 2,000km south-west of Kanyakumari, it was too close for comfort. As a nuclear power now with a broad US partnership, India no longer sees it as a threat. No wonder it has faded from public memory.
Globally, though, it has sprung back into the news. It was part of recent US-UK talks at the White House, with President Donald Trump appearing to nod along with London’s plan for its status. “They’re talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease...
about 140 years, actually," said Trump, seated beside the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, “It’s a long time. I think we’ll be inclined to go along with your country." Given today’s geopolitical flux, we in India need to track what’s underway. While the timeline of what’s on offer seems to have impressed Trump, we await a haze to lift over how Diego Garcia fits into his world view.
The long ‘lease’ he referred to would probably be a sub-lease for the island’s use. This 30-sq-km patch of land is part of the Chagos Archipelago, which Britain had once governed as part of a colony that included Mauritius, but retained after the latter’s freedom in 1968. Having paid Port Louis a reported sum of £3 million to cede its claim to those atolls, London’s purpose of retention was clear once it evicted Diego Garcia’s folks and leased it to the US for a base.
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