The foreign minister of India, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, boasted on Monday that the Indian Navy currently has 21 ships protecting international commercial vessels from terrorist attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen.
He said India’s strong response to the Houthi threat has boosted its standing as a global power.
“With all this tension between people firing missiles and drones and piracy, 21 of our ships are actually on service out there, who are actually protecting international shipping,” Jaishankar said during a discussion of Northeastern India’s integration with Southeast Asia and Japan at Delhi’s Kirori Mal College.
“This keeps trade costs down because if you can protect shipping, insurance costs is less, shipping cost is less,” he pointed out.
“So how do you get relevant? And of course, most important, how do you actually get the respect of the world?” he asked. “You get the respect of the world just like you get the respect of people, which is you have to perform better.”
Jaishankar said India’s growing economic, military, and political strength comes with certain responsibilities to the rest of the world.
“How we do at home is not just a matter for us at home. We are the largest country in the world. We are the fifth largest economy, soon we’ll be the third. How we do at home is watched by everybody abroad. What decisions we make at home are also very keenly followed by the world,” he said.
“If we are now, in the coming weeks, going to decide our future in whatever way we wish, it’s not just a conversation amongst ourselves. It’s a conversation or a discussion in which the other six billion people are also tuned in,” he said, referring to the lengthy Indian parliamentary elections that are currently in progress.
Indian ships have acted several times since the Houthis began attacking international shipping in a bid to halt Israel’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza. The most recent incident occurred on Friday, when the Indian destroyer INS Kochi came to the aid of a Panama-flagged oil tanker, the MV Andromeda Star, during a Houthi missile attack.
The Houthis fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) at the Andromeda Star as part of a rash of attacks against ships following a two-week pause in their operations. The Andromeda Star reportedly suffered “minor damage” from one of the missiles, but remained seaworthy.
INS Kochi responded to a distress call from the Andromeda Star and ensured its 30 crew members, 22 of whom were Indian nationals, were safe. The Indian destroyer also dispatched an explosive ordnance disposal team to assess the ship’s damage and launched helicopters to ensure no further Houthi missiles or drones were inbound.
India dramatically increased its deployments to the Indian Ocean and Red Sea region in February, in response to a surge of piracy from Somalia. The piracy explosion was, in part, a response to American and British forces moving away from the Gulf of Aden and entering the Red Sea to intercept Houthi attacks.
Last month, the Indian Navy handed over 35 captured Somali pirates to police in Mumbai. The pirates could face life in prison under anti-piracy laws enacted by India in 2022. The Indian Navy said in March that its ships had intervened in 18 piracy incidents over the previous hundred days.
Police officers stand guard as Mumbai Police takes charge of the accused Somali pirates brought by the Indian navy on its warship INS Kolkata at Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, India, Saturday, March 23, 2024. The Indian navy had said last Saturday that it had taken control of the hijacked Maltese-flagged MV Ruen bulk carrier and that all 35 pirates on board had surrendered. (Rafiq Maqbool/AP)
“The task is to ensure that there is safety, security, and stability,” Indian Navy Chief Adm. R. Hari Kumar said. “We are able to live up to the requirement of being a first responder and a preferred security partner … to ensure that the Indian Ocean region is safe, secure and stable.”
Kumar said that India has “no quarrel with” the Houthis but is ready to assist ships that come under attack from the terrorists. He mentioned that several Houthi attack drones have been recovered by Indian forces during these assistance operations, describing one that boasted a thousand-mile operational range despite being made out of plywood.
“It doesn’t require any very complicated tools to develop or manufacture these drones,” Kumar said.
