Is the Great Nicobar Island India’s Hormuz-like chokepoint against China?

New Delhi, India — The southernmost point of India, the Great Nicobar Island, is closer to the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia than it is to the Indian mainland. No Indian prime minister has visited the island, which is the size of Hong Kong, since Indira Gandhi in 1984. India does not even conduct a full census on the island, relying on estimates of its population; the latest guess is that fewer than 10,000 people live there. Yet the island is now in the eye of a political storm over an $11bn project planned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to turn Great Nicobar into a major strategic and economic outpost in the Indian Ocean. The Modi government has greenlit plans to build a transhipment port, a civilian-military airport, a power plant, tourism infrastructure and a township for 350,000 people on the island. In its blueprint, the government highlighted the economics of maritime trade as the justification for the project. But in the face of growing criticism from global environmental watchdogs and opposition leaders in New Delhi, the Indian government has shifted its narrative to position the plan as central to the country’s strategic goals in its neighbourhood. …