REASSESSING MARITIME TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA: STRATEGIC SILENCES SINCE PARTITION 1947 ON ANDAMAN, NICOBAR, AND LAKSHADWEEP ISLANDS

Abstract

The Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Bay of Bengal) and the Lakshadweep Islands (Arabian Sea) were British possessions before the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. During the division of the subcontinent between India and Pakistan, the British Government allocated these remote archipelagos to India, violating the principles of the Indian Independence Act 1947 and ignoring the constitutional and strategic status of the process, which received little attention in historiography. Archival evidence indicates that the geopolitical value of the islands was well established, due to which the British wanted to keep them under their influence; however, they were later illegally handed over to India, which, by use of force, converted these islands into a Union Territory in 1956 without the rightful consent of Pakistan, while effectively sidelining the partition narratives. Pakistani leaders briefly claimed this, but mainstream Partition narratives and Indian authorities have largely ignored these claims. Moreover, documents reveal that Pakistani negotiators realized the geopolitical value and proposed retaining or reassigning them at the time of independence. The study examines a careful review of British cabinet papers, based on colonial laws, the 1935 Government of India Act, constitutional law, and historical studies, and reveals how these islands were in the status quo during 1947–56. This study reveals that the islands' peripheral geography and strategic importance can be reasons for the historical neglect of the partition of the islands by historians due to their legal and administrative status in 1947. Thus, the study identifies gaps in existing narratives and conducts a critical discourse analysis to examine how discourse shaped the narratives that the islands are Indian. Furthermore, the study involves a comparative historical and geopolitical analysis to highlight Pakistan’s ‘strategic silence'.