Pune: China’s expanding underwater activities in the Indian Ocean, including the deployment of research vessels, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and underwater gliders, highlight the urgent need for India to strengthen its Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA), Vice Admiral Anil Jaggi, Commandant of the National Defence Academy, said on Monday.Speaking at a seminar organised by the Maritime Research Centre (MRC) on UDA, Jaggi said China had been regularly deploying a fleet of around 64 active research and survey vessels to collect seabed, hydrographic and oceanographic data.“One can easily fathom that these research activities are certainly not for peaceful purposes alone,” Jaggi said.He said China was also deploying AUVs and underwater gliders for what he described as “dubious activities”. Chinese-origin gliders and AUVs have been recovered in Indonesia and the Philippines, close to strategically important sea lanes and chokepoints in the Indian Ocean region, he said.“It is no rocket science to comprehend that such data collection and sampling would be of immense value while planning deployment of underwater assets such as submarines and SSBNs (Ballistic Missile Submarines) by the PLA Navy when the need arises,” Jaggi said.The underwater domain, he said, was increasingly becoming a critical arena of strategic competition as countries sought greater knowledge and control of activities beneath the oceans.Jaggi also flagged the vulnerability of undersea cables and other critical infrastructure, describing damage or sabotage of such infrastructure as a serious grey-zone threat where attribution could remain contested. He referred to incidents involving undersea cables in the Baltic Sea during the Russia-Ukraine conflict as an indication of the emerging challenge.“These occurrences have further enhanced the relevance of, and the impetus that is being accorded by the govt and the Indian defence forces to, UDA,” he said.Jaggi said UDA should not be viewed merely as a military capability to detect submarines. It would be critical to protecting maritime infrastructure, securing sea lanes of communication and strengthening India’s deterrence capabilities.“From a national security and defence perspective, UDA augments our capability to detect and counter underwater threats, protect critical maritime infrastructure, secure our sea lanes of communication, and, in an offensive posture, bolster launching of a credible deterrence,” he said.Highlighting the scale of India’s dependence on the oceans, Jaggi noted that nearly 71% of the Earth’s surface was covered by oceans, around 75% of the global population lived in littoral areas, and about 80% of global merchandise trade by volume moved through the seas. “Nearly 99% of global data, including internet traffic, also passed over or through the oceans,” he said.“Yet, despite such substantial dependence on the oceans, more than 80% of the underwater world remains unexplored, unobserved, or unmapped,” he said.Jaggi said India also needed to exploit the economic and scientific potential of the underwater domain. He cited China’s deep-sea exploration programme, including the 2020 descent of its crewed submersible Fendouzhe to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.Such missions, he said, could generate knowledge about microbial life and adaptation to extreme pressure, temperature and nutrient conditions, with applications in medical research, geological mapping and deep-sea exploration.He also underlined the strategic significance of polymetallic nodules containing critical minerals and rare earth elements.“India had become the first International Seabed Authority member state to hold deep-sea exploration contracts over three areas spanning more than 90,000 sqkm in the Central Indian Ocean Basin and along the Carlsberg Ridge,” he said.Jaggi called for a three-pronged approach of Jointness, Aatmanirbharata and Innovation (JAI) to build India’s underwater capabilities.“Building indigenous capability is a strategic necessity in this niche area, as dependence on external sources for such critical technologies is neither desirable nor sustainable,” he said.He said India’s UDA requirements would also cover environmental protection, disaster management, fisheries, maritime transport, coastal tourism, offshore renewable energy and underwater infrastructure.“For India, UDA is not merely a desirable technological capability; it is a national imperative, both from the security and economic perspective, and a prerequisite for expanding our blue economy,” Jaggi said.“As our nation stands ready to expand our maritime vision and scope across the seven oceans, we must surely and progressively also look beneath the oceans. So, it is imperative to understand, secure, protect the underwater domain and to responsibly utilise its immense potential,” he added.Former Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh and senior Armed Forces personnel also attended the seminar.
