Uncovering the complex past of the strategic Andaman Islands – Firstpost

There is an interesting photograph on display in a small museum in the town we knew as Port Blair. Taken in October 1945, it shows a group of Japanese soldiers saluting an Indian officer. The caption shows the officer as Lieutenant Colonel (later Lieutenant General) Nathu Singh of the Rajput Regiment, then part of the British Indian Army. Behind him are other soldiers, a mix of Indians and British, presumably from the same unit.

The recorded event is not only significant for the Andaman Islands but is also part of the history of the Second World War. It marks the surrender of Japanese troops to Allied forces in this part of the world, a full month after the Axis power in Japan itself officially surrendered. The Japanese occupation of the Andaman Islands began in March 1942 and posed a massive threat to British control of mainland India and gave the original colonial power sleepless nights.

Just as the Andaman Islands had the potential to become a launching pad for a Japanese attack on mainland India, the recent renaming of Port Blair to Sri Vijaya Puram was a reminder that the islands had a naval base at Chola centuries ago. From this base, the Cholas launched an attack in the opposite direction – on the Srivijaya empire, which was based on the island of Sumatra, now part of Indonesia.

This entire renaming episode has highlighted both the complex and fascinating past of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well as its strategic importance not only in the Bay of Bengal but for overall naval dominance in the larger Indian Ocean region.

To understand both aspects, you have to delve into the past of the place. There are many namings and renamings, and every character who appears on this stage of history has a story to tell. If one ignores the ancient past and prehistoric times, the logical beginning of this story lies at the end of the 18th century.

Between December 1788 and April 1789, an East India Company marine surveyor named Archibald Blair conducted a study of the Great Andaman Islands. His goal was to identify places to establish ports that would allow the navy to expand its power eastward while protecting sea routes from the threat of pirates.

It was Blair who founded the first colony here and named it Port Cornwallis, after Admiral William Cornwallis, a distinguished British naval commander and brother of Charles Cornwallis, the Governor-General of India. However, this colony faltered due to a lack of permanent settlers and never achieved self-sufficiency. By this time, the idea of ​​a penal colony had already emerged, and convict labor was used alongside contract laborers.

In 1791–92 Blair was replaced by Major Alexander Kyd and the colony was moved to the North Andaman Island under the old name of Port Cornwallis. Death and disease were commonplace, prompting the government of Bengal – i.e. the East India Company – to close it in May 1796. If the British had been defeated by the Marathas in their decisive battle of 1803, it would also destroy the history of these islands. They were different. But victory in this battle made the British the preeminent power in India and gave them a cockpit to drive expansion throughout Asia.

In 1824, during the First Anglo-Burmese War, troop transport ships again arrived at Port Cornwallis. In the 1850s, planning for a larger settlement on the islands began and Blair's work was revisited. A new colony called Port Blair emerged. Aside from being a strategic port, it was also intended to be a penal colony for Indian prisoners captured during the 1857 rebellion. The prison was located on Viper Island, named after the ship on which Blair first came to these waters.

The first convicts arrived after 1857. To keep them under control, four officers from Singapore were brought in, including Captain James Pattison Walker as a trained prison guard fit to deal with the most hardened prisoners. The idea was that the sea would serve as an insurmountable physical barrier to any escape, and it worked. Needless to say, Viper Island lived up to its sinister name and became known for its brutal treatment of prisoners.

During the period 1864 to 1867, convicts were used as labor in the construction of Ross Island, located just 3 km from the center of Port Blair. This island was named after Daniel Ross, the Surveyor General of the Navy in Calcutta during the period 1823 to 1833 and a master hydrographer.

From this point onwards, Ross Island served as the islands' administrative headquarters until 1945. Over time, in addition to the prison and barracks, elaborate construction work was also carried out on the island – the large residence of the Chief Commissioner, a bakery, a bazaar, a tennis court, church, hospital, secretariat and even a swimming pool.

Viper Island itself became less important with the construction of the Cellular Jail in Port Blair. Built between 1896 and 1906, the building consists of six blocks of prison cells that converge like spokes around a single junction. Solitary confinement, torture and executions were the norm here. This was the dreaded “Kala Pani” that gained fame across the subcontinent. Even today, entering one of these cells is a moving experience.

In March 1942, the Japanese arrived, ready to show the British what it meant to be colonized. The then chief commissioner of the islands, Charles Waterfall, was captured by the conquering Japanese and sent as a prisoner to Burma. His deputy, Major Bird, was beheaded near the clock tower in Port Blair. In December 1943, Subhash Chandra Bose visited – he was then allied with the Japanese against the British as a common enemy – and stayed at the Chief Commissioner's residence on Ross Island. The hoisting of the Indian tricolor during this visit marks the first time that the flag will be hoisted on Indian soil.

For this reason, in 2018, the Narendra Modi government renamed Ross Island as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep. At the same time, other prominent islands in the group were also renamed; Neil Island became Shaheed Dweep while Havelock Island was called Swaraj Dweep. Brigadier General James Neill and Major General Henry Havelock were British heroes for their roles in the brutal suppression of the 1857 Uprising. The former was killed in the fighting in Lucknow, while the latter died of illness in late 1857. In addition, in January 2023, the government decided to name 21 previously unnamed islands in the group after the Indian Param Vir Chakra winners.

With all the renaming, the Japanese treatment of the islanders during their period of occupation is sometimes overlooked. By the time the Japanese arrived in 1942, Port Blair and its immediate surroundings had achieved a strange mix of populations.

Aside from those involved in the colony's administration, the Indians here were native descendants of convicts or ex-convicts who were never able to return to their old lives. In some cases, the British had expelled entire communities – such as the Moplahs – Muslims from Kerala who had brutally attacked the Hindu community in the state in 1919; the Bhantus – considered a criminal tribe associated with the notorious Sultana Daku in Uttar Pradesh; and Burmese convict laborers. Added to this demographic cauldron were the Karens, a tribe from Burma who had converted to Christianity, and a group of laborers from southern Bihar who had migrated as part of a settlement program in the 1920s. And of course the imprisoned convicts.

Japanese treatment of the locals – prisoners and others – was brutal. An example is the treatment of Dr. Divan Singh. This doctor was the island's health director and, among the Japanese, also president of the Indian Independence League (IIL), the Azad Hind Fauj Peace Committee and Seva Samiti. When he protested against the atrocities committed on the island, particularly the eviction of the local gurudwara to make way for Korean “comfort women”, he was imprisoned in October 1943. After more than eighty days of detention and torture, he died in prison.

At the same time, Bose visited the Cellular Jail. Perhaps he was unaware of the plight of his countrymen at the hands of his “allies.” And one wonders what, if anything, he could have done even if he had learned what the Japanese were doing.

The photo in the museum in Port Blair must be seen in this context. While at that moment the Japanese colonizers were driven out, two years later the original colonizers were also gone. Today the convicts' ordeal is brought to life through a sound and light show on Ross Island. Tree roots grow through the great old British buildings. In the words of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the renaming of Port Blair as Sri Vijaya Puram marks continued efforts to “free the nation from colonial vestiges”.

What does the future hold for the islands? The answer to that lies in the past. The same strategic reasons that brought Archibald Blair here still apply. One of the islands in the wider Indian Ocean examined by Blair is Diego Garcia, now an important US military base. There is no better testament to the accuracy of Blair's work. Likewise, work is already underway on a massive Indian naval base on the island of Great Nicobar, a vantage point overlooking the entrance to the Strait of Malacca and nearly 100 miles from the tip of Indonesia.

The author is a cultural heritage explorer with a penchant for searching unknown places. He is a brand consultant by profession and tweets @HiddenHeritage. The views expressed in the article above are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.