India cannot be held responsible for the sinking of the Iranian naval vessel Dena on Tuesday, retired Rear Admiral Sudhir Pillai, a naval aviator who was also chief of staff of the Andaman Command, told SNG on The Gist.
“As per the laws that apply in this particular context, the international waters are not an area where India has responsibility to either provide for the safety of the ship or to what happens out there. So the sinking of the Dena is something that the Iranians are responsible for, given that they’re at war with the US.”
The location of the sinking, off Sri Lankan waters, are categorised as “high seas”, Pillai explained, and while these maybe the exclusive economic zone of Colombo, “Under the laws of war, I think this kind of targeting is permitted.”
To be clear, this is an undeclared war between the US and Israel on the one hand, and Iran on the other. Nobody is under any obligation to warn anybody about his or her intentions. For example, in the South China Sea Beijing keeps demanding right to know who is entering or transiting but that information is rarely provided.
Could India have known about the presence of the US submarine? Pillai says that India keeps a close watch on her near seas, across areas of interest, and India deploys aircraft like the P-8i. There’s the Sea Guardian, which keeps a watch on the surface currently. So there are lot of assets.
But submarines represent stealth and US atomic powered submarines can cover vast stretches of ocean virtually undetected. One can presume the presence of foreign submarines in India’s littoral but detection is not easy.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Rear Admiral Sudhir Pillai, flag officer and former chief of staff of the Andaman Command.
