At the height of one of many border standoffs between India and China in the past decade, the Navy’s lone nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN), the INS Chakra, slipped out of Visakhapatnam harbour.
The Chakra dived into the Bay of Bengal and disappeared for over a month, her deployment known to very few in the government. The SSN transited a few thousand nautical miles to the east where she occupied a patrol station and successfully accomplished its mission.
It was a rare deployment of an Indian tactical asset in distant waters, proving that India could mount a naval riposte against China’s landward aggression. The choice of the lone SSN leased from Russia was not surprising. They are among the few platforms capable of operating independently and discretely in enemy waters.
