Shipbuilding India

Rajendra Chola was not targeting the top-10 global position. He read the winds of change; he saw the ocean as a highway, and he projected power with all he had. He built his ships strong enough to accomplish his goals. If India is going to reclaim any part of that thousand-year-old legacy, we need to build ships that will accomplish ours.

While Indian shipyards did construct some merchant tonnage under license regimes and subsidy schemes, the emphasis stayed on building capacity fot Navy and Coast Guard, not for the commercial global market. The long term result was that Indian commercial shipbuilding never developed the scale, supply-chain depth or export orientation that enabled East Asian yards to capture the world’s merchant fleet.

Shipbuilding is not a single skill or industry. It is a vast, interlocking ecosystem of technologies, industries, and human expertise that has repeatedly determined which nations rise to become global powers.