Round
The World
New
Delhi, 7 May 2013
India’s Chabahar Anchor
COUNTER TO CHINA’s PEARL
STRING
By Monish Tourangbam
Associate Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
Significant signals vis-à-vis the contours of India’s foreign policy emitted from Foreign Minister
Salman Khurshid’s trip to Tehran
for the 17th session of the India-Iran Joint Commission recently.
Notwithstanding, clouds of corruption scandals hanging like a razor’s edge on
UPA’s jugular and election fever gripping
the Central Government, the Tehran mission did good to on three scores.
One, reaffirm India’s practice of the much mentioned
‘strategic autonomy’ that allows New Delhi to
strengthen its emerging tactical partnership with the US yet at the same time continue and build on its
relationship with Tehran.
Two, recognise and construct mechanisms for a near-term future in Afghanistan where India needs to safeguard its own
investments and contribute towards a stable and economically viable war-torn country
in the midst of the graduated drawdown of US forces there. Three, respond to China’s
takeover of the significantly positioned Pakistani port Gwadar.
Importantly, New Delhi managed to send these messages across, with the
reiteration of India’s
resolve to continue to significantly contribute towards the building of the
Chabahar port in South-Eastern Iran. And, as Tehran
and Islamabad signalled their intent to go ahead
with the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, previously touted as the Iran-Pakistan-India
pipeline, New Delhi had to play its Iran card where
it could.
Pertinently, pursuant to
a media report, South Block officials pointed out that investment in port
infrastructure were among the identified areas that would not attract US
sanctions. Located about 70 kilometres from the Gwadar port in South-Western Pakistan (where the Chinese have moved in with
heavy investments), the Chabahar port is seen as India’s potential counter-ploy to any
Sino-Pakistan alliance in the maritime domain.
Undeniably, Gwadar would
provide Beijing a significant foothold on the
edge of the Arabian Sea, not far from the Strait of Hormuz,
a major route for the world’s energy transport and a major bargaining chip for
the Iranians when it comes to negotiating with Western powers. Indeed, even the
Iranians would be wary of increasing Chinese footprints close to Middle East waters.
There is no gainsaying, the Chinese
moves in the Arabian Sea and its involvement in the Gwadar port is seen as part
of a larger geo-strategic move to encircle India by strategically located Chinese
developed ports (popularly termed the ‘string of pearls’ strategy) that could
serve as potential bases for the Chinese Navy in future.
Consequently, India has a sustained interest in the Chabahar port
facility, especially in the present circumstances where it is only the way,
through which Indian goods could reach Afghanistan
via Iran, by-passing Pakistan which has not allowed in-land transport
and trade from India to Afghanistan.
And given the circumstances, it is unlikely to do so.
Remember, India
used the Chabahar port for the first time to
transport 100,000 metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan as part of its
humanitarian aid to the war-torn country in early 2012.
Besides, the Chabahar
port is connected to the Iran-Afghanistan border through a series of roads
built by the Iranians. From there, goods can be transported by road to South-Western
Afghanistan’s Zaranj city through the Delaram-Zaranj highway (Route
606) that India helped
construct. New Delhi has also shown interest in building
a 900-km railway linking Chabahar to Hajigak, Bamiyan province in Central Afghanistan, where an Indian public-private
companies consortium has won rights for mining huge iron ore deposits.
Additionally, future Indian investments
in Chabahar’s container terminal project and the Chabahar Free Trade and
Industrial Zone (an area of around 140 sq km that is carved into 9 functional
zones) were also explored during Khurshid’s visit. Along-side, Indian and
Iranian officials discussed the possibility of establishing a 12-lakh-tonne
urea plant in Chabahar.
Notably, New
Delhi, Kabul and Tehran
have shared interests in instituting mechanisms by which large scale economic
investments and infrastructure in Afghanistan could be secured. India
and Iran have a common objective in not wanting a completely Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan, a reversal to a situation reminiscent of the 90s when Pakistan
played a highly influential role in propping up the Taliban Government, which
was inimical to India’s and Iran’s interests given that Tehran had to look out
for the Shia minorities in a country ruled by the Sunni-Pashtun Taliban. Unlike the US,
India and Iran, by dint of their geographies, cannot
completely wash their hands off from what transpires in Afghanistan.
Further, even as reconciliation
talks struggle to find a political blue print for Afghanistan, and as Washington
in pursuit of ending its longest war, tries to find a face saving exit, India
needs to hedge and attempt its own synergies, in the region, so that it is not
found paralysed and boxed into a corner when the circumstances demand
traction. And, this is where initiatives
like the Chabahar port comes into the picture.
True, India
has concurrent interests with the US
regarding Afghanistan’s
stability. In fact, other than New Delhi’s
massive civilian assistance funding, another example is the US-sponsored New Silk Road Strategy, a
major component of which is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.
The TAPI initiative has been
completely endorsed by New Delhi,
despite some lingering issues of funding
gaps and security issues of the project. The
scheme upon completion, envisages, supply of 38 million metric standard cubic
metre per day (mmscmd) of gas to India. So far, the inter-Governmental
agreement, gas pipeline framework agreement and the gas sales purchase
agreement have been finalised. Commercial operation of the TAPI project
is expected to commence in 2017-18. Thereby, New Delhi’s clearance has given a green
signal for GAIL to join the project.
It is no secret, that of late
India-Iran ties have been strained as a consequence of the latter’s tumultuous
relationship with the US
wherein, the Tehran
factor imposes equal constraints on New Delhi-Washington relations.
But, at the end, it is easy to
discern that Iranians and Indians, despite India voting against the Iranian
nuclear programme at the UN, do converge on a number of sub-sets. These flow purely
out of mutual interests, based on the merits of each case. Thus, the Chabahar
port facility and other initiatives aimed at continuing energy transactions are
decisions that stem out of interest-based policy-making.
Ably spelt out by Khurshid in Tehran, “The convergence of views between India and Iran goes beyond the ambit of
bilateral relations and extends to the regional and international arena. The
Chabahar port project is one such area which reflects our commitment to the
stability and peace in Afghanistan.”
He underscored the importance of his
visit back to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Tehran
trip for the Non-Aligned Summit August last year, saying, “The visit of the
Prime Minister to Iran was a
clear expression of India’s
commitment and the value we attach to our relations with Iran.” ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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