Chabahar and its implications for India

The importance of the agreement signed between India and Iran to develop the Chabahar port, and the trilateral transit and trade treaty between Iran, India and Afghanistan cannot adequately be explained by maps. Visibly, it sidesteps the Pakistan and China-sponsored Gwadar port and its corridor, by connecting India to Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond through Iran. More importantly, it seeks to check the Wahabi influence that had begun to spike when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in 1979.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking after the signing of the agreement on Chabahar, read it correctly when he said that it is an alliance against terrorism, but the critical issue is how will it play out? Will the somnolent waters of the Gulf of Oman witness fierce contestation and noise similar to the South China Sea due to the looming presence of an ambitious China or will it unpack itself differently?

What complicates the issue is that the trilateral alliance is not just against China and Pakistan, but is also directed at Wahabi Islam practised by Saudi Arabia, which is daggers drawn with Iran. Modi recently conducted a very successful trip to Riyadh where he promised to work together to fight terrorism.

From this standpoint it is very difficult to come to an easy conclusion, but what is clear is that Pakistan is taking India’s presence there seriously and feeding an impression that it will exacerbate problems in Baluchistan. The arrest of an alleged R&AW agent, who was located in Chabahar, adds to this symbolism.

The word Chabahar comes from the Hindustani word, char , which means four, and bahar , which means spring. True to its name, it is an all-season but cool port located in Baluchistan and Sistan province of Iran. The 10th century scholar and historian, Al-Beruni, identifies Chabahar from its earlier name, Tiz, which is the starting point of old India. In a certain way, he is not wrong.

Before India was partitioned, Chabahar seemed close to imperial India. British civil servant Olaf Caroe, in his book, Wells of Fire (1950), gives details about Russia’s desperation to get to a warm water port and how it sends a transport commission which identifies Chabahar as the port of choice. Caroe makes a compelling case of managing turbulent West Asia from India.

However, Partition upset this imperial paradigm and ruptured the normal land routes that economically sustained the economies of Afghanistan and Central Asia. The trilateral agreement will break this geographical chokehold applied by Pakistan on India, Afghanistan and other central Asian countries. The agreement would also revive Caroe’s submission that stability can be brought about in oil rich West Asia when India — with Iran — plays a big part.

In 1965, the Afghan government signed the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement that allowed access to Karachi port, but this led to smuggling. Following this, an understanding brokered by the US government and supported by UNCTAD came into effect in 2011 under the rubric of the Afghanistan Pakistan Trade Transit Agreement (APTTA), which increased the access of Afghan goods to more ports in Pakistan.

The APTTA was premised on the assumption that it would open up the road links to Central Asia, but Pakistan kept India out. Afghanistan’s goods could be brought to the Indian border post, but Indian goods could not be sent through Pakistan to Afghanistan. On a visit to Delhi, President Abdul Ghani of Afghanistan had categorically stated that his government would not allow Pakistani goods access to Central Asia if India did not become part of APTTA. China’s grand investment of $46 billion for its 3,200-km Gwadar-Kashgar industrial corridor amply conveys the change it has brought about in the economic geography of the region and how India did not fit into their plans.

India is deeply engaged with Afghanistan — this is a fact viewed with grave suspicion by Pakistan. It had invested about $2 billion in the development of Afghanistan’s public projects knowing that the investments could turn bad after the withdrawal of US troops and extension of Islamabad’s military hegemony there.

Iran provides an important opportunity to India to reorder its foreign policy options. Despite the pressure being brought on it by Israel and Saudi Arabia, even after the signing of the P5+1 nuclear deal, Iran is on the verge of emerging as a regional power. Its ample oil and gas resources, its educational infrastructure, and trained army could soon restore its status that washurt when the US decided to oppose Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979. Iran’s Arab neighbours recognise the change taking place in the region.

The Chabahar port development project, supported by India and Japan, could be the first firm move by Iran to play the great game.

The Iranian port is just 940 km from Mundra, Gujarat, where the port is owned by the Adani Group which is close to Modi.

Through Chabahar and the trilateral transit treaty India will not just link to Iran, but also other Central Asian republics. Iran has built world class road infrastructure from Chabahar, which runs through Iranshahr and Zahidan to Milak on its border with Afghanistan. Across the border in Afghanistan, India has built the Zaranj-Delaram highway to seamlessly connect with a ring road linking Kandahar, Kabul and Herat.

On the Iranian side, India could access the International North South Trade Corridor (INSTC) to reach its goods to Europe. This route is about 40 per cent shorter and 30 per cent cheaper than its current sea route of Red Sea-Suez Canal-Mediterranean.

A recent dry run from Nhava Sheva port in India to Port Bandar Anzali in Iran and Astrakhan in Russia through the Caspian Sea, home to 98 per cent of the world’s caviar, showed a reduction in time by 14 days.

From all standpoints, the Chabahar port and the trilateral trade transit agreement hold great economic promise for the region, but it also has the potential for serious tension between India, Pakistan and China. India had been going slow on this project, but growing pressure from the US seems to have fast-tracked matters.

Iran, too, for many years was diffident about developing Chabahar lest it upset Pakistan. The fact that those reservations have disappeared suggests the dramatic change that is taking place in the geopolitics of this region.

The writer is the editor of Hardnews Magazine

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