11/26, NOT SECURITY AWARENESS, PREVENTS IPI DISASTER

Why does it always take a serious crisis to wake this country to security threats that are visible even to bats? Can this country continue to afford to persist with an ignorant and bumbling politico-bureaucratic security infrastructure that has repeatedly been caught flat-footed and unprepared by Pakistan? How many more disasters will this country face before fundamental systemic changes are made to the complete security apparatus? What will it take to induct professionals at all levels and remove generalist career bureaucrats from the controlling positions they have usurped and for which the country has repeatedly paid a heavy price?

For the last few years, India has been working closely with a very co-operative Pakistan to make the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline a reality. The proposed $7 billion pipeline coming to India from Iran via 707 kms in Pakistan will, according to one report, carry 150 million cubic meters of gas per day, 100 million cubic meters for India. When fully operational, it will contribute to creation of an additional revenue of more than $10 billion per year in North India.

Great economic benefits no doubt, but should there have ever been any doubts that the security risks and costs that it carried were far greater? Surprisingly, not only were they not analysed and understood properly but were dismissively 'taken care of' on the basis of laughable checks and balances by none other than the erstwhile Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who pushed the project really hard, as if he had a hidden personal agenda. In fact, had he not been removed from the ministry in time, the project may well have been a reality today.

Aiyar is not just another politician from the hinterland who was made a minister solely due to political considerations. He is a well-informed former civil servant who was a career diplomat. With that background he is expected to have at least some understanding of the impending disaster that the IPI will be for India. But, no, he virtually rubbished all talk of any risk to India's energy security from the pipeline passing through Pakistani territory

That the IPI has not yet taken off is primarily due to the opposition of the US which does not want a hostile Iran to gain any strategic advantage in the region. Just because the US is opposing the IPI, India's communists have been pushing the government to go ahead and not succumb to the hegemonic designs of the US. And, not to be outdone, other politicians and analysts too have been looking at the pipeline as a way of building mutual trust with Pakistan. That they hope will minimise the risk of supplies being disrupted by Pakistan or by terrorists operating in Baluchistan and Sind.

No one in this country who matters, it seems, is seriously educated or concerned about matters concerning national security. And this ignorance and callousness could have cost India heavily in the IPI case too.

In October 2007, I had written a detailed post analysing comprehensively the dangers that the IPI posed to India and highlighting that India should not go in for it under any circumstances. I cannot believe that the kind of analysis that I had done over a couple of days had not been carried out by anyone in the many national security organs that have been created by the Centre. This was one of the most straightforward security issues whose proper analysis would have given one unambiguous answer, as a reading of my analysis will reveal. I was obviously wrong, because the project is offically still very much on.

Mumbai 11/26 has rudely woken up at least some analysts to the grave danger that getting gas through Pakistan poses to India. Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, writing in The Times of India of December 28, 2008, says that after 26/11, the project is dead. "No Indian government can proceed with a deal that will give Pakistan a knife at India's energy throat. Far from promoting our energy security, it would be a source of immense national insecurity." Those are his telling words, words that should have been uttered long back by India's National Security Advisor and other key actors involved in making India more secure.

It has taken an attack on Mumbai to get even Swaminathan Aiyar to paint a frightening scenario about what may have happened had the IPI been functioning today. Now has come the realisation that "non state actors" could easily have been used by Pakistan to blow up the pipeline and then claim helplessness since it was itself a "victim of terror". Now has come the clarity that making North India so critically energy dependent on Pakistan would have been a total disaster.

Was the attack on Mumbai a totally surprising development out of the blue? Had Pakistan sponsored terrorist attacks not been taking place for years? Should anyone in the know have been under any illusion about what Pakistan was up to? Had any outstanding issue between the two countries been resolved? Even as we were in the process of making ourselves dependent on and vulnerable to Pakistan through the IPI, was Pakistan equally foolishly making itself even remotely dependent on India by increasing bilateral trade, though it can import almost everything it needs from India much cheaper than from almost anywhere else?

Let us not forget that India is in an undeclared state of war. Mumbai may have brought that war into the homes of Indians with faces and voices for the first time, but it has been there all the time for a long time. You and I may not know what India is up against and what it needs to do to protect itself. But if those who are supposed to know and are responsible for making India strong and secure are equally ignorant, and do not ask questions that are begging to be asked, then we have a lot to worry about.

The IPI disaster that has fortuitously been averted by Mumbai 11/26 should shake the government out of its slumber. India's security can no longer be left in the hands of a few ill-informed politicians and generalist career bureaucrats. Now is the time to ruthlessly weed out parasitic dead-wood and professionalise and de-politicise the whole national security apparatus. If we again miss this opportunity that the tragedy of Mumbai has opened up, then be sure that much bigger tragedies will keep showing their hands till we are forced to act. Good luck alone cannot keep saving us every second time.
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Readers may also read:
1. Iran-Pak-India pipeline: an impending security disaster
2. India is just gas in the Great Game
3. Undersea: the real peace pipeline

UNDERSEA: THE REAL PEACE PIPELINE

There is manifestly more to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India(IPI) Gas Pipeline than meets the eye. In my previous post, I had reiterated my argument that the pipeline would be a security disaster for India, as should have been clear to informed Indians who, despite the clear risk, have been more than active protagonists of the project.

The Times of India of May 12, 2008 carries a very illuminating report about an undersea pipeline being considered to bring gas to India from the Gulf. This pipeline will start from a point in Oman and will terminate in Western India. The project, to be executed by an international consortium, will bring gas not just from Oman but other countries in the gas abundant Gulf region to the closest and biggest market for the commodity. It will thus become a relatively secure “gas bridge” to India. The security will be not only because it will be over 3000 meters under the sea at its maximum depth, but also because it will not be dependent on any single source of supply. Gas through this pipeline will be sourced from Oman, Qatar and Iran. In future, even Iraq and Turkmenistan could become important sources.

This diversification of the sources of supply and avoidance of the use of the territory of any major regional player who can choke the flow of gas at a future point of time, makes this proposal the win-win deal that India should have been looking for right from the very beginning. Even Pakistan can get gas through a branch of this pipeline as it passes across the Arabian sea in front of Pakistani territory. In one stroke, the debilitating strategic leverage that India was going to hand over to Pakistan had the pipeline passed through its territory gets taken away from Pakistan, fully addressing Indian vulnerability while simultaneously making the former a partner in the project.

The undersea project had been spoken about and dismissed earlier too on the only ground that it was going to be costlier than the proposed overland pipeline. Ironically, India has not yet fully grasped the basic fact that national security is not a free lunch. Securing the nation’s security carries a significant cost that has to be borne if the alternative renders the nation vulnerable in any manner. Yet, despite the prevailing situation in Pakistan and the host of unresolved issues which have already led to a number of wars and an ongoing low intensity conflict that Pakistan has used to keep India tied down for over two decades to coercively settle matters in its favour, the IPI project is still being promoted

Even the price disadvantage used as an excuse to rule out an undersea pipeline has now been addressed so emphatically that there can be no further justification for promoting the IPI. The IPI will cost $7 billion. The undersea pipeline, as per the latest proposal, will be a reality by 2012 for just $4 billion. This has been known to the government for a couple of months now. Yet, the Foreign Secretary speaks of the IPI as a good “doable” project “which has the potential to become a major confidence building measure among the three countries”! He should know better that such confidence building, without critically asymmetrical dependence, can be achieved not by the IPI but by the undersea pipeline.

The most active promoter of the IPI has been and is the former Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar. Had he stayed on in the ministry for a few more months, the IPI deal would have been signed. Perhaps he was sacked because of his abnormal interest, particularly as the project was a palpable security disaster that he was actively inviting. May be the US had something to do with his ouster. Whatever be the reason, the country was saved from a major strategic blunder.Had Aiyar been one of those ministers who are inducted into the cabinet only out political compulsions, his aggressive pushing of the IPI could have been attributed to the almost pervasive security blindness that afflicts India’s politicians.

But, Aiyar is a former career diplomat who is expected to have a reasonable, even if limited, understanding of the subject. Now that it has emerged that a technologically challenging and far more complex undersea pipeline can be built more than 40 percent cheaper than the overland IPI, one cannot help thinking that Aiyar may have had a hidden personal agenda to push the IPI. One more example of a major security disaster for this country sought to be brought on mindlessly by one of its own?

The present proposal to build an undersea pipeline from the Gulf may or may not get the government’s nod. That is not important. What is significant is that it has demonstrated that there is a better and much more secure method of getting gas from the Gulf to meet India’s burgeoning energy requirements. This in itself should be enough to shut all further talk of building the IPI and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipelines. The focus should now be on maximising the potential that an undersea gas pipeline promises, and making it a reality at the earliest.

It will be very interesting to see the enthusiasm, or lack of it, with which Pakistan and Iran react to the undersea pipeline which will be the real peace pipeline that they have cleverly been trying to project the one sided IPI as.
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This post was also published by reuters.com

Readers may also like to read the following posts:
1. India is just gas in the great game
2. Peace pipeline or pip peace line

INDIA IS JUST GAS IN THE GREAT GAME

There seems to be no dearth of analysts and policy makers pitching for the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) pipelines meant to bring much needed gas to meet India’s growing energy needs. The latest in the series is N Chandra Mohan who has let fly his fanciful imagination, devoid of an even basic understanding of ground realities and the power play that only the great and powerful can play.

Writing in The Hindustan Times of May 05, 2008, Chandra Mohan tries with bizarre logic to position India as a relevant player in new Great Game now being played out, as he puts it, primarily between the US and Russia, with China, Turkmenistan and Iran also in the fray for the spoils, to gain control over oil and gas in Central Asia. Note that the latest Great Game is for gaining control of, and not for passively getting supplies of, oil and gas.

India, as should be clear even to the average, informed mind, is not even a fringe player in the Great Game. It is no more than any other potential buyer of the gas, without any ability and power to exercise even an iota of control over the gas which will flow to it through hostile and turbulent Afghanistan and/or Pakistan. For securing uninterrupted flow, all that India can bank upon are some contractual safeguards and perhaps the beneficial glance of the US and Iran. Should something go wrong with either or both, North India, which will become critical energy dependant on the pipe lines, will be crippled. Not to mention the critical strategic leverage that India will forever lose with Pakistan by this asymmetrical dependence on that country.

How does N Chandra Mohan propose to deal with this impending security disaster? He has really no clue and therefore dismisses it in a couple of lines by proposing third party certification of supplies and "baking bread" with the Talibanis and Pakistanis, whatever that means! He also fondly hopes for China’s assistance by quoting Mani Shankar Aiyar, once India’s Petroleum Minister, that if the IPI is extended to China, disruption of gas supplies is unlikely when the ultimate beneficiary is China! This is the same Aiyar who had also thought that security to the IPI could be ensured by providing “crowd cover” to it through Pakistan to deter terrorists from blowing it up!

Both these gentlemen manifestly failed to look up the map of Pakistan. How else can you even think of 700 plus kilometers of crowd cover through sparsely populated areas in hostile terrain? Of course, the strategic advantages that would accrue to Pakistan as a nation and would be lost by India to that country have not even been given a passing thought! Also, the branch of the IPI to China would without doubt be de-coupled from the IPI by Pakistan at a strategically sensible distance from India’s border so that supplies to India can be cut off without disrupting those to China!

N Chandra Mohan has also naively interpreted Musharraf’s offer to Beijing to join up by extending the pipeline to that country through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as an opportunity which the Chinese are dying to grab to trump Delhi! The Chinese are not so dumb. As Chandra Mohan has stated, China has already signed up with Turkmenistan for a 4,859 km pipeline to carry 30 billion cubic metres of gas annually to China. This pipeline does not pass through either Afghanistan or Pakistan, even though the latter is a client state. China has also clinched a similar deal with Myanmar and has beaten India to such assets elsewhere in the world too. So, had China been interested, it would have ab initio got the Iran pipeline exclusively for itself. The Chinese are not in the business of engaging in woolly headed thinking and charity to get something intangible called ‘friendship’ as the only benefit, that too from their biggest potential adversary. That silly romanticism is an exclusive Indian specialty because as a nation we somehow shirk from facing up to unpleasant international realties which call for some tough actions.

China is not simply tying up its energy requirements across the globe while leaving itself at the mercy of others to ensure that they are not disrupted. It is building up a formidable strategic military capability to protect its commercial and economic interests all over the world. It will never allow itself to be at the unenforceable mercy of agreements and kind protection of others.

That is the only way to play the Great Game. For this very reason, the US too has a massive military presence in all sensitive oil and gas rich regions of the world, including the Gulf. The control of oil and gas assets has to remain firmly in its hands and no regional player should be in a position to alter the situation. In this scenario, Chandra Mohan wants India to play the Great Game ‘adroitly’. To him, despite all the evidence available in our faces, doing that means only that India should make both the IPI and TAP a reality!

That is not adroitly playing the Great Game; that is foolishly becoming a defenseless small game, to be had by others whenever they choose to!

To play the Great Game, a country needs a visibly strong military power with a global reach, backed by a clear headed political will to secure the nation's interests. As of now, India has neither. While that is bad enough for a country hoping to become the next super power, what is alarming is that there is not even a thought being given to address this unacceptable weakness which might well prove disastrous at some future point.

Right now, we have to face the unpleasant fact that India is nothing but inconsequential gas in the Great Game. Though N Chandra Mohan, Mani Shankar Aiyar and others dreamers believe that this is just the kind of inert gas that India needs to be to live up to its image, IPI and TAP may well prove to be the mega strategic disasters which will wake this country up, finally. The lessons of 1962, unlearnt for 46 long years, will then be rammed home, and not just from the north. Do we want that to happen?

This post was also published by reuters.com
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Readers may like to read the following:

1. Peace pipeline or pip peace line?
2. Undersea: the real peace pipeline

IRAN-PAK-INDIA PIPELINE: AN IMPENDING SECURITY DISASTER

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Delhi this week, said after meeting India's leaders that the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India Gas pipeline will soon be given a final shape by the three nations. Then, almost in the same breath, he admitted that there was a clear link between the deal to sell and send by ship 5 million tonnes of LNG to India and India's decision to vote against Iran at the IAEA governing board in November 2005. That seemingly innocuous statement gave a taste of things to come once India gets hooked to and dependent upon Iranian Gas which is to come in a pipeline flowing through Pakistan.

Yet, India's Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon echoed the Iranian President's sentiments on the pipeline, saying that it was a good "doable" project which "has the potential to become a major confidence building measure between the three countries"!

The pipeline, as should be crystal clear to anyone who has an informed mind mind open to its security implcations, will actually do the confidence building bit for only Pakistan and Iran. Not for India which will be at the receiving end of the precious commodity which will travel through an area which has extremely hostile anti India jehadi elements operating with full tacit support of the establishment. The installation of a democratic government in Pakistan does in no way alter the hard, unresolved facts on ground.

Whichever way one looks at it, the proposed pipeline is an impending strategic security disaster as far as India is concerned. The US may be opposing the pipeline keeping in view its own strategic concerns. But, to pitch for the project simply as a pathological expression against perceived US hegemony, is only going to harm India and please the Chinese, Pakistanis and even Iranians.

In October last year, I had written in detail about why India should not go in for this pipeline. Now that India's leadership seems to be failing to pay heed to the country's strategic interest and is falling for the poisonous bait being dangled in an astoundingly amateurish manner, it is only appropriate that I reproduce that post so that someone who matters may stop this project and the other one to bring more gas to India from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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There has been a lot of talk about the benefits to India from the proposed gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan. And a lot of criticism of the US for trying to scuttle it for its hegemonic interests in the region, which according to die-hard romantics of the Nehruvian variety, as well as leftists and pure ‘economists’, should be resisted, even if it means ignoring our national interest, something which appears to be of little interest to them.

What are the Indian interests that are being touted to urge India to go in for the pipeline? First, we have very good relations with Iran, there is a sizeable population of Shia Muslims in India and Iran is Shia country. Second, our relations with Pakistan are improving and the pipeline will aid in ushering in an era of peace in the region, since Pakistan is also a party to the deal. Third, there are enormous cost benefits in getting gas from Iran overland rather than through ships or an undersea pipeline, as it will be four times cheaper.

The proposed pipeline will be 2670 kms long, out of which 707 kms will be through Baluchistan and Sind in Pakistan. It will cost upwards of US$ 7 billion. Two thirds of the gas will be for India while the remaining one third only will be utilized by Pakistan. The benefits to Iran from this pipeline will also be enormous. These have been so adequately analyzed elsewhere that it is not worth repeating them here.

The almost unasked question is why Pakistan, despite its pathological fixation with India, has readily agreed to allow the use of its territory for India’s benefit, even when Bangladesh, which is not half as hostile, has not given the green flag to a similar pipeline from Burma to India through its territory? As per the public stance of Pakistan, the pipeline would not only guarantee a source of income to it ($600 million annually as transit fees alone) but also increase stability in the region and serve as a durable confidence-building measure, creating strong economic links and business partnerships among the three countries.

If that had really been so, even Bangladesh would have readily agreed to the other pipeline. But, Bangladesh laid out certain preconditions unacceptable to India upfront, for allowing the pipeline to pass through its territory. These included overland access to electricity generated in Nepal and Bhutan, as well as free trade routes to these countries through Indian Territory. Surely Pakistan is not so dumb as to sell out for helping to meet part of India’s energy requirements for a mere $600 million a year. It has also not become so suddenly friendly towards India as to not extract a real advantage for itself or exploit any disadvantage that may accrue to India because of the pipeline.

Indian planners who had originally proposed and pushed for the pipeline, had brushed away the little understood security concerns of India by thinking up some rather interesting responses. They had hoped to generate power for Pakistan too from this gas (without receiving any request or proposal from Pakistan!), thereby creating an ‘interlocking’ measure. Also, they had felt that if Pakistan ever disrupted supplies of gas, India had the option of retaliating be stopping the waters of the Indus! How can that be done, without a series of massive dams, which cannot be constructed as per the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, on the Indus, Chenab or Jhelum, and for how long, if at all? To cater for the threats from terrorists and Baluchis, Mani Shankar Aiyer, the then Petroleum Minister had an even more imaginative solution: provide ‘crowd cover’ to the pipeline in Pakistan by having it routed through the heavily populated Pakistani coastal belt! Heavy population non-stop for 707 kilometers!

Why has Pakistan not laid down any preconditions, like Bangladesh did, for allowing the pipeline through its territory? Bangladesh has no serious outstanding dispute with India which it can subsequently use as a strategic lever to pressurize India once the pipeline is in place. Therefore, it placed its demands on the table before giving permission to India to use its territory for an economic advantage.

Pakistan and India, on the other hand, have a host of very serious issues to resolve, including the mother of them all, Kashmir, over which they have repeatedly gone to war and which Pakistan is now trying desperately to settle in its favor through the covert war of terror. Therefore, anything which gives Pakistan a strategic lever over India will be grabbed by it with both hands, while it makes suitable peace noises as part of sophisticated strategic deception to lull already complacent Indians into comforting sleep. Musharraf, the ever exuberant commando, however did let the cat out of the bag in a speech delivered way back on June 23, 2000, when he said in a reference to the pipeline: ‘God has given us this strategic location, the importance of which fully emerging now’.

What is this strategic advantage perceived by Musharraf that should have acted as a wake up call for us long ago? Let us analyze trade between the two countries. After the 1971 war, trade relations resumed in 1981, when only 200 items were on the trade list. Over the last 26 years, the list has crept up ever so slowly to only 1078 items, due to fierce Pakistani resistance to enhancing trade with India. By 2005-06, exports from Pakistan were a paltry $300 million and imports from India only $ 802 million. Pakistan also has doggedly refused to grant India the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status as per WTO, and has blatantly omitted it from the list of countries it has agreed to give concessional tariffs to under the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

While we unilaterally dream of generating power for Pakistan from the Iranian gas as an ‘interlocking’ measure to enhance the security of the pipeline, we overlook the elementary fact that Pakistan has not allowed, and will not allow, itself to become integrated better with India economically as dictated by sound economics. That is because it then becomes somewhat dependent on India and thereby suffers an unacceptable setback in its bargaining power and leverage in settling outstanding political disputes. Like any sensible nation, it wants to negotiate from as strong a position as it can possibly achieve.

The pipeline is a God sent strategic lever for Pakistan. In 1971 and in 2001, India had banned over flights by Pakistan. In 1971, that act contributed significantly to the rapid defeat of the Pakistani Army in Bangladesh. In 2001, the effects were mainly economical and psychological. Even Musharraf had to take a torturous route to fly to China.

The proposed pipeline, according to one report, will carry 150 million cubic meters of gas per day, 100 million cubic meters for India. When fully operational, it will contribute to creation of an additional revenue of more than $10 billion per year in North India. The energy security of North India will become quite critically dependent on this gas. India will simply not be in a position to accept any disruption in the supply of this gas. It will also never be again in a position to deny over flights to Pakistan without a debilitating and unacceptable response.

As far as stopping the waters of Indus is concerned, India lost an extremely significant strategic lever by signing the Indus Water Treaty, which is now being mindlessly quoted by all and sundry to support their stand that the pipeline agreement too will survive. Forget stopping the water. The three rivers whose waters we gave away to Pakistan were ideally suited for generation of a lot of hydroelectric power. Strategically, considering the terrain and lack of inhabitation along these rivers in Indian Territory (except Jhelum to some extent), they were ideally suited for construction of mega dams for storing massive quantities of water behind them.

Pakistan lives mainly along the rivers. The real threat of flooding Pakistan virtually out of existence was the priceless strategic lever we never thought of before signing the treaty. If the treaty still survives, it is only because the waters are flowing, without any possibility of disruption or flooding, from India to Pakistan and not the other way round. Nobody supporting the pipeline talks of the Shimla Accord which Pakistan has single mindedly destroyed by launching an undeclared war against India though the instrument of terror.

To compound the impending security disaster if this pipeline goes through, there is talk of yet another gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan! Somehow, we seem to be possessed by some sort of fatalistic blindness that is hurtling us towards a position of a completely avoidable vulnerability to Pakistan at a future time of its choosing.

We seem to have simply forgotten that we had once showed similar trust and given away virtually all our security and strategic vitals to China. We had then meekly handed over to the Chinese all the bargaining and power tools left behind for us by the British with a weirdly misplaced and unforgivable sense of morality. Despite what China did to us after all that, and continues to do till date, we have stubbornly and repeatedly refused to learn our lessons.

The Iran pipeline is being touted as the peace pipeline in the region, even by Pakistan, for whom its materialization will actually provide an unexpected strategic advantage over India. History tells us that at some point of time Pakistan will ruthlessly exploit the power that the pipeline will give to it to extract concessions from India on the known and yet to be clearly articulated political issues even beyond the confines of Kashmir.

For India, therefore, rather than becoming a pipeline of peace, the proposed pipeline from Iran will turn out to be the line which will pip the possibility of a durable peace with Pakistan.

This post was also published by reuters.com

LET THE PEACE PIPELINE GO TO CHINA

Pakistan it seems is trying every subtle trick in the book to get India to take the Iranian gas which will flow in a pipeline to India through 704 kilometers of Pakistani territory in the states of Baluchistan and Sind. As per a news item in The Indian Express, China has said that it was interested in importing the additional gas originally meant for India if India did not join the project.

Is not that rider strange? It is fine by China if India gets the gas through Pakistan but China will need it only if India did not want it! Why are both the Chinese and the Pakistanis being so considerate to India’s energy needs?

I had, in an earlier post, brought out at length the grave security risks that India would expose itself to if it agreed to the proposed gas pipeline being touted as a “peace pipeline” by Pakistan. Earlier, the then Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer, was so aggressively promoting this pipeline that it would have been well on the way to becoming a reality had he still been the minister. He could never visualize any strategic threat to India from Pakistan because of the pipeline; the only danger he innocently saw was the possibility of militants blowing up the pipeline, to prevent which he proposed what he termed “crowd cover” to the pipeline by routing it through thickly populated parts of Baluchistan and Sind. 704 kilometers of non-stop crowd cover! Geography, anyone?

As per some reports, the proposed pipeline will carry 150 million cubic meters of gas per day out which two thirds will be for India. When fully operational, it will contribute towards generation of additional revenue of $10 billion per annum in North India. That part of the country will then become critically energy dependent on this gas and its economy will not be in a position to bear any disruption in its supply.

India may not have realized the strategic advantage that will accrue to Pakistan if gas flows to India through that country, but Pakistan realized it long back. President Musharraf, a military man, familiar with subtle strategic matters, is not one to miss advantages which stare you in the face. Way back on June 23, 2000, he made a telling remark in reference to the pipeline: “God has given us this strategic location, the importance of which is fully emerging now.”

As I have highlighted in detail in my previous post, it is not without reason that Bangladesh, which has no outstanding disputes with India, has placed impossible conditions on India to allow a similar pipeline from Myanmar through its territory. Pakistan, India’s traditionally hostile neighbour, with a host of serious outstanding disputes, including the mother of them all, Kashmir, is surprisingly laying out the red carpet for the Iran pipeline!

Now even the Chinese are playing the good neighbours by offering to take the gas only if India does not want it! That is not the way the Chinese go about getting what they really want; that is the way they go about fooling unsuspecting neighbours into doing what they want them to do!

So, if the Chinese really want the Iranian gas through a pipeline which will pass through almost the whole of Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, cutting across extremely difficult terrain, India should be mighty pleased! The vulnerability that India would have been exposed to will be transferred in part to China and India will gain a strategic advantage, virtually overlooking the pipeline through much of its journey before it reaches China. In addition, the heavy additional cost of laying the pipeline may even otherwise make it uneconomical for China.

If China still wants the peace pipeline, India should let it go there without delay!

PEACE PIPELINE OR PIP PEACE LINE?

There has been a lot of talk about the benefits to India from the proposed gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan. And a lot of criticism of the US for trying to scuttle it for its hegemonic interests in the region, which according to die-hard romantics of the Nehruvian variety, as well as leftists and pure ‘economists’, should be resisted, even if it means ignoring our national interest, something which appears to be of little interest to them.

What are the Indian interests that are being touted to urge India to go in for the pipeline? First, we have very good relations with Iran, there is a sizeable population of Shia Muslims in India and Iran is Shia country. Second, our relations with Pakistan are improving and the pipeline will aid in ushering in an era of peace in the region, since Pakistan is also a party to the deal. Third, there are enormous cost benefits in getting gas from Iran overland rather than through ships or an undersea pipeline, as it will be four times cheaper.

The proposed pipeline will be 2670 kms long, out of which 707 kms will be through Baluchistan and Sind in Pakistan. It will cost upwards of US$ 7 billion. Two thirds of the gas will be for India while the remaining one third only will be utilized by Pakistan. The benefits to Iran from this pipeline will also be enormous. These have been so adequately analyzed elsewhere that it is not worth repeating them here.

The almost unasked question is why Pakistan, despite its pathological fixation with India, has readily agreed to allow the use of its territory for India’s benefit, even when Bangladesh, which is not half as hostile, has not given the green flag to a similar pipeline from Burma to India through its territory? As per the public stance of Pakistan, the pipeline would not only guarantee a source of income to it ($600 million annually as transit fees alone) but also increase stability in the region and serve as a durable confidence-building measure, creating strong economic links and business partnerships among the three countries.

If that had really been so, even Bangladesh would have readily agreed to the other pipeline. But, Bangladesh laid out certain preconditions unacceptable to India upfront, for allowing the pipeline to pass through its territory. These included overland access to electricity generated in Nepal and Bhutan, as well as free trade routes to these countries through Indian Territory. Surely Pakistan is not so dumb as to sell out for helping to meet part of India’s energy requirements for a mere $600 million a year. It has also not become so suddenly friendly towards India as to not extract a real advantage for itself or exploit any disadvantage that may accrue to India because of the pipeline.

Indian planners who had originally proposed and pushed for the pipeline, had brushed away the little understood security concerns of India by thinking up some rather interesting responses. They had hoped to generate power for Pakistan too from this gas (without receiving any request or proposal from Pakistan!), thereby creating an ‘interlocking’ measure. Also, they had felt that if Pakistan ever disrupted supplies of gas, India had the option of retaliating be stopping the waters of the Indus! How can that be done, without a series of massive dams, which cannot be constructed as per the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, on the Indus, Chenab or Jhelum, and for how long, if at all? To cater for the threats from terrorists and Baluchis, Mani Shankar Aiyer, the then Petroleum Minister had an even more imaginative solution: provide ‘crowd cover’ to the pipeline in Pakistan by having it routed through the heavily populated Pakistani coastal belt! Heavy population non-stop for 707 kilometers!

Why has Pakistan not laid down any preconditions, like Bangladesh did, for allowing the pipeline through its territory? Bangladesh has no serious outstanding dispute with India which it can subsequently use as a strategic lever to pressurize India once the pipeline is in place. Therefore, it placed its demands on the table before giving permission to India to use its territory for an economic advantage.

Pakistan and India, on the other hand, have a host of very serious issues to resolve, including the mother of them all, Kashmir, over which they have repeatedly gone to war and which Pakistan is now trying desperately to settle in its favor through the covert war of terror. Therefore, anything which gives Pakistan a strategic lever over India will be grabbed by it with both hands, while it makes suitable peace noises as part of sophisticated strategic deception to lull already complacent Indians into comforting sleep. Musharraf, the ever exuberant commando, however did let the cat out of the bag in a speech delivered way back on June 23, 2000, when he said in a reference to the pipeline: ‘God has given us this strategic location, the importance of which fully emerging now’.

What is this strategic advantage perceived by Musharraf that should have acted as a wake up call for us long ago? Let us analyze trade between the two countries. After the 1971 war, trade relations resumed in 1981, when only 200 items were on the trade list. Over the last 26 years, the list has crept up ever so slowly to only 1078 items, due to fierce Pakistani resistance to enhancing trade with India. By 2005-06, exports from Pakistan were a paltry $300 million and imports from India only $ 802 million. Pakistan also has doggedly refused to grant India the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status as per WTO, and has blatantly omitted it from the list of countries it has agreed to give concessional tariffs to under the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

While we unilaterally dream of generating power for Pakistan from the Iranian gas as an ‘interlocking’ measure to enhance the security of the pipeline, we overlook the elementary fact that Pakistan has not allowed, and will not allow, itself to become integrated better with India economically as dictated by sound economics. That is because it then becomes somewhat dependent on India and thereby suffers an unacceptable setback in its bargaining power and leverage in settling outstanding political disputes. Like any sensible nation, it wants to negotiate from as strong a position as it can possibly achieve.

The pipeline is a God sent strategic lever for Pakistan. In 1971 and in 2001, India had banned over flights by Pakistan. In 1971, that act contributed significantly to the rapid defeat of the Pakistani Army in Bangladesh. In 2001, the effects were mainly economical and psychological. Even Musharraf had to take a torturous route to fly to China.

The proposed pipeline, according to one report, will carry 150 million cubic meters of gas per day, 100 million cubic meters for India. When fully operational, it will contribute to creation of an additional revenue of more than $10 billion per year in North India. The energy security of North India will become quite critically dependent on this gas. India will simply not be in a position to accept any disruption in the supply of this gas. It will also never be again in a position to deny over flights to Pakistan without a debilitating and unacceptable response.

As far as stopping the waters of Indus is concerned, India lost an extremely significant strategic lever by signing the Indus Water Treaty, which is now being mindlessly quoted by all and sundry to support their stand that the pipeline agreement too will survive. Forget stopping the water. The three rivers whose waters we gave away to Pakistan were ideally suited for generation of a lot of hydroelectric power. Strategically, considering the terrain and lack of inhabitation along these rivers in Indian Territory (except Jhelum to some extent), they were ideally suited for construction of mega dams for storing massive quantities of water behind them.

Pakistan lives mainly along the rivers. The real threat of flooding Pakistan virtually out of existence was the priceless strategic lever we never thought of before signing the treaty. If the treaty still survives, it is only because the waters are flowing, without any possibility of disruption or flooding, from India to Pakistan and not the other way round. Nobody supporting the pipeline talks of the Shimla Accord which Pakistan has single mindedly destroyed by launching an undeclared war against India though the instrument of terror.

To compound the impending security disaster if this pipeline goes through, there is talk of yet another gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan! Somehow, we seem to be possessed by some sort of fatalistic blindness that is hurtling us towards a position of a completely avoidable vulnerability to Pakistan at a future time of its choosing.

We seem to have simply forgotten that we had once showed similar trust and given away virtually all our security and strategic vitals to China. We had then meekly handed over to the Chinese all the bargaining and power tools left behind for us by the British with a weirdly misplaced and unforgivable sense of morality. Despite what China did to us after all that, and continues to do till date, we have stubbornly and repeatedly refused to learn our lessons.

The Iran pipeline is being touted as the peace pipeline in the region, even by Pakistan, for whom its materialization will actually provide an unexpected strategic advantage over India. History tells us that at some point of time Pakistan will ruthlessly exploit the power that the pipeline will give to it to extract concessions from India on the known and yet to be clearly articulated political issues even beyond the confines of Kashmir.

For India, therefore, rather than becoming a pipeline of peace, the proposed pipeline from Iran will turn out to be the line which will pip the possibility of a durable peace with Pakistan.

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