India's Chabahar Success : Has it Been The Right Investment

In a significant sign of trilateral cooperation, the first consignment of wheat from India to Afghanistan, that was flagged off by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani on October 29, reached the Afghan city of Zaranj near the Iran-Afghanistan border on November 11, via the Iranian port of Chabahar, thereby bypassing Pakistan.

In August 2017, Indian Union Minister of Ports, Nitin Gadkari had informed at an event in Iran that the civil work at Chabahar port developed by India is complete, and the Indian government is ordering INR 400 crores (USD63 million) worth of mechanised equipment and cranes, and the port will be operational in 2018 to export Indian wheat to Afghanistan. after meeting with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, he said "now, we are building a railway line in Iran. From Chabhar, we can go to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Russia."

India's Chabahar Port deal is seen as a counter to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as it has broken through the strategic encirclement by China and Pakistan. It has played its cards right  gaining access to iron from Afghanistan's Hajigak mine and other natural resources from the Central Asian countries. In the long run, the pipeline-to-road-to-rail-to-sea-to-road shipment costs through Chabahar should be circumvented by direct transit through Pakistan. Pakistan has been reluctant to provide such access and with the CPEC in place it never will. The US also sees the Indian presence in greater Central Asia beneficial for spreading the soft power of democratic and friendly regimes. India hopes to see the Western countries use the Chabahar route to link to Afghanistan and reduce their dependence on Pakistan.

India’s engagement with the region must be holistic in its nature and character. It should not be just about energy, oil and natural resources but about cooperating in every sphere. Chabahar deal is an extremely important strategic decision & India has pledged 500 million $ investment to gain access to the region’s resources bypassing the land route via hostile Pakistan. However, India has to be diplomatically proactive since, chronic instability in Afghanistan may limit usefulness of Chabahar as a conduit to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Road networks between Chabahar and Afghanistan rely upon connections to the Afghan Ring Road. Insurgent activity by Afghanistan's Taliban militant group force closure of the Ring Road between Kandahar and Helmand Province at will. Chabahar port, is also the stage for insurgent activity by the insurgent group Jundallah, which claims to be fighting for the rights of Sunni Muslims, and the local ethnic Baloch. While China could force Pakistan to deploy nearly two division of the Army to protect the CPEC, India does not have that luxury. India just has to rely on strategy of making friends with the enemy’s enemy. But with the present world opinion of  Iran's criminal support of terrorism; has India invested rightly is the question ?