Our pipeline of control

Given the complexities of regional relationships, the issue of India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline needs to be dealt with flexibility, pragmatism as well as hard-headedness.

Finally, our political and parliamentary debate is breaking out of the straight-jacket of national consensus. This writer has often complained that no democracy that conducted its foreign policy on a permanent consensus was ever going to have a dynamic, fleet-footed approach to a rapidly changing world. Sure enough, the NDA did move on from the fake, old, third-worldist, pro-Soviet Bloc and allegedly non-aligned consensus, but even that was accompanied by circumstances that forced the creation of another consensus. The Congress was too scared to question Pokharan II and the Left, which did, did not matter then. What followed, first the defiance and then engagement with America, first the peacemaking (Lahore) and then conflict with Pakistan (Kargil), a renewed effort at rapprochement (Agra) and fresh confrontation after the Parliament attack, and with 9/11 thrown in the middle, made it that much easier for Vajpayee to push the shift, with the Congress too rattled by the rising jingoism to even complain.

That is why the current debate over the India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline, even if acrimonious, is welcome. But what is also significant are the facts and factors on which different sides are building their arguments. Are these based on fact, or prejudice? On sound reasoning, or political interests? On the national interest, or narrow ideologies?

Predictably, the three clear streams in our politics come up with three differing views. Not only that, it would seem that even within the Congress core there are two views. One, led by the prime minister and the external affairs and defence ministries, prefers a more cautious approach, and the other, under Mani Shankar Aiyar and Talmiz Ahmed, the additional secretary seconded out to him by the MEA, wanting to run with the ball ahead of the mid-field.

The Aiyar-peacenik argument is, let’s push with the pipeline. Economic benefits will be great, but even greater will be the permanent engagement this will create with Pakistan, giving its establishment and elite a stake in a peace with India. The way the pipeline is structured, it would first run along Pakistan’s western coast, enter India for a short distance in Gujarat and then loop back into the Pakistani mainland to enter India at some point much later. What this ensures is, should Pakistan ever want to cut off your gas supplies you could do exactly the same to them by blowing up the little loop in Gujarat. This is the cheapest imported gas India can access, it would incentivise a moderation of Pakistan, weave Iran into a permanent tripartite relationship with the subcontinent and, at another level, strengthen our bargaining position vis-a-vis the US politically, and with other energy suppliers financially.

The BJP is confused, as most punch-drunk people are. They started the pipeline idea but, like many other dreams, the voters stole it from them and handed it over to the Congress. That is why they are latching on to the prime minister’s innocuous, though avoidable statement on security concerns on the pipeline due to Iran’s internal situation. If such are the risks involved, the government should come clear and junk the project. You talk to senior BJP leaders privately, and not one believes in this line. But they are still so short of ideas that they have abdicated high policymaking to their dimwit spokesmen.

Finally, the Left. They have suddenly discovered in the pipeline a great new opportunity to show defiance of America. Whatever the economic and other benefits, India must now build the pipeline to show it is capable of defying Washington like North Korea, Iran or Venezuela. This is not only tactically self-defeating but this also misses the big picture entirely. While India can play the game one way or the other, and Iran would be quite happy to join any alliance to spite America, what about the joker in the pack? Does somebody, of any political persuasion but with an IQ above 50, believe for one moment that Pakistan would ever join such an alliance to defy the US? Why? Does anybody believe for one moment that Musharraf will become party to such an alliance? If he thought he had that option of defying the Yanks, wouldn’t he first tell them to clear out of his airbases? If Bush really wanted to stop the pipeline, he does not need to even mention it to Manmohan Singh. He only needs to have a very short conversation with Musharraf. Unless it is somebody’s point that not only has India prostrated itself before Washington, but it has also become even more of a client state than Pakistan!

The nub of the issue is that India needs the pipeline and so do Iran and Pakistan. The Americans do not like Iran, and they have to be seen to be making protests, but they also see the larger gain for their own strategic interests in a project that would tie India and Pakistan into economic inter-dependence and also strengthen what is obviously a religiously moderate, and unabashedly pro-American regime in Pakistan. Indian diplomacy has to move forward keeping this central postulate in the mind.

But a debate that sees the pipeline through a domestic ideological prism weakens India. The Pakistanis misread such things easily, believing that given such pressures to build the pipeline for reasons of ideology or strategic defiance (that sounds familiar? Remember General Mirza Aslam Beg?) India would be forced to scale down its own bargaining position as any take-it-or-leave-it posture by the UPA government will be seen, by its domestic allies, not as usual diplomatic hard-ball, but a surrender to Washington. That is why the Pakistanis have been unrelenting on anything sought as their side of the bargain. Terrorism and infiltration are on the up in Kashmir. Punjab is showing new signs of trouble and, after years now, we have seen an RDX bombing in the heart of our mainland.

Perhaps emboldened by the UPA government’s domestic ideological predicament, they have hardened their position, whether it is on trade with India or, more important, a much simpler question of transit rights to Afghanistan. If you want India to trust you with an energy pipeline and pay out to you several hundred million dollars a year as revenue, what justification do you have in blocking India’s access to a dirt-poor, land-locked Afghanistan? So unreasonable have the Pakistanis been on this that they have not even allowed the UN Food for Work officials to take to Kabul, consignments of high-protein biscuits that India has committed to supply free for Afghan children. A consignment of buses gifted by India to Kabul has been turned back. Both, the biscuits and the buses, have had to be taken to Mumbai, shipped to Bandar Abbas in Iran and then driven, over nearly 2,000 km, into Kabul. Reporters of The Indian Express will tell you more about this cynical, cold-blooded Pakistani cussedness over the next few days.

Given the complexities of regional relationships, this pipeline is not merely a project of economic gain or ideological defiance. It is a big picture issue and needs to be dealt with as such – with flexibility, pragmatism as well as hard-headedness. Indian negotiators need bargaining chips. Pakistan should not be allowed to think it can write the rules of engagement, given India’s desperation for energy and the UPA’s compulsion to not look like it is buckling to Washington. India should go for the pipeline if everything makes sense, financially, strategically and politically. This is too important a project to be made an icon of a completely misplaced notion of strategic defiance.