ISLAMABAD - India has sent yet another consignment of wheat for Afghanistan through Iran’s Chabahar port after Tehran awarded strategic stake in its port to New Delhi on February 17.
According to Iranian media, with the sixth Indian wheat consignment for Afghanistan, which arrived at Chabahar port on February 22, now makes a total of 3,600 containers weighing 95,000 tons unloaded so far in the port.
The sixth Indian wheat consignment for Afghanistan comes to Chabahar port following three-day visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to India during which Tehran formally awarded a much-awaited strategic stake to New Delhi in its strategic Chabahar port.
President Rouhani reached on February 15 in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, accompanied by a large delegation of ministers and businessmen.
The two sides signed a series of agreements in the trade and economic sectors, including one allowing India to run operations in the first phase of the Chabahar project.
During a meeting with cabinet officials in Tehran before heading to India, Rouhani said on February 15 that “transit [from] Chabahar and India’s access to both Afghanistan and Central Asia through Chabahar is one of the most important issues when it comes to relations between Iran and India.”
India in November last had sent its first cargo of wheat to Afghanistan through Chabahar.
The cargo was shipped from India’s western port of Kandla, was unloaded at Chabahar and eventually taken to Afghanistan’s Nimroz province by trucks.
A rail link between Chabahar and Zahedan and thereon to Afghanistan is a crucial part of India’s ambitious extra-regional connectivity ambitions over which Tehran, New Delhi and Kabul have signed a basic agreement.
In December, Iran officially opened an extension of Chabahar, which Tehran hopes will become a key transit hub for landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia.
The extension required an investment of $1 billion, including $235 million from India.
The project to develop Shahid Beheshti Port started in 2007 through an investment that officials previously said already amounted to $1 billion.
The overall development project is planned in four phases and is expected to bring the port’s total annual cargo capacity to 82 million tonnes.
New Delhi has said it could spend up to $500 million for the development of the port along with roads and railway lines in order to get access to the Afghan and Central Asian markets, while bypassing rival Pakistan.
Pakistan has banned India from transporting goods through its territory to Afghanistan.
Tehran plans to use Chabahar for transhipment to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Chabahar provides India with an easier land-sea route to Afghanistan.
Analysts believed the agreement between India and Iran to hand over operational control of a section of the Iranian seaport of Chabahar to New Delhi was a significant strategic development.
Chabahar, which is Iran’s only oceanic port, could also challenge Pakistan’s Gwadar port, some 90 kilometres from Chabahar, which is being developed with Chinese investment. For years, India has been eyeing its presence in Chabahar for economic and strategic reasons.
India could not desirably increase its trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia as Pakistan has been reluctant to allow India overland access to Afghanistan and beyond through its territory.
For Pakistan giving economic concessions to a strategic rival, India, without getting any worthwhile financial gains is against its national interest.
In the age of geo-economics with stress on economic globalisation, inter-regional and intra-regional and cross-regional economic integration and interdependency, Pakistan considers its geostrategic interests more important.
After getting operational control of a part of Chabahar port, India would be able to increase its trade with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia manifold.
Its successful endeavours to have operational control of Chabahar seaport would be extensively beneficial in economic terms.
According to analysts, the timing of India’s agreement with Iran of getting control of Chabahar is to offset the economic significance of multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor aiming at capitalising the strategic location of Pakistan’s deep sea Gwadar port.
India’s anti-CPEC stance and activities makes one suspicious of the mere economic justifications of taking operational control of Chabahar.
India and China are growing trading partners but for all intents and purposes are strategic rivals having territorial disputes.
The CPEC is a pure economic project but India thinks of it as a design by Beijing to have a strategic advantage in the region particularly the Indian Ocean.
Strategic apprehensions have been forcing India to somehow get control of Chabahar in order to offset Chinese presence and reduce its strategic advantage in Gwadar.
The development may also cause stress on Pakistan-Iran relations, which had been growing in recent months after years of cold mistrust.
China, an important trading partner of Iran, would also not appreciate India’s presence in Chabahar.
This strategy aims at bypassing Pakistan.
Pakistan has already lost a sizable portion of its exports to Afghanistan.
This development is also significant following President Donald Trump’s south Asia policy in which India is of strategic importance.
The US considers India cornerstone of “stability” in the region.
The US thinks of India’s role in the context of “hegemonic stability”, an important theory of international relations.
Along with India, Iran thinks it could dominate Afghan trade and provide an alternative route of integration of South and Central Asia.
Pakistan and China think the US wants to see India’s hegemony in the region.
India is celebrating the Chabahar award strategic gain because it would provide Indian Navy with more freedom of movement and justification to enhance its operations in the northern Arabia Sea.
Thus, the strategic stake Iran awarded to India in Chabahar would not only affect the geo-economics and geopolitical settings in the region, it is likely to change the geostrategic dynamics as well.
