After more than a decade of deliberations and discussions, India on Sunday flagged off its first-ever shipment of 15,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chabahar. This “is part of commitment made by the Government of India to supply 1.1 million tonnes of wheat for the people of Afghanistan on grant basis,” said a Indian External Affairs Ministry statement.
During his visit to Iran last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed a trilateral agreement with Iran and Afghanistan to open the Chabahar route, which links the port to Afghanistan through rail and road projects, for which New Delhi has pledged almost $500 million.
Pakistan, located between India and landlocked Afghanistan, has repeatedly rejected requests for trade transit rights between the two countries. A few months ago, India launched an air freight corridor which overflies Pakistan, but that is unlikely to be an economically viable route. At the moment, Afghanistan is mostly dependent on the Pakistani port of Karachi, about 800 km from the Afghan border.
Chabahar, some 550 km away from Afghanistan, allows India to not just ramp up trade with Afghanistan, but also gives it access to the resource-rich Central Asian states in the north, and from there to Europe. It is also 172.2 km west of Gwadar Port, in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province. Massively funded by Beijing as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the port is also seen as part of China’s plans to strategically encircle India through its ‘string of pearls’ strategy.
Those who see Chabahar as a counterweight to Gwadar, however, should keep in mind that apart from being a far more ambitious project, Pakistan will never deny Chinese warships permanent access to Gwadar. Iran may not extend the same naval privileges to India. Then there are the security challenges: Balochis opposed to the Chinese port, and the Taliban opposed to any Indian presence in Afghanistan. Despite that, economically, Chabahar is a game changer for the region.